Lewistown gazette. [volume] (Lewistown, Pa.) 1843-1944, 1860-03-08

it regard him as q person, and harbor and
protect him as a man2 They compromised
again, and decided that no person held to Ia
Dor or service In one State, by the laws there
Of escaping into another, shall by any law or
regulation of that State be discharged from
such labor or service, but shall be delivered
up en- claim to the person to whom such labor
or service shall be due.
Free laborers would immigrate, and slaves
might be imported into the States. The faith
ers agreed that Congress may establish uni
form laws of naturalization, and it might pro-
hibit the importation Of persons after lS0S.
Communities in the Southwest, detached from
the Southern States were growing up in the
practice of slavery, to be capital States
New States would soon grow up in the North
west, while as yet capital stood aloof, and Ia
Dor had not lifted the axe to begin there its
endless but henefcent task. The fathers au-
thorized Congress to make all needful rules
and regulations concerning the management
and disposition Of the public lands and to ad-
nit ne@ States. So the Constitution, while
it does not disturb or affect the system of cap
ital in slaves, existing in any State under its
own laws, does, at the same time, recognize
every human being, when within any exclu-
sive sphere of Federal jurisdiction, not os
capital but as a person.
Wha. ives the action of the fathers in Con.
gress? They admitted the new States of the
Southwest as capital States, because it was
practically impossible to do otherwise, and by
the ordinance Of 1897, confirmed in 1889,
they provided for the organization and admis-
sion of only labor States in the Northwest
They directed fugtives from service to be re
stored not as chattcs, but rs persons. They
awarded naturalization to immgrate free la
borers, and they prohibited the trade in Af-
rican labor. This disposition of the whole
subject was in harmony with the condition
Of society and, in the main, with the spirit
Of the age. The seven Northern States con
tentediy became labor States bv Their own acts.
She six Southern States, with equal tranquil.
ity, and by their own Determination, remain
ed capital States.
The circumstances which the fathers did
not clearly toresee, were two, namely: the re
invigoration Of slavery consequent on the in
creased consumption Of cotton, and the ex-
tension Of the national domain across the
Mississippi; and these occurred before 1920.
The State Of louisiana formed on a slave.
holding French settlement, within the newly
acquired LouisiapiGr territory, had then al
ready been admitted into the Union. There
vet remained, however, n vast region, which
with the then unoccupied and even unnamed
Kansas and Nebraska Arkansas, slave
holding community, was nearly ready to ap-
ply, and Missouri, another such Territory,
was actually applying for admission into the
Federal Union. The existing capital States
seconded these applications, and claimed that
the whole LouIsiaRlau territory was rightful-
ly open TO slavery, and to the Organization Of
future slave states The labor States main
tanned that Congress had supreme Legislative
power within the domain and could and
ought to exclude slavery there. Thequestion,
thus opened vas one which related not at all
to slavery in the existing capital States. 1t
WAS purely and simply national question
whether the common interest of the WHOLE re-
public required that Arkansas, Missouri, Kan
sas, and Nebraska should become capital
states, with all the evils and dangers Of sia-
very, or be labor states, with all the security,
benefits, and blessings OF freedom. On the
decision was suspended the question as was
thought, whether ultimately the interior of
this new continent should be an asy lum for the
oppressed and the exile, coming wear after
year, aud age after age, voluntarily from ev-
ery other civilized land, as we'll as for the
children of misfortune in our own, or wheth-
cr, through the renewal Of the African slave
trade, those magnificent and luxuriant regions
should be surrendered to the control of capi
tal wringng ont the fruits of the earth through
the impoyerishing toll Of negro slaves That
question Of 1890 was identically the oues
ton Of 1860, SO far as principle, and even the
field of its application, was concerned. Eve
~ element of the controversy now present
entered it then; the rghtfulness or the wrong
fulness OF slavery its effects present and fu.
ture; the constitutional authority of Congress:
the claims Of the states, and of their citizens;
the nature Of the Federal Union, whether it
is Il compact between the states, or an indie
pendent Government; the springs Of it's pow
ers, and the Hgatures upon their exercise. All
these were discussed with zeal and ability
which have never been surpassed. History
tells US, know not how truly. that the Union
reeled under the vehcmence Of that great de-
bate. Patriotism took counsel from prudence.
and enforced a settlement WHICH has proved
to be not Il final one; and which, as is now
seen, practically left open all the great polit-
zeal issues which were involved. Missouri
and Arkansas were admitted as states, while
labor obtained, as a reservation, the abridged
but yet comprehensive field of kansas and
Nebraska.
Now, when the present conditions of the
observed, and we see that capital retains un
disputed possession Of what it then obtained
while labor is conyulsing the country with so
hard and so prolonged n struggle to regain
the lost equivalent which had then guaran-
tied to it under circumstances Of so great sol
emnity, we may we'll desire not to be unde-
ceiyed if the Missouri Compromise was in
deed unnecessarily accepted by the free
States, influenced by exaggerations of the
dangers Of disun:on. The Missouri debate
disclosed truths Of great moment for ultcrior
use:
First. That it is easy to combine the cap
ital States in defence Of even external inter
ests, while it is hard to unite the labor States
in a common policy.
Second. That the labor States have a nat
ural loyalty to the Union, while the capital
States have q natural facility for alarming