Year: 1860




Tne Great Point at Issue Between Parties.


1t Is thankless and in great measure
Improbable task, to discuss political ques-
tions. Not half the people take papers, and
out of those who do, not more than one in
five care about reading political article of
length requisite to elucidsse the subject
The few, however, who do read politics,
generally have taste for that sort of wri-
ting, and many of them read scarcely any
thing else. AS public journal has to find
matter to suit the tastes of all classes we
trust those who eschew politics altogether,
will allow that our political articles, how
ever uninteresting to them, may be useful
in the economy of public journalism, and
pass them for the reader for whom they are
designed.


However there is one question which
ought to be examined by all, as it is crea-
ting much contention, and if we are to be-
leive the assertions of politicians, the safety
of the Union is directly involved in the set
tlement of it. The great question at issue
between the parties, and the only one which
keeps up agitation, is Constitutional one
as to the power of Congress in Territories.
We propose to discuss the point briefly.


The authority of Congress to legislate for
the Territories was admitted by the trainers
of our Constitution, and the right was sane
toned by every department of the Govern
ment for nearly sixty years, and not until
the Cass-Nicholson letter of ls47 was pen
ned did any adverse doctrine assume we'll
considered shape in the Union. Then, for
the first time, toeraby digested idea Of
popular sovereignty was promulgated. The
want of direct provisions in the Consttu-
strength of the Calhoun idea of strict
construction of the Constitution, and the
democratic tendency of the public mind in
duced politicians to seek some new doctrine
which under the plea of settling distractions
would be calculated to tickle the ears of the
people and carry its disciples into power.
Gen. Cass laid hold of the popular sover-
eighty plan, licked it into shape and mount |
ed it for the Presidency. This doctrine in
its various stages, and they are numerous,
denies the power of Congress to legislate |
for Territories, and its disciples set them
selves up as knowing better what the Con-
stituton means than the fathers Of it them |
selves. What this new doctrine is in all its
phases, we have had occasion to show, and |
what its tendencies. 1t is .he false light |
from The concentrated gases of low order
of statesmen which leads the unwary trav-
eler to hogs and fcns, to breathe malarious
atmosphere and perish in the mire of dem
agogisIn.


The old doctrine of Congressional power
rests upon firm basis. 1t has reason to
sustain it, despite the noise of politicians
of the leeting hour.


1t is now pretty generally conceded that
the treaty making power of the government
has, by implication at least, the right to ac-
quire territory, and no axiom is more plain
than that the right to acquire carries with
it the right to govern.


There may not be a direct provision in
the Constitution giving to Congress legisla-
tive control over the Territories Admit |
there is not, and still the authority welded |
BY Congress is sufficient to mould the insti-
tutions of n Territory for freedom or sla-
very. Congress holds in trust the public |
lands, has everything to say in the making |
of deeds to settlers, and so great lawyer
and statesman as Daniel Webster, declared |
that Congress may impose a condition in
the sale of the lands, stating it in the deed, |
that not slave shall live upon or till the
soil. In this way Congress possesses the |
power to control the institutions of Ter
ritory whether authority is delegated else
where to that body or not


DUTcH FLAT ESoUIRER.-A newspaper of