New-York daily tribune., 1858-09-07

III Mr. Stephen Arnold Dnugias ahd MS rlr''4p"'
eerng Illinois speeches are to be accepted as au'
tbority the national career of these United States
is destined to come 10 a very speedy conclusion
Our people have hitherto cherished the idea that
there existed in our free republican institutions the
basis Of long national life. We have even fat
tered ourselves with the notion that, being founded
ON the rights of man and conforming TO natural
Justice, our national political system embraced
more than any other, the essential requisite' oi
perpetuty But this. according 10 MI Douglas
is mere delusinn Ii will not answer for Us 70
place reliance or to rest our hopes, on any power
of characterization rperpetuatonderyed from the
nature of our institutions. Expansion, Mr.
Douglas tells US, "is the law of this Republic and
-. the nation would die if We restrict lts limits.
According to this view of the case II must die soon
at any rate True says Mr. Douglas; ' We have
TERRITORY enough for the present, but We are a
growing nation and in fifteen years all this terri
tory will be filed up and WE MUST HAVE MORE.
We resemble, il seems, the lean kind OF Pharaoh :
dream. We go on swallowing up our neighbors,
but still remain lean and hungry ever. In nj
teen years all the territory that we have VIII be
filed up, AID then we must have more, or die IL
is plain enough, if We go Oh consuming territory al
this rate, aud assuming the truth OF Dir. Douglass :
politica theory. that the continuance of our ma
tional life depends upon constant supply of new
territory it is bat too plain that a very
limited term must see the close oil our
national career. Ii all our present possessions
will hardly suffice to eke out our national
existence for fifteen years longer, what, we ask
it with fear and trembling, is likely to become OF
us before the end of the century Even
should no other obstacles present themselves to
this continued process of acquiring new territory,
il is evident that the whole American continent,
according To Mr.. Douglass calculation Of the pres
ent rate of consumption. would suffice 10 staye oil
our national dissolution but for very brief period.
Mr. Douglas has been suspected OF a disposition
To raise himself to the Presdency-the Kansas
Nebraska bill and the repeal of the Missouri re-
strcton having failed To serve that purposes
the leader of the flibuster annexation party;
but this we believe is the first time that he or any
BODY else has taken the ground that perpetual
territorial expansion is necessary to our national
existence. Such system OF perpetual expansion
may be essential To the perpetiaion oil the lhslitu
tion of Slavery, which can only flourish when 1t
has new lands upon which to operate-the chief
resources of the old Slave States being the sale of
slaves TO the new ones But are happy to believe,
that however il may be with the Slave States, to
which we suspcc; the political studies OF Mr.
Douglas have been principally turned, the Free
States AT least possess in themselves, and in the
a Il. IL. Ii Il. 8.
great powerful and permanent nationality, even
though the United States should never acquire
single additional foot of territory.