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The last number of the Frankfort Commonwealth has a long article showing beyond all cavil, that, according to the Virginia and Kentucky resolutions of '93, the Fugitive Slave law is unconstitutional. There is no room at all for doubt upon the subject. The point is as perfectly clear as any point can possibly be made. The Fugitive Slave law defines crimes not enumerated in the constitution and provides for their punishment, whereas the resolutions of '93 declare that any act of Congress which undertakes to define and punish crimes not enumerated in the constitution is null and void. And yet the resolutions of '93 are incorporated into the Democratic platform which purports to endorse the Fugitive Slave law!
A great absurdity was never perpetrated. The two parts of the platform can no more together than an acid and an alkali can be kept in the same bottle. The only question is, which of the two inconsistent parts of the platform must go down? The Southern Democrats strenuously insist that the endorsement of the Fugitive Slave law must stand in spite of the resolutions of '93, and the Northern Democrats, such as the New York Evening Post, the Albany Atlas, and the Buffalo Republic, as strenuously insist that the endorsement of the resolutions of '93 must stand in spite of the Fugitive Slave law.
If the Democrats want any respect paid to what they call their platform, let them hold another National Convention and knock one of the two inconsistent planks out of it - either the Fugitive Slave law plank or the Virginia and Kentucky resolutions plank.