Curtis, G: Just Supremacy of Congress Over the Territories (

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.

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