The daily exchange. [volume] (Baltimore, Md.) 1858-1861, 1860-03-02

free labor and capital labor for the Territories tt
its proper solution, through the trials OF the bal
lot, operating directly indirectly on the various
departments OF the government, a band OF eXcep'
tional men, contemptuous equally of that grea
question and of the parties to the controversy and
impatient of the constitutional system which con
nea the citizens of every State to political actor
by suffrage in organized parties within their OWL
borders, inspired by an enthusiasm peculiar tc
themselves, and exasperated by grievances and
wrongs that some of them had suffered by inroads
of armed propagandists of slavery in Kansas, I'M
lawful as their own retaliation was attempted to
subvert slavery in Virginia by conspiracy, am
bush, invasion and force. The method we have
adopted, of appealing to the reason and judgment
OF the people, to be pronounced by suffrage, is the
only one by which free government can be main
| tanned anywhere, and the only one as yet devised
which is in harmony with the spirit of the Chris
tian religion.
While generous and charitable natures will pro-
badly concede that John Brown and his associates
acted on earnest, though fatally erroneous convic
tons yet all good citizens will nevertheless agree
that this attempt to execute unlawful purpose
in Virginia by invasion, involving servile war,
act Of sedtinn and treason and criminal to just
the extent that it affected the public peace, and was
destructive OF human happiness and human liie 1t
is painful reflection that, after so long expert
ence of the benefcent working of our system as
we have enjoyed, we have had these new illustra-
tons in Kansas and Virginia of the existence among
us of class of men misguided and so desperate
as to seek to enforce their peculiar principles by
the sword, drawing after it need for the further
illustration of their punishment of that great moral
truth, especially applicable in republic, that they
who take up the sword as weapon of controvers
shall perish by the sword In the latter case, the
lamented deaths of many citizens slain from an
ambush and by surprise-all the more amentabe
because they were innocent victims of a frenzy
kindled, without their agency, in far distant fires
the deaths even of the offenders themselves pitt
able, although necessary and just, because they
acted under deirium, which blinded their judg-
ments to the real nature of their criminal enter
prise; the alarm and CONSERVATION naturally awaken
ed throughout the country, exciting for the mo-
ment the fear that whole system, with all its
securities for life and liberty, was coming to an
end-a lear none the more endurable because con-
tinually aggravated by new chimeras, to which the
great leading event lent air of probability;
ly all these constituted a of public misery
which ought to have satisfied the most morbid appe-
tite for social horrors. But, in the OF the
gunpowder plot, and the Salem witchcraft and the
New York colonial negro plot, so now, the original
actors were swiftly followed by another and kin
dred class, who sought to prolong and widen the
public distress by attempting to direct the indigna
ton which it had excited against parties guiltess
equally of completely and of sympathy with the
offenders. Posterity will decide in all the recent
cases where political responsibility for public disas
tiers must fall; and posterty will give little heed to
our instructions.
THE COMPROMISE OF 1850.
The two great parties, fearful for the Union
STRUCK nanuS IN making ana presenting TINS as an
adjustment, never afterward to be opened, disturb
ed or even questioned, and the people accepted it
by maOrities unknown before The new President
chosen illustrious rival, unequivocRlly on
the ground of greater ability, even if not more
liable purpose to maintain the treaty invioate,
made haste to justify this expectation when Con-
gress assembled. He said:
''When the grave shall have closed over all who
are now endeavoriBg to meet the obligations of
duty, the year 1850 will be required to as a period
filled with and onprahansi0n A nj
.4;iH"t,u, peace blU 10 q.
great augmentation of territory Disturbing aues-
tions arose bearing upon the domestic nstitu lions
of a portion of the COnfederacy, and involving the
Constitutional rights of the States But, notwith-
standing differences OF opinion and sentiment, in re-
lation to details and specific provisions the acqui-
essence of distinguished citizens, whose devotion
to the Union can never be doubted, has given re-
newed vigor to our institutions, and restored sense
OF security and repOse to the public mind through
out the Confederacy. That this repose is to suffer
shock during my official term, if have the power
to avert it, those who placed me here may be
assured"
THE KANsAs-NEBRAsKA BILL.
