Fremont journal. [volume] (Fremont, Sandusky County [Ohio]) 1853-1866, 1860-01-13

I
rights of freedom. by degrading the Union
and the Constitution into instruments for
the propagation Of human slavery.
On the subject Of slavery the people Of
this State occupy no equiyocal position.-
They reject tho modern dogma, that slavery
Is essential TO Republics, that such system
must fail without il, and that slavery must
be extended and pcrpetuated, toextcnd and
perpetuate our form Of government; but in
opposition to it, they have deliberately de-
clared, that in their judgment, slavery is a
pernicious wrong, and that patriotism and
humanity unite in demanding their resis-
tenco to its extension into any free territory,
now or that may be owned by the United
States. They deny the binding authority
of the dictum Of the Supreme Court of the
United States, asserting right to property
in one man over another, rs n fundamental
principle, and making the federal constitu.
ton the instrument of rendering it universal
as not limited TO the reach of the local pow.
er which created the relation of master and
slave; but on the contrary they declare that
the idea, that there could be property in
men, was expressly excluded from the Con
stitution, which contains no such words as
slave or slavery in any of its provisions, and
which in every clause, construed, or that can
be construed, as referring to slavery, regards
it as the creature of State legislation, and
dependent wholly upon State Legislation
for its existence and continuance. They
deny, that the Constitution guarantees tc
the slaveholding States any other than
their local rights, in connection with the
institution of slavery, but such as it express.
ly declares: First, That the foreign slave
trade should not be, abolished before 1908:
Second, That any law or regulation which
any State might establish in favor of free
dom should not impair the legal remedy,
supposed at the time of the adoption of the
constitution to exist by common law, for
reception by legal process, in such State OF
fugitves from labor or service, escaping from
other States, and Third, that three fifths OF
all slaves should be counted in settling the
basis of representation in the several States
| Beyond these, the trainers of the constitution
intended to make no peculiar concessions to
slaveholding States, and these were made,
because "they had Union of the States to
create, and to their ardent and generous
minds the voluntary removal of slavery by
the action of the States themselves, with
out Federal interference, seemed not only
certain, but close at hand" The people of
Ohio have further declared, that, in their
opinion, the people of a territory have no
power under the constitution, or from any
other legal source, to establish slavery as
one of their institutions, during their terri
torial existence; that the exercise of such a
power would be manifest usurpation of the
individual rights of the citizen of
the territory, and utterly subversive of all
true popular sovereignty, which deman as
primary essential condition, the recogni-
tion of inalienable personal rights. They
insist also, that coupled with the power, it
is the duty of Congress 10 prohibit by ex-
press enactment, the extension of slavery
into any free territory of the United States
that the exercise of this power has been
repeatedly approved by every department
of the State and National Government, and
to the universal acceptance of the people,
and that its recognition as fundamental
principle, to be hereafter exercised, whenever
occasion may be presented, indispensable, to
restore the simplicity and purity of the gov
ernment and to carry out the great purposes
of the constitution, as declared in the pre-
amble: "to form more ferfect union, to es-
tablish justice, insure domestic tranquility,
promote the general welfare and secure the
blessings Of liberty 10 ourselves and our pos
terity."
Such are the judgments of the people of
Ohio, repeatedly expressed on the subject of
slavery, as a social and political question:
But they do not conceal from themselves,
that the practices of the Federal Govern
ment have long been opposed to their con-
victioDs on the subject. They know thatit
has been administered for MANY years in
subserviency to the purposes of the slavery
extensionists of tho slaveholding States.-
The war to extend the boundary of slavery
to the Rio Grande-the violation of the
Missouri compact-the war against Kansas,
to extend slavery To the Pacific, are all sac
ri6ces of the public opinion, and the moral
sense Of the masses of the country, by am
OlIIOuS luCuiuUGuIS, III luo leueTal duIDlnlS-
tration, to that combination in the South,
which brings the votes of fifteen slave States
in phalanx to divide and conquer the Free,
and so continue their triumphs in Presiden-
tial elections. This combination has long
been absolute in its mastery over nomina-
tions, elections, administrations, and even
Legislation, touching the maintenance and
expansion of the institution of slavery, to
which it owes its political strength.
What is the result2 Is the combination
satisfied Far from it. There is a growing
power impaired by free institutions in the
Anti-Slavery States-by their industrious
economy-by their intellectual resources,
which gradually render abortive all the acts
Of intrigue that pervert the organs of the
national will into instruments of sectional
oligarchy. The selfish combination, in vain
suborns northern aspirants to its purposes,
rendering all the corrupt influence its con-
solidated force can command, to seduce
support in the north, to carry the chief mag
istracy, and threatening, in case of defeat,
the overthrow of the Union, to coerce patri-
otism itself to submit to the minor, to avert
the greater mischief In vain its leadeu
lsceptre has stunned and swayed the nation
al functionaries-broken the conciliating
compacts of 1921 and ls50-and interpo-