Arkansas true Democrat., 1860-08-18


 single chime, so plausible and to the unre hectlng so captivating, of the right of the people to self-govemment, that right fought Tor by our fathers of the revolution
 ne doctrine was originally only device and notion, to avoisl encounter at peril ouS moment with grave question that threatened to dc some lanage. The issue was evaded by putting forward this heresv, which seems to me more contrary to the rights, honor and dignity If the States which ought to be more galling to our bride as men, than to hold that the .States tak;no counsel together when assembled in Con- gress' may ogree or by majority deter ma'ae that slavery in the common terr;tor,, shall cease. That would be at least resnoct- able but that the born citizens of a soutb. ern State should be ignominiouslv kicked out of common territory, watered nerh ans by thelr blood, by mere rabble. nerbans by few unnaturaized aliens inst from tho hhlle or Shannon, would be catastrophe so ludicrously shameful, that the State which should submit to it would. to say tbe least, invite further aggression. that could at last, end only in dishonor.
 There can be no socereiqatv excent bv the successful exercise of the right of revo- htlon, Tn mere collection of citizens o4 the several States, living upon lands which are the common property of those States. lhelr government, whatever its form. can be only provincial and municipal, and they can have only such powers of legislation as the States of which they are citizens invest them withal, by such enactments as they may make when assembled in Con- gress. These principles are so elementary as to need no argument.
 To say that, although the right to hold our slaves there Is constitutional one. and although the supreme court may so decide, still the benefit of that decision may be denied us, the decision itself be virtually annulled, and the right rendered valueless and not enforceable, by the wilful refusal or failure of the territorial legislature to protect the relation of master and slave, or by unfriendly legislation that renders the tenure by which men hold that property unsafe, is not only to say that those bodies have the poacer to prove recreant to their duty and shamelessly to perjure themselves, is not only to say that the courts, unaided by the legislative power, can enforce their decisions only in the very cases decided, and between the very parties before them, and cannot make them the general law; but 1t is also to say, that in a free and consti- tutional country, a petty provincial body may commit gross outrage, and deny individuals and States their rights, and that there is no power to apply odequote remedy to such d wrong. This signif- cant suggestion to the territories. however it may have been iutendel was in its nature like pointing out to one who aments that he cannot la,Tn7ly leepi 4i neghbor of his estate, mo1e w W.sa h an un'aw- fully confscate it, and yet that neighbor be remediless, and he safe from any ven geance of the law.
 If the right that we claim exists, any of us have the right to removet to Kansas with our slaves, and to hold them as safely, there, or dispose of them as freely, to any one, as we can do here It is not only question of the rights of those who are olready Mere, but of the rights and remedy of us here, who desire to go, and whom unfrendly legislation deters, by making litigation certain, and the hazard of loss of our property great Must we either relinquish our right to remove thither, or go at the imminent risk of losing our slaves, in order that we may enjoy the luxury of many lawsuits, with, at last, and after we are ruined, decision of the supreme law, Mat we haOe been robbed!
 Undoubtedly, if we have the right in hes- ton, 1t is the right, as 1t is certainlysthe duty, of our State to enforce 1t. She can only do so. face to face with her Peers, when they assembl in Congress. She can bring no suit in court to enforce our rights and her own. The fit and proper place for Her to be heard in, is the Halls of Congress; and the fit remedy is by legislation.
 It is said that it has been agreed that there should be no further intervention by Congress, either to prohibit, establish, or protect slavery in the territories; and that it is contrary to the agreement to call on Congress to enforce the decision of the court in favor of the right The agreement was, that Congress should not leglslate slavery into or out of the territories, but leave the people free to do in regard to 1t whatever they pleased and could, subject to he constitution of Me United States. No one proposes to ask Congress to legislate slapery into a territory. What is claimed, is wholly another thing ;that, when Congress not having legislated, the Supreme Court shall have held that we Aoge the right, under the Consultation, and without oreven against legislation, to carry our slaves there and keep or dispose of them there without let or hindrance hen Congress shall protect and enforce that right, # necessory, by proper legislation If it does not do that, it ought to a53isate
 The court can no enforce the right, ex- cept in the single the cases before it. It may esia1'.la The right exists, in case where the consequence Is simple recovery of money. The suit, though the matter occurred in Kansas. may be brought in Kentucky. Wherever, whenever, or however it arises, so soon as the supreme court, having jurisdiction. and possessed lawfully of the question, finally and author itatively decides it, the right of all our States is complete to insist that the right,