the trial of the Salem witches, and the stories about which are
as absurd and contradictory as the confessions of Goodwife Corey.
Kansas was saved, it is true; but it was the experience of Kansas that
disgusted the South with Mr. Douglas's panacea of "Squatter
Sovereignty."

The claim of _equal_ rights in the Territories is a specious fallacy.
Concede the demand of the slavery-extensionists, and you give up every
inch of territory to slavery, to the absolute exclusion of freedom. For
what they ask (however they may disguise it) is simply this,--that
their _local law_ be made the law of the land, and coextensive with the
limits of the General Government. The Constitution acknowledges no
unqualified or interminable right of property in the labor of another;
and the plausible assertion, that "that is property which the law makes
property" (confounding _a_ law existing anywhere with _the_ law which
is binding everywhere), can deceive only those who have either never
read the Constitution, or are ignorant of the opinions and intentions
of those who framed it. It is true only of the States where slavery
already exists; and it is because the propagandists of slavery are well
aware of this, that they are so anxious to establish by positive
enactment the seemingly moderate title to a right of existence for
their institution in the Territories,--a title which they do not
possess, and the possession of which would give them the oyster and
the Free States the shells. Laws accordingly are asked for to protect
Southern property in the Territories,--that is, to protect the
inhabitants from deciding for themselves what their frame of government
shall be. Such laws will be passed, and the fairest portion of our
national domain irrevocably closed to free labor, if the on-slaveholding
States fail to do their duty in the present crisis.

But will the election of Mr. Lincoln endanger the Union? It is not a
little remarkable that, as the prospect of his success increases, the
menaces of secession grow fainter and less frequent. Mr. W. L. Yancey,
to be sure, threatens to secede; but the country can get along without
him, and we wish him a prosperous career in foreign parts. But Governor
Wise no longer proposes to seize the Treasury at Washington,--perhaps
because Mr. Buchanan has left so little in it. The old Mumbo-Jumbo is
occasionally paraded at the North, but, however many old women may be
frightened, the pulse of the stock-market remains