Lewistown gazette. [volume] (Lewistown, Pa.) 1843-1944, 1860-03-15
? 0 Z T 6 AL
SPEECH
OF
WM, r. SEW ARD,
OF NEW YORK.

VIII not llnger over the Sequel. 1he pop
ular sovereignty 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 intolera-
bic bondage. From 1856 to 1860 Kansas,
SUSTAINED and encouraged only blythe Repub
lican party, has been engaged in successive
and ever varying struggles, which have taxed
all her virtue, wisdom, moderation, energies,
and resources, and often even her physical
strength and martial courage. to save herself
from being betrayed into the Union as a slave
state. Nebraska; though choosing freedom,
is through the direct exercise Of the Execu-
tive power, overruling her own WILL held as
a slave Territory and New Mexico has re
lapsed voluntarily into the practice Of slavery,
from which she had redeemed herself while
she yet remained part of the Mexican re-
public. Meantime the Democratic party, ad-
vancing from the ground of popular sover-
eighty as far as that ground is from the ordi.
nance Of 1887, now stands on the position
that both Territorial Governments and Con-
gress are incompetent to legislate against
slavery in the Territories, while they are not
only competent, but are obliged when it is
necessary, to legislate for its protection there.
In this new and extreme position the Dem,
ocratlc party now masks itself behind the
battery of the Supreme Court, as if it were
possible a true construction of the Consiu-
ton, that the power of deciding practically
forever between freedom and slavery in por
tion of the continent far exceeding all that is
yet organized, should be renounced by Con
gress, which alone possesses any legislative
authority and should be assumed and exer-
csed by a court which can only take cogni
zance Of the great question collaterally. in a
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 Overruling in
teryention Of jury Of twelve good and law
ful men of the neighborhood where the liti
CATION arises. The Independent, ever-renew-
ed, and ever-recurring representative Parlia-
ment, Diet, Congress, or Legislature, is the
one chief, paramount, essential, indispensa-
hle institCtion in Republic. Even liberty,
guaranteed by organic law, yet if it be held
by other tenure than the guardian care of
such a representative popular assembly, is
but precariously maintained, while slavery,
enforced by an irresponsible judicial tribunal,
is the completest possible development Of des-
potism.
Mr. President, did ever the annals of any
Government show a more rapid or more COM
of its founders? Did ever the Government
of great empire, founded on the rights Of
human labor, slide away so fast and SO far,
and moor itself so tenaciouSly on the basis of
capital, and that capital invested in laboring
men? Did ever free representative legisla
ture invested with powers so great, and with
the guardianship Of rights SO important, of
trusts so sacred, of interests so precious, and
of hopes at once so noble and so comprehen-
sive, sgrrenderard renotEce them so unneces-
sarily, so unwisely, so fatally, and so inglori-
ously? If it be true, as every instinct Of our
nature, and every precept Of political expert
ence teaches US, that
I'll fares the land to Fastening ills prey.
Where wealth accumulates and men decay"
then where in Ireland, in Italy, in Poland, or
in Hungary, has any ruler prepared for
generous and confding people disappoint-
ments, disasters and calamities equal to those
which the Government Of the United States
holds now suspended over so large portion
of the continent of North America?
Citizens of the United States in the spirit
of this policy, subverted the free republic Of
Nicaragua, and opened it to slavery and the
African slave trade, and held it in that con-
dtion waiting annexation to the u United States,
until its sovereignty was restored by combi-
nation of sister republics exposed to the same
danger, and apprehensive of similar subver-
sion. Other citizens re-opened the foreign
slave trade in violation of our laws and treat
les 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 impunity,
| among our plantations.
For this policy, so far as the Government
has sanctioned it, the Democratic party avows
itself responsible. Everywhere complaint
against it is denounced, and its opponents
prescribed. When Kansas was writhing un-
der the wounds of incipient serVile war be-
! cause of her resistance, the democratic press
| deridingly said, let her bleed Official in
tegrity has been cause for rebuke and punish
| ment. when it resisted frauds designed to pro
| mote the extension Of slavery. Throughout
| the whole Republic there is not one known
| dissenter from that policy remaining IL place.
| if within reach of the Executive arm. Nol
| over the face of the whole world is there Il
| be found one representative of our country
who is not an apologist of the extension o
! slavery.
1t is in America that these things have
happened. In the nineteenth century, th'
era of the world greatest progress, and while
| all nations but ourselves have been elthel
abridging or altogether suppressing commerc'
in men; at the very moment when the Rus
sian serf ia emeneipated, and the Georgian
captive, the Nubian prisoner, and the Abkys
sinian savage are lifted up to freedom by the
successor of Mohammed. The world, pre-
possessed in our behalf, by our early deVotior
to the rights of human nature as no natior
ever before engaged its respect and sympa
thies, asks in wonder and amazement wha
| ali this decentralization means? 1t has an ex
cuse better than the world can imagine, bet