The weekly pioneer and Democrat. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn. Territory) 1855-1865, 1859-09-02
The Dividing Line Between Federal and
Local Authority.

The thanks of the Democracy of Mime.
sofa are due to Senator DOUGLAS, that at
this critical period in our State politics, he
should come forward, and in the unanswera-
BILE argument published on our outside to-
day, explain and defend the positions as
sumed by the Democracy of the State at
our late State Convention. The manifesto
in question, was just published in Harper's
Magazine for September. 1t cannot fail to
have powerful effect throughout the coun-
try. 1t is the most mastery and conclusive
argument on the vexed questions of Popular
Sovereignty and the limits of the Federal
and Local Jurisdiction which has appeared.
No unprecedented person can rise from its
perusal without concediDg the correctness of
the writer's position. He shows so clearly
that there can be hereafter no cavil on the
subject, "that the authors of the compromise
measures of 1850 and of the Kansas Ne
braska act of 1854, as we'll as the members
of the Continental Congress in TIA and the
founders Of our system Of government sub.
sequent to the Revolution" and the Demo-
cratic Party in National Convention, had
all recognized the principles of Popular
Sovereignty as defined by him.
The Chicago Times publishes the mani.
festo and says:
II we do not wholly misjudge the people,
not only of the West and North but OF the
whole country but one sentiment in regard to
this new manifesto will be entertained, and
that one of unqualified approval and hearty
admiration. For the last year or two the party
has been misrepresented, by some of the men
we are obliged to call our own, and by fana-
teal body of abolitionists falsely styled Repub-
lican. We have been accused OF purpose to
spread slavery and to confirm it everywhere IN
the name of the Constitution of the United
States. That is not the old charge against us.
Formerly it was the doctrine of the party that
slavery was the creature of the local law--not
a child of the federal constitutiOn--and could
exist nowhere save by virtue of local legislation
either in States or territories. This was the
recognized doctrine of both the South and the
North few years ago; we remember to have
heard it expounded and enforced in speeches
from the lips of Southern statesmen, in 1852.
before the people in various places in the
Northern States. Nobody, who pretended to
be Democrat, denied it; the Wings did not
deny it; it was only the abolitionists who make
ND the active element in the Republican party
now, that opposed to it any objection. Senator
Douglass declarations, then, on this head, re.
call the party to its old and invulnerable posi-
ton. 1t is the old bugle call, which so often in
former times stirred the masses and inspired
them to do work worthy of success. And now,
sounding above the confusion and the din, this
call will reach every patriot in the land, and
the masses will rally to uphold these just prin'
ciples, and to sustain the bold and true man
who dares, and daring has the power, to tri.
umphtly enforce them.I
We ask every fair minded and candid
Republican--and we are glad to know that
we have over thousand good Minnesota
Republicans on our weekly subscription
list-to read this remarkable State paper.
The conclusions at which the Senator
arrives, are embodied in the Minnesota
Democratic platform and the Intervention
Slave Code principle, which he assails, finds
its supporters only among the Secessionists
of the South and the Republicans of the
North. We are content to rest all ques-
tions of National politics now before the
people Of Minnesota, upon the arguments
presented by Senator DOUGLAS