The republic. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1849-1853, 1850-05-22

Whether the system Of involuntary SER
vitude which prevails in many Of the
States Of this Union should, or should not,
be prohibited in the Territory acquired
from Mexico by the treaty of Guadalupe
Hidalgo, was question which General
TAYLOR, upon his entrance into Office,
found agitating the country from one ex-
tremity to the other. The difficulty Of adj
justing it was not wholly intrinsic in its
character 1t had been alarmingly compli-
Gated and heightened by the manner in
which the question had been treated by
political partisans both in the free and in
the slave States-by the party purposes
for which it had been used-and by the
commttal Of themselves by leading politi-
clans Of both parties, in both sections of
the Union, to extreme opinions.
Under these circumstances, the Presi-
dent anxiously cast about him for some
principle of adjustment which would
enable all patriotic men, Of what party
soever, to cooperate with him in such
settlement of the question as would
allay agitation, restore permanent har-
mony to the country, and arrest those
tendencies to disunion which had already
begun to present themselves. For the
successful accomplishment of this object,
wisdom suggested that some course of
policy should be recommended which
would require from neither extreme a
surrender either of what it regarded as its
constitutional rights or of its pride of opin-
ion. The controversy which was carried
on with so much violence and acrimony
had arisen from the assumption that, in
regard to the territory acquired from
Mexico, the usual practice would be fol-
lowed-that territorial governments would
be stablished-that, while one portion
of the Union would strenuously in
sist upon the inhibition by Congress of
slavery into the territory, another por-
ton would as strenuously resist such
inhibition; both, however, agreeing in
this, that when the people of the territory
should come to form State or State
governments, with them alone would rest
the right to determine whether or not the
introduction of slavery should be prohibit
ed; that whatever their decision on that
point might be, it would be the duty of
Congress to acquiesce in it, and to admit
them into the Union. To this last result,
the faith of the United States was pledged
by the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. Had
the PRESIDENT recommended principle
of adjustment which conformed to the
opinions and prejudices of either section
of the Union, he would thereby have
made himself party to merely section
al excitement, and would have lent the
influence of his high position to the forma-
ton of purely geographical parhes-that
great danger against which the Father
of his Country so impressively warned
his countrymen. Such course on his
part, so far from contributing to the res
toration of harmony between the differ
ent sections of the country and to the
perpetuation of the Union, would have
had a directly opposite effect. Such
course, moreover, would have been as
inconsistent with the high patriotism dis
played throughout his whole life, as with
the course Of conduct pursued by him
whilst before the people as candidate
for the Presidency, during the whole
of which, though subjected to suspicion
and obloquy in both sections of the
Union, with frmness equal to that
which has ever sustained him on the field
of battle, he adhered TO his purpose-re-
solved, if he reached the Presidency at
all, he would reach il so unfettered by
committals on this question as to be in
position to exercise a salutary inhu-
ence on both sections of the Union--on
the Northern and the Southern mind--and
to bring to safe solution the complicated
difficulties which threatened disruption
of the Union. Seeing, as he did, that
one Of the great parties-the Democratic
party-had, at the last Presidential cleo
ton, committed itself to the principle of
non-intervention; seeing, as he did, that
Mr.. CALHOUN, and all the political leaders
who,. with him, assumed TO speak for
the South on this vexed question, had
committed themselves TO the principle
of non-intervention; and knowing that,
whatever temporary expedient might
be adopted, ultimately and finally the
question whether slavery should or
should not be admitted into the Territory
would be decided by the people Of the
Territory themselves, the President wise