Record Data
Transcription
COMPROMISE PROJECTS. Large bodies move slow, and the crisis committee of thirty-three is not an exception. Constituted in the main, of conservative men, the majority may be expected to go to the verge of concession. The action of the committee on the resolutions of Mr. Rust, looking to protection of slavery in the territories, shows this, and yet the secessionists seem rampant as ever. Mr. Corwin’s project, if we understand it, yields in effect the right of congress to revise or annul the legislation of the territories, so far as slavery is concerned. It also undertakes to pledge congress against legislation for the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia. The first proposition is a virtual abandonment of a great principle, heretofore recognized by all parties in this country, and persistently upheld by the republican party from the day of its birth. As to district slavery, why should northern men be called upon to give it an implied sanction, when it is acknowledged to be a curse by large numbers of the inhabitants of the district who are injuriously affected by its presence? It is not many years since seventeen hundred citizens themselves, under the lead of the late Judge Cranch, petitioned congress for its abolition.
