The Emporia news. [volume] (Emporia, Kan.) 1859-1881, 1860-03-17

Union. The new Government was to be 8
representative one. Slaves were capital 10
some States, in others capital had no invest
ments in labor. Should those slaves be
represented IS capital or as persons taxed
as capital or as persons or should they
not be represented or taxed at all The
fathers disagreed, debated long, and com
promised at last. Each State, they deter.
mined, shall have two Senators in Congress
Three-fifths of the slaves shall be elsewhere
represented and be taxed as persons. What
should be done if the slave should escape
into labor State? Should that State con-
fess him to be chattel. and restore him as
such or might it regard him as person.
and harbor and protect him as a man
They compromised again. and decided thai
no person held TO labor or service in one
State by the laws thereof, escaping into an.
other, shall, by any law or regulation OF
that State, be discharged from such labor
or service, but shall be delivered up on
claim to the person to whom such labor or
service shall be due.
Free laborers would immigrate, and slaves
might be imported into the States. The
fathers agreed that Congress may establish
uniform laws of naturalization, and it might
prohibit the importation of persons after
1903. Committees in the Southwest, de-
tached from the Southern States, were grow
ing up in the practice of Slavery, to be
capital States. New States would soon
grow up in the North West, while as yet
capital stood aloof, and labor had not lifted
the AK to begin there its endless but benefi-
cent task. The fathers authorized Con-
gress to make all needful rules and regula-
tons concerning the arrangement and dis
position of the public lands, and to admit
new States. So the Constitution, while it
does not disturb or affect the system of cap
ital in slaves, existing in any State under its
own laws, does. at the same time, recognize
every human being when within any exclu-
capital but as person.
What was the action of the fathers in
Congress? They admitted the new States
of the Southwest as capital States, because
it was practically impossible to do other
wise. and, by the ordinance of 1887, con-
6rmed IL 1899, they provided for the or
ganization and admission of only labor
States in the Northwest. They directed
fugitives from service to be restored not as
chattle, but as persons. They awarded
naturalization to immigrant free laborers,
and they prohibited the trade in American
labor. This disposition Of the whole sub
ject was in harmony with the condition of
society, and, in the main, with the spirit OF
the age. The seven Northern States con-
tentedIy became labor States by their own
acts. The six Southern States, with equal
tranquility and by their own determination,
capital States.
The circumstances which the fathers did
not clearly foreseee were two, namely the
of Slavery consequent on the
increased consumption of cotton, and the
of the national domain across the
and these occurred before 1890.
The State of Louisiana, formed on slave
holding French settlement, within the new
yacquired Louisiana Territory, had then
already been admitted into the Union
There yet remained, however, vast region
which included Arkansas and Missouri, to-
gether with the then unoccupied and even
unnamed Kansas and Nebraska. Arkansas.
slaveholding community, was nearly ready
% apply, and Missouri, another such Ter
ritory, was actually applying. for admission
INTO the Federal Union. The existing Cap
tai States seconded these applications, and
claimed that the whole Louisiana Territory
was rightfully open to Slavery, and to the
organization of future Slave States. The
Labor States maintained that Congress had
supreme legislative power within the do
main, and could and ought to exclude Slave
~ there. The question thus opened was
one which related not at all to Slavery in
the existing Capital States. 1t was purely
and simply a national question whether the
common interest of the whole Republic re-
quirpd that Arkansas, Missouri, Kansas,
and Nebraska, should become Capital States.
with all the evils and dangers of Slavery, or
be Labor States, with all the security, bene
fits and blessings of freedom. On the de-
cision WAS suspended the question, as was
thought, whether ultimately the interior of
this new continent should be an asylum for
the oppressed and the exile, coming year af
Ter year and age after age. voluntarily from
very other civilized land, as well as for the
children of misfortune in our own, or
through the renewal of the Afri-
can slave-trade, those magnificent and lux
uriant regions should be surrendered to the
control of capital, wringing out the fruit OF
the earth through the impoverishing toll OF
negro slaves. That question of 1920 was
the question of 1867, so far as
principle, and even the field of ITS applica-
lion, was concerned. Every element of the
now present entered it then; the
rightfulness or the wrongfulness of Slave
~; its effects. present and future; the Con-
stitutionai authority of Congress; the claims
Of the States. and of their citizens; the ua-
lure of the Federal Union, whether 1t is a
between the States, or an independ-
ent Government; the springs of its powers.
and the ligatures upon their exercise. All
these were discussed with zeal and ability
which have never been surpassed. Histo
~ tells US. know not how truly, that the
Union reeled under the vehemence of that
great debate. Patriotism took counsel from
prudence, and enforced settlement which
has proved to be not final one; aud which.