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We see it stated that the Committee on Territories
in the Senate will probably report bills for the organization
of three new territories, to be formed out of the territory
lying between the western boundaries of Arkansas, Missouri,
Iowa and Minnesota, and the Rocky Mountains, and extending
north and south between the 34th and 42d parallels of
north latitude. The names of these new territories,
it is further reported, will be Nebraska, Kansas, and
Cherokee.
It is very probable that an attempt will be made by
the abolitionists in Congress to revive the slavery
prohibition question, by urging the embodiament of the
Wilmot proviso in the bills for the organization of
these new territories; and it may be that indiscreet
southern men will seek the adoption of the Missouri
compromise line in the same bills.
There is but one way to get along with the question,
and that is to exclude both the Wilmot proviso and the
Missouri compromise from all territorial bills. The
public mind of the country, we apprehend, is settled
in respect to this thing -- settled upon the platform
of Gen. Cass' Nicholson letter. It is no part of the
business of Congress to legislate for the territories.
All Congress has to do with these embryo States is,
to set the machinery of their governments in motion,
and the people inhabiting them will take care of the
rest. If they want slavery they will have it, and vice
versa, and Congress cannot help it, on the same principle
that Congress could not help it should the people of
Michigan determine that slavery might exist within their
borders.
We trust there will be found majorities in both houses
of Congress who will promptly, and without debate, vote
down all propositions, as connected with these territorial
bills, relating to slavery. -- That is the only safe,
it is the only democratic, disposition that can be made
of them. If they are entertained, they will lead to
interminable discussion, the event of which will be
in no respect propitious.
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