Book Description

Excerpt from Letters of John Minor Botts, of Virginia, on the Nebraska Question But, again: By a joint resolution of Congress admitting Texas into the Union, the South has already secured to it the advantage of four States, entitled to admission at a future day as Slave States. Break down this Compromise of 18120, and the Compromise of 1850 will follow it; and what, then, becomes of thisjoint resolu tion. Which was (not the result of compromise between the North and South, but the result of party strength and brute force, ) in violation of every principle of the Constitution, both in its letter and spirit. And therefore more liable to repeal - what, I say, becomes of this feature of that resolution? The natural desire for power on the part of the North, and the excitement of the moment will set its ingenuity to work to seek some counterbalancing measure of retalia tion; and how long would it be before we should have a proposition to repeal that portion of the joint resolution? Would any Northern man be at liberty to vote against it if it should be pro posed? Could any Southern man consistently oppose it? The Missouri Compromise is to be repealed 011 the ground that Congress had no right to legislate at all on the subject of slavery; and if the Congress of 1854 has no right to legis late on that subject, how can we hereafter show that the Congress of 18-15 had the right to legis late for its future recognition in those States to be formed out of Texas? If Congress cannot legislate at all on this question of slavery north of 36 deg. 30 min., how could the Congress of 1845 constitutionally legislate for it south of this line? And are we of the South prepared to surrender this right, now secured, by such a declaration as is proposed by Mr. Douglas? If all prohibitions are to be broken down on one side, does it not necessarily follow that all legis lative privileges must be broken down on the other? Again: If the Missouri Compromise is to be repealed on the ground that Congress has no constitutional power to legislate on the subject of slavery for the Territories, why does not Mr. 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.