Cincinnati daily press. [volume] (Cincinnati [Ohio]) 1860-1862, 1860-12-04

the knee to the popular sovereignty Or
abolition Bssl; but who are ready-to use
the words Of the Carthage Platform-fOr
athe adoption ofthat whole truth which has,
in the progress of discussion, been arrived
att and will maintain the rights of the
South on their true ground, which, they
claim, has not been done by the Northern
Democracy hitherto.
1t was reasonable that after such preten-
sions, and from party which has yet no po-
litical ascendancy to risk by taking true
ground we should expect from the State
rights Democracy of Hamilton County, a
position which would at least be satisfactory
to the South, and which would convince
them that if the State-rights Democracy of
Hamilton County had their way, the de-
mands of the South would be satisfied, and
all would be peace and harmony.
The address is devoted almost entirely to
history of the way the Democratic Party
has been misled, and to an exhibit of the
way il should have been done, and would
have been done if another hand had worked
the bellows; and to showing how cold
Whiggery" has got possession of the De-
mocracy--a kind Of doctrine not calculated
to soothe the leading element of the South
ern Democracy. There is little, if any, posi-
tive doctrine in the address, except the
admission of the justice of what is termed
by the Douglas men, "a slave code,n and a
declaration that the election of Lincoln is a
sufficient cause for secession, or at least will
be if it is repeated after the State-rights
Democracy of Hamilton County have tried
their hands at The reins. But we suppose
that communication of the author to the
Commercial defending the address, contains
the principle of the State-rights Democ-
racy of Hamilton County on slavery and
popular sovereignty. From it we take the
following:
"SldVe tenures exist over persons and not
domain, and over whomsoever it does so exist
legally in the United States, it continues to
do so, until abrogated in due course of law,
and suppose we do not differ as TO what
that due course is. 1t must either he done
by manumission, or by a sovereignty, such
as State in the proper manner"
We understand by this, that rights of
slave property acquired in the States may
be carried into the Territories, where they
cannot be voided except by aState Constitu-
ton. The same doctrine is expressed by the
same author, in the Carthage Platform of the
State rights Democracy of Hamilton County,
as follows:
"Resolved: That the provision Of the Con-
stitution which provides that full faith and
credit shall be given to the records of the
several States, clearly implies that the re-
lations the inhabitants of States bear to each
other, before migrating into the Territories,
continue all over the Territory of the United
States until it conflicts with laws passed by
sovereign authority.
The sovereign authority" mentioned in
the resolution, which only can abolish slag-
cry, is shown to be State sovereignty by the
previous quotation. We believe that it is
generally held by the South that the Federal
Government may do that in a Territory
which State sovereignty can do in a State
But they hold that sovereignty has no power
over property except to protect it. Practi-
cally it would be trifling loss to the South
to exclude slave property from the Terrific
ries. At least no body would be deprived
of his property by it. But to seduce the
owner of this property into the Territories,
and foster and protect it there by Federal
laws, and then permit it to be coniscated by
a popular majority in the formation of a
State Constitution, would exceed any thing
which even the radical Abolitionists have
ever proposed.
1t is difficult to see the use of putting any
such thing in platforms or addresses; and to
call such a monstrous doctrine shat whole
truth which has in the progress of discussion
been arrived at" seems like a Hamilton
County States-rights joke. The tenure of
slave property, legally existing in Terri
tory, can in no wise be changed by the
change to a State government. Political
principles revolve on their own axis once 9
year, or oftener; but rights of property are
eternal Has a new State any more power
over existing slave property, than an old
oBe2 Who supposes that popular majority
in Kentucky could abolish slavery? Yet
this seems TO be the doctrine of the States
rights Democracy of Hamilton County.
The majority of men in any of the slave
States are not shareholders. In some Of
States suffrage is, in some degree restricted
by property qualifications, but in the North
all parties believe in unrestricted suffrage o.
white men. Circumstances may easily make
the non-slaveholders desirous to get rid o
slavery; and according TO this Estate
rights theory they may, in such State a
Kentucky, vote hundred millions of tn
property Of their neighbors out of existence
The power which can do that can vote thi
property out of its neighbors hands into it
own. The vote-yourself-a-farm plan hs
been regarded as a tolerably easy way 70
lazy men to get living; but that is throw
in the shade by this principle by whic
every man may vote away his neighbor
negroes.
Such are the falaeies on this question int
which politicians run, in their efforts
make it serve their purposes. And in Ii
effort to take State-rights ground, it
assumed that State-that is a majority
the people of State-has a sovereign rigl
over the property of its citizens. win tn
doctrine be likely to pursuade the South
wait one Presidential term more, before the
dissolbe the Union, in order to see what II
State rights Democracy of Hamilton CouI
ty can do for them2
An Item.