Nashville union and American. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1853-1862, 1861-03-09

"Shall fugiti-es from labor be surrendered by
National or State authority! The Constitution
does not expressly say. May Congress prohibit
slavery in the Territoriesf The Constitution does
noiE expressly say" Shall Congress protect
slavery in the Territories? The Constitution deos
not expressly say. Whenever questions of this
class spring up in controversies and we divide
upon them into msjortes and minorities if the mi-
nority will not acquRsce the majority must, the
Government will cease. There is no other alterna
tive but acquiesce the one side the other
If the doctrine thus distinctly enurciated be ae-
quiescsd in by the South, then there is an end of
constitutional liberty, and of the South who are
in hopeless minority, are reduced to the condition
of mere petitioners.
Heretofore it has been held that the Supreme
Court the final arbiter of constitutional cues
tions. The trainers OF Constitution for the eK-
pressly avowed purpose ofproviding check against
the rule of Interpretation adopted by Mr. LINCOLN,
the will of majority, provided that the Judges Of
the Federal Courts should hold their Offices during
life. They were purposey placed above the tempta,
tion of being influenced by the will of the majorI-
ties, as the guardians of the rights of morities as
well as majorites, and to secure them against the
very evils with which we are now threatened, the
tyranny of dominant majority.
Mr. LINCOLN propounds questions of vital impor-
lance to the South Upon each of these questions
there have already been decisions Of the Supreme
Court adverse to the doctrines of the Black Repub-
Hcsn party, and In conformity with those of the
South With an imperious air, he rejects their au-
thority "If says he "tbe policy of the government
upon vital questions affecting the ole people is
to be irrevoeabIy fixed by the decisions of the Su-
prsme Court, the instant they made in ordinary
litigation between parties in personal actions the
people will have ceased to be their own rulers,
having 80 that extent practically resigned their gov
eminent into the hands of that tribunal"
And to that extent, we answer, the trainers of our
Constitution never intended the people sho-id be
their own rulers in the sense here employed by the
President that is, that the rights of minorities
should be subject to the absolute, unrestraned will
of tyrannicai majority Our fathersSwere not
such fools as TO create any such government or to
invest any man or body of men with such power.
Our government is not nor was 1t ever intended 10
be- mere majority government, unrestTained by
any law but its own will, or, what would be the
same thing. its own judgment of what was due to
the minority. Such government would be the
most lateful despotsm on earth.
We never agreed TO submit the question of the
right of property to the will of majority. The
sovereign States, when they entered into compact
with each other. never consented to submit the
question OF their rights to the common property,
including our Territories, to the mere will of
jority. There were sections and sectional feeling
then as now and 1t needed not Omniscience to fore
see that, under such powers, the more powerful
section would one day appropriate all the public
land to itself as indeed the North now claims the
right to do in spite of the decision of the Supreme
Court in favor of the equality of the rights of all the
States.