The Washington union. [volume] (City of Washington [D.C.]) 1857-1859, 1858-09-19
WASHINGTON CITY.
SUNDAY. SEPT. 10. 1858.

may think due to itself that readers should see
and we copy, accordingly, by request, from the
Richmond Enquirer an article defending itself from
few remarks we lately made upon extraordinary
article which we found in its columns, defending
Judge Douglass late squatiersoyereignty declars
tons at Freeport, Illinois. The discourteous ex
pressions used towards us in paragraph of the ar
ticle which we are requested by the Enquirer TO
copy, we should have right to eliminate but as
they appear upon their face to have been unneees-
sary and gratuitous perfectly content to let
them go in with the rest.
We come first to the especial matter OF complaint
urged against us by the Enquirer that of placing
an unjust Interpretation upon its article defending
Judge Douglas declarations at Freeport. The gist
of those declarations was that the Nebraska Kansas
act gave the right to the people of the Territories
while yet they Territories, to exclude slavery
from their limits his language being that mo mat
ter what may be the decision of the Supreme Court
on that abstract question still the right of the peo-
pie to make slave Territory or free Territory is
perfect and complete under the Nebraska-Kansas
bill = and that f the people of the Territory are
opposed to slavery they viii elect members to the
Legislature who viii adopt mrfendy Legislation to it."
His position is not that if they pursue such course,
through the omissions of the Nebraska Kansas act
they will do aorong but that they have the
right to do this thing, and that this right posi-
lively given them by the NebraskaK Kansas BILL Now,
this is no new position of Judge Douglas, as every
inforped politician in the country knows ;bnt an old
and favorite one, not only announced hundred
times as he confessed in this same speech at Free
mort, but announced a thousand times and one. Yet
this opinion drives directly into the teeth of the bred
Scott decision and the only thing new about the
declarations at Frcepor is, that they disclose that
Judge Douglas unlike General Cass and all the true
northern democrats who once held the same opin-
ion has not as these have done, yielded his own po
stion on this question to the decision Of the Supreme
Court as it was understood from the first by the sup
porters of the Nebraska-Kansas bill that they would
do but doggedly and in bad faith to the South, per
siss in this squatter soyereignty dogma in spite of
that decision.
Now, what puzzled us in the Enquirer's article
of tho other day was that, in spite of the very
words of Judge Douglas insisting that a ter
ritorial legislature had the fright to exclude
slavery, "giren' by the Nebraska-Kansas act, it
should nevertheless maintain, that Judge Doug
las only intended to say, that, through the omissions
of his bill the legislatures Of the Territories
at liberty to commit the rrong Of excluding slavery.
Not only did this declaration of the Enquirer puzzle
us, but there was another that did so equally as
much
The Enquirer, in the same article, called upon
Congress to intervene TO protect slavery IN the Terrific
aiss' and intimated belief that Judge Douglas
would take the lead in this work although such ac-
ton would be in express contraventon of the policy
of ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS by Congress- which Judge Doug
las has proclaimed thousand times that it was the
precise and express object of the Nebraska-Kansas
bill to inaugurate and establish Judge Douglas is
on record in innumerable forms and places aiming
by this bill to athdraw the question of slavery from
the halls of Congress- and the political arena, and
commit it to the arbitrament of those imme-
dately interested in and alone responsible for its
Consequences and declaring thatsince this sub
ject is confded by the constitution to each State to
decide for itself, he knows Of reason why the
same principle should not be confded to the terri
tories" Yet in the face of these avowals of Judge
Douglas familiar to the whole country as household
words and fall that has been said and written on the
subject since 1904 the enquirer BraVeiy ana CooHy
insists that Judge Douglass intention at Freeport
was to point out the defects of the Kansas ebras
ka bill, and to indicate his desire to remedy them
by abandoning his long purpose of Withdrawing
the subject of slavery from Congress by referring it
the Territories, and now undertaking to withdraw
it from the Territories by referring it again to Con-
gress @t sa
We say that we were puzzled we were
amazed-at these strange positions of the Enquirer;
and but for the emphatic disclaimer Of that journal
should not yet know how to interpret them, except
on the hypothesis that they ndited in the spirit
of badnage. The Enquirer, however, serious !;
yet we cannot conceive how that Journal with its
knowledge of the past course Of Judge Douglas, and
of his recent declarations at Freeport can imagine
that he is in favor Of an eypenon by Congress uci
Me subject Of Slavery in The Territories that he
meant when he said at Freeport to the abolitonists
that territorial legislatures have the right to exclude
slavery that in doing these bodies would be com
uniting ,cyong which he would aid Congress in
preventing by the proper legislation. If he did
mean such thing, why did he not say so why
did he say the very REVERSED
A GRoUNDLEsS ACCUSATION.
As TO the allegation of the ENQUIRER that we pre-