5

The Dritish Government regards the colonial condition as permavent aud unchangeable. '
Canada’ was a colony one hundred years ago. She is a colony now. Territorial govern-.
ments'are’ temporary and permissive public corporations; and the Federal Government
leaves them to manage their local affairs, in the full control of “their domestie policy, save
a8 restrained by the limitations of the Constitution and the purpose of equal enjoyment,
for which Congress, as the trustee of the common and joint property, holds and exercises
its trusteeship. -The colonies relied upon the charters received from the Crown as the
{guarantees of their freedom from oppressive interference by the mother country ; and also
uporgrevolution—the power to make good their claim to liberty by the bloody arbitrament \
e

 
  
  

f' the sword. Our organized Territories are mere subordinate communities outside the

bmits of the States; held in pupilage and trainingquntil prepared to take rank and posi-
tion with sister confederate sovereignties. If an érganized Territory possess inherent 4
rights of self-government, and can, during its pupilage, fix and determine absolutely its
social institutions, decide what shall and what shall not be property, and by unfriendly
legislation exclude slavery, it is superior, in some respects, to a State organization; and
it is'gross tyranny not to pass the bill introduced by the gentleman from Illinois, [Mr,
Morris,] providing for the election of all officers by the inhabitants of a Territory. . We
should forthwith abdicate our ill-held power, and carry out to its logical consequences
this doctrine of squatter sovereignty. Our laws appointing Governors and Jjudges, our
defrayment of the expenses of the government, and our claim of authority to repeal the
organic act, and transfer the inhabitants to a different jurisdiction, are unauthorized and
indefensible assumptions of control and superiority.

If'a Territorial Legislature be sovereign; if it can exercise legislative supremacy while it
does not violate the Federal Constitution even, if its authority to that extent be unlimited,
then; to‘use a solecism, it is more sovereign than a State Government, and the difficulty
presented in the case of Utah is remediless; for obviously it is contrary to this neoterie
theory of popular vovereignty to repeal the act organizing the Territory, so long asnothing
is doue in conflict with the Constitution of the United States. In addition to the Federal

i\001lstitution, States are restrained by fundamental laws of their own imposing. = Judicial,

Lxecutive, and legislative powers are accurately mapped out, and their ligits strictly de-
fined; ‘but under this modern political discovery, a majority in a Territbry is absolute,
J save, as hindered by the prohibitions of the Federal compact, the Government may become
despotic or‘anarchical, and outrages may be committed révolting to public decency, shock-
ing'to the moral sense, and subversive of personal and proprietary rights. A political
theory involving such consequences is an instructive lesson against departing from estab-

lished constitutional landmarks!

Every southern State has repudiated this doctrine of squatter sovereignty, and pro-
nounced it a wrong, destructive of their rights and equality. - Last summerit was announced
and heralded by telegraph, that a distinguished candidate for the Presidency would not
accept from the Charleston convention a nomination if tendered to him, if that convention
should declare that slavery existed, by virtue of the Constitution, in the Territories beyond
the power of the inhabitants to exclude it. Whether conditions so defiantly prescribed will be
accepted, remains to be seen. Certainly the nomination of such a man would be an indorse-
ment of his docrines, and a construction of the platform, according to his views, to be car-
ried into the practical administration of the Government, would be dishonoring to the
South, demoralizing to the party succumbing to a menace, and a practical negation of the
right of southern citizens to emigrate to the common territory with that form of labor to
which they have been accustomed. If the southern States have been sincere in their
declarations of hostility to squatter sovereignty, or the claim set up of the power of the
Territorial Legislature to exclude slavery, they will insist upon a clear, distinet, and unequiv-
ocal repudiation of the heresy. It should be done in unambiguous terms, not susceptible
of a double construction. We want no Villafranca treaties to be discussed in tedious Zurich
couferences, but a manly and honest assertion of principles. However others may act,
Alabama has spoken. For twelve years nearly every political convention, of ‘all parties,
held in the State, has condemned this doctrine of popular sovereignty, as applied to Terri-
tories. Between its advocates and her, there is a great guif fixed, which the mechanical
genius and inventive faculties of a presidential convention cannot bridge over. .

The true principle is, that if a master can go into the Territories or- upon territory, his
slave can accompany him; and neither Congress nor a Territorial -Legislature can dxve§t
him of the title to his property. Just as soon as territory is acquired slave property is
legal and constitutional, and no power can invalidate until a sovereignty interposes.  The
Constitution, proprio vigore and instanter, extends over the acquisition ; and, in the language

/ of Chief Justice Taney, in the Dred Scott case, ¢ the right of property in aslave is dxstmcll.y

/ / and expressly affirmed in the Constitution.”” The condition of a nergo is notchanged by }ns

+ / eutrance into a Territory.  There is no law, constitutional, international, or locul, Whlch
L\‘ / will make him a slave or a freeman. If ho was a slave at the time of entering, he remaing