The weekly pioneer and Democrat. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn. Territory) 1855-1865, 1859-10-28

The old " Cradle of Liberty" is waking
up. The Bunker Hill boys know for what
principles their fathers fought, and they are
prepared to re-fght the battles of the Revo.
hutton for the same principles. Hon. BENZ.
F. BUTLER, the Democratic candidate for
Governor in Massachusetts, thus defines his
position on the slavery question in his letter
of acceptance. 1t will be seen that be
repudates the doctrine of the National
Administration {;
Upon the question Of slavery, which
appears to control the political action of a
majority in Massachusetts in preference to
objects affecting their more immediate
interests, believe l can be equally explicit,
having no opinions to conceal. In my
opinion, slavery exists nowhere by natural
right, but only because of some positive
enactment, embodied either in the constitu-
ton or statute law of the community in
which it is found.
Again, believe it to be the essential
element of the Democratic creed, as promul-
gated at Cincinnati, in 1856, as well as
plainly deducibe from the doctrines of the
fathers of the Republic one to which
every living Democratic statesman has, at
some period, pledged himself, that the peo-
pie of every community, who associate
themselves upon the territory Of tie United
States, and obtain sufficient numbers to be
organized into Territorial government,
have the right by their legislation, under
the constitution. to manage all their dOmes-
tic institutions in their own way or, in
other words, to determine for themselves the
status of society under which they will live,
and that this right continues until the for
nation of such Territory into a State
when it is conceded by all. Then, slaves
being decided to be property by the Su-
preme Court, in the States where slavery
exists by local law, are protected as such in
the Territories, as far as in the several
States, giving the master the right to hold
them while there is no Territorial legislation
on the subject, with the further right to
remove them within a reasonable time after
legislation is had, that divests him of his
property by law declaring them free. This
would put the rights of the South upon
their true constitutional basis, leaving the
public domain fairly open to competition
and emigration ; permitting the question of
bond or free to be settled by the natural
laws of interest and profit, or by the newly
formed community, as soon as it is of
ability to settle any other question of
governmental policy retaining in the
STAKEHOLDER, who had brought his property
upon the public land, under the protection
of the constitution, the right to take it
away, if in danger of being Invested of it
by Territorial legislation. More than this
the South ought not to ask; more than this
the North ought not to grant. Of course,
from the reasoning, no one would hold that
by carrying his slave into unoccup;ed and
unorganized territory, the master valves his
right to him, so that by this act be would
be emancipated. Upon this subject, l
deem the public mind to be substantially
settled in the full determination to leave
slavery to be dealt with by the laws of the
several localities where it has its existence"