The weekly pioneer and Democrat. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn. Territory) 1855-1865, 1860-08-31
ISSUES FOR 1860!
The Dividing Line Between
Federal g. Local Authority.
POPULAR SOVEREIGNTY In TERRITORIES.
BY Stephen A. Douglas.

From Ha-per's Magazine for September.
Under our complex system of govern
ment it is the first duty of American states
men to mark distinctly the dividing line be
tween federal and local authority. To do
this with accuracy involves an inquiry, not
only into the powers and duties of the feder-
al government under the constitution, but
also into the rights, privileges, and immuni-
ties of the people of the Territories, as well
as OF the States composing the Union. The
relative powers and functions of the federal
and State governments have become we'll
understood and clearly defined by their
practical operation and harmonious action
for long series of years; while the disput-
ed question-involving the right of the
people of the territories to govern them
selves in respect to their local affairs and
internal polity-remains fruitful source of
partisan strife and sectional controversy.
The political organization which was FORM
ed in 1854, and has assumed the name of
the Republican party, is based on the theory
that African slavery, as it exists in this
country, is an evil of such magnitude
social, moral and politicians to justify and
require the exertion of the entire power and
iuuuCuCC VI luC iCOOidi SONCiuiuCuC W IuC
full extent that the constitution, according
to their Interpretation, will permit, for its
ultimate extinction. In the platform of
principles, adopted at Philadelphia by the
Republican national convention in 1866, it
is affirmed:
THAT the constitution confers upon Con-
gress sovereign power over the territories OF
the United States for their government and
Al. hotI, <1a
right and the duty of Congress to prohibit in the
territories those twin relics of barbarism,
polygamy and slavery"
According to the theory of the Republl-
can party there is an irrepressible conflict
between freedom and slavery, free labor and
slave labor, the free States and the slave
States, which is irreconcilable, and must con-
tinue to rage with increasing fury until the
one shall become universal by the annihia-
tion of the other. In the language of the
most eminent and authoritative expounder
of their poical faith:
at is an irrepressible conflict between oppO.
sing and enduring fOrces and it means that the
United States must and will, sooner or later,
become either entirely slaveholding nation or
entirely a ee-labor nation. Either the cotton
and rice fields of South Carolina, and the sugar
titled by free labor, and Charleston and New
Orleans become marts for legitimate merchan.
disc alone, else the rye fields and wheat fields
of Massachusetts and New York must again be
surrendered by the farmers to slave culture and
to the production of slaves, and Boston and
New York become once more markets for trade
in the bodies and souls of men,"
In the Illinois canvass of 1858 the same
proposition was advocated and defended by
the distinguished Republican standard bear
er in these words:
SIN my opinion it 1.-THE slavery agitation] will
not cease until crisis shall have been reached
and passed. "A house divided against itself
cannot stand l believe this government
cannot endure permanently half slave and hal
rec. do not expect the house to fall. but
do expect it will cease to be divided. 1t will
become all one thing or ell the other. Either
the opponents of slavery will arrest the further
spread of it, and place it where the public
mind shall rest in the belief that it is in the
course of ultimate extinction, or its advocates
will push forward till it shall become alike law
full in all the States-old as we'll as new, North
as well as South
Thus, it will be seen, that under the aus
pices of a political party, which claims SOW.
ereignty in Congress over the subject of
slavery, there can be no peace on the slavery
questiOn-no truce in the sectional strife
no fraternity between the North and the
South, so long as this Union remains as our
fathers made it-divided into free and slave
States, with the right on the part of each to
retain slavery so long as it chooses, and to
abolish it whenever it pleases.
On the other hand, it would be nncandid
to deny that, while the Democratic party is
a unit in its irreconcilable opposition to the
doctrines and principles of the Republican
party, there are radical differences of opin-
ion in respect to the powers and duties of
Congress, and the rights and immunities of
the people of the territories under the fed
eral constitution, which seriously disturb its
harmony and threaten its integrity. These
differences of opinion arise from the differ
ent interpretations placed on the constitution
by people who belong to the following classes:
First-Those who believe that the Consti-
tuition of the United States neither estab-
fishes nor prohibits slavery in the States or
Territories beyond the power of the people
legally to control it, but ''leaves the peoples
thereof perfectly free to form and regulate
their domestic institutions in their own way,
subject only to the Constitution of the Uni
ted States"
Second-Those who believe that the con-
stitution establishes slavery in the territories,
and withholds from Congress and the terri
al legislature the power to control it; and
who insist that, in the event the territorial
legislature fails to enact the requisite laws for
its protection, it becomes the imperative du.
ty of Congress to interpose its authority
and furnish such protection.
Ihird-Those who, while protesting to
believe that the constitution establishes sla-
very in the territories beyond the power of
Congress or the territorial legislature to con.
troll it, at the same time protest against
the duty of Congress to interfere for its pro-
lection, but insist that it is the duty of the
judiciary to protect and maintain slavery in
the territories without any law upon the
subject. ra.,
By a careful examination of the second
and third propositions, it will be seen that
the advocates of each agree on the theoreti-
cal question, that the constitution establishes
slavery in the territories, and compels them
IN have If whether they want it or not and