The southern press. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1850-1852, 1851-10-09

| Had we but maintained ourselves in the proud
position which then occupied, we would still
be with our rights, the equals of our partners,
and not what il is now proposed we should be-
come, accomplishing and tracking submission
lists, the objects of the knocking jeers and taunt-
ing ing insults of aggressive and arrogant Free
soilism.
A new President, in the mean while, had been
inductod into the executive chair. After the
unsuccessful effort tried, at previous session,
to place the whole controversy in the hands OF
the Judicial department of the government, All
attempt was now made to cothe the President
with all necessary powers to organ re govern
ments in the newly acquired territories The
measure was defeated through the Presidents
own friends. But, the authority which the
party in power had refused for the President
| when rendered to him by the South, in man
ner that would have engaged his respo sibility,
was soon assumed and exerted without the least
shadow of legislative sanction; and through its
exercise handful Of adventurers, most Of whom
had not three months residence in the terrific
/ ries was enable to wrest from the common do
main upwards of one hundred and fifty-three
thousand square miles of soil, bordering on nine
hundred miles of ocean, and to extend over
them the very propiso which had so menacingly
aroused the public spirit at the South.
The illegitimacy Of the influence through
which this had BEN effected the spoliation
committed ON the slaveholdng States, under
the behests of convention organized by sal.
aried military officer Of the general government
the absence of all guarantee that might protect
the public domain; the want of all authority in
men, who owed allegiance to other political com
munities to institute a State within territories
sill under the control and dependency of the
| United States the scandal Of a Constitution
covering with its jurisdiction regions not even
explored by the people who framed it, and al
ready held in the political possession ofanother
community, all that was to be disregarded, and
the act of spoliation TO be unbushingy consu u
mated under the sanction Of Congress.
But the Southern lion was not yet sumber-
ing; and it became necessary to lul him into
deceitful dreams, during which his ella VS. might
be chopped of and his teeth plncked out.
1t was at this juncture that one truly great
among the greatest by his bright INTELLECT, his
unparalleled dexterty and his transcendant
power of persuasion, but whose every triumph
in our sectional strifes has been disaster to
| the So4th, stood forth betw cen the two con-
tending parties as y pqcifcator, and from the
folds OF his senatorial robe lot fall the Com
PROMISE. 1t went the rounds of every rtion
of The country tossed about between the jpbi-
lees Of the North and the curses OF the whole
South.
The measures which it embraced were de-
nounled in the very hall of the Senate as prof
| fering but deception and plumber to the South !;
as giving all to one side and nqthing 10 the other ;
as being bit stone, though held out as bread -
as ,oorse than nothing ;--as leauing no aoay far
| Ceiling round The subject or for fring Terms of
future concessions, or Of present compromise y
Upon the announcement of those measures,
| there was universal shout of vexation and re-
volt, from the POTOMAC to the Rio del Norte,
which caused the North to pause, and might
have saved us, had we but held our breath a
little longer The whole South was put in
commotion and you might hear her threats and
eyecrations as the hoArse roaring of storm
raging at a distance. Just consider, the South
was asked to surrender all her preteusiops and
claims to that territory, in the conquest Of which
she had wasted so much blood and treasure.
California was to be admitted as free State,
organized though she had been under the rod of
a military commandant, exercising powers that
| Congress alone had a right to exercise, and
coming as she did, with the Wilmot Prouso in
| her constitution staring US in the face Texas
was Ia be dismembered, and the Eouth to be
taxed in her full share of S 100000, for being
despoiled of one-half of tohat she had gained by
The admission of that Slate into he Union ST
the question of prospective abolition OF slavery
throughout the territories of the United States,
and ultimately In the slaveholding States them
selves, was to to be tested through the bill
abolishing the slave trade in the District OF Co.
lumba, in which Congress assumes and actually
exercises the power Of declaring slave free,
because Of his master attempting to sell him in
the said district the territories of Utah and
New Mexico wore to be organized without any
faculative clause that might enable their legs-
lative councils to afford protection 10 all species
of property ,ohich by The Constitution, could
righlfully be transferred hifhert and under the
assurance Expressed by repeated votes and
sanctioned by solemn declarations that slavery
was actually excluded from them through the
effects Of the Mexican proviso, And the great
boon, which, for all these surrenders, the South
was to receive, consisted in the enactment of a
law under whose authority eight or ten fugitive
slaves at the cost Of some $4,000 or $4,000,
might be delivered back to their masters, as an
indemnity for the loss OF upwards of thirty
thousand others, who still grace with their pre-
sence abolition conventions, and parade Insult
insly iD tboroughfares of the North
Snch was tbe compact of Cancellation and
peace which the North wap rendering to us. 1t
was forced upon US by the ant-s,asery power
of the North and Northwest. aided and abet.
ted by those of the South who had been the
iogaest in their condemnation oft when it first
made its appearance, and the most bitter in as
sailing its original supporters.
But let us see what judgment that iniquitous
scheme has received at the hands Of its main
defenders; and let measure, through that
judgment, the degradation 10 which IL has doom
cd the sIaveholding States.
In his late speech, at Trinity, General Downs
calls it a choice Of epiis. Mr.. Clay had already
told us that "by IL, The North had got almost
epery thing andthe S0u,h nothing bm her honor"
And Mr. Webster with that manliness that
characterizes his language, admits that while
"he North gains most Intensely desirable objects"
such as the annexation of California a free
State, the qnieting of the Mexican question,
and of the Texan boundary, the separation Of
New Mexico from Texas, and the abolition of
the slave trade in the District of Columbia, the
South, ab the South "gains an acceptable and
satisfactory mode for retaining her fugitive
slaves but as to the territorial acquisitions,
he feels bound in candor to say, that taking
Maryland for example, as one Of the South
Maryland gains Dhat Massachuseus loses,-that
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