Belmont chronicle. [volume] (St. Clairsville, Ohio) 1855-1973, 1861-02-14
our NATL lonal Right Of Eminent
Domain.
LFrom ,he Now York Posi.l

foreign powers. South Carolina and Geor
qia were of the original thirteen colonies
which proclaimed their independence o
Great Britain. There is some colorado pre-
text, therefore, for their assertion of nativ'
sovereignty, and of the right to maintain i
outside of the Union. But Louisiana, Flor
ida and Mississippi are only States because
they were made so by the General Govern
ment. All the land within their border
was purchased by the Union, with the com
mon funds of the people, from foreign pow
ers. For long time they were held as mer'
territories belonging to the Union. Thel
Union, and when they had acquired popula
ton enough to form State they were ad
mitted into the Union only on certain ire
vocable conditions
Take the history Of the admission Of Lou
isiana as an example of the rest. The Ena
bling Act of Congress, granting to the people
of this Territory the right to hold a Conven-
ton to organize them into State, had this
conditional clause: that
"Said Convention shall proclaim by ordi-
nance, irrevocable without the consent of
the United States, that the people inhabit-
ing tho said Territory do agree and declare
that the river Mississippi and the navigable
rivers and waters leading into the same, or
into the Gulf of Mexico, shall be common
highways and forever free, as well to the
inhabitants of the said State as 10 the other
citizens Of the United States
This clause was formally accepted in 1907,
and the ordinance by whicn alone Louisiana
was admitted as q State solemnly agreed and
proclaimed that it should never he revoked
without the consent Of the United States -
Yet in the face of these sacred obligations
tho late seeding Convention enacted that
the ordinance passed by this State on the 22d
of November, 1907, whereby the Constitll-
ton of the United States and the amend
monts Of said Constitution were adopted,
and all the laws and ordinances by which
Louisiana became a member of the Federal
Union, be and the same are hereby repealed
and sbrogated.
This raises new and interesting question.
A vast domain is added to our Union either
by purchase. or conquc.t. or by both All
the rights before held by the sovereign powers
that conveyed the domain by national deed
or treaty, in the land, thus acquired, are
vested in our national sovereignty. After
wards the citizenso of portions Of that domain,
having formed State Constitutions subject
10 the Constitution Of the United States and
to certain prescribed conditions, are admit
ted into the general Union. They then pro
pose, as States, to secede from The Govern
mcnt of the Union. Under these crcum-
stances the question arises as to what must,
thereafter, be their condition.
BY secession they can only destroy their
connection as States with the General Gov
ernment; for that foolish net of political
destruction does not of itself create nn inde-
pendent power it merely remands them to
the condition in which they existed before
they were admitted as States They revert
To their former condition Of Territories--or,
at least, to unacknowledged States in nubibus.
Il matters not that their late organizations
were once sanctioned by the National Gov
ernment, for that sanction was of States loyal
to that Government, and not Of States that
profess to contemn its protection and to treat
its power with contempt. The disloyalty
destroys the sanction, and every obligation,
tacit or express, which existed during the
time Of faithful allegiance
If Florida and Louisiana arc not now
States Of this Union, they are only terrific
ries Of the national government, and should
be governed as such the President should
Legislatures should take the place of their
revolutionary assemblages Our venerable
President would find more than sufficient
precedent for such course, in the policy
which he pursued towards tho free people
Of Kansas. When they would not becurscd
BY the Constitution created by fraud, they
were not permitted to be blessed by one
made by themselves; but were, for years
since they formed their constitution, kept
under territorial government.
We may not wish to coercc the nhabi-
tants Of either of those regions in continuing
as States Of tho Union; their State organza-
ions we're formed for their own benefit, and
itmight be allowed, for tho sake of argument,
that they can relinquish those benefits if
they please But the domain upon which
those State organizations wcro established
was purchased for our benefit; for tho safety
and security Of our national interests, and
especially for the protection of the great
commercial and agricultural interests of
the Moth anl West Upon tho Florida
Keys stand the boaoons that guide and the
fortresses that defend tho rich commerce that
moves between the golden ports of tho Pa
dific and the thropgod harbors of New York
and New England. Rising from their oozy
beds At the delta of tho Mississippi are the
ational guardians Of the surplus wealth of
the great Mississippi valley, For thousands
Of miles the grand river and its aflluents
gather contributions which arc destined 10
Il
was to subsorve those prc-emnently national
interests that tho National Government paid
Spain fve million dollars for Florida, and
gave hundreds of brave men and fifty million
dollars more TO drive out the Seminoles; and
that il paid to Franco fifteen million dollars
for the Louisiana Territory, and expended
immense sums for the Notifications of its
coasts
Can the few white mon and negroes, near
ly equally divided in numbers, now scattered
over Florida, bo so foolishly infatuated as TO
suppose that the Territory they inhabit was
purchased for their pleasure? No. 1t was
to complete the boundary Of the nation and
give protection to the interests of those not
resident citizens Of that land of boundless
swamps, that the Government acquired the
Everglades and expelled the Seminole Iudi.
ans at 90 much cost. Can the residents of
Louisiana be so presumptuous us TO think
that their territory was bought in their in
terest alone? Ifso let them be reminded
of what they should not have have forgotten,
that the controlling reason for the purchase
was found for TO the north of this latitude.
Louisiana might have continued to enjoy the
Code Napoleon and tho blessings of Slavery,
perhaps even till this day, under French
rule, II Q great statesman had not heard the
approaching footballs of millions of freemen