Delaware gazette. [volume] (Delaware, Ohio) 1855-1886, 1860-03-16

might it regard him a person, and harbor
and protect him as man? They compromi-
sed again, and decided that no person held to
labor or service in one State, by the laws
thereof, shall, by any law or regulation of that
State, be discharged from such labor or service,
but shall be delivered up on claim to the per-
son to whom such labor or service shall be
due.
Free laborers would emigrate, and slaves
might be imported into the United States
The fathers agreed that Congress may estab-
lish uniform laws of naturalization, and it
might prohibit the importation Of persons af-
ter 1908. Communities in the Southwest, de-
tached from the Southern States, were growing
up in the practice of slavery, to be capital
States. New States would soon grow up in
the Northwest, while as yet capital stood aloof
and labor had not lifted the ak to begin there
its endless but beni6cient task. The fathers
authorized Congress to make all needful rules
and regulations concerning the management
and disposition of the public lands, and to ad-
NIT new States. So the Constitution, while
it does not disturb or affect the system of cap
ital in slaves existing it any State under its
own laws, does, at the same time, recognize
every human being, when within any exclusive
sphere of human jurisdiction, not as capital,
but as a person.
What was the action of the fathers in Con
gress? They admitted the new States of the
Southwest capital States, because it was
practically impossible to do otherwise, and by
the ordinance of 1857, confirmed in 1889 they
provided for the organization and admission of
Only labor States in the \ Northwest. They di-
rected fugitives from service to be restored, not
as chattels, but as persons. They awarded
naturalization to immigrant free laborers and
they prohibited the trade in African labor
This disposition of the whole subject was in
harmony with the condition OF society, and, in
the man, with the spirit of the age. The sew
en- Northern States contentediy became labor
States by their own acts. The six Southern
States, with equal tranquility and by their own
determination, remained capital States,
The circumstances which the fathers did not
clearly foresee were two, namely: the reinvig-
Grafton of Slavery consequent on the increas
ed consumption of cotton, and the extension
of the national domain across the Mississippi,
and these occurred before 1929. The State of
settlement, within newly acquired Louisiana
an Territory, had then already been admitted
into the Union. There yet remained, however,
a vast region, which included Arkansas and
Missouri, together with the unOccupied and
even unnamed Kansas and Nebraska. Ar
kansas, slaveholGing community, near V
ready to apply, and Missouri, another such
Territory, was actually applying for admission
into the Federal Union. The existing CH;i-
tai States seconded these applications, and
claimed that the whole Luusian.an Territory
was rightfuIly open to Slavery, and to the or
ganizaton of future Slave Stat 5. The labor
States maintained that Congress had supreme
legislative power within the domain, and could
and ought to exclude Slavery there. The
question thus opened was one which related
not al all to Slavery in the existing Capital
States. It was purely and simply national
question whether the common interest OF tie
whole Republic required that Arkansas, Mis-
souri, Kansas and Nebraska, sh0ud become
Capital States, with al the evils and dangers
of Slavery, or be Labor $ ates, with al the
security, benefits and blessings of freedom.-
On the decision was suspended the question, as
was thoaght whether ultimately the interior
of this new continent should be an asylum Cor
the oppressed and the exile, coming year after
year and age after age voluntarily from every
other civilized land, as we'll as for the children
of misfortune i'll our own, or whether. through
the renewal of the African S!ave-trade, those
magnificent and luXuriant regions should be
subjected to the control of capital, wringing
out the fruit of the earth through the impov-
erishing toll Of negro slaves.
That question of 1920 was identically the
question of 1860, SO far as principle, and even
the field of its app!ics tion was oncerned.-
Every element of the controversy now present
entered it then the rightfullness or wrongful
ness of Slavery; its effects, present and future ;
the Constitutional authority of Congress the
claims of the States, and of their citizens the
nature of the Federal Union, whether it is a
compact between the States or an independent
Government, the springs Of its powers, and
the ligatures upon their exercise. All these
were discussed with zeal and ability which has
never been surpassed. History tells us, l know
not how truly, that the Union reeled under the
vchemence OF that great DEBATE. Patriotism
took counsel from prudence, and enforced a
settlement which has proved to be not Il final
ore and which, as is now seen, practically
left open all the great political issues which
were involved. Missouri and Arkansas were
admitted as capital States, while labor obtain
ed, as u reservation, the abridged but YET COM
preheusive field of Kansas and Nebraska.
Now when the present conditions of the va
rious parts of the Louisanan Territory are
observed, and we see that capital retains un-
dirputed possession of what it then obtained,
while labor is convulsing the country with so
prolonged Il struggle to regain the lost equiva-
lent which was then guaranteed to it under
circumstances of so great soiemnity, we may
well desire not to be unteceived if the Missou-
ri Compromise was indeed unnecessarily ac-
cepted by the Free States influenced by cXag-
gerations of the dangers of Disunion. The
Missouri debate disclosed truths of great mo-
ment for ulterior use
| First-That it is easy to combine the capi
tai States in defense of even external interests,
while it is hard to unite the labor States in a
common policy.
Second-That the labor States have a nat
ural loyalty to the Union, while the capital
States have natural facility for alarming that
loyalty by threatening Dsunion.
Third-That the capital States do not prac
tically distinguish between legitimate and con
stitutional resistance to the extension of Slave
ry in the common Territories of the Union
and unconstitutional aggression against Slave
ry established by local laws in the capita
States.
The early political parties were organized
without reference to Slavery. But since 1920
European questions have left us practically un
concerned. There has been great increase
of invention, mining, manufacture, and cult
vation Steam on land and on water ha!
quckened commerce. The press and the tele
: graph have attained prodigious activity, anC
s,,+T, hafx fhn