The southern press. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1850-1852, 1850-07-27

UT LAY mas this strange remark ~
IL wish Ieould say that on all occasions II
(our paper)propagated truth with more attention
than in particular instance it has done"-that
is in this instance. If Mr. Clay can produce no
better evidence of our departure from truth on
other occasions than on this, twill merely APP
pear that he has made a general charge of in
accuracy as groundless as this specific one We
wish we could say that Mr.. Clay in his allcga-
tions, general or special, as to us or other sub
jects, had confined himself as strictly to the truth
ms we have a n a85G1 10 }p4o4{3
Mr.. Clay thus sums up the results of his pro-
posed compromise, to the North and the South
Let me for one notwithstanding the passage
of the various measures which compose the sys-
tenn reported by the Committee of Thirteen--let
me see what will be the condition of the two sec
tons Of the Union--what has been gained and
lost by each. The North gains the admission Of
California free State, and the high probability
of New Mexico and Utah remaining or becoming
free territory, avoids any introduction of slavery
by the authority of Congress sees New Mexico
detached from Texas, with high degree of prob
abity-from the nature of the climate and the
character OF the soil, and from other circumstances
State and secures the abolition of the slave trade
in the District Of Columbia. Are not these objects
of sufficient magnitude to satisfy any moderate,
rational, Northern wishes And what will the
South gainl The South avoids the assertion by
Congress ofthe dangerous principle, as they regard
it, contained in the Wilmot Proviso; places be-
You'd controversy 800 miles Of the territory of
Texas ON the Rio Grande, now in dispute gains
efficient fugitive slave bill, and silences the ag
itation about the abolition Of slavery in this Dis
trict. Sir, it may happen-and ! am not going
to disguise my convictions to the probabilities
of the fact-that the South will get no territory in
Utah, New Mexico, or California, adapted to
slave labor, in which slaves will be introduced
But that is not the fault of Congress. 1t is Con-
gressional power, Congressional usurpaton, Con-
gressional assumption of an unlawful authority
over the institution Of slavery, against which the
South raises her voice in protesation If she can
not get slave territory in California, New Mexico
aud Utah, whose fault is it, She cannot blame
Congress, but must upbraid natures law and
natures God X & # l351
The North gains all California the principal
object of controversy. The North gains the
separation of New Mexico from Texas, with n
probability, nay the certainty, of an exclusion of
slavery, not only from all the territory hereto
fore claimed by New Mexico, but from all that
region north Of 80, hitherto belonging without
dispute to Texas, and comprehending Es
square miles And the North gains the aboli-
ton of the slave trade in the District of Colum-
bia
We'll might Mr.. CLAY eXclam "Are not these
objects of sufficient magnitude to satisfy any
moderate, rational Northern wishes!!"
.U0--- i. p - ~. q E. =. q
What now does the South gain. It gains
the waiver of the Wilmot Proviso--a prodigous
gain, when it loses all the territory to which it
was ever proposed to apply the Proviso, and
loses also a large part of Texas, to which even
Northern impudence had not before proposed to
apply it
The South gains a confirmation of the Texian
title to narrow strip of land in the valley Of
the Rio Grande, nine hundred miles long. 1t
gains an efficient fugitive slave bill, and it gains
quiet on the abolition of slavery in the Dis
trict!
We pronounce this statement of Mr.. CLAY
of the results of the proposed compromise, to
be a deliberate outrage on the honor, the feel
i y
ratifes the seizure of California by the North,
under a threat of the Wilmot Proviso-it ratifes
the usurpation of the vast unoccupied territory
of California by the inhabitants of the northern
part of tit ratifes, Mr.. CLAY himself admits.
the Mexican law that excludes all slavehoding
people from all the acquired territory, and it
takes vast sum of money out of the common
treasury of the North and South, to buy terri
tory from the South and transfer it to the North.
The courage displayed by Southern troops in
the conquest Of this territory, the treasure taken
from Southern purses to carry on that expensive
war, and to pay Mexico for the cession, are all
converted by the atrocious alchymy of this plan,
into agents to accomplish not any advantage to
the South, but her dishonor, her exclusion and
her oppression. And because the South resists
this, and contends for her share--for share
for any share of all that she has fought for and
paid for, she is cooly told by Mr. Clay that she
is contending for an abstraction. Why the en-
tire object of the North and of Mr. CLAY is
abstraction-the abstraction from the South of
all her rights and interest in the most valuable
territory under the sun.
Mr. CLAY pretends that the law of God and
not of Congress deprives the South of all her
territory. Why then does the Convention of
California exclude slavery over regions yet unset
tied and Congress ratify the exclusion? Why
cut offa vast region from Texas and transfer it
to the Indians of New Mexico? Are they better
expounders of the laws of God than the climate,
sod, and prod uctions of the country! Why not
leave it to these!
Woe to country when crafty politicians sit
in protracted committee, and bring forth COM
plicated projects to enforce or to expound, or to
be expounded by assumed laws of God.
But Mr.. CLAY relies, we think, even more on
the law of Mexico than on the laws of nature.
And he cannot find time or argument to sustain
them for moment. But he finds time and
words to utter the following:
Now, let me, at this point of the case, stop a
moment to compare the system of measures re-
Ii u