The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1858-01-05

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The Slavery Question I'm Congrcss-The Real
CrSsix mt Last.
Three new States-Kansas Minnesota and
Oregon-are waiting at the doors of Congress
for admission into the Union, the first with
slave State constitution, the other two as free
States. There is no complaint, from any quar-
ter, touching the constitutional proceedings in
Minnesota and Oregon; but in Kansas the slavery
question has been reduced to shape 30 pointed
and critical that upon its solution the sdmis-
sion of Minnesota and Oregon will depend, or,
perhaps, a sectional dissolution Of the present
Congress.
Never before has the slavery question been
presented in a form so positive, pointed and
her behalf slave State constitution is submitted
when ii is known that at least five-Sixths of the
people of Kansas are opposed to slavery; but
if the majority, by refusing to vote in the late
regularly authorized constitutional election,
have permitted slavery to be carried by default,
they are themselves only to blame, and with
them should rest the consequences. All these
late skirmishings in Kansas between conven-
tions, constitutions, Legislatures and conflicting
elections, are mere surplusage. and amount to
nothing since the ratification of the LecomptoA
constitution. Congress must, therefore, decide
IN al .olc Cxo<o To-.
the Lecompton constitution, or to abide the
consequences of it's rejection.
We shall see, too, in this contest whether the
boosted courage OF the alleged pusillanimity Of
the South will prevail. The case is now so per-
fectly clear, that if this Lecompton constitu-
of slavery, that no man can doubt it. We ap-
prehend, therefore, that the South, ready to &C.
cept the said constitution, without the slavery
clause, will make it an ultimatum with the
slavery clause. Enabling acts, therefore, like
that of Mr.. Douglas, and provisos like those of
Mr. Senator Pugh, are now too late, or are
wholly unnecessary. Without any Congress
sional provisos, the people of Kansas, with her
admission as State, will be fully enabled and
empowered to proceed at once to remodel their
organic law from the first section to the last
And we fear ii is too late to talk of special
enabling acts for new Constitutional Conven
ton, when the Lecompton programme has been
recognized and encouraged by the government
at Washington from the beginning to the end
Of the chapter
1t is great mistake, also, to suppose that, as
this question now stands, ii is a mere issue be-
tween the administration and Gov. Walker, or
between Senator Douglas and the Southern fire.
eaters or between this faction and that faction,
or this party and that party for the Prcsiden-
tial succession. The question has been enlarged,
with the recognition of slavery In the Lee
compton constitution, into q question of North
ern acquicscence in the result, or the submission
Of the South to the pressure of Northern ma
jority. And as it ia manifest that the submits
sion of the South in this case will reduce that
section to mere dependency of the North, we
may safely anticipate the most determined
Southern resistance against all attempts and all
devices TO set aside the Lccompton constitu-
ton.
The South cannot now with safety consent to
abandon the good old principle of adjusting the
slavery question in the admission of new States,
under which slave State and free State have
been admitted or provided for at the same
time since the adoption Of the federal consttu-
ton. On the other hand, the crisis IL altogether
unfavorable for any attempt to coerce the
South into submission. Years ago the religious
knDl u-bsn oh had ha =.
holy communion in the great Protestant
churches Of the confederacy were broken asun-
der. Since that day the old social relations
of fraternity and harmony which once
existed between the two sections have been
changed into sectional hates and prejudces, and
organizations of sectional character, social,
religious, literary and political, including sec
tional churches sectional schools, sectional
books, Southern committees of inspection and
Northern underground railroads, have been
formed
Superadded to all this, our late disastrous
financial revulsion has unhinged and thrown
into chaos all our previously existing CONNER
cial relations with the South, as well az with
Europe. Hence the minds of Southern men
ard of Northern men have become unsettled
concerning the financial and commercial reci-
procities which should be paramount between
the two sections and many Southern poll
tician for the first time is beginning to caIcu-
late the material advantages of Southern con-
federacy. Hence this sudden and general
Southern Jurors in behalf of Walker and his
flibustering programme for q great Southern
confederacy based upon military principles"
With this state Of things subsisting between
the two sections, the refusal of the North 10 adj
NIT Kansas as slave State may prove to be the
last parcel which breaks the canel's back. The
provocation to the South will only be the more
pointed and offensive from the fact that two new
free States are at the same time awaiting their
admission into the Union. Will the Northern