Cincinnati daily press. [volume] (Cincinnati [Ohio]) 1860-1862, 1861-01-07
The oOuviorO ofshe slavery AsItetiOn.

The progress of slavery was never changed
by legislation Nor will its fate ever be af-
fected by legislation, whether Territorial,
State, Congressional or Constitutional Its
destiny is as fixed as fate. The only thing
that ststesmanship can do for slavery, is to
take the question out of legislation, and con-
sequently, out of political agitation. The
ordinance prohibiting slavery in the North
west Territory did that. We do not suppose
that the present status Of the States formed
out of the Territory is due to that ordinance
at all. But it was settlement of the ques-
tion politically. The settlement called the
Missouri Compromise, removed the slavery
question from political agitation. We do
not suppose that any State owes its exenp-
tion from slavery to that; but it stopped the
political agitation of slavery and gave the
nation peace and harmony.
But politicians could not spare SO potent
tool for political agitation; therefore that
compromise was broken and the peace and
national harmony of the country sacrificed,
to furnish an excitement from which they
hoped 10 retrieve their desperate fortunes.
This is now freely confessed by the very pol
iticisns and party. organs that brought this
evil upon the country. There is no question
as TO where the responsibility belongs for
the whole agitation, which has plunged the
country from prosperity into distress and
disaster The crime that has already in
ficted upon the country many of the evils
which belong to war and famine, is openly
assumed by these party-organs and leaders,
and they even have the hardihood to accuse
Others who resisted the violation of this
compromise, for not Fastening to offer it and
force it on those who violated it.
Guilt does not escape penalty by confess
ion. Even in the merciful law of God, repara-
ton is required. States. evidence may some
times escape the law, when it is necessary
for the discovery and conviction of accom-
plices; not otherwise. The confession of a
convicted felon but confirms the penalty.
Party organs and leaders whose policy has
brought upon the country all the hostile
feeling of civil war, and greater distress of
the people and greater destruction of pros
perity and wealth than is often inflicted by
war, will hardly be permitted to escape the
responsibility, and to be taken again into
confidence, and put into positions where
they can do more mischief merely by plea
of guilty. There are the mass of the people,
their industry destroyed, thrown out of en-
ployment, and many of them suffering for
want of the means of subsistence and manu-
facturers and business men, with their en-
terprises and investments paralyzed, and the
employment which they furnished to labor
destroyed, to all of whom it is now confessed
that their interests and the savings of their
industry, and the very means of subsistence
r - c---:i:-- ~~-------:c ->I L.y the
action of reckless politicians, without
character or conscience, who, like parasites,
thrive only by the diseases of the body
polite.
The working men and business men of
Cincinnati know perfectly well where the
responsibility lies for the agitation which
has trifed with their property and subsist-
eICe and when the Cincinnati Enquirer
invokes mobs to avenge the distress which
it confesses has been brought upon the people
by the political agitation which it and its
rty-leaders forced upon the country, it
could not more effectually raise a fail to
beat out its own brains. The DAILY PREss
is ready and willing to appeal to the great
tribunal of the people of Cincinnati in any
form. Let the Enquirer see that its case is
ready, for usually it is thought that plea
of guilty TO a great crime does not consti.
tute the best case to go before tribunal
composed of those who are suffering the
injury.