Washington standard. [volume] (Olympia, Wash. Territory) 1860-1921, 1861-03-09
Republican Party and the Crisis.

tain the u OF the trouble and eX.
element now pcrvadingthe public mind
throughout the United States.
Can you tell us the exact points OF
difference between contending parties!
If YOU can, YOU will have relieved the
readers of the STANDARD of much anxi.
ety., and will have furnished a stand.
point from which they may tie better
determine who are right aud who arc
wrong in the pending controversy.
have read the speeches Of some of the
more prominent Republican Senators,
and it seems to me they entertain views
and opinions much the same rs those
expressed by Clay, Webster, Benton,
and Silas Wright, in their day and time.
They breathe the same devotion to the
Union of the States as was the custom
of those great leaders, whenever the
monster Disunion showed its dcformity.
They propose no restriction on any
State, Territory, or section of our com
mon country which has not been the
custom of Congress to exercise from
the origin Of the Government, COM
mencing with the Administration OF
Washington and coming down to the
present pcriod-which policy has been
sanctioned by our highest courts, and
approved by our people time and again
at the ballot box. They propose no
new policy on the Territorial Question.
They maintain with Jefferson, Madison,
and Adams, of the earlier statesmen,
and with Webster, Benton. and Wright,
of moro modern times, that slavery is
the creature of local law, and as a con
sequence, our Territories are free in the
absence of such local regulation.
They maintain, as did our patriot
sircs, that in this great Government
freedom is national, slavery local or,
in other words, freedom is the rule and
slavery the exception.
They do not propose to interfere by
Congressional Intervention with slave
~ in the States, but leave the question
of its management to those who have
it, to control and do with it as they
tiay diccin for the best. arFihey do net
propose the repeal ofthc Fugitive Slave
Law of 1850, but So to amend it as to
do away with some OF its obnoxious
features, thus making the law less OBJ
j~cctionablc to the free State people and
equally effective in the arrest and re-
turn of tugitivcs. and to make the cX-
iStcpcc of Personal Liberty Bills in the
free States no longer necessary. The
Republicans have but little confidence
in any line through The territory divid-
ing freedom and slavery, and as they
have been cheated once by the South
on this mode of settlement. they don't
like to he chcatcdasccondtimc They
don't forget the repeal of the Missouri
Compromise Line against the most sol
emn protest of the North, and of the
unholy ctior. to force slavery on Kan
sas against the will of t~hrec-iourths of
her people, and that too on land once
assigned to freedom by this samcSouth.
As | understand the speeches which
| have read, they are willing to vote an
enabling act to any of IL Territories
having sufficient population to form a
State, to do so, promising adnllttancc,
and only requiring that her Constitu-
ton be Republican in form. This rca-
sonablc mode of admitting new States
and settling the question of slavery,
is rejected by the Democracy. They
must and will have q line drawn
through the territory, south of which
slavery must go by Congressional in
.tcrvcntion, and there remain until the
people in their sovereign capacity rs
a State dctercmine otherwise. IT this
is not granted, they say they will break
up the Government. wonder if these
worthless arc aware that South Carroll
ma may, if she choose to do so, make
her State free, and Massachusetts may,
if her people choose, establish slavery?
These are questions which the sover-
cirn States may determine without Ell
tlier aid oradvicc from Congress. They
deny the right of a State to scccdc.
They say, like Webster, secession is
revolution. Revolution is treason, OK
cept it be successful. They maintain
it to be the duty of the Federal Gov
crnmcnt to see that its laws arc eXecu-
ted. That if its property is seized by a
rabblc or mob, or by Il class of outlaws
bearing any other name, whether the
property SO taken be forts, arscnals,
revenue vessels, or money, or any 9TH
or property or thing belonging to the
United States, that it is the boundcn
duty of the Federal authority to give
such direction to itspowers as to rctake
and reoccupy such property for the ben
eft and use of the Government. In
doing this, they claim they make no
war On u State, but simply on the reb:
l. l,..o1 Ia, kllo a1nlnA,fill