nullification; which he wove into an ingenious system, for the interpretation of the constitution, and the nullification of the tariff laws of the United States. Those pernicious political heresies soon spread through the state, and took deep root in the public mind. Under the influence of his subtle sophistry, a state convention was assembled in 1832, which passed an ordinance of nullificationdeclaring certain tariff laws of the United States null and void, within the limits of South Carolina, and directing the executive and judicial officers of the state to resist their execution.

Gen. Jackson, being then president of the United States, issued his proclamation to the people of South Carolina-denouncing the nullification ordinance as an inceptive step to treason and disunion, and warning them not to attempt to carry it into effect. The governor of the state replied to the president's proclamation, and the legislature passed laws to carry the ordinance into effect, to set the government of the United States at defiance, and to resist by force the execution of the laws of congress and the collection of the national revenues. The country seemed to be on the brink of civil war, between the state of South Carolina alone, on one side, and the government of the United States on the other. In that posture of affairs, Henry Clay, of Kentucky, introduced into the United States senate, à compromise bill, to conciliate the people of South Carolina, by a gradual and large prospective reduction of the duties on imports, from time to time, until the year 1840, when all duties above twenty per cent. were reduced to that rate. The bill passed and became a law.

The measure had the desired effect, to allay the threatening storm in South Carolina; but its influence, in many other respects, was very pernicious. The reduction of duties invited immense importations of foreign goods in 1835, 1836, and the early part of 1837, and again in 1839, beyond the ability of the country to pay for, and produced terrible financial revulsions in 1837 and 1839, paralized the industry of the country, and reduced to bankruptcy many thousands of its merchants, bankers, manufacturers, and business men.

That compromise had another tendency, equally pernicious. It was passed under the influence of a series of threats and most insolent acts of the people, the convention, and the legislature of South Carolina, and had the appearance of cowing to them under

a sense of fear that the nullifiers might have sufficient power and influence to dissolve the Union, if their insolent demands were not complied with. It therefore tended to encourage the nullifiers, and to spread their pernicious heresies in other southern states. The doctrines of nullification contained the germs and the seeds of thought, which developed, in 1860, the doctrines and practical system of secession, revolution, and civil war.

As Gen. Jackson was an energetic southern man, very popular in all the southern states except South Carolina, and was devoted to the federal union and constitution, he could have crushed out, with out difficulty, any rebellion the nullifiers of the comparatively weak state of South Carolina could have raised. There was then no reason to fear that any other southern state would join the nullifiers; so that any rebellion they could have excited, would have been of trifling magnitude, compared with the great rebellion of 1861.

It has proved unfortunate for the country that the compromise was interposed, the tendency of which was only to diffuse and spread the heretical poison, to postpone the evil, and to increase its magnitude more than ten fold. If the nullifiers had not been bought off by the compromise, and had gone on as they would have done, and consummated their nullification by overt acts of treason and open rebellion, in resisting the execution of the laws of the United States, and five or six of their leaders had been seized, tried, convicted, and executed for treason, every traitor so punished would have saved the lives of an hundred thousand persons, in the subsequent history of the United States.

Being found impractical in its operations-that is, not capable of furnishing sufficient revenue for the support of the government, the principles on which it was based, were finally abandoned by both political parties; first, by the whigs, in the formation of the tariff of 1842, and, lastly, by the democrats, in the reconstruction of the tariff system in 1846.

9th. The compromise measures of 1850.

By the war with Mexico, and the treaty of peace at its conclusion, in 1847, the United States acquired California, New Mexico, Utah, and all the intermediate territory; but by reason of the radical differences of opinion between the north and the south upon the ques

tion of slavery, it was impossible for congress to agree upon and pass any bill or bills to organize territorial governments for those vast regions. A large majority in nearly all the free states insisted that slavery should be excluded from all that country, while the people of the slave states claimed with still greater unanimity, that they had a constitutional and just right to take their slaves into all the territories of the United States; that congress had no legitimate power to exclude slavery from the territories, and could not do so without a usurpation of power. Congressional legislation upon the subject was at a dead lock, and the result was, that New Mexico and Utah were without legitimate territorial governments for more than three years, and California for more than two years. California eventually organized a provisional government, adopted a constitution, and was finally admitted by congress as a state, September 9th, 1850.

