Richmond enquirer. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1815-1867, 1859-07-19
IGNORING SLAVERY AGITATION.

IGNORING SLAVERY AGITATION.
Obliged to acknowledge the justice
Of the Interpretation affixed by the con-
scrvative Democracy to the Cincinnati Plat
form-obised to acknowledge the vital impor.
tance of the doctrine Of equal protection, some
of our Virginia contemporaries have at last
sought prcteXt for compromise with anti
slavery prcjudices i'll the following resolution
of the platform:
"ReSolved. That the Democratic Party will
resist all attempts at renewing, in Congress or
out of it, the agitation of the slavery question,
under whatever shape or color the attempt may
be made"
There" say the advocates OF compromise,
''we are pledged under all circumstances to
abstain from asitating the slavery question:
The slavery question is necessarily involved in
the question Of congressional protection to
persons and property in the territories. Thus
we cannot yndicatc our rights at Charleston,
without renewing agitation, and this we are
pledged to dcSiSt from"
To this view Of the case We answer, that if
such be the true Interpretation of the above
resolution, ifSouthrrn men have indeed pledged
themselves to perpetual abstinence from the
open assertion Of their constitutional rights, if
they have pledged themselves to abstain from
all attempts TO protect these rights when de-
MED and violated, then no diShonor whatever
will attach 10 the speedy rio!a'ton of such a
pledge. If the pledge was given the dishonor
consists in making it, not in breaking it. If
man shall bind himself by an oath 10 steal, to
lie VI TO murder, he Is at once dlshonored and
the violation Of such an oath. instead of aggra-
waiting. really extenuatcs his guilt. So it is
when man or n party shall become pledged to
ignore patriotic duty, anu to assist directly or
indirectly in the violation Of the organic law Of
the nation
AGain-we suggest TO our Southern, and
especially to our Virginia compromise cotein
poraries. that If the pledge which they insist
on and as they coDStrue it, can De regarded as
an honorable pledge, and Its violation involves
a breach of faith, the time is past Tor proSpcc-
tive discussion lf such was TIE pledge
that pledge has already been broken--
broken by every great leader Of the Southern
Denocracy-broken by our allies at the North
broken by the overwhelming majority Of
Southern Democratic presses and politicians.
Prominent among these alleged vioators Of a
solemn pledge are our two Virginia Senators,
Mcssrs Hunter and Mason, who have lately
proclaimed "in Congress" that an attempt to
ignore this doctrine Of equal protection in the
territories, ought to deprive the candidate Of
any party which attempts it, Of the vote, "even
the individual vote Of every honorable South
ern man.
Thus the time for general discussion is past.
If Senators Hunter and Mason, the Richmond
Enquirer" the concord Standard" the State
Democratic Iolnmitrce OF pennsylvania, ,nv
Democratic candidates now before the people
throughout the Southern States, and all their
allies and partisans, have openly violated an
honorable pledge, necessary for the maintenance
Of the integrity Of the party and the best inte-
rests of the country-why, then, let them be
denounced, openly and unsparingly denounced
as traitors to faith and truth and patriotic duty
In our defence and in defence Of the large
majority of the Democratic party. we plead at
once that we never have submitted TO pledge
admitting Of such construction as that affixed
by the advocates of another compromise Of the
slavery Question.
We pledged ourselves first Of all to the entire
maintenance Of the doctrines Of the Constitution.
10 make tins pledge still more binding, we en-
tered into an additional pledge to resist the at
tonpts Of "asitators" to override constitutional
barriers by appeals to sectional prcjudices.-
The two pledges are entirely coincident, and ne
cessarily in>eparable.
Wellave Pledge ourselves to protect the equal
rights Of every section Of the coniederacy And
on this pledge we stand immovably When
anti slavery sympathisers at the North dare to
deny the right Of Southern property to equal
protection in the common territories we demand
the full and unmistakable assertion and vindlca-
ton of that right 10y the political party with
which we are identified And when mistaken
ZealotS at the South raise the cry, as some are
even now raising it, mo more free States adj
United to the Uulon," we denounce at once
this invasion Of popular sovereignty, this effort
to extend the institution Of slavery by unfair
al unconstitutional means. We arepledged to
support the letter and the whole spirit OF
the Constitution of the United States. This,
as we understand it, is the sum total of the
principles Of the Democratic party. And when
that party shall cease to meet any political is
sue ON this plain, practical, truthful and loyal
ground of principle, then it will cease to coih-
mand our respect and no longer deserve our
adherence.
IGNORING SLAVERY AGITATION.
or all the anomalies in these modern days,
the ignoring of slavery agitation by certain
Democratic papers of the South, in the sense
4 10 IN us q