Cincinnati daily press. [volume] (Cincinnati [Ohio]) 1860-1862, 1861-01-01

the line Of 36o sO' slavery shall be cx-
cluded, and south of that line it shall be es-
tablished during the Territorial condition,
by on amendmentto TO the Constitution. This
Mr.. Pugh says, is restoring the Missouri
Compromise, under which, he says, the
slavery agitation was taken out Of politics,
and the county enjoyed peace and frater-
nifty.
Mr.. Pugh helped to repeal that Compro-
mise. For him to confess now that its repeal
plunged the country from domestic peace
and fraternal feeling into agitation which
now threatens fratricidal strife, Is an example
of penitence worthy of camp meeting
"mourners' bench " during a very refresh
ing season. There need be no further ques-
ton as to where the responsibility belongs
for the condition of the country. 1t stands
confessed that the policy of the managers of
the Democratic party has both sacrificed the
party and brought the country to the brink
of destruction.
But the penitent stage is as far as Mr..
Pugh has yet progressed. He does not pro-
pose reparation. His plan is not the Mis-
souri, Compromise. He proposes to use the
name and success of a compromise which he
helped to violate, to impose q counterfeit
upon the people. The Missouri Compromise
did not establish slavery south of that line.
It left it to ITSELF
The audience applauded when Mr.. Pugh
declared himself uneompromisingly opposed
to the introduction OF slavery into Ohio.
They were rejoiced to find that while Mr..
Pugh was very free to admit slavery into
Territories where he does not live, they can
rely on him TO defend the soil of Ohio against
slavery. A liberality in conceding territory
which belonged to others, was the great
feature of compromise policy in very an
cient times.
Mr.. Pugh would oppose the introduction
Of slavery into Ohio, not because he thinks
slavery wrong, but because he thinks the
climate and productions unsuitable for slave
labor, and that slavery could not sustain
itself here, in competition with free labor,
however much it might be protected by
Government. So, also, he believes thdt the
same isothermal line would of itself exclude
slavery from the territory north of 800 30.
He believes that nature hasexcluded slavery
from all the territory north of that line, and
thatho Congressional exclusion is required
to preserve it from slaverys
Wesay Mr.. Pugh believes this, because it
is cardinal Democratic doctrine, and has
been preached on every occasion, especially
when the Missouri Compromise was repealed,
ard when the Kansas and Nebraska Terrific
rial Legislatures, in the exercise of the
fright to regulate their institutions in their
own way" passed acts to exclude slavery.
So, then, Mr.. Pughs proposition is moth
ing more than that slavery shall be excluded
by the Constitution from Territory where it
is excluded by climate, and shall be pro-
tected by the Constitution in all the Terri
tory where the climate will allow its exist
ence; including large portion where it is
more than doubtful whether it can go, with
the consent of the inhabitants. This Mr..
Pugh calls a compromise, and he talks with
apparent sincerity of having it accepted by
two thirds of the States as constitutional
amendment.
Mr.. Pugh bas been opposed, up to this
time, 10 the protection of slavery by the
General Government. The Northern De-
mocracy chung to that principle, and divided
the National Convention rather than give it
up. They declared that the safety of the
Union, and, what was more, the preservation
of the Democratic party, depended on main
tanning that principle. This opposition was
not to the protection of slavery in the Ter
ritory where it could not 90, and where no
body asked any protection, but in the Terri
tory where the people of the slave States
wanted to carry their slaves.
Then nom protection-or non-interven-
tiOn, as it was called-was the principle that
would take the slavery question out of poll
tics and save the Union. Now, Intervention
to establish and protect slavery in all the
territory where nature has not excluded it,
is necessary to take slavery out of politics
and save the Union. Surely, if the Union
can survive this kind of practice, it must be
gifted with wonderful constitution.
In some of the rural districts, elder-bark is
a domestic specific for many maladies and
it has the great convenience that it operates
as an emetic or eathartic, according as the
bark is scraped up or down. Mr.. Pugh's
remedies for the Union seem to operate alter
nately in the same way.
The Democracy repealed the Missouri
Compromise, to take the question of slavery
forever out Of politics. But the bark hap
pened to be seraped upward, and it operated
the wrong way. Now he proposes to apply
the same compromise, in a stronger decoc-
tion, with the bark scraped downward, Sc
as to reverse the operation.
A little while ago, he and the Northern
Democracy declared that if the South in
sisted on the protection of slavery in the
Territories by the general Government, it
would break up the Democratic Party, and,
Of course, break up the Union-the two
being Synonymous. That was when the
bark was scraped upward. Now he pre-
scribes protection of slavery in the Terri
tories, with the bark scraped downward and
made into stronger decoction and put in
the Constitution, as the very thing to save
the Union and the Democratic Party.
--
AN IMPORTANT LITERARY QUssTIos De-
cDED.-The question of an authors interest