Weekly national intelligencer., 1860-05-12
SYNOPSIS OF DEBATES IN SENATE.

| SYNOPSIS OF DEBATES In SENATE.
On Monday dense auditory, thronging the
galleries, had assembled at early hour in antici-
patton of the speech expected to be delivered by
Mr. DAVIS in defence of the resolutions introduced
by him at previous day. defining the relative lights
and obligations of the States and of the Federal Gov
ernment also the duty of the latter in respect tc
the Territories.
4 After the reading of these resolutions and the
pending amendment
Mr.. DAVIS proceeded, in an elaborate argument,
which commanded the undivided attention of the
Senate, to unfold their purport and bearing on the
present attitude of the country. Our fathers had
established the Constitution the great standard to
which all political action should be referred, and,
discardng other sources of appeal and grounds of
discussion, he proposed simply to plant himself on
the sanctions of that compact 1t a common
error to suppose that the Constitution was the work
and instrument of the people in mass, though the
error corrected by the historical relations of
the Colonies anterior to the Declaration of Indepen
i dence, and by the separate and successive steps
taken by the several States proceeding, after the
termination of the Revolutionary war, to form and
| adopt the present Constitution
i Mr.. DAVIS supported this branch of his argument
by numerous citations from the documentary history
| of the Convention that framed and of the several
States that ratified the Constitution.
i Advancing to the subject more Immediately be-
fore the Senate and the country, he next vindcated
the language and doctrines of his resolutions In re-
gard to the Territories Upon this subject he held
position midway between the advocates of sssquat-
| ter sovereignty" on the one hand, and of "Con-
gressional sovereignty" on the other. Granting
/ to Congress only the powers conferred upon it
as the agent of the States for the purposes de-
/ fined by the Constitution, he claimed equality
of property rights for all settlers upon the
mon domain, and held that the people of the South
States were entitled to be protected in the en-
ioyment of that equality if at any time the Terri
toral authorities should be found unwilling or in
competent to it. The assertion of this prin-
| eiple had recently rent in twain the Democratic
party; but he believed that that party would soon
be reunited constitutional principles and that it
would advance to fresh victories. 1t not true
that the affirmation of this right to protection in
volved any violation of past compromises. 1t in no
way impinged on the malleable doctrine of $ nom
intervention, since that installed only as COM
| promise between two theories-of which pro-
posed to establish and the other to prohibit slavery
in the Territories. The doctrine of protection
left in abeyance by the compromises of 1850 and by
the legislation of 1854, though the latter contained
an appeal to the Supreme Court which had subse-
quenty decided, in the Dred Scott case, that the
Constitution recognises the masters right of proper
ty in slave and that tribunal acting under the
authority of the United States has right to draw
distinction between that description of property and
any other property owned by citizen of any State
/ This was the decision of the Court, recognised by
the friends of the Kansas Nebraska BILL aud by that
| decision they all were bound in honor to abide.
| Mr.. DAVIS amplifed this branch of his subject at
great length and, the conclusion of his remarks
| was followed by
| Mr.. Brown, who briefly gave his reasons for dis
senting from the fifth resolution in the series of Mr.
DAVIS, and offered amendment in its stead de-
claring that the time has actually for the inter-
vention of Congress, in order to protect the rights
of shareholders in Kansas He believed with his col
league, that the great Democratic party would re-
cover from its present distractions. For many years
he had trodden the deck of the good old Democra-
tic ship, and he believed her timbers still strong
and seaworthy; but if he must needs desert her, he
did not intend to put to sea in cock-boat What
ever party adopted the doctrines of his amendment
would secure his support, though only single State
of the Union might furnish its constituents He had
| always repudiated the doctrine of squatter-sove-
reignty, and would resist it to the end in language
that could admit of neither doubt equiyocation
| Mr.. CLINGMAN expressed his dissent from the
views of Mr.. DAVIS. He thought that the De-
| mocratic party of the country solemnly COM
mitted and pledged to the doctrine of non-inter-
yontion, which had haan introduced and adopted as
compromise between those who held that it was Tie
| duty of Congress to pass the Wmot proviso, and
those who claimed at its hands protection for slave
property in the Territories This the theory of
| the compromise measures of 1850, and this the
theory of the Kansas-N ebraska BILL which, by virtue
i of the Badger amendment" expressly guarded
against the implication of seeking to protect sa
very by the revival of any law existing anterior to the
passage of the Missouri compromise. Nor did it
suffice to say that the decision made in the Dred
/ Scott conclusive against the doctrine of
nonintervention since if it were admitted that under
that decision Congress authorized to Intervene
| it by means followed that Congress was bound in
duty expediency to do when no imperative ne
| cessity demanded it. Suppose the Supreme Court
had decided that the Missouri restriction was consti
tutional, would Southern have admitted that the
Northern Democracy were henceforth free to insist
| on the Wimot proviso Would they not rather
have still held their allies to the doctrine of
| interventionl But protection was not now demanded
! by the South. The bill of Mr.. BROWN protect
ing slave property in Kansas could not far as he
was informed, command the vote of single Senator
beyond that of its author Already slavery was pro-
tected by Territorial law in New Mexico, and even
if it prohibited in Kansas, the South had lost
nothing compared with the Missouri compromise
line, which she once willing to extend to the
Pacific. Kansas north of that line.
Mr. CLINGMAN, in the course of his argument, read
from speech delivered by Mr.. Calhoun in the Sc
nate in the year 1S4S and in which he advocated the
policy of "non-action' the part of Congress dur
ing the Territorial condition ofOregon, as being the
dictate of constitutional law, reason, and Justice
| Without concluding his remarks, he gave way for
a motion to adjourn at half-past three O'Clock.
1 On Tuesday the consideration of the resolutions
/ introduced by Mr.. DAVIS was resumed, after the
morning hour, when
/ MIR. CLINGMAN concluded the remarks which he
had begun on the previous day. He thought the diff
ference between the two wings of the Northern and
| Southern Democracy not sufficiently wide to
justify separation in their political action, SINCE if
precisely coincdent in their present construction
| of the Cincinnati platform, it plain that they
were marching by lines which would at length con-
verge at the same point. The Southern Democracy
/ hold that the Supreme Court has already decided
against the power of Territorial Legislature to i'm
pair in any way in any degree the rights of sla
| very in the Territories. The Northern Democracy
deny this proposition, but declare that when the
Supreme Court decides they will conform their
| action to the ruling of that tribunal
| Mr.. CLINGAAN thought it politically impossi-
bic to pass any Congressionala laws for the protection
of slavery in Territory where the people were hos
tile to the institution and passed they would
be imperative and void in the presence of local
sentiment opposed their execution and enforca-