The Highland weekly news. [volume] (Hillsborough [Hillsboro], Highland County, Ohio) 1853-1886, 1862-01-16
Communications.
flor the News.
lFor the News
Medary's "Crisis" on the Admins.
tration and the Slavery Question.

fFor the News.
Medary's "Crisis" on the Admins.
tration and the Slavery Question.
In late number of the "Crisis," Me-
dary undertakes to show that the prin-
eiples of the Chicago Platform have
been abandoned by the Administration
lie says, "this party in power ocknowl-
edge slaves to be property, by confsca-
ting it when held by rebels, and return
ing it or agreeing to pay for it where it
| belongs to loyal citizens"
) Now the assumptions and reasoning
by which he attempts TO sustain tho
above statement appear to us sheer
sophistry and pettifogging. Slaves are
conhscated because their "service or la
bOr," no matter by what tenure they
are held, is mado available, to increase
the resources and material by which the
, rebellion is sustained. The product of
their labor adds to the means of resis
tance and power of the rebels. Even if
it be conceded, as Medary asserts, that
slaves in the eye of the law are recog-
nized as property" and that the courts
from time immemorial have defined
their "service or labor" as property, and
that the Constitution protects it every
where, would the fact that the Repub-
lican platform has rejected these doc
trnes preclude the Administration from
meeting the actualities presented by the
subject under the laws of war, now that
the Constitution itself has been repudi-
ated by the rebels2
But the Government returns, or in.
IDENTITIES loyal citizens for the loss of
= slaves. This Medary claims as a full
acknowledgment of the right of prop
erty in slaves and chuckles over it nigh.
' tily. The Chicago platform contains
f no principle implying the right or duty
/, to interfere with any State institution,
no matter whether right or wrong
/, The announcement has been repeatedly
made that the Administration did not
make war upon domestic or State insti.
tutions, but for the restoration of the
Union, the support of the Constitution,
and the enforcement of the Laws. IF
the Administration, instead of setting
free the slaves of rebels, or returning
or indemnifying loyal citizens for their
loss when set free, should themselves
sell them as property to loyal citizens,
or hold them as property, the subject
of barter and sale, then they would be
justly chargeable with inconsistency.
Did those persons who in former
times paid ransom to the corsairs of
the Barbary States, for the recovery of
their friends, who had been taken CAP
tive by those outlaws, thereby sanction
the righteousness, or the legality of their
prac tices?
Medary says, the resolution of the
Chicago platform which denies "the au-
thorlty OF Congress or any Territorial
Legislature to give legal existence to
slavery in any territory of the United
: States, now precludes the Admiri,tra-
ton from coniscating slaves as proper
ty, or even legally to emancipate them,
because they have denied all sovereign.
ty OF Congress over the subject. This
is the "sort of fix which they have got
the negro into"
The Philadelphia aud Chicago Plat
forms assert that the Consultation con.
ters upon Congress sovereign power over
the territories" Now, this phraseology
does not mean unlimited sovereignty or
power. This power is necessarily lin
tied by the terms of the grant, or tho
general limitations expressed in tho
Constitution. Congress derives its sove-
rci-nty from the Constitution. The
Constitution is the charter and express
sion of the will of the whole people
The plain sense of the platform is that
, Congress cannot give legal existe nce to
} slavery because it is not among its gran
; ted powers, although so far as the ter
ritories are concerned it is the supreme
: legislative power. Mcdary disingonu-
ously misreprcsents the Republican
platforms, when he charges that they
, st up claim to the absolute souereiqn
: power of Congress over the territories,
and then repudiate it again by denying
the authority of Congress TO give le-
gal existence to slavery in any terrific
ry. Can there be no sovereignty in
Congress, because that sovereignty has
been limited and defined to pertain to
particular subjects?
He says, "the sovereign power alone
can reach property, and this sovereign
ty in democracy resides ia the peo-
: pie Again he contradicts himselfand
misrepresents, by saying that the Chi
cago platform denies the sopereiga-
" of Congress-whereas it only denies
that the sovereignty of Congress extends