The daily exchange. [volume] (Baltimore, Md.) 1858-1861, 1860-12-05

For the benefit of such of our readers as desire
10 read the Presidents Message in condensed
form, we present the following abstract
The Message commences with the declaration
that since the last meeting of Congress the country
has been eminently prosperous in all its material
interests, and that ''no nation in the tide of time
'has ever presented spectacle CT greater material
prosperity than we have done until within
Every recent period.i TIL, PRECEDENT then asks
why it is that discomfort now so extensively pre-
walls and the Union of the States is threatened
with destruction? The answer 10 this question
he finds in the long continued and Incorporate in
reference of the Northern people with the question
of slavery in the Southern States. The peril
which now menaces the people is not ascribed to
any one or more Of the causes usually assigned,
but ITO the incessant and violent agitation of the
"slavery question throughout the North for the
''last quarter ola century," which has crea,ed an
insubordinate spirit in the slave population by in
spring them with vague notions Of freedom, and
has given place, among the white population of
the South, to apprehensons of servie instruction
If those homes and fireside3 are to be rendered
habitually and hopelessy insecure by the aggres-
sige spirit of the anti slavery party North, sooner
or later the bonds of the Union will be severed
The conviction, however, is expressed, that this
fatal period has not yet arrived But to avert the
danger we are admonished TO take warning in
time, and remove the cause of it. The Message
next treats of the progress of the anli-slavery
movement from 1885 TO the present time and as
serts that it is perfectly easy for the American
people TO settle the slavery question forever and
restore peace and harmony to the Union. They
can do it by simply declaring that the Slave
States shall be let alone and permitted to manage
their domestic institutions in their own way.
They alone rs sovereign States are responsible for
what they do, and not the people of the North,
who have no more right TO interfere there than in
Russia or in Brazil. Reliance is still placed upon
their good sense and forbearauce to avert the peril
which is now impending.
President BUCHANAN does not find, in the cleo
ton of Mr,.LINCoLS, any just cause for dissolving
the Union especially as that election has been eff
fected by mere plurality vote, and under circum-
stances which may never again occur. Referring
TO the argument that the antecedents Of the Presi
dent elect justify the fears of the South that he
will violate their constitutional rights, the PREsI-
DENT asks whether apptehensioDs of contingent
danger viii justify the destruction of the noblest
system Of government ever devised by mortals ?
He moreover declares that President of the
UNITED STATES must be necessarily conservative
from the very nature of his Office. His duties are
wholly executive. Congress is exclusively clothed
with the power to make laws, and the fact is dwet
upon that, with the exception of the Missouri
Compromise, single act has ever passed Congress
impairng in the slightest degree the rights of the
South to their property in slaves. To the demand
of the Southern States for immediate secession, on
the ground that they denied equal rights in the
Territories, the PRESIDENT declares that this denial
is based upon no authority whatever that in his
belief Congress will never pass laws TO exclude |
slavery from the Territories and that, as the SUI
preme Court has sncmuly decided that slaves are
property, lii : "tn he taken into the Territories |
and held there under linz proteclan Of the CJnsti-
tuition. The act of the Kansas Legislature, pro-
hibiting slavery in that Territory, is denounced
as a violation of the Constitutional compact, and
one which would be declared void if the ques-
ton were submitted to the judiciary. ''The
"most papable violations of constitutional duty"
are charged to be those acts of the different State
Legislatures which were intended to defeat
the execution of the fugitive slave law. The fug-
tive slave law has been held to be Constitutional
in all the Courts in which the question has been