The Buchanan County guardian. (Independence, Buchanan County, Iowa) 1858-1864, 1860-06-20
The Results of Popular Sovereignty.

Inc results OF Popular Sovereignty.
Efs" Reader, when a Democrat says
to you, as Democrats here at the North
have been wont to say, that the princi-
pie of Popular Sovereignty is a measure
of freedom-destined to operate in favor
of the North--a surer guarantee of the
triumph of free labor than the old Jeffer-
sonian policy of the government, just
read TO him the following extract from
the late speech in the Senate of the Uni
ted States, of the great apostle of non
intervention, STEPHEN A. DoUGLAs.-
Here we have that demagogue urging
this doctrine, not upon the ground that
it has developed the resources of the
country-not because it has given us
peace and quietness-not because it has
advanced the cause of right, of justice,
of humanity-not because it has helped
to carry out any of the objects mention
ed in the preamble to the Constitution Of
the United Statesmen because of any
thing of this kind, but he asks that it
shall be supported by the South because
it has increased the area of .Slavery-
because it has given over New Mexico
to that system-because tract of free
territory five times as large as the State
Of New York has, by it, been changed
to SLAVE territory--because it has carried
the boundaries Of slavery one and half
degrees further North than even the
South had asked that it should go-be-
cause it will also give to slavery the
Northern States of Mexico, when they
are acquired. These are the reasons,
and who ever heard of baser, a more
detestable argument? Who could crawl
in the dirt farther than this? Who
could beg more abjectly for the olgarch's
favor? Who could more villainously
exult over the defeat of freedom Who
could more evidence his expectation of
slavery's further triumph, and his indif
ference thereto =? Who believes that
STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS has not laid every
humanitarian impulse, every particle of
moral principle, every regard for natur
al rights, on the altar of his ambition,
and that he is ready now, as he always
has been ready, to make everything sub
serve his greed for place and power ?
But listen to his argument, in his speech
delivered May 9Th and 10th:
But, we are told that the necessary result of
this doctrine of non-interventon, which gentle
men, by way of throwing ridicule upon, call
squatter sovereignty, is to deprive the South of
all participation in what they call the common
Territories of the United States. n
Has the South been excluded from all the ter
ritory acquired from Mexico? What says the
bill from the House of Representatives now on
your table, repeating the slave code in New
Mexico established by the people themselves
1T is part of the history of the country that I'M
der this doctrine of non intervention, this doc
trine that you delight to call squatter sovereign
ty, the people of New Mexico have introduced
and protected slavery in the whole of that Ter {
rtory. Under this doctrine, they have convert
ed tract of free territory, more than five times
the size of the State of New York. Under this q
doctrine, slavery has been extended from the
Rio Grande to the Gulf of California, and from ,
the line of the Republic of Mexico, not only up
to SO deg. 80 min, but up to 80 deg-giving
you degree and half more slavery territory .
than you ever claimed. In ls4S and l649 and
1850 you only asked to have the line of SO deg. /,
80 min. The Nashville convention fixed that )
as its ultimatum. / offered it in the Senate in
August, ls4S, and it was adopted here but re- !
j ected in the House of Representatives. You
asked only up to 36 deg, 80 min and non in ,
teryention has given you slave territory up to
80 deg. a degree and half more than YOU ask :
ed and yet you say that that is sacrifice of
southern rights
These are the fruits Of this principle, which i.
the Senator from Mississippi regards as hostile
to the rights of the South Where did YOU ey- |
er get any other fruits that more palatable
to your taste, refreshing to your siren 9Th?
What other inch of free territory has been con-
verted into slave territory on the American con-
tinent, since the Revolution, except in New
Mexico and Arizona, under the principle of
affirmed at Charleston Iii
be true that this principle of nonintervention
has confirmed upon you all that immense Ter
ritory has protected slavery in that compare
lively northern and cold region where you did
not expect it to 90, cannot you trust the same
principle further South when you come to nc
quire additional territory from Mexico? If it
be true that this principle of non-intervention
has given to slavery all New Mexico. which was
surrounded on nearly every side by free Terri
tory, will not the same principle protect you in
the northern States of Mexico when they are ac-
CURED, since they are now surrounded by slave
territory are several hundred miles further
South !; have many degrees of greater heat and
hayea climate and soil adapted to southern
products Are you not satisfied with these
practical results ?
''StatiOnery BoOts.,'