Worcester daily spy. [volume] (Worcester [Mass.]) 1850-1888, 1860-07-30
A "nEMocRATICp INVENTION.

One of the modern heresies on the slavery
question, most corrupting to our politics, and
most disastrous in its influence on democratic
ideas, is usually assumed without discussion.
We refer to the new dogma that slaves are
property in the same sense that cows and
sheep are property, and by the same warrant.
This is assumed alike by Stephen A. Douglas
and Jefferson Davis. In time past slavehold-
ers were content to speak of their institution
as peculiar" and the courts, south as well as
north, held that it was local institution, and
that it could have no legal existence anywhere
without special legislation in its favor. Cows
and sheep could be made property without
statute law to warrant it, but not men
Such was the old view of slavery;
but, modern democracy has changed all
that, and changed it by cool assump-
ton. Now, according to Mr.. Douglas, as
well as Mr.. Davis, "slave property stands
on the same footing as other property" and
slaves may be carried into the territories and
held there as property, the same as if they
were cattle. AT first this new dogma came
into democratic politics as a curious piece of
eccentric speculation. 1t originated with Mr..
Calhoun and it was heard occasionally cry
ing in the wilderness of congressional debate,
for several years before it became "master of
the situation" and took command of the dem.
ocratic party.
There is something worthy of careful study
in the audacity with which this new invention
of slavery propagandism is put forward as an
admitted truth,-as if no man could dream of
doubling its correctness. Mr.. Douglas has
said many times since the Missouri compro-
mise was repealed, 81 do not put slavery on
different footing from other property; | recog-
nize slave property as being on an equality
with all other property, and apply the same
rules to it. He says this 10 show that slave
holders may lawfully take their slaves into the
territories and hold them there as property and
he usually says it with the air of one who ut
tiers a selfeyident proposition. But he is not
frank enough to state the logical consequences
of this atrocious doctrine. A man who owns
horses in Vermont has right to hold them as
property in Massachusetts, South Carolina, or
in any other place within the limits of the re-
public and this right will be recognized and
protected in any other nation to which he may
go. So it must be with slaves within the re-
public at least, if the doctrine in question is
accepted for, if "slaye property stands on
the same footing as other property, it may
be held as other properly is held, not only in a
territory, but also in any of the states, free or
slave. And it may be added, that whoever
has such right to hold slave property in a ter
ritory, or anywhere else, has right to demand
slave code for its protection. If we begin
by admitting any part OF that doctrine of dew
lis, which was invented to secure and justify
a repeal of the Missouri compromise, we must,
to be consistent, accept the whole creed of the
southern extremists
The only danger to the Union comes from
the baeful doctrines that are devised and
maintained in behalf of slavery and slavery
prOpagandism. And what a growth of such
doctrine there has been within the last ten or
fifteen years Those citizens of the republic,
whose profession of patriotic devotion to the
Union is something more than pretense or a
political trade, will see this danger and seek
to avert it. The black power from which it
comes, must be driven from control of the
government. There is the political Austrian.
ism which we must exterminate. There
is the threatened destruction of tie fede-
raj constitution which we must beat back
and disarm. Those like our contemporary, the
Boston Courier, who talk as if they wished to
save the Union from calamity, while refusing
to contend against this enemy, and even Civ
ing aid and comfort to the destructive influence
that threatens ruin, will not easily convince
earnest men that their sincerity is equal TO
their prejudice.