The national era. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1847-1860, 1859-05-19
POPULAR SOVEREIGNTY.


as General Cass laid it down in his Nicholson
letter, and as it was preached and proclaimed
from Maine to Texas during the Presidential
campaign of l848, had some vitality, at least.
When again brought prominently before the
pnblic in 1854, in connection with the repeal
of the Missouri Compromise, it still retained
its substantive form but since the promulga-
ton of the bred Scott decision, it has been
the merest humbug. The following extract
from the bred Scott decision meets point blank
the theory of Mr.. Douglas. The Court says:
"The powers over person and property of
which we speak are not only not granted to
Congress, but are in express terms denied, and
they are forbidden to exercise them. And this
prohibition is not confined to the States, but
the words are general, and extend to the whole
territory over which the Constitution gives 1t
power to legislate, including those portions of
it remaining under Territorial Government, as
well as that covered by States 1t is total
absence of power everywhere within the do
minon of the United States, and places the
citizens oil. a Territory, so far as those rights
are concerned, on the same footing with citi-
zens of the States, and guards them as firmly
General Government may attempt, under the
plea of implied or incidental powers. And if
Congress itself cannot do this-if it is beyond
the powers conferred on the Federal Govern
ment-it will be admitted, we presume, that
it could not authorize Territorial Government
to exercise them. 1t could confer ne power on
any local Government, established by Its au-
thority, to violate the provisions of the Consti-
tuition Now, as we have already
said in an earlier part of this opinion, upon a
different point, the right of property in slave
is distinctly and expressly affirmed in the Con-
stitution The right to traffic in it, like an or
binary article of merchandise and property,
was guaranteed to the citizens of the United
States, in every State that might desire it, for
twenty years. And the Government in express
terms, is pledged to protect it in all future time,
if the slave escapes from his owner. This is
done in plain words-too plain to be misun-
derstood. And no word can be found in the
Constitution which gives Congress greater
power over slave property, or which entities
property of that kind to less protection than
property of any other description. The only
power conferred is the power coupled with the
duty of guarding and protecting the owner in
his rights.
upon these considerations, it is the opinion
of the Court, that the act of Congress which
prohibited citizen from holding and owning
property of this kind in the territory of the
United States north of the line therein men
toned is not warranted by the Constitution,
and is therefore void /; and that neither bred
Scott himself, nor any of his family, were made
free by being carried into this territory, even if
they had been carried there by the owner, with
the intention of becoming permanent resi-
dent" X
Senator Douglas admits the authority of
this decision. Departing entirely from the old
Republican States Rights theory of Jefferson,
JohnI Taylor of Caroline, Nathaniel Macon,
and William B. Giles, the Senator from Illinois
adopts the position of the Fe6eralists, that the
Supreme Judiciary is the final arbiter of con-
stitutienal questions.
With such an admission, he cannot maintain
the right of the people to exclude Slavery from
Territories in any Legitimate way and his sug-
gestion that Slavery may be kept out by un-
friendly legislation, in the face of constitu-
tiOnal guaranty, may well be charged by the
friends of the institution as tending to incite to
rebellion against the constituted authorities,
The Republican States which have passed
loue ra.-I:-.-1 l. r-r.-i-- slave act have
done so on the high States Rights ground that
the act is unconstitutional. They have given
an example of unfriendly legislation" for the
notification or evasion of Congressional en-
actment, but they have done so conscientiously,
and in good faith, as the friends of the Consttu-
ton. They have followed literally the advice
of Jefferson and Calhoun for setting aside an
odious and unconstitutional act of Congress, in
order to preserve intact the national charter of
liberty. But Mr.. Douglas and his disciples ad-
NIT the Federalist theory that the Supreme
Court alone has the right to interpret the Con-
stitutiOn, and that its Interpretation is binding
upon the coordinate departments of the Govern
ment-that is to say, the President and Con-
gress-upon the States, and upon the people,
The Court, as we have shown above, has de-
cided explicitly that neither Congress nor the
Territorial Legislatures have any right to ex-
clude Slavery. Yet in the face of this decision,
the Senator from Illinois tells his constituents
that the people of Territory, to use his own
language embraced in the Kansas Nebraska act.
are g left perfectly free to form their own inst-
tutions in their own way" and to exclude Sla-
very, if they think proper, by "untfiendly legis-
lation."
A grosSer inconsistency cannot be imagined
His position compels him, as the Representa-
tive of free State, and ambitious of future
honors at the hands of the people, to hold on to
n theory of popular sovereignty which had
some vitality when it was formed but his So
licitude to preserve the good opinion of the
South has at the same time constrained him to
admit the validity of Supreme Court decision
which utterly extinguishes his theory of popular
rights. The result is, that on Mr.. Douglass
theory one party or the other must be cheated
His platform is a cheat and snare to the
North or to the South and supposing him in
vested with Executive power, he would be CON-
PEELED either to extinguish popular sovereign
ty by rigid enforcement of the bred Scott
principle, or cheat the South by encouraging or
winking at its infraction by the popular sover.
eigns.
AMERICAN MEDICAL ASSOCIATION.
The American Medical Association held ;ts
annual meeting this year at Louisville, Ken
lucky, on the first Tuesday of May. There we're
more than three hundred delegates present.
from nearly every State in the Union, and the
meeting seems to have been in every respect
harmonious and successful The annual ad
dress was delivered by the retiring President
DR.. Lindsly, of Washington, of which the Louis
vile papers speak in highly Aattering terms
One paper says:
"The address of the President was listened