The Oxford intelligencer., 1861-03-06

!
"slavery is the creature of positive law" and
that it cannot exist in any country where it can
only appeal to the common law for support In
this convenient manner, slavery is to be exclud-
ed from ali the territory now belonging to the
United States; and to this despicable "trick
Southern men, who deserve, for their moral trea-
son, to die the death of traitors, have assented
by their votes. Had they agreed, in express
terms, that all the territory should be given up
to the grasping spirit of the North, such an
agreement, reasonable as it you'd. have been,
would have had something manly about it-so
far as manlness can be predcated of an act essen
tally craven in its character-for they would
have exposed themselves, openly, to the criti-
csm, and the vengeance, of the outraged people
whom they misrepresented in the Congress +;
but they have sneakingly agreed that the same
result may be attained by indirection, and, while
protesting desire to protect and secure all the
rights of the South in the Territories they
treacherously surrender them. We trust that
the individual votes of those who favored this
nefarious scheme will soon be made public, in
order that their names may be held up to merited
execration.
But this is not ALL Slavery in various States
is losing ground, ard will soon need room cor
respondingly to expand itself in Southern >d-
rection. Mexico is nearly ripe for incorporation
/ into Union with u.s. The North is resolved to
"pen up" slavery within its present limits,
with the design of extingushingit forever and
the Peace Congress, yielding to the North con-
sents that Mexico shall never be acquired unless
a two thirds majority of the Senate from the
slaveholding and non-slaveholding States assent
to the treaty of acquisition and, moreover, the
whole question of slavery in reference to future
| acquisitions, is left open, so as TO enable the
North to carry out its abolition purposes. We
presume there is not n sensible man in the coun-
try who believes that Mexico could ever be ac-
quired under the amendment proposed by the
Peace Congress, except as free State. The
proposition, in effect, is this If Mexico comes
into the Union, she shall not come in as a slave
State; nor shall any more slave States erer be
admitted.
It is true that amendments are proposed which
parport to afford perpetual guaranty to slavery
in the States where it now exists. This guar
anty, however, affords security only against di-
rect legislation, on the part of Congress- designed
to regulate, abolish, or control" slavery in the
States where it exists If the people of the
slave States permit themselves to be deudcdin-
to the belief that this guaranty will avail any
thing as protection to slavery, they will soon
be Nndeceivcd Lincoln illappoint no man to
Office who is not an abolitionist lie will fill the
South with his emissaries, who will excite the
slaves to revolt, and keep our people in state Of
continual alarm. lie will say that the Constitu-
ton does not require him to confer office upon
slave-owncrs. We have no doubt, indeed, that
the letter of the Constitution will be scrupulous-
ly adhered to. Having agreed, in order to paci-
fy the South, that they will not destroy slavery
by an act of Congress, the North will stand up
to that agreement; but, not having stipulated
that they will not destroy it in any other mode,
they will consider themselves at full liberty to
employ against il all the destructive agencies they
can devise, except an act Of Congress When
Black Republican, who is thirsting for your
blood is once brought to compromise" and
thereby engages that he will not shoot you with
musket, you may, perhaps, trust yourself
within range so long ms you know that he car
rics no other weapon; but, if he could shoot
you with a rifle or pistol, or hang or drown you,
he would piou'ly cxclim, to any one who re-
monstratcd with him, that he had observed his
compact with religious cxactitude. D..
Indeed, Anti-slavery has now acquired such
controlling influence in the Northern and some
of the Southern States, that it may well afford
to agree, in order to keep the South in the Union,
that Congress shall not abolish slavery. 1t has
other means, equally efficient for the accomplish
ment of its purposes against slavery, which it
can so employ as to root out the institution in
less than twenty years, in every slave State that
shall commit the folly Of remaining in the I'm
ion.
The question Of slavery is the only one that
is touched upon by the thinkers of the Peace
Congress, and that is so disposed of that the
South comedies every thing, and the North moth
ing II, however, il had been settled upon such
a basis as would have commanded the unquali-
fed appreciation of every Southern patriot, still,
it does not offer a remedy for the evil Of the
times. With the exception of the isolated sub
jecto slavery, it leaves the South completely at
the mercy Ct the overwhelming and fanatical
Northern majority, in regard to every matter
of Federal legislation. The inestimable right
of secession is, by implication, denied, and the
right of the majority to establish despotism
and enforce its DEGREES against the minority, is
implicitly asserted. 1t is another wooden
horse" which is cunningly presented to us by
our enemies as gin, but which, in fact has been
invented by them for our destruction.
1t may be that the border slave States, already
half abolitionzed, as their recent elections show,
will humiliate themselves by accepting this alb
surd compromise" in which, as Paddy remark
cd, "all the reciprocity is on one side;" but we
trust that there is not a man in Mississippi or
in the Confcderacy, who viii consent that any
of the seeded States shall stultiiy themselves
by initiating the example Of the others. For our
part, "no reconstruction is our motto. We
are out of the Union. Let Us keep out if we
are wise.