Cincinnati daily press. [volume] (Cincinnati [Ohio]) 1860-1862, 1860-06-01
sessier pavI.,s RssoIallons on sIavery.

The SUBSTANCE OF the materlal or c0ntrO-
verted points of Senator Dayiss resolutions
on slavery may be briefly stated as follows
That neither Congress nor q Territorial Leg
islature can impair the constitutional right to
take slave property into the Territories; that
if Judicial and executive authority, and Terri
torial Legislation, fail to provide adequate
protection to constitutional rights in a terri
tory, it will be the duty of Congress TO pro-
vide such protection; that when Territory
forms State constitution it may, for the first
time, decide whether slavery shall be main
tained or prohibited, and shall be received
into the Union with or without slavery, as
their constitution may prescribe.
The constitutional rights of citizens of the
slave States to take their slave property into
the Territories has been fully conceded by
Mr.. Douglas. The declaration, that it is the
duty of Congress to protect constitutional
rights in the Territories, is an axiom that,
probably, none deny, and but two
Senators : Messrs. Hamlin and Trum-
bull voted against it, and they more
because the whole matter was Demo
cratic family quarrel than from denial of
the principle. Mr.. Douglas was not present
Mt the vote on the resolutions his chronic
disease having been much aggravated just at
that time. Mr.. Davis has succeeded in get
ting the entire Democratic members of the
Senate-except two, and one of them absent
committed to a declaration against the
power of territorial legislature to legislate
against slavery, and in favor of Congressional
intervention when needed. In this respect
he has triumphed over what is called popular
sovereignty, but it is question whether the
triumph has not been gained by concessions
far more dangerous to the rights of slave
owners than any doctrine held by Mr.. Doug
las In the first place, there was nothing to
triumph over, except Mr.. Douglass aspira-
tions for the Presidential nomination. Mr..
Douglas comedies the constitutional right
to take slave property into the Territories
In the Dorr letter. which was regarded
as the most offensive of any of his declara-
tions to the South, he admitted the right of
slavery to the same protection in the Terri
tories "as other property" If slavery be
placed on the same footing as other property,
it carries the whole case, for no one denies
that it is the duty of government to protect
property rights. Mr.. Douglass Dorr letter is
a palmer declaration that property in slaves
is the same as other property, and is entitled
to the same protection, than is contained in
Mr.. Davis's resolutions. 1t is one of the
curiosities of politics that the Squatter Sow
ereignty chief should go farther for the rights
of slavery than the slave-code leader, who
believes that negro slavery is ordained of
God.
What is the same protection as other
property is entitled to d? Simply adequate
protection. The duty of Government will
not be fulfilled until it furnishes adequate
protection, and if that requires the interven-
tion of Congress and of the army and navy of
the United States, it is due. Legal protec-
ton is adapted to the nature of the property.
We have not the same laws for the pro-
lection of property in land that we have for
property in cattle. Whatever the property
is, the protection must be adapted to
it, and the only rule is that it must be ad-
equate. To say that slave property must not
have legal protection adapted to its peculiar
nature, would abolish the fugitive law, and
nullify the provision in the Constitution for
the rendition of fngitives from service; yet
there is nothing in law nor Constitution that
Mr.. Douglas holds quite so sacred as these
Thus, as we observed, Mr.. Davis's resolutions
are no triumph of principle, for they do not
claim the rights of slavery SO plainly as Mr..
Douglas has conceded them.
But Mr.. Davis's resolutions concede that
after the citizens of the States have estab-
lished themselves in the Territories with their
slave property, under the protection of the
Constitution of the United States, their prop
erty may be taken from them by the change
from a Territorial to State Government
Can this be done with any other property ?
Can rights Of property in cattle, or in land,
be impaired by the change from Territory
to to a State2 Constitutions are formed
for the protection of rights; they can not
destroy them. How can property rights,
established by the Constitution of the
United States, which in both States and Ter.
ritories is the supreme law of the land, and
which the people of Territory can not i'm
pair, be destroyed by the same people to-
morrow, by the metaphysical, inward change
from territorial to State condition2 The
people of a Territory can not do a thing by
Legislation, because it is contrary to rights
recognized by the supreme law of the land
but the same people can legislate themselves
into another shape, and then they can leg
islate away the same rights The miracle
worked by the priest who, to relieve his
lenten-fast dipped a ham into water and
pronounced it fish, was not more wonderful
than this power of people to legislate them
selves into the power to do thing which
they could not do by legislation. tt,
Nor is theprinciple at all changed by max
ing the abolition of slavery prospective
Property rights can no more be legislated
away next year than to-day. 1t may seem q
great acquisition to Senator Davis to have il
established that the rights of the slave.
holder can not be impaired in Territory
but practically no disposition of the
matter has such capacity for wrong to the
Shareholder as that which seduces him into
aTerritory under Constitutional protection,
and then when he has established himself