The Cecil Whig. [volume] (Elkton, Md.) 1841-current, 1860-12-15
])olitilal.
The Presidents Message.

The National Int !lgenccr, with its usna
acumen, thus refers to portions of the late
Message of President Buchanan.
Commencing with an allusion to the uncx.
ampied prosperity of our land in all its mate
rial interests, he mcdiately proceeds to
remark on the public discontents and appre-
tensions which threaten with destruction that
Union of the States so justly recognized by
him rs the source of all the civil blessings we
are now enjoying. These discuntents are
traced by the President to "a long continued
and incorporate interference of the Northern
people with the question of slavery in the
Southern States" Under this head the Mes
sage will probably strike our readers as ling
remarkable more for its omissions than even
Tor the breadth or generality Of its state
ments, as no allusion whatever is made in it
to the historical fact that the {. long -contin-
ued and Incorporate agitation of the
slavery question had come to an almost total
end at the North after the adoption of the
compromise measures of 1850, and if few
years later the unhappy controversy was again
revived, it did not take the form OF political
interference with the question Of slavery in
the Southern State>, but was, as all know, d..
rected to the question in its Territorial rela-
tions.
The observations of the President in refu-
the Constitutional election of President a
cause for dsunion are so selt-evidently lust
and proper that they will commend them
selves to the approval Of all, requiring as they
do, nothing more than their simple sta tement
to carry with them the force of unanSwerable
argument. Equally true are the remarks he
makes respecting the limited range Of the En-
ecutive office, and the conservative character
which must necessarily be impressed on any
incumbent of the Presidential chair 6 by the
very nature of that Office" 1t seems to have
been the patriotic purpose of the President in
these remarks to show how chimerical, and at
the same time how alien to the true theory OF
our Constitutional Government, are any apprc.
tensions derived or pretending to be derived
from this source; and, as if to give additional
force to this consideration. (and perhaps de-
string Intentionally to modify the generality
of his remarks in referring to the long-con-
tinued agitation of the slavery question: the
President proceeds under this head to say
that g no single act has passed Congress, un.
less we may possibly except the NJ issouri
compromise, mparing in the slightest degree
the rights of the South to their property in
slaves" If this be so, it will be apparent that
the incorporate agitation. 50 justly deporcd
by the President, has been very remarkable
for its impotence, since the only aggrcss, act,
proceeding from the Federal Government. OF
which the South has reason to complain, ac-
according to this statement, was committed long
before that agitation, in its modern phase was
begun, while history records that it was main
ly committed by Southern men, and demand
ed by them anew in the year 1850 1t may
strike some minds as not little singular that
the restriction of slavery contained in the leg
islation Of 1870 should be singled out for CON
dcmnation, when the same principle, as cx-