Muscatine weekly journal. [volume] (Muscatine, Iowa) 185?-1890, 1860-03-16

haste to assert his reliable purpose to maintain
the new treaty inviolate. 4
Hardly, however, had these inspiring
sounds died away, throughout reassured
and delighted land, before the national repose
was shocked again shocked, indeed, as it
had never before been. Kansas and Nebraska,
the long reservation of labor and
Freedom, saved in the agony of national fear
in 1920, and saved again in the panic of 1850,
were now to be opened by Congress, that the
never. ending course of seed time and harvest
might begin. Missouri was near and watchful
and held the keys of the gates of Kansas. She
might seize the new and smiling Territory by
surprise, if only Congress would remove the
barrier established in 1920. The coniuncture
was favorable. The labor States had dismissed
many of their representatives here for too
great fidelity to freedom, and too great distrust
of the efficacy of that new bond of peace, and
had replaced them with partisans who were
only timid, but not unwilling. The Demo
cratic President and Congress hesitated, but
not long. They revised the last great COM
promise, and found, with delighted surprise,
that it was so far from confirming the law Of
freedom of 1920, that, en- the other hand, it
exactly provided for the abrogation of that
venerated statute nay, that the compromise
itself actually killed the spirit Of the Missouri
law, and devolved on Congress the duty of
removing the lifeless letter from the national
code. The deed was done. The Wing rep
resentatives of the capital States, in an hour
of strange bewilderment, concurred; and the
Wing party instantly went down, never to
rise again. Democrats seeded, and stood
aloof; the country was confounded; and,
amid the perplexities of the hour, a Republican
party was seen gathering itself together with
much earnestness, but with little show of
organization, to rescue, if it were not now too
late, the cause of Freedom and Labor, so
Unexpectedly and grievously imperiled in the
!, Territories Of the United States | will not
linger over the sequel. The popular sover-
eighty of Kansas proved to be the State
sovereignty of Missouri not only in the
persons of the rulers, but even in the letter
of an arbitrary and cruel code. The perfect
freedom proved to be hateful and intolerable
: bondage.
In this new and extreme position, the
Democratic party now masks itself behind the
battery of the Supreme Court, as if it were
,, possibly true construction of the Constitu-
, ton that the power of deciding practically
forever between Freedom and Slavery, in a
portion of tie continent far exceeding all that
!, is yet organized, should be renowned BY
.. Congress, which alone possesses any legisla
tive authority, and should be assumed and
exercised by court which can only take
cognizance of the great question collaterally
in private action between individuals, and
which action the Constitution will not suffer
the court to entertain, if it involves twenty
dollars of money, without the overriding
intervention of jury of twelve good and
. lawful men of the neighborhood where the
y litigation arises. The independent, ever
! renewed and overcoming representative
Parliament, Diet, Congress, or Legislature, is
;, the one chief paramount, essential, indis
> pensable institution in a Republic. Ever
! liberty, guaranteed by org mic law, vet if il
! be held by other tenure than the guardian
care ofsuch representative popular assembly
' is but precariously maintained, while slavery
enforced by an irresponsible judicial tribunal
is the completest possible development O.
= despotlsm. Did ever the annals of any gov
. eminent show a more rapid or more complete
8 departure from the wisdom and virtue of its
founders? Did ever the government of
great empire, 70 unded on the rights of human
labor slide away so fast and so far, and moo,
!. itself so tenaciousy on the basis of capital
and that capital invested in laboring men
Citizens of the United States, in the spirit Of
this policy, subver ted the free Republic Of
, Nicaragua, and opened it to Slavery and the
African slave trade, and held it in that condi
. ton, waiting annexation to the United States
until its sovereignty was restored by com
, binaiion of sister Republics exposed to the
same danger, and apprehensive Of similar
subversion. Other citizens reopened the
!. foreign slave trade, in violation of our laws
,, and treaties; and, after suspension of that
shameful traffic for fifty years, savage Africans
have been once more landed on our shores
and distributed, unreclaimed and with
lmpunity, among our plantations.
WHO ARE RESPONSIBLE
For this policy, so far as the Government
, has sanctioned it, the Democr attic party avows
itself responsible. Everywh ere, complain,
against it is denounced, and its opponents
prescribed. Throughout the whole Republic
! there is not one known dissenter from that
policy remaining in place, if within reach
OF the Executive arm. Nor over the face OF
the whole world is there to be found one
representative of our country who is not an
6 apoogst OF the extension of Slavery. The
world, prepossessed in our behalf byou early
devotion to the rights of human nature, as no
nation ever before engaged its respect and
sympathles, asks, in wonder and amazement,
what all this decentralization means? 1t has
an excuse better than the world can imagine,
better than we are generally conscious of our
selves-a vlrtuous excuse. We have loved,
not freedom so much less, but the union of
our country so much more. We have been
made to believe, from time to time, that, in a
Crisis, both OF these precious institutions could
not be saved together, and therefore we have.
n
freedom to proptiate the loyalty of capital,
and stay its hands from doing violence to the
Union. The true state of the case, however.
ought not to be mystery to ourselves
Presclence, indeed, is not given to statesmen:
but we are without excuse when we fail to
apprehend the logic of current events. Let
parties, Or the government choose or do what
they may, the people of the United States do
not prefer the wealth of the few to the liberty
Of the many, capital to labor, African slaves
| to white freemen, in the national Territories
and in future States. That question has
never been distinctly recognized or acted on
by them.
| THE REPUBLICAN PARTY.
The Republican party embodes the popular
protest and reaction against policy which
mas been fastened upon the nation by surprise,
ana which Its reason and conscience, concur
ring with the reason and conscience of
mankind, condemn.
The choice of the nation is now between
the Democratic party and the Republican
party. Its principles and policy are therefore
justly and even necessarily examined. / |
know of only one policy which it has adopted
Or avowed, namely: the saving of the Terri
tories of the United States, if possible, by
constitutional and lawful means, from being
homes for Slavery and Polygamy. may,
perhaps, infer, from the necessity of the case,
that it will, in all courts ana places, stand by
the freedom of speech and of the press, and
the constitutional rights of freemen every
where; that it will favor the speedy improve.
ment of the puh1i DONOR, b,, TO-,