The southern press. [volume] (Washington City [i.e. Washington, D.C.]) 1850-1852, 1851-10-11

Mexico but it failed most signally, the prop1'
sition obtaining but vote Of fifteen yeas out Of
Senate of sixty!
Had we but maintained ourselves In the proud
position which wa then occupied, We would still
he with our rights, the equals OF our partners
and not what it is now proposed We should be-
come, accomplishing and trucking submissions
lists, the objects of the hooking jeers and taunt-
ing ing insults of aggressive and arrogant Free
sosm.
A new President, in the mean while, had been
inducted into the executive chair. After the
unsuccessful effort tried, at a previous session
to place the whole controversy in the hands oil
the judicial department Of the government, an
attempt was now made to clothe the President
with all necessary powers to organize 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, a handful Of adyenturers, 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
them the very proniso which had so menacingly
aroused the public spirit at the South.
The LEGITIMACY Of the influence through
which this had been effected the spoliation
committed on the slaveholding States, under
the behests of a convention organized by sal
ared 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 State within territories
sill under the control and dependency Of the
| United States the scandal of Constitution
covering with its Jurisdiction regions not even
explored by the people who framed it, and al
ready held in the political possession of another
community all that was to be dsregardad, and
the act of spoliation to be INCREASINGLY consu n.
mated under the sanction of Congress.
But the Southern lion was not yet slumber.
| ing; and it became necessary to lull him into
deceitful dreams, during which his ella VS. might
be chopped off and his teeth plucked out.
| 1t was at this juncture that one, truly great
| unparalleled dexterity and his transcendant
power of persuasion, but whose every triumph
| in our sectional strifes has been disaster to
the South, stood forth betu cen the two con.
tending parties as pacifc1tor, and from the
folds of his senatorial robe let fall the Com
PRoMIsE. 1t went the rounds Of every porto
| OF the country, tossed about between the jubi-
lees of the North and the curses of the whole
South.
| The measures which it embraced were de-
nounced in the very hall of thu Senate as prof.
| fering but deception and plumber to the South
as giping all to side and nothing TO the other
as being but stone, though hid out as bread =
as morse than nothing las Leaving no ,oay far
| getting round The subject, or for firing terms Of
future concessions, or Of present compromise
Upon the announcement Of those measures,
there was universal shout of vexaton ana re-
volt, from the Potomac to the Rio del Norte,
which oaussd 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
execrations as the hoarse roaring of storm
raging at a distance. Just consider, the South
was asked to surrender all her pretensions 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 Propiso in
her constitution staring US in the face Texas
was to be dismembsred and the South TO be
taxed in her full share Of s 100000, for being
| despoiled of one-half of lchdt she had gained by
| The admission of that State into The Union 81
] 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.
| lumbia, in which Congress assumes and actually
exercises the power Of declaring a slave free,
because Of his master attempting TO sell him in
the said district the territories Of Utah and
| New Mexico were TO be organized without any
faculatve clause that might enable their legis-
lative councils to afford protection TO all species
Of property nhich, By The Constitution, could
righIuily be Transferred hilbert 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 grea,
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, IA m
| indemnity for the loss Of upwards Of thirty
thousand Others, who still grace with their pre-.
sence abolition conventions, and parade insult.
ingly in thoroughfares Of the North
Such was the compact of con0iiiation and
peace which the North was rendering to US. II
was forced upon US by the ant-slavery power
u the North and Northwest, aided and abet
ted by those Of the South who lad been the
loudsst In their condemnation Of it, when il irst
made it, appearance, and the most bitter in as
sailing its original supporters.
But let us see what judgment that iniquitou.
scheme has received at the hands Of its main
defenders; and let US measure, through that
judgment, the degradation 10 which il has doom
ed the slaveholding States.
In his late speech, at Trinity. General Down.
calls Il choice Of eUils. Mr. Clay had alread '
told MS that by IL, the Norh had got almos
tpery hing and me Sou'h nothing but her honor. >
And Mr. Webster, with that manliness that
characteizes his language, admits that while
"he North gains mos intensely desirable objects,
such as the annexation Of California a. a free
State, the qnieting Of the Mexican question
and Of the Texan boundary, the separation oil
New Mexico from Texas, and the abolition oil
the slave trade in the District Of Columbia, the
/ 81 h. a l.. -