Anti-slavery bugle. [volume] (New-Lisbon, Ohio) 1845-1861, 1858-10-16
Ibe Antt- 5lauerp Buole.
From the Tribune.
FUTURE OF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY

The Republicans are now urged from various
quarters to surrender waive their demand that
slavery be legally excluded from the Federal
Territories, and take their stand instead upon
the platform of Popular Sovereignty, so
called-that is, of the right of the People inhabit.
ing any Territory to establish nterdct slave
holding as they shall think proper. We cannot
comply with this requiston, for these reasons:
/. When Mr.. Clay, in 1850, undertook to settle
this dispute by a compromise which should pre-
clude any positive prohibition of slavery, he laid
down. his first premise, that slavery, in the alb
sence of affirmative legislation, had no legal or
xightul existence in the Territories; secondly as
to those just acquired from Mexico that there was
probability of its going thither. On this basis,
twas not difficult to assent to the policy of non
action or non'interventon by Congress But the
Dred Scott decision has radically changed all this,
by establishing. as a judicial doctrine of our gov.
ernment that all territory of the United States from
which slavery has not been legally excluded
is legally slave territory-that any slave
holder may carry slavery practically thither
and require the government to protect him in the
use and enj oyment of his human property. This
novel and monstrous doctrine imposes on those who
would save the Territories for fee labor the duty of
active and vig:lant resistance to the encroachments
Of slavery.
III. We find that Popular Sovereignty, with re
spect to the Territories is rendered by this decis
ion a snare and deusion. The Supreme Court
decides expressly that the Territories do moth
ing in the way of excluding or protecting it, So
that, while Messrs. Douglas, Forney and others
are appealing to us to leave this whole matter
to the people of the territaries the Supreme
Court has taken the whole ground from
under their feet by deciding that the People of the
Territories shall have power over it whatever
Rhen they shall hare ceased to be people of Terri.
tory, and become people of State, then they may
aot in the premises, unless the Supreme Court
should give the screw another turn, and decide
that the rights Of property acquired under the Fed
eral Constitution and laws sacred and indis-
tructible, and that Slaves already in the embryo
State must, with their posterty remain slaves for
ever. No man who defers to the Dred Scott decis
ion as law has any right to talk of Popular Sove-
ognty in the Territories, so far slavery is con-
csrned. 1t has clearly no existence; and those
who talk of it words without definite meaning
or use them for purposes of deceit.
III. When Territory throws of tho Territorial
condition, forms a State Constitution, and applies
such constitution she will, and is morally ceri
tain to be admitted with that Constitution. We
may favor or resist her admission, but practically
and historically we know that she will not be ex
cluded because she is or is not slaveholding. Ev
erything depends, therefore, on the character I'M
pressed on her ,chile she retains her Territorial
dition. "Just as the twig is bent, the trees in
clined )" Or as the wise king expressed the idea,
"Train up child in the way he should Co. and
when he is old, he will not depart from IT," The
slave Territory in fact becomes slave State, while
abe free Territory natures into free State. How
vast the issues. how momentous the consequences,
depending the impress originally stamped on q
new Territory few years Of infancy decides
its character for an infinite term-peThaps for gen.
erations. Let US be faithful to the duties of the
day.
Nv. The practical Interpretation given to the
Popular Sovereignty doctrine by it's votares is in
difference to the triumph Of free Of slaue labor in
Territory. Mr.. Douglas insists that Kansas shall
be admitted free State because that is her de.
libsrate and overwhelming choice. not because the
choice is intrinsically right and Lenefcent. Were
she struggling to come in slave State, he
would support her demand with equal energy and
mehass. Indeed he clearly intimates that while
he considers free labor probably best for her.
he considers slave labor as decidedly preferable
for other and more tropical regions. There is moth
ing wrong, according to this view, in making one
man work for another's profit all his life leaving
his children to follow in the same dreary round ;
il is only mistake to do this where the mercury
often sinks below Zero We cannot assent to this