Bellows Falls times. [volume] (Bellows Falls, Vt.) 1856-1965, 1860-03-30

'llhe OF me adoption OF The Constitution till
now. For lack of room we omit this por-
tion of the speech, which deals with mat
tcrs with which our readers are familiar
and commence again at the point where Mr.
Seward comes to deal with present issues
In this new and extreme position the
Democratic party now masks itself behind
the battery of the Supreme Court, as if it
were possibly true construction of the
Constitution, that the power of deciding
practically forever between freedom and
slavery, in portion of the continent far
exceeding all that is yet organized, should
be renou1ced by Congress, which alone pos
sesses any legislative authority, and should
be assumed and exercised by a court which
can only take cognizance Of the question
collatcraly, in private action between in
dividuals, and which action the Constitution
will not suffer the court to entertain, if it
involves twenty dollars of money, without
the overruling Intervention of jury of
twelve good and lawful men of the neigh
borhood where the litigation arises. The
Independent, ever-reuewed and ever-rccur-
ring representative Parliament, Diet, Con-
gress, or Legislature, is the one chief, para
mount, essential, indispensable institution in
Republic. Even liberty guaranteed by
organic law, yet if it be held by other ten
ure than the guardian care of such rep
resentative popular assembly, is but preca-
rlously maintained, while slavery, enforced
by an irresponsible judicial tribunal, is the
completest possible development Of despot-
ism.
Mr. President, did ever the annals of any
government show more rapid or more
complete departure from the wisdom and
virtue of its founders? Did ever the gov
ernment of great empire, founded on the
rights of human labor. slide away so fast
aud so far, and moor itself so tenaclonsly
on the basis of capital, and that capital in
vested in laboring men? Did ever free
representative Legislature, invested with
powers so great, and with the guardianship
of rights so important, Of trusts so sacred,
of interests so precious, and of hopes at
once so noble and so comprehensive, sur
render and renouuce them all so necessari-
ly, so unwisey, so fatally, and so inglorious-
ly? If it be true, rs every instinct of our
nature and every precept of political eX-
perience teaches US, that
'sIlI fares the land to hastening ills prey,
Where wealth accumuatas and men decay
then where in Ireland, in Italy, in Poland
or in Hungary, has any ruler prepared for
a generous and confding people disappoint-
ments, disasters and calamities equal to
those which the Government of the United
States holds now suspended over so large a
portion of the continent of North Ameri-
ca?
Citizens of the United States, in the spir
it Of this policy, subverted the free Repub-
lie of Nicaragua, and opened 1t to slavery
and the African Eias.e trade, and held it in
that condition waiting annexation to the
United States, until its sovereignty was re-
stored by a combination of sister Republics
exposed to the same danger, and apprehen-
siye of similar subversion. Other citizens
re-opened the foreign slaye-trade in viola
ton of our laws and treaties; and, after
suspension of that shameful traffic for fifty
wears. savage Africans have been once
more landed on our shores and distributed,
unreclaimed and with impunity, among our
plantations.
For this policy, so far as the government
has sanctioned it, the Democratic party
avows itself responsible. Everywhere COM
plant against it is denounced, and its oppo-
nents prescribed. When Kanzas was wrilh-
inc under the wounds of incipient, servile
war, because Of her resistance, the Demo-
cratic press deridingly said, "let her bleed y
Official integrity has been cause for rebuke
and punishment, when it resisted frauds de-
signed to promote the extension OF slavery.
Throughout the whole Republic there is not
one known dissenter from that policy re-
naming in place, if within reach of the ex-
ecutive arm. Nor over the face OF the
whole world is. there to be found one repre-
sentative of our country who is not an apol-
oeist of the extension of slavery.
1t is in America that these things have
happened. In the nineteenth century, the
era of tho worlds greatest progress, and
while all nations but ourselves have been
either abridging or altogether suppresslng
commerce in men; at the very moment
when the Russian serf is emancipated, and
the Georgian captive, the Nubian prisoner,
and the Abyssinian savage are Lifted up to
freedom by the successor Of Mohammed.
The world, prepossessed in our behalf by
our early devotion TO the rights OF human
nature. rs no nation ever before engaged It's
respect and sympathies, asks. in wonder and
amazement, what all this demorailzatlon
mears? 1t has an excuse better than the
world can imagine. better than we are gen
erallv conscious of ourselves, virtuous eX-
cuse. We have loved not freedom so much
less. but the Union of our country so much
more. We have been made TO believe, from
time to time. that, in crisis, both of these
precious institutions could not be saved to-
aether. and therefore we have. from time
to time surrendered safeguards OF freedom
TO pronitiate the loyalty of capital, AMI stay
its hands from doing violence to the Union.
The true state of the case, however, ongit
not to he a mystery 10 ourselves Pre-
science. indeed. is not given to statesmen !;
but we are without excuse when we fail to
apprehcnd the logic OF current events. Let
parties. or the government, choose or do
what they may, the people of the United
States do not prefer wealth to liberty, cap
ital TO labor, African slaves to white free
men. in the national Territories and in fu-
ture States. That question has never been
distinctly recognized or acted on by them
/ The Republican party embodies the popu-
/ lar rpro.est and react on against policy
which has been fastened upon the nation by