Staunton spectator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1849-1896, 1860-02-07

tne lower mouse OF congress Is most offensive
symptom of the public health under that treat
ment.
| The question Of slavery in the Territories,
practically developed as that question was in the
case of Kansas, has probably had greater influ-
ence than any other, both upon the present con
dition of political parties and in bringing the
public mind to its present agitated state. The
Issue to which the question in its abstract form
and in the Democratic party has been brought is
this; that on one side the people of the South
very generally believe and claim that the Su-
preme Court has decided that every STAKEHOLDER
has the constitutional right to take slaves into
every Territory, and neither Congress nor the
people of the Territory have any power to pre-
vent this; in other words that every Territory
| is, by the Constitution of the United States, q
slave Territory. On the other side, the Dem
ocratic party at the North very generally and de-
cidedly repudiate these statements as untrue
and these claims as monstrous, and assert for the
people Of each Territory constitutional power to
determine and regulate for themselves the ques
ton of slavery. In the mean time the Repub-
lican party, perhaps unanimously, assert that
Congress has complete power to exclude slavery
from all the Territories, and desire this power
to be exercised in every case as it has been in
several. Almost the entire, North is therefore
directly arrayed against both the fact and the
right OF what the greater part of the South as
serts is the law of the land under the decision of
the Supreme Court. Ia the South itself, how
ever, there is a farther and singular development
of opinion. 1t has been attempted in Kentucky
and other Southern States to make it part of
the political creed of the Opposition to demand
of Congress slave code for the Territories |;
while in the same region intervention by
Congress, except in extremity, if at all, has ap-
peared to be the doctrine of the Democratic
party. The result is that the entire North re-
pudiates, and under existing circumstances will
continue to repudiate, the idea that the Federal
Constitution, or the Supreme Court makes all
the national Territories slave, while almost the
entire South believes and claims that all the
national Territories are slave by that Constitu-
tion. The dispute is enlarged, not settled not
even transferred. This is most caamitous re-
suit of attempting to turn over questions pre-
ennently political to tribunals wholly judicial !;
as if public men were warranted in supposiDg
that great nation, in the highest state of polit
cal excitement, believed any more in the in
fallibility of Judges than they did in the infal-
bility of Senators, Kings or Popes. Even if the
decision of the Supreme Court had been 80 clear
that no man could doubt what was decided, and
so cogent that no man could gainsay its justice
as between the parties to the particular cause
then heard, it would have been miracle if the
decision had settled any political question. Its
main effect was obliged to be-let the decision
be what it might-to exasperate all parties, and
to render any peaceful adjustment of any aspect
of the slave question far more difficult than be-
fore. In truth, the constitutional right which
the South supposes she has secured, can be of no
practical value, even if it were universally con-
ceded. For she remains in the Union, she can
not carry on the foreign slave trade; and unless
she can do that she cannot prohtably send slaves
enough into any Territory we possess, nor mas
tiers enough with those she may send to prevent
their emancipation as soon as the Territory be-
comes State. The experiment in Kansas is
surely decisive. If, on the other hand, any por-
ton of the South will deem it a sufficient reason
to secede, that more slave may be imported from
Africa, and new slave Territories formed; either
half the slave States will not secede for that rea-
son, or if all secede and Oonfederacy OF all the
States is formed, that Confederacy cannot be ex.
pected to allow the African slave trade to be re-
newed. With regard to slavery in the Terrific
res and the power of the General Government
| over the subject, there never could be any sub
ject concerning which wise, just moderate and
| forbearng conduct was more impe-atively de-
manded-none with regard to which the op-
posing interests of the two great divisions of the
nation ought to be treated with more scrupu.
lons fairness. fever such a temper and such a
spirit shall return to the counsels of the Repub-
lie, the temporary and disputed power of Con
gress over the subject cannot fail to be exerted
in some manner satisfactory to opposing claim
ants. But SO long as parties on one side or the
other, seek by every means to assert extreme
claims, Irrespective of extreme claims in others,
nothing remains but to fight the question out in
each Territory, or, what is worse, to fight it out
over the ruins of the Republic, or, what is worst
OF all, break up the Union aod fight it out after
wards. As Southern man | depiored and still
deplore the repeal of the Missouri compromise
as great political error, pre- eninenty injurious
| to the South. As an American citizen | de.
| plore the fearful undue Importance which the
control by Congress over slavery in the Terrific
ries has been made to assume in our national
politics.
| 1t must be borne in mind that the present as
pect of parties in this country is very far from
veaing the real state of public opinion upon any
new and exciting question which may suddenly
arise. We have seen two great national parties
| the old Whig and the American-competely
disorganized within a few years. The enor-
nous mass OF voters who acted with one or the
other of those parties-and the greater part of
whom are now acting with the Republican or
the Democratic party-are far from being COM
I'LL Ieu So w cItHSI Iudt IL Cau UO
predicted with certainty what course they will
take if matters come to the worst. Moreover,
there are very few States in the Union 10 which
there is such unity of sentiment as to ensure e.
ven decided and constant majority upon either
side of the most important political questions
and nothing is more common in many OF the
States than sudden and great revolutions in O.
pinion. Even with the perfect certainty that
every slave state will resist with arms any in
| reference with its security as connected with
its slaves, there are topics connected with the
| time and manner of that resistancs which might
easily terminate very fatally, and topics connect
ed with slavery itself (the slave trade, for ex-
ample) on which the most determined difference
of opinion has manifested itself. While such
considerations ought to warn the most upright
| and sagacious public men of the great danger
they are in of being deceived by party clamor,
and ought to terrify such as are unscrupulous,
they teach US that after all the heart of the ma
ton may be sound, and that it only needs to be
convinced of its peril that it may, by one mighty
outburst of patriotic enthusiasm, crush every
party that has trihed with its convictions, and
overwhelm every public man that has betray-
ed it.
Concerning the political relations of slavery
under the Federal Constitution, and the rights
and duties of the slave States in the Union, it is
perfectly immaterial whether the institution of
negro slavery, as it exists in this country, is
good or bad and all Congressional discussions
of that point is as irrelevant as it is ordinarily
empty. We live under a written Constitution,
and have for more than seventh years. been eX-