The Cass County Republican. [volume] (Dowagiac, Mich.) 18??-1880, 1859-08-11
THE CAsS COUNTY REPUBLICAN
DOwAGIAC: B
The Issues of 1860.

mite shape. They are of course to be,
as those of 1856 were, issues between
Freedom and Slavery; between the
people of the free States and the slave
power of the South. biii : 70
One of these issues is to be made
upon the claim of the slave power that
Congress shall, by express statutes,
establish and protect slavery in all the
Territories now held or hereafter to be
acquired by the United States. s
Another, upon its claim that the
Federal Government shall, by purchase
at the expense of the people, or by
forcible seizure, acquire Cuba, and
portions or the whole of Mexico and
Central America for the extension and
strengthening of slavery.
Another, upon its claim that all Con
gressional law against the African
slave trade shall be repealed so as to
allow the free importation of the kid
mapped natives of Africa for the pur-
pose of stocking'' the broad regions
to be thus acquired, as we'll as the por-
tons of the present slave States and
Territories remaining to be thus
stocked"
Still another of these issues is to be
made upon the claim of that same ar
rogant slave power, that the Federal
Government shall secure to it the legal
right of taking its human hattels in
any numbers and for any purpose of
temporary service or transfer of resi-
dence or ownership, into and through
any and all the now free States, and
holding them for the time being in
slavery therein, any provisions in the
constitution and laws of those States
to the contrary Notwithstanding.
In short, the issues are to be whether
the slave power shall be SO extended,
fortified and protected by the Federal
Government and at the expense of
the constitutional rights of the peo-
pie of the whole Union, and particu-
larly of the free States, as to render it
the supreme power of the country and
its edicts the "Higher Law of the
land. -. -...s 8 Frr..f
So far as making these and such as
these, the great issues of the contest
is concerned, it matters not what
platform may be adopted by the
pro-slavery democratic convention
to be held at Charleston. That party
so far as it has any political power for
the Presidential election, exists only
within the boundaries of the slave
States. In the free States, it is now
but parcel of disorganized, recipro-
cally hostile and powerless factions.
Even if it shall succeed in so far re-
vealing and combining these factions
as to secure from the free States cleo
toral votes enough to make up a ma
jority with the compact of the votes Of
the slave States, still the claim of the
slave power remains that the Charles
ton candidates are to be elected, ii
elected at all, by its own compact
strength. That power will therefore
insist, as it now insists, upon debating
the terms of the platform at Charles
ton.
Very likely it will content itself with
debating that the "Cincinnati plat
form " shall be again adopted without
a word of alteration or addition so far
as the subject of slavery is concerned
And we'll it may. That platform was
sufficiently characterized by vagueness
and duplicity Of language to enable
the pro-slavery democratic" organs
in 1856 to claim, in the slave States
that it denied the rights of the people
of the Territories to exclude or legis
late against slavery, and recognized
the right of Shareholders to transport
their slaves through and hold then
temporarily in the free States; and tc
claim in the free States, that it gave
the people of the the Territories al
the rights over slavery possessed by
the people of any free States, and thai
it acknowledged amongst these rights
the absolute right to refuse to tolerate
slavery for an instant, and to make
unconditional emancipation the penalty
for bringing a slave within the borders
of any State or Territory in which
slavery was prohibited. That same
vagueness and duplicity were sufficient
after the election to enable the allies
of the slave power in the free States
to relinquish their constructions of the
language of the platform thus insisted
upon during the canvass, and to admi
as they now everywhere do, that the
slave powers directly opposite construc
tons were the true ones. "a
So, that same platform will be suffi