Daily intelligencer. [volume] (Wheeling, Va. [W. Va.]) 1859-1865, 1860-07-20
rhe Meaning Of the new ..PrOpsrty"

Before adopting the new 0octrlne on the
Subject of property" as propounded by
the Administration party, there is one
view of il which its northern apostles may
rs we'll look at twice. When these gen.
tlemen insist upon having slaves placed in
the same category with horses and oxen,
and call upon the country to concede that
the constitution treats them as 'property,"
| they either do not mean what they say, or
they mean more than they say. a horse
is horse in Maine as well as in South
Carolina. The Massachusetts, oxen stand
Just as much in need of an owner as
those of Mississippi; the same genuine
principles govern their possession and
transmission, whether by sale or inherit
ance, in all the States of the Union.-
When one Of the chivalry brings mule
to New York, the New York law will
judge of his right to it by the law of
the State in which he acquired it, and
will protect him in the enjoyment of it ac-
cordiugly. 1t is not to the territories of
the United States alone, that a Southerner
may carry his or or his ass, With the GER
tainty of being protected in the peaceable
possession of it. 1t is not in Arizona or
Kansas alone that the law watches over
his flocks aud herds. He may carry them
into any part of the Union, any State law
to the contrary Notwithstanding. If
SoutherRer came to New York with COW
he would have nothing to fear from an act
of the State Legislature declaring that all
cows should be allowed to run wild, and
that from the moment they crossed the
border the owner should be deemed to
have lost all title to them. We presume
there can be little doubt as to what the de-
cision of the federal courts would be as to
the effect OF such q laW-upou the rights of
COW proprietors. They would hold it to
be clearly unconstitutional and void as far
as it affected citizens of other States,
whether the State courts declared it to be
SO with regard to their own citizens or
not, and their protection to property in
cows would certainly not be confined to
COWS in the territories, but cows in every
| State in the Union.
Now, ifnegrocs be property as cows or
watches are property, the pretence that the
constitution of the United States will pro-
tect their owners in the enjoyment of them
cannot be restricted to the territories
Anything which the constitution of the
! United States recognizes as property it
recognizes as such wherever it is the SUI
preme law of the land, or in other words,
! in all the States of the Union; so that all
the State laws abolishing slavery are and
must be held to be unconstitutional by
everybody who proposes to take Breckin-
ridge and Lane for his guide, and every
! STAKEHOLDER has just as much right to carry
! his 'niggers" with him to Boston aud New
York, as to Leavenworth OF Vicksburg
| If this view of the matter raise diff
Guilty, it is one from which there is no
! escape. If the constitution of the United
States really declare slaves to be property,
things. not persons, this means that all the
! States have bound themselves solemnly to
! consider them property also, and to Clothe
them with all the incidents of property,
and not to pass any law fixing upon them
a different character, or depriving any
citizen of the right to hold them.
This is precisely what is meant when it
is said "slaves are property" under the
Constitution, and it will not do to attempt
to restrict the operation of the Constitu-
ton on this point, more than another, to q
particular portion of the Union. The
northern hangers-ou of the privateers
must make up their minds to recognize
this Constitutional property everywhere or
nowhere. Half measures will not suit
their case. They must call upon the
North in explicit terms, this summer, TO
deny the validity of their anti-slavery law,
observation-disclosures max he-held at this
6eteasible MS horses and COWS; that various
States, when they gave in their adhesion
to the Constitution, bound themselves and
their posterity to preserve slavery as long
as the Union should last; that anything
short of this is reasonable, perfidious and
fatal to the confederacy
The task of getting voters in the froe
States for Breckenridge, upon this plat
form, is one which may we'll fire the am-
billions Of all his admirers. We advise
them to begin early, however, as the sum-
mer is running by. August is a bad
month for stumPing, and the pig-headed-
ness of the country people on certain sub
Jects is almost incredible. There is no
time, therefore, to belost, unless we great
mistake the temper Of northern people.
/ IN. Y. Post.