Weekly national intelligencer. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1841-1869, 1854-03-25
COMPROMISES.

sceptical that in one whole region of the country
the legislation of 1920 is regarded as one of those
compacts which have repeatedly taken place in the
adjustment of the conflicting interests represented
in the Congress of the United States We do not
design to go over again the facts and arguments
which convince that that Legislation is rightfully
regarded in this light Our views on this point
have been too often expressed and are too well
known to require repetition. What we desire now
to say-and to say it with reference to the common
interests of the whole eountryreates rather to the
general subject of Compromises, as they are known
and practised in our National Legislation.
1t is well known that, from the very origin of the
present Government of the United States down to
the eventful year 1850, there have occurred, from
time to time, serious conflicts between the interests
opinions, or feelings of different portions of
country, which could be reconciled only by a
mutual surrender of wishes and claims on the one
side and the other, and by mode of legislation
which, embodying that surrender, has received the
political name of "Compromise. Nay, these
amicable adjustments 90 much further back than
the commencement of the legislation of Congress
under the Constitution. In the very process of
forming the Constitution several such mutual sur
renders Of local interest and prediction took place.
and were absolutely necessary to the preservation
of the Union and the establishment of new system
of government. Yet neither in relation to the
compromises of the Constitution, nor in relation to
the Congressional compromises since formed, is it
practicable to trace the record, distinct treaty.
or technical contract, between one class of the
sovereign States composing this Union and another
class of them, which could be enforced in a court
of justice, if there were any to which tho parties
could be made amenable. But what does appear,
with entire certainty, is that at certain unctures
when the interests and wishes of one class Of States
has been Numerically opposed to those Of another
class, and neither party could prevail wholly without
danger to the peace and harmony of the Union, a
mutual surrender Of something on both sides has
resulted in act or acts of legislation, in which
both parties have acquesced, and the country has
| gone on with uninterrupted tranquility. These
adjustments, as we have admitted, may not have
taken form which would make them cognizabe in
court Of law; but if it is historically true in any
given case, that the Legislative power Of the country
has adjusted a conflict of interests between one
distinct class of States and another, by making a
partial surrender of claims or wishes on one side
equivalent to like surrender on the other side,
and the different sections of the country have
ceived and acted upon the adjustment it is binding
in the forum of conscience, and must be treated,
or our complex system of government cannot be
carried on.
Take, as an illustration of our position, one of
the great compromises of the Constitution-thatr re-
lating to Representation. The first conflict of in
terests that took place in the Federal Convention
was that which began in a struggle between the
large and the small States to the basis of legs
lative power; the former contending for represen-
tation by numbers, the latter contending for an
equality Of representation as between all the States
The system actually adopted was the result of a
compromise in which an equal representation of the
States in the Senate was given compensation
for the inequality established in the construction of
the House. A.."....
| But it cannot be pretended that this compromise
introduced perfect compensation. A State with
two Senators and forty Representatives has more
legislative power than State with two Senators
and five Representatives,; and it will be 50 to the
end Of the chapter. But the compromise was re-
ceived, acquiesced in, and acted upon by all the
States it became the basis of the Constitution
and it can never be changed, for the simple reason
that it was received and acted upon as the best APP
Proclamation to perfect equality that could be
made. 49,. s"....
Now, suppose that majority of the trainers of
the Constitution, instead of resorting to compro-
mise, had proceeded by the mere force of numbers
to declare that the Legislative power should be
based erclasiaely on population. All know that in
that event the smaller States never could have ac-
cepted the Constitution. That they were enabled
to accept it was the result of that wise spirit of
Cancellation and forbearance which yields the appli-
cation of rigid principle in one direction for the
purpose of securing its application in another
This spirit is just as essential in the legislation
of Congress under the Constitution as it was in the
establishment of the Constitution itself. Our Go
vernment is Federal Republic, established by the
people of different and in some respects sovereign
and independent States, having widely different in
terests. The bond of our union is an imperfect
bond compared with that which holds together a
homogeneous population, whose institutions, laws,
and customs are every where the same. There are
vast and sometimes widely diverging interests and
principles, which, if they were to be dealt with by
the mere power of numbers, acting through the