Year: 1859

Is IN cTrOrs
The Supreme Court has decided that Ter
ritorial Legislature has not the power which he
claims for it. That alone ought to be sufficient
There can be no law, order, or security for any
mans rights, uuless the judicial authority of
the country be upheld. Mr.. Douglas may do
what he pleases with political conventions and
party platforms, but we trust he will give to the
Supreme Court at least that decent respect,
which none but the most ultra Republicans
have yet withheld.


The right of property is sacred, and the first
object of all human government is to make it
secure. Life is always unsafe when property
is not fully protected. This is the experience
of every people on earth, ancient and modern.
To secure private property was principal OBJ
Ject of Magma ChGrta. Charles D a. terwards
attempted to violate it, but the people rose up
on him, dragged him to the block, and severed
his head from his body. At a still later pc
riod another monarch for kindred offence was
driven out of the country, and died fugitive
and an outcast. Our own Revolution was pro-
voked by that slight invasion upon the right
of property which consisted in the exaction of
trifing tax. There is no government in the
| world, however absolute, which would not be
disgraced and endangered by wantonly sacrif-
cling private property even to small extent
For centuries past such outrages have ceased
| to be committed in times of peace among civil
lied nations.


Slaves are regarded as property in the South
ern States. The people ofthat section buy and
sell, and carry on all their business, provide for
their families, and make their wills and divide
| their inheritances on that assumption. It is
manifest to all who know them, that no doubts
| ever cross their minds about the rightfulness
| of holding such property. They believe they
have direct warrant for it, not only in the ex-
af tho IL
the prccepts of Divine Revelation itself; and
they are thoroughly satisfied that the relation
of master and slave is the only one which can
possibly exist between the white and the black
race without running both. The people of the
| North may differ from their fellow-citizens of
the South on the whole subject but knowing,
as we all do, that these sentiments are sincere
ly and honestly entertained, we cannot wonder
that they feel the most unspeakable indigna-
tion when any attempt is made to interfere with
their rights. This sentiment results naturally
and necessarily from their education and hab-
its of thinking. They cannot help it, any more
than an honest man in the North can avoid abb
horring thief or housebreaker


The jurists, legislators, and people of the
Northern States, have always sacredly respect
ed the right OF property in slaves held by their
own citizens within their own Jurisdiction 1t
is remarkable fact, very well worth noticing,
That no Northern State ever passed any law to
take negro from his master. All laws for the
abolition of Slavery have operated only on the
unborn descendants of the negro race, and the
vested rights ofmasters have no; been disturbed
| in the North more than in the South.


In every nation under heaven, civilized semi
barbarous, or savage, where slavery has existed
in any form at all analogous to ours, the rights
of the masters to the control of their slaves as
property have been respected and on no oc-
caslon has any government struck at those
rights, except as it would strike at other prop
erty. Even the British Parliament, when it
cmancipated the West India slaves, though it
was legislating for people three thousand
miles away, and not represented, never denied
either the legal or the natural rights of the
slave owner Slaves were admitted to be prop
erty, and the Gover..me acknowledged it by
paying their masters one hundred n.illions of
dollars for the privilege of setting them free.
Here, then, Is species of property which is
of transcendent importance to the material in
terests of the South-which the people of that
region think it ight and meritorious in the eyes
of God and good men to hold-whch is sane
toned by the general sense of all mankind
among whom it has existed-which was legal
only short time ago in all the States of the
Union, and was then treated as sacred by every
one of them--which is guaranteed to the own





by the Constitution and Mr.. Douglas thinks
that Territorial Legislature is competent to
take it away. We say, no the supreme legis-
latiyc power of a sovereign State alone can de-
priye man of his property


1hls proposition Is SO plain, 50 we'll estab-
lished, and so universally acknowledged, that
any argument in its favor would be mere
waste of words. Mr. Douglas does not deny
it, and it did not require the thousandth part
of his sagacity to sec that it was undeniablc.-
He claims for the Territorial governments the
right of confscating private property on the
ground that those governments ARE sorereign-
have uncomfortable and independent power
over all their internal affairs. That is the point
which he thinks is to split the Democracy and
impale the nation. But it is so entirely erro-
neous, that it must vanish into thin air soon
! as it comes to be examined.


| a Territorial government is merely provis-
ional and temporary. 1t is created by Congress
for the necessary preservation of order and the
purposes of police. The powers conferred mp
on it are expressed in the organic act, which is
the charter of its existence and which may be
changed or repealed at the pleasure of Congress
| In most of those acts the power has been ex-
pressly reserved to Congress of revising the
Territorial laws, and the power to repeal them
exists without such reservation This was as
serted in the case of Kansas by the most dis
! tinouished Senators in the Congress of 1856
The President appoints the Governor, judges
and all other officers whose appointment is moi
otherwise provided for, directly or indirectly
by Congress. Even the expenses of the Terri
torial government are paid out of the Fedora
treasury The truth is they have no attribute
of Sovereignty about them. The essence o
sovereignty consists in having no superior
But a Territorial government has superior il
the United States Government, upon whose


pleasure it is dependent for its very cxistenc'
lin whom it lives, aud moves, and has its be


ing-who has made, and can unmake it witt


a breath. s


Where docs this sovereign authority to de


prive men of their property come from? Thi


transcendent power, which even despots arr


cautious about using, and which constitution
? al monarch never exercses-how does it ge


into Territorial Legislature? Surely it doe