The Washington union., 1858-02-17

by hard fare toll hunger, OF. cold, heat or peril, il
duty calls them forth Such army should not be
overaxed because overzealous Of duty and loyal to
the honor of arms. Humanity demands rest
from the constant toll of the camp and the daily
hardship of soldiers life.
But the example we have instanced of the cost of
the 9Th infantry and the distances it has spaced
within the past sixteen months, is scarcely an eXag
geration of the cost of the majority of the regiments
of the army and the marches they have made within
the same period of time. The inference is irresist
BILE: ifit costs as much TO march and counternarch
one regiment from frontier to frontier yearly TO
keep permanently three regiments on these
froners and thus avoid the expenses of transporta
tion that it is economy to increase the army by many
regiments But the mere economy Of money is the
smallest consideration that enters into the calcula
ton and policy Of adding to the army. The great
statesmanlike view is protection and security That
piep penetrates the future and provides in higher
polity permanent good. Who will pretend that
II 900 soldiers can possibly protect 900 miles OF
frontier exposed to aggressions varied in their de-
gree Of danger and the magnitude of consequences,
yet all requiring armed vigilance and protection
that there is not in Congress- capable, well-in-
formed, candid who, Invested of party bias,
would not confess the necessity of increasing the
army.
THE ADMISSION OF A STATE INTO THE UNION.
No act of the federal government is more import
ant we venture to say than the admission Of new
State into the Union and we know Of none which
nd fo If
the constitution and the rights of the State to be
ceived. Our system is one at once of extreme com
plication and simplicity. Every power exercised
by the federal government is specifically delegated
to Congress by the States those exercised by the
States embrace all other powers except such as the
people of each have chosen TO deny to their respec
tive State governments
II is clear then that the Of this elaborate
system is most certain and infallible only when
the parts perform their duties with absolute fidelity.
So exquisite is the balance and inexorable the
law, that the least assumption Of power-the least
usurpation of authority by the federal government
is certain to derange the whole machinery, to impair
its perfection it's practical usefulness, and destroy its
harmony And it is undenable that so long the
public judgment is warped by sectional rivaries, the
Inducements, under pretext another, to invoke
the legislative to acts of srrpaton the part
of Congress- are very great. The passage Of the Mis-
souri, Compromises work of pure expediencya
political opiate, intended to put agitators to sleep
for moments sufficient to illustrate and substan-
tiate what we have said.
The compromise was one of those compacts abont
which we have heard so much, between the North ON
the side and the South the other. 1t undertook
to say-what never should have been admitted at all
that Congress recognisedthe Congress of the United
States-the existence of two great political inter-
ests and it made those interests, as far as egisla-
ton could do So practical, rival anagonstic inter-
ests 1t created them to be unequal sections deny
ing to one the right to establish slavery, and conced
ing to the other such right The great evil of the
act of 1920 however, is not to be found in its prac
tical bearings upon the people of the Territories,
whom it undertook to speak for quarter Of cen
tury in advance but it is to exist in the fact
that Congress undertook to exercise power which
had never been delegated to that body--undertook,
from the low, tricky motive of expediency to satisfy
the clamors of fanaticism by act Of nsurpation.
The compromise was work, then, of decentralization.
II justified monstrous evil, which has thrown the
whole country into commotion upon the vain and
wicked presumption that good might follow 1t has
destroyed the harmony of the system by endorsing
rule of action which, if permitted to prevail, would
end in the certain downfall of the republic.
This example of folly, it seems, is not enough
Instead of teaching lessons of prudence and fidelity
to the constitution, it is regarded as opening the
way for more fragrant acts of nsurpaton by the ma
tional legislature. II is proposed, without shadow
of authority, in defiance of express act of Con-
gress providing that the people of Kansas shall have
the right to establish their State government to
frame their own organic laws--now that they have
performed these actsto dscredit their elections to
reject their constitution and to perform in that Ter
ritory duties which alone concern its people and
their institutions
And what is the pretext upon which this work OF
intermeddlng and Intervention is justified That
the election of the 18th of June returning delegates
to the constitutional convention void, because
majority of the resident inhabitants of the Territory
refused to vote-that nineteen counties had no cen
sus and registry the law required and there
fore disfranchised These two objections embrace
the whole Of the opposition, for they refer to
the question whether the delegates to the consttu
tional convention duly elected, and empowered
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