Excerpt from The Right of the Territories to Become States of the Union The conflict of opinion regarding the nature of the American Union was settled by the Civil war. Many held before that time, that the Nation was the result of a compact entered into by free and independent States, which, while recognizing the Constitution as a common bond of union, yet left to each State as a part of an inherent sovereignty, the right either to nullify a national obligation or to withdraw without the circle of national influence and power. This conception of the Union, which is known as the states-rights doctrine, was adopted by the Southern States, and their deliberate acts of secession were the immediate cause of the Civil war and all its attending disasters. But with the defeat of the South, the dogma of states rights perished. Henceforth the Constitution is to be viewed, not as a compact between sovereign States, but as the fundamental law of the whole land - as the expression of the will of the entire N ation - and arguments relating to it must be based upon that fundamental conception. Among the first fruits of the triumph of the North was the adoption of three amendments to the Constitution, which gave a number of important powers to the central govern ment, which were hitherto deemed to rest exclusively withinthe province of the States. A series of acts was passed by Congress, which was in direct violation of principles hither to maintained, and manifested a disposition to exalt the national idea by eliminating from State life theories of action from which the dogma of state-rights could again spring into being. I refer to those acts relating to the reconstruction of the rebellious States and their restoration to their former practical relations with the rest of the Union, and to some acts admitting new States. The practical course pursued in the restoration of the old States throws new light upon the process of State formation and admission, which is reflected in the debates in Congress, incident to the admission of new States. It had often been maintained that the territories of the United States had the right to be admitted into the Union as States. This claim now met with rigid criticism, and even bold denial. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

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Excerpt from Territorial Government, and the Admission of New States Into the Union: A Historical and Constitutional Treatise While clamor has sometimes and recently attempted to drown the voice of your counsel, you know that I have constantly known and labored to expose its injustice, its selfishness and its insolence. I have not ceased to point my friends to your great services and acknowledged faculties, to your generous devotion to principle and unselfish advocacy of the truth, as living and incontestable evidences of your orthodoxy and reliability in this crisis of our affairs. I need not suggest to you that, more than all other causes of distraction to the American people and threatened overthrow of our confederated system of free republics, remains the embittered controversy about African slavery, which, for generations, amidst all the changes of national fortunes, has increased in malignancy, and to-day wears an aspect of most fearful import and thrilling interest to every patriotic heart in the Union. The grand old democratic party has hitherto been equal to the issues to which it has given rise, and if they have not always been disposed of satisfactorily to every section, and constitutionally and justly, it has not often, if at all, been its fault. The democratic party has always been ready to admit slave states into the Union. It has put and retains upon the federal statute book the fugitive slave law, and done what it could to have its provisions respected and enforced. It has repealed the Missouri restriction. It has wrested from congress the assumed power to intervene for the prohibition or destruction of slavery in the common territories; and if, for a moment, it now flounders in the bog of non-intervention for the protection of slavery, as property, and a recognized element of our constitutional compact, I trust and believe that it is only for a moment. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

Excerpt from The Just Supremacy of Congress Over the Territories We shall begin what we have to say upon this subject with the free admission, that there are a good many elements Of popularity both in Mr. Douglas's character and in his present position. The public man who presents himself as an advocate for the right of self-government for any people, however they are situated, will always command popular sympathy in this country. But we are not now concerned with Mr. Douglas's chances or means of political success, but with the soundness and correctness of his constitutional Opinions. Whether he is or is not of that order Of men who would rather be right than be President, we do not presume to decide; but we are sure for ourselves, that, having no personal interest in the matter, we would rather be right than be able to prevent him or any other man from reaching the Presidency, if we had the power of all the nominating conventions or of all the voters in the land. It is the purpose of Mr. Douglas's article to maintain, that the people Of a Territory have the right to decide, independently of the will Of Congress, whether the institution Of slavery shall or shall not exist among them while they are in the Territorial condition. On a cursory reading of his paper, we were a little at a loss to determine whether he meant to be understood that this power belongs to the people of a Territory because the organic act bestows upon them general legisla tive power, or, as in the case of Kansas, declares that they shall be free to form their own institutions in their own way; or whether he holds that the people of a Territory are originally free to establish or prohibit slavery without any Congressional declaration or grant of such a power, or even against a Congressional prohibition. But, on a more careful perusal, we find that his argument goes the entire length Of maintaining, that, in reference to what he calls their local concerns and internal polity, the people of a Territory are absolutely sovereign in the same sense in which the people of a State are sovereign. In order to establish what he calls popular sovereignty in the Territories, Mr. Douglas undertakes to define the dividing line between federal and local authority; and he places it, in respect to the Territories, substan tially where it is in respect to the States. He sums up the whole dis cassion in the following principle, that every distinct politicalcommunity, loyal to the Constitution and the Union, is entitled to all the rights, privileges, and immunities of self-government in respect to their local concerns and internal polity, subject only to the Constitution of the United States. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

Excerpt from The Union-State: A Letter to Our States-Rights Friend The production of these pages originated in a brief correspondence with a citizen of one of the North western States, who had, in a recent publication, pre sented an argument in defense of the States of the Southern Confederacy in asserting a right to secede from the Union. In our discussion, the historical question of the actual political status of the thirteen States, at the time when the Constitution was proposed for ratification by them, seemed, to each of us, the question which required to be settled at the outset, as between ourselves. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

Excerpt from The Territorial Question The settlers in the territories being citizens of the several states, as well as citizens of the United States, their right, as such citizens, to intro duce the institutions of their respective states into the common territory cannot be relinquished, either by themselves or by their representatives so that the rights of those who may come after them into the territory may not be infringed upon. If any portion of those citizens should introduce into such territory any profession 011 institution which is recognized as legal by the constitution of the United States and that of the state from whence they come, the other part of the people residing in such territory, or the government itself, have no right to interfere to suppress or restrain their introduction, 011 in any way to attempt to prevent those persons from the exercise of such natural and legal rights. The people of the United States being the owners of such territories, and having an equal right in their common property and occupancy, each ought to be permitted to enjoy without molestation all the advantages arising from that common ownership, which does not in any way interfere with its common use. None should be permitted to change or destroy a common water-course, 011 otherwise disarrange any of the general rights of his fellow tenants; so should none attempt to suppress the exercise of the full rights of others in regard to the kind of labor they may employ. Nor can the government of the United States, or of the several states, interfere with the people in the exercise of these rights. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.