The weekly pioneer and Democrat. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn. Territory) 1855-1865, 1860-09-28

do, therefore, in settling this slavery ques-
ton. is to ascertain what the wants OF the
people are, and adopt your laws to their ne
cessities, to their wants and to their inter.
ests.
But you find extreme visionary men in the
South, who assume that because slavery is
profitable where they live, therefore it ought
| to exist everywhere; and, on the other hand,
YOU find extreme visionary men in the
| North, who assume that because slavery
cannot be maintained in the rye fields of
New York, or on the granite hills of New
Hampshire, therefore it should not be per-
mitted to exist anywhere. They seem to
consider that law or institution which is
well adapted to the people in one place is
necessarily wise and useful everywhere else.
There never was more fatal mistake in
the science of government. Our fathers knew,
when they formed this unrivalled, unequalled
system of government, that in country as
broad as this, with such variety of soil,
and climate and productions, there must
necessarily be a correspo nding variety OF
interests, requiring different laws suited to
the wants and conditions of the people in
each locality. The trainers of the Constitu-
tion knew that the laws which were well
suited to the hills of New England, were
unsuited to the rice and sugar plantations OF
South Carolina and Louisiana.
They knew that a code OF laws which
might be necessary to regulate the miners
in mining country like California, in the
gulches and placers, would be totally un-
suited for the wheat fields of Maryland.
They knew that lumber region like Maine
might require booms and other regulations
concerning lumber and saw logs absolutely
unnecessary in prairie country like Hi
nois, where we have no saw logs and no
lumber. Laughter and applause. With
these facts in view our fathers provided that
each State might have Legislature of its
own, authorized to make just such laws and
and just such institutions within their re-
spective limits as they pleased, without in
terfering with those of their neighbors.
[Great applause.
Now, if you will apply this fundamental
principle in our complex system OF govern
ment to the several States and Territories
of this Union, there will be no cause of
quarrel between the North and South, or
between the free and the slave States. You
people in Maryland know better whether
your interests require slavery than we in
Illinois. We on the plains of Illinois once
tried slavery. We legalized it by law, and
maintained it until we become satisfied it
was no longer our interest to have it, and
then we abolished it.
You may all recollect that in 1877 the
old Congress of the confederation passed a
law prohibiting slavery forever in the Ter
ritorics northwest of the Ohio river. Many
men, whose goodness of heart was far greater
than their intelligence, have supposed that
the northwestern States are all free States,
just because Congress prohibited slavery
there. The abolitionists of the North are
in the habit of celebrating the thirteenth OF
July instead of the Fourth of July, the date
of our independence, for the reason that the
ordinance Of 1857 was adopted on that day,
[laughterl, and some of the orators from the
eastern States are in the habit OF telling US
out in Illinois that we are not free States
from choice, but because Congress com.
PEELED US to be free. Renewed laughter.
We think there that we hold our liber-
ties, our rights, and our institutions by a
higher title than an act of Congress. APP.
plause.1 History records the undeniabe
fact that the first Legislature that ever as.
sembled in Illinois after the organization OF
the Territorial government passed law in
PRODUCING and maintaining slavery in def
ance of the ordinance. Our people before
they became State told Congress to mind
their own business, and let their domestic
institutions alone.
We, in Illinois, maintained and protected
slavery under our Territorial government
just so long as Congress said we should not
have it laughter land we adopted grad
ual system of emancipation, by which we
became free State on the very day that
Congress withdrew its prohibition and said
we might do as we pleased by admitting
US into the Union as a State. Why did
we abolish slavery in Illinois? Not be-
cause we were aboliti0nists. There was
not such a description of animal in the
whole of Illinois as an abolitionist. Jap
plause and laughter.
There was scarcely Yankee to be found
in the whole State. Renewed laughter.
Nearly every man who was delegate in
the Convention that framed our constitu
ton was STAKEHOLDER, and had his slaves
with him at the seat of government, to
black his boots and play the fiddle for him
to dance by. Laughter. They had nc
scruples against slavery they had all been
nursed and raised by slaves. Why, then
did they adopt system of emancipation
Simply because they had ascertained, by ex.
perience, that in our climate, with our soil
and our productions, slavery was not profit
able. They could not make any money out
of it, hence they turned philanthropists and
abolished it. Laughter and applause.
So it will be in every other Territory and
State where the experiment may be tried
The inhabitants of the Territory, the Guilt
vators css<she soil, the persons interested in
its legislation will ascertain for themselves
rether their good and that of their pos
tteity requires the institution. They may
cone to the conclusion that it does, and
they will maintain it, but if they think their
interests do not require it, all the power 10
Christendom cannot force them to have it
You have an example now before you in
the present condition of our Territories
There is the Territory of New Mexico
which was acquired by the treaty of peace
with Mexico, and was organized into Ter
ritorial government by the compromise mea'
sures of 1850. Certain Southern fre-eaterE
opposed these compromise measures upor
the ground that if they allowed the people