The Washington union. [volume] (City of Washington [D.C.]) 1857-1859, 1858-11-03

special pleading and prevarication which has been
pursued by Judge Douglas during the canvass and
we dismiss il with the contemptuous Reproduction
which such attempts deserve and always receive.
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SENATOR DAVIS AND THE DRIED SCOTT DECIS-
In regard to the declaration of Judge Douglas
that Senator Davis of Mississippi, takes the
view Of the subject of territorial power slavery
with himself we state what we know when say
that General Davis utterly repudiates the "view"
of Judge Douglas
Aside from the known fact that General Davis does
not approve Judge Douglass dogma that the Ter
ritories have the right to exclude slavery while in
territorial state, the Judge ought to have known
from the records of the Senate that he and Senator
Davis stand at the antpodes Of each other on this
subject. For in May 1850, Mr. Davis moved as an
amendment to the compromise bills of that year
proviso in these words "That nothing herein con
tanned shall be construed to prevent said territorial
Legislature from passing such laws may be neces-
sary for the protection of the rights of property Of
any kind which may have been or may be hereafter,
conformably to the constitution and laws of the Uni
ted States held in or introduced into said Terri
tory; and on this amendment Mr.. Davis voted am,
while Mr. Douglas voted no. As these two gentle
men voted in 1885, they have. voted on this sub
ect all the way down until the bred Scott decision
Senator Davis, in his amendment strove to protect
slave property from ant-slavery majorities in the
Territories, Judge Douglas strove to deprive it of
protection.
AS to the extract which Judge Douglas vouches
from n utade If no d.l; -
Bangor, Maine, the senator has made no speech at
all at that town. It is true, however that General
Davis did use language in speech at Portland,
Maine, which is imperfectly reported in the form
quoted by Judge Douglas. But that language was
used in a connection very different from the one in
which Judge Douglas employs it in his own speech
at Alton. General Davis found, to his surprise,
when at the North, that many honest people there
had been made by abolition speakers to believe that
the South was endeavoring to introduce slavery
not only into all the Territories, but also into
all the free States. 1t will be found, from an ex-
animation of his recent speeches at the North, that
mind of this absurd idea.
Accordingly, he took great pains to set forth the
southern doctrines of State rights by way of show
ing that it not only not the desire of the South
to interfere with the domestic institutions of the
North, but that her cherished doctrines of
State sovereignty and independence sternly prohb-
tied her from such interference
Passing from the States to the Territories, he
argued to show that the South could not enter
tain such intentions even as to the Territories.
He showed that in those ATTITUDES and soils where
a,I .1,;,o - :
| northern immigration and to discourage southern,
the preponderance of the antisavery sentiment and
population would practically prevent those Terrific
res from being occupied with shareholders and
that, wherever this was the case, it was perfectly
idle TO suppose that the South either hoped or ex
pected to establish by force the institution of
slavery for the pocer would be the other side,
and this porer of the majority to resist system of
slavery aggression and propagandism would in prac-
tice be efectual. Gen. Davis was speaking on the
question of mere power, in reply to the idle cant
about slavery aggression and did not at all pretend
to touch the ethical question, whether territorial
Legislature had the right perfect and complete" as
serted by Judge Douglas, of multiplying rights and
stracziog property recognised by the constitution of
the United States.
Judge Douglas fatters himself with vain delu-
sion when he supposos that the whole South is rail-
lying to the doctrine of squatter sovereignty in the
Territories. a few misguided infatuated and
thoughtless politicians and editors here and there
may be willing to accept paiate the doctrine
but the great body of the democracy of the South,
who the South, are pledged against it by thou
sand committals. That section approaches more
nearly to absolute unanmity the doctrine of prop
erty in the Territories announced by the bred Scott
decision than probably any people did before
on any political question and ifJudge Douglas real
ly supposes that there are more than a mere
handful of men in that region of the Union ready to
aid him in shufling off the bred Scott decision from
the Territories, he supposes not only what is mpos
sble and incredible, but what is monstrous.
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