The weekly Mississippian. [volume] (Jackson, Miss.) 1859-1864, 1860-03-21

! State ana the CONSTITUTION OF the OHlIeu
States Such is our position. 1t is to array
& prejudice, which does not justly attach to US
/ TO assume that we have ever sought to exclude
any citizen from any State or Territory from
going into any Territory and there possessing
| all the right which we claim to ourselves.
/ We have heard time and again this session,
| the point made against the democratic party,
/ that they were hedging themselves behind the
| decision of the Supreme Court If this had
been presented in the beginning, it might have
some fairness but, after years OF conflict, and
| after we had found it utterly impossible ever
| to reach conclusion satisfactory to both sides
/ in other words, to enact a law which would
answer the purpose-we then agreed to post
| pone a question judicial in its character, and
thus agreed to be bound, legislatiyely and po-
liticalIy, by the decision which that judicial
question should receive. Now, the Senator,
pleads to the jurisdiction as though we had
ever asserted that the Supreme Court could
decide political question; but he was bound
in honor, and so werea all who acted with him,
to abide by the decision Of an umpire TO which
they had themselves referred the case. We
but claim from them that to which we pledged
ourselves, and that to which they were mu-
tualIy pleged when this position was taken by
the two Houses Of Congress.
But the Senator in his zeal depicts the negro
sIave of the South as human being reduced
to the condition of mere chatte Is it pos
sible that the Senator did not know that the
negro slave in every Southern State was still
a person, protected by the laws which punish
| crime in other persons Could the Senator
| have failed to know that no master could take
the life of or MAIN his slave without being
| held responsible under the criminal laws Of
any Southern State, and held to q response
| biity as rigid as though the negro had been
white man ? How, then, is it asserted that
| thes2 are not persons in the eye Of the law,
not protected by the law as persons The
venerable Senator from Kentucky knows very
well that this is not law in any State of the
Union where slaves are held, but that every
| where they are protected that the criminal
law covers them as perfectly as it covers the
white man. Save in the respect Of credibility
as witness, there is nothing
/ Mn. CRITTENpEN. Will the gentleman al
| low me word ?
| MR. DAVIS. Certainly.
! Nh. CRIrTENDEN. | have not made any
particular examination as to the laws Of all
| the slave States but l believe they all con-
tain the provisions for the protection of slaves
| that are alluded to. In my own State of Ken
lucky, l am glad to say, they go much further;
and the slave there, who is cruelty treaty by
| his master, may make an appeal to the Court
of the county in which he lives, and upon
proof of the cruelty with which he has been
treated the court may take him from his mas
| ter and sell him to a more merciful one. That
is the law of my State.
| Mr.. DAVIS. Several Southern Senators
around have spoken to me to the effect that
in each of their States the protection is Sc
cured, and suit may be instituted at common
law for assault and battery, to protects negro
| as we'll as white man. The condition of
slavery with US is in word, Mr.. President,
nothing but the form of civil government in
stituted for class Of people not fit to govern
themselves. Its exactly what in every State
exists in some form or other. It is that kind
of control which is extended in every North
/ ern State over its conTcts, its lunatics its min
ors, its apprentices. 1t is but form Of civil
government for those who, by their nature,
are not fit to govern themselves. We recog-
nize the fact Of the inleriority stamped upon
| that race of men by the Creator, and from the
| cradle to the grave our Government, as civil
| institution, marks that inferiority. In their
subject and dependent state, they are not the
objects of cruelty as they would be if left TO
| the commission of crime, for which they should
be incarcerated in penitentaries and work
| houses, and put under hired oyerseers, having
no interest in them and no relation to them,
no utilization growing out Of the associations of
| childhood and the tender care of age. Is
| there nothing Of the balm needed in the Sena
! tors own State that he must needs go abroad
TO seek objects of charity and philanthropy
What will he say those masses in New York
now memorializing for something very like an
agrarian law What will be say to the
throngs Of beggars who crowd the streets Of
| his great commercial emporium What will
he say to the multitudes collected in the peni-
tentiaries and prisons Of his own State?
seek not, sir, to inquire into the policy and
| propriety Of the institutions Of other States
| assume not to judge their fitness ; it belongs
to the community to judge, and | know not
undec what difficulties they may have been
| driven TO what | cannot approve but never
/ sir, have seen anything that so appealed to
every feeling of humanity and manliness as
the suffering Of the poor children imprisoned
| in your juvenile Neutrality-suspicious.
before they were old enough to know the ma
ture Of crime-there held to such punishment
as we never inflict save upon those of mature
| years. arraign you not for this !; I know
not what your crowded population and in
creasiDg want may demand know not how
| far it may be the necessary result of rime
which follows in the footsteps Of misery
| know not how far the parents have become de-
| graded, and how far the children have become
outeast, and how far it may have devolyed on
| the State to take charge of them but, l
thank my God, that in the state of society
| where l reside, we have no scenes so revolt
ting as these.
| Why not address yourselves to the evils
which you have at home? Why not confine
your inquiries to the remedial measures which
will relieve the suffering and stop the progress
| of crime among your own people :? Very in
| tent in looking into the distance sthe mote
in your brothers eye, is it to be wondered
| that we turn back and point to the beam in
| your own.
EATING PARTRIDGEs. is q fact well
known to physicians, to many laymen by sad
experience that at certain seasons of the year
the meat of the American partridge is poison
GUS. This is owing to the fact (atleast such
is the reason giyen,) that in the Winter the
partridge is forced to feed upon the leaf ofthe
laurel. This leafand its extract, laurel water
though they may be consumed with IMMUNITY
by the partridge, are poisonous to the human
system. Ina volume Of medical essays pub
lished in Boston last winter, by a veteran
physician, this subject is treated at length, and
many cases are cited. 1t is no objection to
the theory, that partridge is eaten with impuni-
ty every day. Some persons take arsenic
without pain. But should whole family be
thrown into commissions during an after dinner
sesta, the suspicion of strychnine in connec-
ton with the cook might be plausibly substitu-
ted for the fact of the laurel fed partridge that
came in as an entree.