Year: 1860

IL accompanied as the present vacillating opDOsi-
ton is, by the admission that slavery may exist in
a State--yes, in every State For what is slavery
but the practically asserted claim Of property in
nan Andif the rightfulncss of tha, claim in
State is conceded it is virtually conceded 10 ter.
ritory also What lie property anywhere is property
everywhere. Thatwhat the laws make property is
property is one of the things in the big bundle Of
atheism. Property makes necessity for laws but
God alone ordains what is property TO the
school Of great Nature, and not to the enactments
and convictions Of men, are We to 20 and learn
the elements and subjects of property That Gov
ernment may authorize the destruction of property
in cases where it has become a source of actual or
apprehended evil do not deny. But do deny that
this admitted power affords, as some maintain,
ground for the claim that Government can trans,
mute into property that which is not property, and
can look away from the light Of nature, comm IN
sense, aud common law to determine what is prop.
erty. Perhaps instead Of saying tha. Government
may authorize the destruction Of property, | had
better said that it may authorize the destruction Of
that in which the rights Of property are already
forfeited or lost


Would then any political party consistently and
effectualy oppose the introduction of slavery into
a territory it must recall every admission it has
made in favor CT tho lawGulness Of slavery ia a
State. At this point of territorial slavery tho Anti
Squatter Sovereignty Democrats have on the score
OF consistency immense advantage over the
Republicans and DOuglasites. If man may be
property in n State, it follows that lie can be right
fully carried as property into territory. These
Democrats make themselves strong by adopting
this inference, and their opponents weaken them
selves by rejecting it, But these Democrats
would make themselves far stronger, if they
would Push their consistency further aud insist on
tho right to carry this man property not only into
any territtry but into every State also. And they
will yet come to this, and bring the nation to this
provided the Abulitionists do cot succeed in the
moan time with their counter doctrine that man
~ property nowhere. Either Jefferson Davis or
Wendel! Phillips is right, All between them be
II Mr.. Douglas or Lincoln or whoever else, are
wrong. If the being, made in The image of God
may be slave anywhere, he may be slave
everywhere and if not every where then nowhere
Vice President Breckenridge in his letter of accep
tance just now published-a letter by the way
evncive Of the high order of his cultivated mind
says; Nothing less than sovereignty can destroy
pr impair The rights Of persons or prOrerty.' A
proposition this; were tho words less shan Bover-
eighty omitted But very unsound proposition
is l., which sets sovereignty (humGn laws) above
nature and God. The rights Of persons and prop
erty stand in nature and God and every invasion
Of them is sacriege. The ore legitimate function
of Civil Government is to protect these rights in
all nl cntnnsa nd IL, IL.
Vice President is stakeholder, and in self defence
he must assert the over Of civil government to
destroy she rights of persons. So too he must as
sort its power TO destroy the rights Of prov crty,
and to abolish slavcty. For to abolish slavery is,


rs he holds, to destroy those rights and he clear
ly sees that If civil government cannot abolish sa-
very, then upon his own principle it cannot create
it.


The Vice President has made mistake. The
only position at this point on the side of slavery,
which he could have taken with consistency, he
has failed to take. la one breath he makes prop
erty in man TO be as full as property in anything
ese-ns property of whatever kind. In auather
breath he admits that the State can abolish prop
erty in man. What if his State should undertake
to abolish property ia tho matchless blue grass
ields around his Lexington and in the higher
improved breeds of cattle, that graze upon them
would he not resist such abolition From what
| personally know Of his spirit and intelligence, |
venture to affirm that none would DO before him in
declaring that God and Nature have said what is
property, and that their authority is paramount to
:hat of Kentucky, To have been consistent then
he should not have admitted the right of the
Stot a IN nbo lish in Ia Ip,;t
ted distinction between slave property and other
property; and if not so wide as that the Republ
cans claim, nor even so wide as that acknowledged
by the Dougasites, sufficiently 80 nevertheless to
give countenance to each and to deprive his oppo-
stion to each of the dignity and force of contest
for principle. The only contest for principle
at this point is that, which the Aboltionsts are
waging against Republicans Democrats, Douglas
ties and all other enemies and despisers of human
rights. The sound Aboltionist tolerates in no
the claim of property in man. lie
pects God, and cannot consent to sink to the
level of brutes the being in His image.





Just here let me say that the parties vastly
overrate the importance of the petty issues be.
tween them. The battle is to be fought between



be fought just as soon these parties, that block
the way, get out of the way. The result will be,
not this that condition, this or that liability, of
a territory but a Nation all oyerspread with
slavery, or all emptied of it. The result will be
to give the lie TO the Declaration of Independ-
once or to honor its great doctrine, that All men
are created equal!


IEls true that many members of the Republican
party believe sla0ery to be unconstitutional,
wherever the Federal Government has exclusive
jurisdiction But they all acquiesce in the proro-
siton that this Government has no right to array
itself against slavery in the States and nearly
all would accept the logical sequence that this
Government is bound to protect State slavery from
all foreign aggression. in word, all the parties
believe that tho North is pledged by the Cons:itu-
lion not only to return the fugitive slave, but even