The Yazoo Democrat., 1858-10-30
From the Washington Union.
RIGHTS AND REMEDIES OF SOUTHERN CIT
IZENS IN THE TERRITORIES,

s lZENS IN THE TERRITORIES.
We have met with paragraphs for some
time that express our views more clearly, ol
that meet the struggling objections which
begin to get abroad at the South against the
Nebraska>Kansas bill more fully than those
we copy below.
The complaints which have been made
against the clause Of the bill known as the
Badger amendment, which provides that
nothing in the bill shall be 50 construed as
to revive any laws in force prior to 1920 in
the territories north of SO dec. 80 min, "pro.
tectiug, establishing, prohibiting, or exclu-
ding slavery" complaints which are based
upon the objection that The old Spanish laws
favorable to slavery there are not revived by
The clause repeating the Missouri Prohibition,
which last in effect abolished then-do not
seem to US to be very we'll founded; or, if
well founded, do not seem to US to have much
force. The old Spanish laws, whatever they
were, We're not repealed" in terms, by the
Missouri Prohibition, but were only repealed
in effect while that Prohibition was supposed
to be valid. When it fell under the Dred
Scott decision the old Spanish laws, so far as
the Prohibition had affected them, resumed
all the vitality they ever had for while the
Nebra ka- Kansas bill did not profess tc revive
them or to "legislate slavery into the Terri.
tories" neither did it purport to prevent their
revival, or to C. legislate slavery out of the
Territories That bill neither did the one
thing nor the other, but left the question as
to the revival or non-revival of those old laws
entirely unaffected by any thing in Itself con-
tanned; and thus, inasmuch as the Missouri
Prohibition has been decided by the Supreme
Court TO have been from the first unconsti
tutional, null and void, it never operated and
never could have operated TO repeal those
laws. If, therefore, those laws have never
been repealed in any other manner, they are
certainly not repealed by the unconsttuton-
al, null and void Missouri Prohibition; and,
as nothing in the Nebraska, Kansas bill is to
be construed as leviving, or preventing the
revival of the old Spanish laws, those laws,
so far as this bill is concerned, are precisely
IN statu quo ante the Missouri enactment.
The objection that the Badger amendment
prevents the revival OF the Spanish laws is,
therefore, not we'll founded. But even it it
we're, and if those old laws were still dead
lying lifeless in their graves by the opera
ton of the Nebraska Kansas bill, still, we do
not see that the rights of the Southern peo.
Pile in the Territories are much the worse off
tor the TACT. We are inclined to think those
old laws are myths at best, aud that they have
much larger space in the imagi
nations Of politicians than they have ever
done in the statutes and codes of the old
Spanish territories. AT all events We think
tue rights of Southern citizens in the Terri
tories are much more safely protected under
The @gis of the constitution than they would
be under the forgotten legislation Of an an
,ient and alien jurisdiction. The Supreme
Court Of the United States finds an ample
protection for those rights in the constitution
of tie Union; aud, for ourselves, We think it
much safer for those rights that august tri>
bunal should find them there than that it
should have to seek for them in the obsolete
statute books Of defunct government aud
Of a foreign language.
luis court mas declared tnaC lne rlgnC OF
property in slaves, and the right toprotection
for this property from the laws and courts,
exists. The Nebraska. Kansas bill gives the
shareholders the right of immediate appeal
to the Supreme Court Of the United States
upon all conceivable quest ions affecting the
right Of property in slaves that can arise in
the local courts of the Territories. These
local courts are constituted of judges appoin,
ted by the President Of the United States,
national officer, who will always, we trust,
be the elect of national party, ana who is
bound by his oath Of Office to support the
of the United States, which
guarantees the right Of southern citizens in
the Territories. eis tBa MR ya.. .s
We think, therefore, that there is full proc
tection of law for slave nronsrtv in the Ter.