The Oxford intelligencer. (Oxford, Miss.) 1860-18??, 1860-08-29


subject, the two strongest parties in Illinois
are those of Lincoln aud Douglas; and po-
itical excitement seems to be higher in that
State than in any other to which my travels
have extended.
The Douglas men, at the North, appear to
be very much embittered against Breckin-
ridge and his supporters; and there would
seem, indeed, to be no chance for any COM
promise between them. Imet, at KaDkakce,
one of the delegates from Illinois to the
Charleston and Baltimore Conventions, who
thought or affected to think, that all the del
egates who were opposed to the nomination
Of Douglas were disunionisfs' per sc. lie
could quote expressions, employed by South
en delegates in those Conventions, which
sufficed to convince his Northern hearers that
disunion was the immediate object of the
Breckenridge party at the South. Many
Douglas men do not hesitate to avow their
preference for Lincoln over Breckenridge.
For the most part, however, and excepting
their doctrine of squatter sovereignty, the
Douglasites professed to be loyal; but they
generally seemed inclined to carry out that
distinguishing doctrine of theirs TO its logi-
cal and final result-free-soiisn 1t was APP
parent, as | thought, that they did this in
order to curry favor with men ofanti-slavery
views, upon whom they pressed their argu-
ments in such a way as to convince me, at
least, that Gov. Wise was not far wrong when
he characterized squatter sovereignty as ga
short cut to all the ends of Black Republi-
canism."
1t amused me not little to hear the Black
Republicans gravely insisting that their plat
form was conservative, that Mr.. Lincoln was
conservative man, and that, if elected, he
would not disturb us in any of our rights.
When | asked them what was the cardinal
point of their creed, that which they held
most important, and which served to disting-
uish theirs from other parties, they uniformly
replied that it was the doctrine that Congress,
~ the agent of the confederated States,
should prohibit slavery in the Territories,
which were the property of the confcdcratcd
States. Their idea of conservatism" is, the
appropriation, by the North, of all the COM
mon territory, to the entire exclusion of the
South.
One gentleman, who had an earnest discus
sion with me upon the subject of disunion,
contended, that, should Congress pass a law
restrictive of slavery, we could not right
fully resist, or retire from the Confede-
racy, "for," he asked, with the triumphant
air of one who. advances proposition that
is Incontestable, "does not the majority rule,
in this countryr Like many other intelli-
gent persons with whom | conyersed, he
manifestly believed that the entire frame
work of our system Of government was in
tended to enable the majority to execute its
will. lie had never thought of the Consti-
tuition in the light of compact between
sovereign states, nor dreamed that the prin-
cipal object of its trainers was to protect the
rights ofminoritics against the cncroachments
of INSCRIPTIONS majoritics.
Another gentleman bitterly inveighcd
against the South for having brought about
the repeal of the Missouri Compromise. Be-
fore that repeal, he said, the people of the
North had regarded the slavery question as
settled defnitively, and he blamed the South,
therefore, for all the existing agitation upon
that question. | asked him why it was that
the North, in 1850, refused to extend the
line of the Missouri Compromise to the Pa
cifc, through the then recently acquired Mex
lean territory! lie did not remember any
such refusal! then asked him whether he
would have favored such an extension of
that linel No. was his quick response.
| This is but one of numerous indications of a
disposition, on the part of Northern people,
to ignore or deny the equality of the South
in the Union.
Many of those people have no very exalted
idea of the duty of the citizen to obey the
laws. They openly deny their obligation to
obey the fugitive slave law, upon the ground
that their consciences condemn that law.
"Never," said they, twill we aid in the arrest
of fugitive slave. If you can catch him
without our assistance, all right" These
same men, when questioned on the point,
would admit that simple riot was viola
ton of law which every citizen should lend
his aid to repress, but was unable to bring
any one of them to the confession that a
mob, violently resisting the execution of a
/ law, was in like manner to be opposed by all
good citizens. They were not to be beguilcd,
under the mask of abstract propositions, into
a tacit condemnation of their own conduct,
in regard to fugitive slaves. 1t was not easy
to convince men, whose minds were preoccu-
pied with the one idea of opposition to
slavery, that their doctrine was revolutionary,
aud-subversive of all law. If one man may
refuse to obey particular law, because it
does not square with some moral standard
which he has set up in his own mind, every
| other man. in turn has the riglt TO refuse