Weekly standard. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1858-1865, 1859-08-17
The $fapoato.
LETTER FROM SENATOR DOUGLAS,

LETTER from SENATOR DOUGLAS
To the Editors Of the Enquirer:
GENTLEMEN: Please give publicity in your next
Issue to the enclosed letter of the Hon S A.
Douglas
Very respectfully,
Yours &c,
JOHN L. PEYToM
Staunton, Va, August 9TH, 1858.
WASHINGTON Aug. 2, 1889.
Co.. John L. Peyton, Stauatoae Nc>
NY DEAR SIR>-You do me more than Justice in
your kind letter, for which accept MY thanks in as
Stunning that do not concur with the administration
in their views respecting the rights of haturalzed
citizens as defined in the IKE Clerc letter. which,
it is proper to observe have been since materially
modified.
Under our Constitution there can be no just dis
tincton between the right Of nativeb born and natu-
rallied citizens to claim the protection OF our gov
ernment at home and abroad Unless natural,za-
ton releases the person naturaized from all obga-
tons which he owed to his native country by virtue
of his allegiance, it leaves him in the sad precida
ment Of owing allegiance to two countries, without
receiving projection from ether-a dilemma in
which no American citizen should ever be placed.
Neither have you Inexperienced my opinion in
respect to the African slave trade. That question
seriously disturbed the harmony of the convention
which framed the Federal Constitution. Upon it
the delegates divided into two parties under crcum-
stances which, for time, rendered harmonious ac-
ton hopeless The one demanded the instant and
unconditional prohibition of the African slave trade,
on moral and religious grounds while the other in
sisted that it legitimate commerce, involving
no other consideration than a sound public policy,
which each State ought to be permitted to determine
for ITSELF so long as it was sanctioned by its own
laws. Each party stood firmly and resolutely by its
own position until both became convinced that this
vexed question would break up the convention, de-
stroy the Federal Union blot out the glories of the
Revolution and throw away all its blessings, unltss
some fair and just compromise could be formed on
the common ground of such mutual concessions as
were indispensable to the preservation of their lib
critics, Union and independence.
Such compromise was effected and incorporated
into the Constitution, by which it was understood
that the African slave trade might continue as leg
itmate commerce in those States whose laws sane
toned it until the year 1908, from and after which
time Congress might and would prohibit it forever,
throughout the dominion and limits of the United
States and pass all laws which might become neces-
sary to make such prohibition efectual. The har-
mony of the convention was restored, and the Union
saved by this compromise, without which the Con-
stitution could never have been made.
stand firmly by this compromise, and by all the
other compromises of the Constitution and shall
use my best efforts to carry each and all of them
INTO faithful execution, in the sense and with the
understanding in which they were originally adopt
ed. In accordance with this compromise | am ir-
reconcilably opposed the revival of the African
slave trade, in any form and under any crcunl-
stances.
am, with great respect,
Yours, truly,
S. A. DOUGLAS