The thirtieth congress, which met for the first time, December 1847, and terminated March 3d, 1849, could not, and did not, agree upon bills to organize the newly acquired territories. The thirty-first congress met on the first day of December, 1849, but neither party having a majority of the members of the house of representatives, the struggle for the organization of the house was long and violent, and nearly two months elapsed before a speaker was elected, and the house organized. The feeling in congress, in the city of Washington, and throughout the country, was intense, and the debates were warm and often violent, from the time of the organization of the house, until the close of the session, in September, 1850. Threats of a dissolution of the Union were often made in congress, in the newspapers, and in state legislatures, and the passions of the people, both north and south, were so excited and violent, that the danger of dissolution was very great and imminent.

During that distracted condition of our country, Mr. Clay, of Kentucky, with the wisdom of a great and experienced statesman, and the heart of a true patriot, rising above all partizan and sectional feelings and prejudices, introduced into the senate of the United States, a series of resolutions or propositions, as the basis of a compromise, to adjust and settle the difficulties under which the country was laboring, and which threatened its ruin. They

consisted, first, of a proposition to organize temporary governments for the territories of New Mexico and Utah, giving to each territory a legislature to be elected by the people thereof, declaring that "The legislative powers of the territrry (in each case), should extend to all rightful subjects of legislation, consistent with the constitution of the United States, and the provisions of the organic act," and providing,

"That when admitted as a state, the said territory, or any portion of the same, shall be received into the Union with or without slavery, as their constitution may prescribe at the time of their admission."

Second, to abolish and prohibit, in future, the domestic slave trade in the District of Columbia; and

Thirdly, a new and more efficient act for the rendition of fugi

tive slaves.

Daniel Webster, the great and distinguished compeer of Mr. Clay, warmly supported the compromise measures, and after they had been debated with great zeal, and often with intense feeling, during several months, and bills were introduced to give them form, they were finally passed and approved by president Fillmore, in September, 1850.

The vexed question of slavery in those territories, the slave trade in the District of Columbia, and the fugitive slave question, were thus settled by a series of concurrent acts, which may be re garded as the ninth great compromise of the American people.

The only great defect in that compromise, was in the fugitive slave law-in not providing a proper and efficient remedy to prevent and punish the practice which had become quite common, of kidnaping free persons of color, and selling them as slaves. So far as the territories of New Mexico and Utah were concerned, the acts to organise governments therein conferred on the territorial legislatures power to establish and regulate, or to prohibit slavery therein; and in that respect they were the best and most perfect which the divided and distracted state of public opinion, the exigences of the country, and the divisions of opinion in congress, would admit of. They conferred upon the people of those territories, power to legislate for themselves upon the subject of slavery, and established the doctrine of non-intervention by congress therein, upon that subject.

With the exception of the abolitionists, and a portion of the whigs of New England, New York, Michigan, and some parts of other northern states, all the people of the United States seemed to acquiesce in that compromise at the time, and for years afterwards; and it gave peace to the country once more.

It was the strong opposition on the part of a portion of the northern whigs to that compromise, which defeated the election of Gen. Scott to the presidency in 1852, divided, distracted, and finally destroyed the whig party.

That compromise worked well in practice, and only twenty-four slaves were introduced into New Mexico, and twenty-six into Utah, under territorial laws, during the following ten years.

It is impossible for any free government, or any government but an absolute monarchy, to exist over so large an extent of country as the United States-embracing so many and such vast differences of climate, productions, and interests, without frequent compromises. It is impracticable to conduct the government of such a vast country, upon inflexible political principles, entirely consistent, in all respects, with each other. Hence national expediency —or in other words, the adaptation of measures to the condition and circumstances of the country and its institutions, and to the industry, habits, and prejudices of the people of all sections, as far as is practicable, should be the cardinal rule of political action. And hence the absolute necessity of occasional compromises, and of a general spirit of conciliation, in order to harmonize conflicting opinions and interests.

The tendency of public opinion in each section of the country, is to take a full and enlarged, and often an exaggerated view of their own rights and interests, and to see but dimly the rights and interests of other sections at a distance from them, with which they have no personal acquaintance. Hence the discordant and clashing opinions, and the necessity of compromise to reconcile them-otherwise legislation would often come to a dead lock, appropriations to carry on the government would be impossible, and the nation would be divided into factions, and soon destroyed, as Poland was, and as Mexico probably will be.

I have recounted only the principal compromises of the American people. Almost every session of congress has had its minor