Nashville patriot. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1858-1860, 1859-04-13

The law recently passed by the Territorial
Legislature of New Mexico for the protec-
ton of property in slaves is received with
bitter denunciations by the Black Republican
press at the North. They hold that it legalizes
and establishes slavery, and some of them in
innate that il may be held to be the duty of
the next Congress to interpose its authority
and annul the act The uncertainty whether
the avowal of such purpose may not OBJ
struct them in getting the majority which is
necessary to make the attempt succeed. prob
ably delays the announcement of the pur-
pose. Ii may come after awhile. But in the
interim some Southern journals are quite dis
turbed with an apparent parallelism of this
claim OF federal power TO annul an act for
the protection of slavery, with the claim of
federal duty to protect STAKEHOLDER against
hostile territorial legislation, or territorial
refusal of protection. They imagine they see
in the obvious danger and clear unconstitu-
tionality of such unfriendly interposition. an
additional and conclusive motive for conce-
ding an absolute power of the territorial
legislatures at all times, over all branches OF
the subject, to abolish and expel as well as to
regulate and protect slaveholding.
But there is a logical difference in the two
cases, which ought to appease such apprehen-
siOns. Before the late judgments OF the Su-
preme Court the subject Of slavery in the Ter
ritOries was political one. Parties had then
of Congress TO forbid, to permit. or To intro
duce it, and carried these questions into the
legislation and politics of the country to
degree which was eXasperating and became
dangerous. An agreement was finally enact
ed that there should be no political interven-
ton for or against the Shareholders by Con-
gress, but that the inhabitants of the Terri
tories should he left TO shape their own
institutions subject to the constitution of the
tafa ha
was subject to a judicial construction which
should be binding, and take away the right
OF political agitation. The judicial decision
has been had as plainly as language could
make it, and that declares slavery to be legal
in all the Territories of the United States by
force of the constitution. There is no longer
any Tightful question of Intervention or nom
intervention by Congress TO establish slavery.
That is among the effete issues which u new
and authoritative exposition of the supreme
law has swept out of the way. There is no
longer question of political opinion, or
policy or expediency, but the plain and
single one of submission to established law.
What is invoked as Intervention has
nothing to do with the establishing OF
status, which the fundamental law has fixed.
but the obligation to respect what the law
has declared. and to carry into effect The
Legislature of New Mexico has legislated t0
protect what the constitution of the United
States recognizes as property. If Congress
should interfere to annul this prohibition il
would be a manifest violation of the cOnsti-
tuition or direct attack upon the rights of
property, amounting to cOnfiscatiOn. 1t is
very illogical deduction that because Con-
gress cannot interfere to destroy right of
property in one territory, it cannot interfere
in another, to defeat combinations to annul
the same rights or neglects which have the
same effect. Indeed, the abstinence from in
terposition in the one case. and the obligation
TO interpOse in the other, rest on the same
rul"s of duty to provide for main
tanning in good faith the judicial con-
structiOn of rights under the constitution of
the United States.
1t may very well he that Thoughtful men.
in view of grave consequences and practical
results, may torbcar to invoke the action of
Congress, except in some case of emergency.
where permanent interests are at stake, and
an issue is desired for purposes worthy of such
interpositiUn-but such tOrbearance will not
be based on any admissions that they have
not a constitutional right to such protection,
or on the illogical deduction that the denial
of right Of interpOstiOn to destroy, includes
the denial Of the right to interpOse TO protect
property and rights vested under the con-
stitution.-N D. Pic1y1He.