Hardly, however, had these inspiring sounds died
away, throughout treasured and delighted land
before the national repose was shocked again
shocked, indeed, as it had never before been, and
smitten this time by blow from the very hand
that had just released the chords of the national
harp from their utterance of that exalted sympho-
ny of peace. Kansas and Nebaska, the long devo-
agony of national fear in 1920, and saved again in
the panic of 1850, were now to be opened BY Con
gress, that the neverending course of seed-time
and harvest might begin. The slave capitalists of
Missouri, from their well assured homes on the
Eastern banks of their noble river, looked down
upon and coveted the fertile praires of Kansas;
while sudden terror ran through all the capital
States, when they saw seeming certainty that at
last new labor State would be built on their
Western border, inevitably fraught, as they said,
with near or remote abolition of slavery. What
could be done? Congress could hardly be expected
to intervene directly for their safety so soon after
the compromise of 1850 The labor hive of the
free States was distant, the way new, unknown
and not without perils. Missouri was near and
watchful, and held the keys of the gates of Kansas
She might seize the new and smiling Territory BY
surprise, if only Congress would remove the bar
rier estab ished in 1920
The onjecture favorable. CLAW and Web
ster, the distinguished citizens whose unauestion-
able devotion to the Union was manifested by their
acquiescence in the compromise of 1885, had gone
down already into their honored graves. The labor
States had dismissed many of their representatives
here for too great fidelity to freedom, and too
great distrust of the efficacy of that bond Of
peace, and had replaced them with partisans who
were only timid, but not unwilling. The Demo-
cratic President and Congress hesitated, but not
long. They revised the last great compromise
and found with delighted surprise, that it was so
far from confirming the law of freedom of 1920
that on the other hand it exactly provided for the
aorogatlon oil that venerated statute; nay that the
compromise itself actually killed the spirit of the
Missouri law, and devolved on Congress the duty
OF removing the lifeless letter from the national
code.
The deed was done. The new enactment not on
ly repealed the Missouri prohibition of slavery but
it pronounced the people of Kansas and Nebraska
perfectly free to establish freedom or slavery and
pledged Congress to admit them in due time as
States, either of capital or of labor into the Union.
The wing representatives of the capital States in
q n MT CTR hatry.1 lo,,
the Wing party instantly went down, never to rise
again. Democrats seeded, and stood aloof; the
country was COMPOUNDED; and, amid the perpexi-
ties OF the hour, Republican party was seen gath
erlng itself together with much earnestness but
with little show of organization to rescue if it were
not now too late, the cause of freedom and labor
so unexpectedly and grievousy imperiled in the
Territories of the United States.
will not lnger the sequel. The popular
sovereignty of Kansas proved to be the State SOW
eregnty of Missouri not only in the persons of the
rulers, but even in the letter of an arbitrary and
cruel code. The perfect freedom proved to be
hateful and intolerabe bondage. From 1855 to 1860
Kansas, sustained and encouraged only bv the Re-
publican party, has been engaged in successive and
ever-varying struggles, which have taxed all her
virtue, wisdom, moderation, energies and resour-
ces, and often even her physical strength and mar
tal courage, to save herself from being BETRAYED
into the Union as slave State. Nebraska, though
choosing freedom, is through the direct exercise of
the executive power, overriding her own will held
as u slave anu new mexico mas reapsed
voluntarily into the practice of slavery, from which
shehad redeemed herselfwhie she yet remained a
part of the Mexican republic. Hr'.
REMARKS OF Mr.. DOUGLAS
Mr.. Douglas said the remarks of the Senator
from New York contained an assault upon the
Democratic party, especially in relation to the
Kansas N ebraska bill, of which he (Mr. Douglas
as,the author. 1t becomes fashionable, said he
now for each gentleman who makes a speech
against the Democratic party to refer to Kansas as
the cause of all the disturbances which have since
ensued. The Senator from New York talks about
that act reopening the controversy, and about the
repeal of the Missouri compromise. Sir, wherein
consisted the necessity for the repeal of that act
except it was that the majority in Northern States
refuse to carry it out in good faith? l. SIR stood
willing to extend it to the Pacific Ocean to abide
by it forever, and the entire South, without one
exception in this body, willing thus to abide
by it. Sir, the free soil element of the Northern
States so strong to defeat that measure. and
thus opened the slavery question anew. Those
men who now complain of the abrogation of that
act were the very men that denounced it. All
were willing to abide by it so long as it stood
upon the statute-books, and we were trying to
carry it out. 1855 t,e Hst
Sir, it was the defeat of the bill to extend the
Missouri compromise to the Pacific in the House of
Representatives, after it passed the Senate that
opened the controversy of 1850, which was termi-
mated in the establishment of the measure of that
year. The compromise measures of that year were
carried over the heads of the Senator from New
York and his associates; but in 1852 the Senator's
party agreed to abide by the measures of 1850 In
1854 the Kansas Nebraska act was passed to carry
out the principles of these measures He was not
willing to sit still and hear himself charged with
responsibility for the agitation which belonged tn