Cincinnati daily press. [volume] (Cincinnati [Ohio]) 1860-1862, 1860-08-08

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particle of truth or law in what is supposed
to be the legal question decided in the bred
Scott case, aud no Judge or lawyer, North or
South, will pretend there is. If there were'
what political party, not already struck with
death would put into its platform q dead is
sue--a legal question which had been de-
cided by the final tribunal 2ssr- sr-a-..--
What does the platform mean by obedi-
ence to the Supreme Court, but not to make
them the ultimate arbiterl the Supreme
Court subject to the revision Of the Carthage
Convention2 or what2 Why is it that when
man who has hitherto followed honest en-
ployment, sets out to make a platform, he
immediately begins to exercise the little joker,
and slight of hand, and hocus-pocus, and
metamorphoses2 There never was such
brazen political trick invented as this putting
submission to the decisions of the Supreme
Court into platforms. Every body knows
that every body sees through his trick, and
yet it is played; and rogues agree to cheat
each other with IL. The Supreme Court has
declared that neither Congress nor Terri
torial Legislature can exclude slavery. The
South proclaim their submission to the de-
cision. Suppose after a few of the Judges
die and their places are supplied, the Court
decides that Congress or Territorial Legis-
lature can exclude slavery; or that by the
law of nature the Territories are free, and
slaves taken there become of right free2 VIII
the South then SUBMIT They say they will
not, but will break the Union. What if the
Court decides that the anti-slavery clause in
the free State Constitutions destroys the
equality of the States, and is therefore un.
constitutional and void7 No honest man
will pledge himself TO accept the decisions of
the Supreme Court as fnality.
The platform declares-"We will follow no
anti-slavery heresies Matched in the Hartford
Convention, nor no fallacy incubated in the
brain of the mere demagogue."
There seems TO be some looseness in this
outburst. In these days, when House of
Representatives spends forty days in threaten
ing to break up the Union, and when mis-
sions are sent between different States, and
Conventions held to plot disunion, and when
disunion is declared to be alternative to
every demand for legislation, and that, too,
by the very candidate of the Carthage Con-
vention for the Presidency, the Hartford Con-
vention ought to be looked upon as very
patriotic body; but certainly the Carthage
Convention is safe from following fallacies,
Matched by any body, iflimited to tsplatform,
for we fail to find even plausible fallacy in
II; nothing but the most absurd contradic-
tons. 'i-'
When politicians change party relations,
they usually claim that the parties have
veered round while they have kept a straight
course The maker of these resolutions lays
no such flattering unction to his soul He
likens his former anti-slavery heresy to the
worst thing he can think of in our history;
Just as penitents under religious conviction
exalt their present spiritual condition by
magnifying their past sins.
The platform declares: "He totally mistakes
free government and falsifes Democracy
who contends that the people possess SOW
ereignty which may take away rightfully
the rights of persons or property" But it
allows that sovereign States may do it, that
is, may exclude slavery when they form a
State Constitution. What is sovereignty in
a State2-the people or the land? How is it
that the people can not possess sovereignty
to deatroy rights ofproperty, while the SOW
ereign people can2
What kind of Government will that be
in which the sovereignty, no matter how
represented, can deprive citizens of their
property There is no Government under
heavens where such sovereign power is re-
cognized. The sovereignty that can take a
citizens property, can take his liberty and
life, because the same principle will cover
| all, and because liberty and life necessarily
follow the means of subsistence; existence
follows subsistence. Is such doctrine as
this, which would be secuted in Dahomey,
'the adoption of that whole truth which has
in progress of discussion been arrived at2"
The platform vituperates on those wAo
hold that popular sovereignty may exclude
slavery; but it supports man for President
who four years ago declared, in most equiv
ocal terms, that it could, and that he was
connected with no party that held otherwise
1t compares antl-slayery heresy to the Hart
ford Convention, and declares that 1t destroy
the equality and rights of the States in th
Territories and then it holds that after th
citizens of the States have taken their slav
property into the Territories, and have be
come settled and have added great propert!
and improvements in land to their slay
property, they may be broken up by tn
hocus-pocus from territorial to Stat
organization. The Wilmot Proyiso was
mild type Of abolition compared to this sys
tenn of betrayal and robbery, if it could b
: carried into execution; but these platform
riggers know it can not be. No such destruC
tion of rights, legally acquired, was eve
made by any government without revolu
ton; and that is what it means-revolutio
and civil war, if ever reduced to practic,
But, like popular sovereignty, it is a tric
for the time, TO be renounced when playe
out. Nt H4
We fail in our search for any politics
) principles in this platform. There are nj
even any cunning fallacies or sophistrie
though we give the maker credit for goo
intentions. II is too palpably contradictot
to be sophistical or fallaciouB. We new
went TO Carthage, and do not know the Gu
tom of Democratic Conventions there, offs
\ sra - u - - n.