Mr. Fisher treats of the “Law of the Territories” in two essays,—­the first considering more particularly “The Territories and the Constitution,” the second, “Popular Sovereignty in the Territories.”  The first commences with a quotation so happy that it has all the effect of original wit:—­

“The wily and witty Talleyrand was once asked the meaning of the word ‘non-intervention,’ so often used in European diplomacy.  ‘It is a word,’ he replied, ’metaphysical and political, not accurately defined, but which means—­much the same thing as intervention!’ The same word has been frequently employed, of late years, in our politics, with the same difference between its professed and its practical signification.  It was introduced for the first time in reference to the government of the Territories, when it became an object for the South to gain Kansas as a Slave State.  Two obstacles were to be overcome.  One was the Missouri Compromise, which was a solemn compact between North and South to settle a disturbing and dangerous question; the other was a possible majority in Congress, that, it was feared, might prohibit slavery in the new Territory.  Southern politicians had at the time control of the government; and they got rid of both difficulties by repealing the Missouri Compromise in the Kansas and Nebraska Bill.  By necessary implication, arising from the relation of the Territories to the rest of the nation, by the language of the Constitution, and by the uniform construction of it and practice under it from the earliest period of our history, the Territories had been subjected to the absolute control of the General Government.  By the Kansas and Nebraska Bill they were withdrawn from that control.  The principle of Popular Sovereignty, it was said, applied to them as well as to the States; and this bill declared that the people of the Territories should be perfectly free to choose their own domestic institutions and regulate their own affairs in their own way.”

The means employed to carry out this plan and the ultimate failure of the plan itself are sketched with a boldness and vigor that our limits, much to our regret, forbid our reproducing.  Mr. Fisher, however, fails to notice the wretched plea put forth by the Democratic managers, in favor of the recognition by Congress of the Lecompton Constitution,—­that it had been officially authenticated.  All might be wrong, but the official record pronounced it right; and behind that record Congress had no authority to go.  And this plea was advanced in the face of overwhelming evidence tending to show that the officials, for whose record so inviolable a sanctity was claimed, were appointed for the express purpose of falsifying that record!  If confirmation be wanted, we need go no farther than the fate of Robert J. Walker, who was eager to make Kansas a Slave State, but was so false to every principle of Democratic integrity as to confine himself to legitimate means to bring about that result,—­a remissness for which he was promptly removed by President Buchanan!  Mr. Fisher pertinently says,—­