The Shasta courier., 1859-08-13
SHASTA COURIER.
The Benefits of Experience.

1t is said that " Experience is the best OF
schoolmasters. Granted. But titi is equally true
that, in the political world, "Defeat," in point
of worth, stands second to " Experience" Some
months since Mr.. Buchanan wrote letter in re-
ply to, as we thought at the time, an impertinent
communication addressed him by lot of Mas
sachusetts clergymen, headed by Professor Sill
liman, in which he buchanan declared the
sentiment that slavery, under the Constitution,
existed in the Territories. We have a vivid re-
collection of the fact that that letter met with a
hearty response from the Democracy all over
the land. And nowhere did it receive warmer
endorsement than in California. Democrats of
all stripes and compilations extolled it as a mas
ter effort of a wise statesman. Now, however,
since certain Democrats, in their aspirations for
power and place, have been made to look, face
to face, upon that most terrible of opponents,
and most stern tester of mems party fealty,
Defeat" they have suddenly made the discov-
cry that Mr. Buchanan in that letter preached
the rankest heresy.
Mr.. McCorkle, in his speech at Nevada, says
if this doctrine be true, that the Constitution
takes slavery into the Territories, then it also
takes it into New York and Ohio To make this
argument he must surely have forgotten that the
States were originally so many free and inde-
pendent republics-separate and distinct COM
onwealths-endowed with the attributes of
sovereign power as fully as any nation on earth
and that to-day they retain all of these char
acteristics ofnationality except those which they
expressly granted in that contract, the Coustitu-
ton, which they entered into with view to the
establishment of a confederacy for the purposes
of mutual protection, and to the end that thus
associated they might the more effectually ex-
tend the area of human freedom. At the very
time of the framing and signing of this contrac,
between these State sovereignties, or Sovereign
Powers, slavery existed in every State save
Massachusetts,, and in every foot of territory be.
longing to the States in common Is not thi:
so2 Now mark it. At the very commencement
of our national existence as Confederated Re-
public, the Constitution took slavery, or recog
nized its existence in all territory, and in every
State of the Union, save Massachusetts. 1t die
not recognize its existence there, because Mas
sachusetts, by virtue of that power which per
| tanned to her as a sovereign State, had expelled
it from her borders. But the Territories pos
tsessng no sovereign power, could of course DE-
no such thing. Well, then, if at the commence
ment of our existence as Confederated Repub
lie, slavery under the Constitution went into
every foot of territory belonging to the State.
in common, why is it not the same case to-day
| as Mr.. Buchanan has asserted
But, some of these gentlemen will say you
premises are incorrect-it is not true that tn,
Constitution at that day carried slavery into thu
| territory belonging to the States in common
Well, then, if it did not carry it there, it foun
| it there. Otherwise, why make an effort to re
move it therefrom, as was done by the ordinanc
| of 1889?