arrest, and of the jail full of stolen negroes--for the laws are unconstitutional. The latter is now the view prevalent among the Democrats of the South. The majority in some states are openly and avowedly of that opinion. In other states the minority are loudly in favor of it, and the majority is silent and sympathizing, but restrained by prudence until after 1860. In some states it is the question underlying the apparent topics in contest, as in Texas. Mr. Stephens more than insinuates his inclinations toward those views in his late speech. In Mississippi most of her public men have made profession of their faith. The question is upon us, Is it the great Democratic bait to catch the South in 1860, or to concentrate the South for an act of rebellion? The repeal of the laws is the legalization of the slave-trade. No law affirming its legality is needed. It revives by the simple repeal, under the law of nations. The Democratic party is now ready at the South to make the issue-repeal or rebellion. It touches their honor, they say, as they said the Missouri Compromise touched their honor. The laws are a slur on their institution and on their ancestors, therefore they will have repeal or blood. What does Maryland say?

THE QUESTION IN THE TERRITORIES. UNION OF ALL OPPOSED TO THE DEMOC RACY.

DURING 1859 Mr. Davis had been active in endeavoring to bring about a union or fusion of the two parties-the Republican in the Northern and Western, and the American and Union parties in the Middle and Southern States-equally opposed to the continuance in power of the two factions which, having coalesced under the name of Democratic, had, in consequence, carried the election of 1856, and now claimed, under the usual penalty, to be allowed to carry the election in 1860.

In various letters to individuals and to journals, written during that year, he set forth his views as to the necessity, the expediency, and the feasibility of such a union; and he was unremitting in his efforts to bring about such a state of opinion as should induce those parties in opposition to agree upon a candidate for the presidency in 1860 upon his past record and position, and without any platform or declaration as to legislation in regard to slavery in the Territories. He was in favor of the nomination, in that way, of Judge Edward Bates, of Missouri; and he afterward endeavored (in 1860, at Chicago) to induce the Republican party to offer him as a candidate who could be accepted and voted for by Southern Whigs and the opponents of Southern pro-slavery Democracy.

In November, 1859, Mr. Davis addressed to the Editor of the New York Tribune the following letter upon this subject:

SIR,-The Republican party is the expression of the Northern opposition to the extension of slavery into the Territories.

All the Territories are now by law, and in fact, free, for there are slaves in none. No law establishing it or regulating it has been passed by Congress, nor by any Territorial Legislature to which Congress has delegated the power; and the act of New Mexico, being in conflict with the decree of Mexico abolishing slavery, is for that reason void.

In this state of the case, your Republicans insist on declaring it the right and duty of Congress to interdict slavery by law in

a platform, and to make the enactment of such a law a cardinal point of policy in the canvass of 1860.

Others, who see in such a policy an end of every hope of union with the Southern opposition, and a strong improbability of uniting the Northern opposition in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Indiana for the election of a President in 1860, think that the election, of a President by the opposition, holding the views of Mr. Clay on that question, and in character above the necessity of pledges or platforms, insures every thing that is necessary to satisfy reasonable men to arrest permanently the slave propaganda.

To obtain security by legislative restriction, the Republicans must elect a clear majority of both House and Senate, and the President, and hold them long enough to change the Supreme Court. The Republicans must first get a clear majority of the whole House of Representatives. Not merely an opposition majority against the Democrats, but a Republican majority against both the Northern Democrats and the whole body of the vote from the slaveholding states; and that Republican majority must be more radical than any ever seen in the House of Representatives.

They must also have a like majority in the Senate, where the free states lose their numerical advantage, and where any two free states in Democratic hands prevent the possibility of success.

They must at the same time have the President, for a Democratic President would veto any bill excluding slavery from the Territories.

They must, after all those unprecedented conditions, still, in addition, either reorganize the Supreme Court, or hold all that power long enough to change it by appointments not Democratic. This is plainly so; for, as now constituted, or as hereafter filled by any Democrat, any law of Congress restricting slavery will be declared void.

This can not be avoided by districting the country and assigning to the free states a number of judges proportioned to their population, for any Democratic President can find discarded antiLecomptonites enough to fill the bench from every district for a full generation.

Neither can this be avoided by any law, for the appointment of the judges must remain in the President's hand, according to. the Constitution.

But if such a reorganization were attempted, it would so rouse or frighten the timid or Conservative men as almost inevitably to restore the Democrats to power.

The Republicans, then, to restrict slavery by law, must have every department of the government, and hold them long enough to reorganize the Supreme Court, and still hold power to prevent the work being undone.

Such majorities they have not now even in the House of Representatives. The Republicans have no majority at all, not even with the eight anti-Lecompton men, for any such purpose. In the Senate they are in a great minority, and the President is against them.

Is there any prospect of their ever within this generation holding such power under the condition above framed?

No prudent man can say there is; and if not, then the attempt to adopt a restriction law is wholly futile. No matter how much men may wish it, the thing is, humanly speaking, impossible.

But, on the other hand, the election of a President in 1860, of itself, silences and arrests the slave propaganda, if he be elected by a combination of the opposition in a manner so free as to insure a permanent union of the Republican and American voters in the Northern and Western states.

We say the President alone is sufficient, and without him every thing else is perfectly worthless.

With the President an adverse majority in Congress is worthless.

The President appoints the Territorial judges and removes them at his pleasure, as well as the United States attorneys, and the marshals who summon the juries, and the governors of the Territories, and these constitute the Territorial governments in fact.

The President appoints the judges of the Supreme Court, and between now and the end of next term a majority of those judges now on the bench must, in the course of nature, be substituted by others.

The Dred Scott case is a Democratic case, decided by Democratic judges, resting on Democratic party political views of the Constitution and laws, and inspired by Democratic prejudices and sentiments. It would have been rendered by no judge whom either Harrison, or Taylor, or Fillmore would have appointed.

It would have been rendered by any Democratic judge appointed by any Democratic President in the last ten years.

Now the old Whig view of the relation of slavery to the Territories was this that it existed only by virtue of the positive law of the land on which it was attempted to be enforced. So that, if forbidden by Congress, or if neither forbidden nor sanctioned by Congress, it did not exist; and if Congress has no power over the subject at all, then that of itself made all the Territories necessarily and forever free, till they both became states and adopted slavery.

Now suppose such a man as all the opposition could unite on a man holding Mr. Clay's views, and honest enough to trust without the distracting pledge of a platform.

He will name judges for the Territories holding like constitutional views. with himself.

Mr. Clay, e. g., thought the Mexican laws excluded slavery, and a judge so thinking would declare the law of New Mexico, or any other establishing or so regulating slavery, void.

The United States attorneys and marshals would be instructed to institute no prosecutions, and to enforce no laws of that char

acter.

In civil suits a master would have no remedy against his slave, for he could institute no suit against him. The marshal and his force would not lend the public force to secure his authority over a slave voluntarily carried into the Territory.

No indictment would be preferred for any rescue of such a slave; and if the negro were not interfered with by the people, it would be merely a question between the claimant's power to guard and his power to go off.

If a civil suit for a rescue were instituted, a judgment might be brought to the Supreme Court.

In such a case, the Supreme Court, as now constituted, or as constituted by any Democrat, will decide for the master; but as constituted by any President elected by the opposition, the decision would necessarily be against him.

Three new appointments will change the complexion of the court. There are more than three very old men whose places must be filled by the next administration, and that will determine the complexion of the court for the next generation, in all probability, if made by a Democrat.