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As to the power of Congress, under the Federal Constitution, to exclude slavery from any portion of the public domain of which it has been given control, I have at present little to say. Whether, under the clause of the Constitution giving to Congress "power to make needful rules and regulations respecting the territory of the United States," that body may adopt, as one of these regulations, such a prohibitory clause as that embodied in the Missouri Compromise, thus assimilating the whole of the vacant territory of which it has been given the administration to that portion merely to which a similar prohibition was extended under the authority of the confederation, is a question exceedingly difficult to be satisfactorily solved; upon which the ablest and purest statesmen, and the most astute and erudite jurists that the country has known have been long most painfully divided in opinion, and one which (perhaps happily for us all) has been now forever settled by the sternest and most inexorable arbiter to whose decision it is possible that the earth-born affairs of mortals can be submitted. But, I again ask, who of us now of the present generation will presume to condemn the peace-makers of 1819? Who is at this moment inclined to bring harsh and undeserved opprobrium upon the great and good men, whether of the North or of the South, who risked their fame, their popularity and perchance in some instances, also, their repose in social life, for their country's safety at a moment so full of peril? Where is the man that will undertake to deny that, in nearly all the most difficult concerns of human society, when great public interests are at stake, and when questions shall arise for decision eminently dark and difficult

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in their character, and which stand surrounded on all sides. with considerations of grave and vital expediency, so urgent in their nature as imperiously to demand that all the nobler instincts of the soul should be put in exercise, as well as all the higher faculties of the understanding, for the ascertainment of the true pathway of duty-where is the man, I ask, who will deny that compromise—yes, compromise, a little giving and taking, here and there, on both sides of the line of controversy-a little conciliation, forbearance, yea, and of sacrifice too, if need be, of cherished opinions, of loved personal interests, and of the ambitious. desires for local ascendency, may be both wise and patriotic, if any or all of these shall be found to stand in the way of a nation's salvation? Were not such the views of Washington and his compeers of the last century? Is it not in support of such views as these that some men of our times, little less worthy of love and veneration than the men of '76 themselves, have been known to act on more than one critical occasion? Compromise! Compromise! that term hateful to the dreamers and cold abstractionists of the present vapid and shallow generation, but which is, notwithstanding, oftentimes grandly typical of the utmost attainable perfection of human reasoning, when that reasoning may be said to partake least of the discrediting taint of mortality; and to approach most nearly to the unerring and unfathomable wisdom of the Deity himself!

I propose to conclude this chapter with an apt and pregnant quotation from a work of a deceased American. statesman on Government, which I fear has been far too little read since its first appearance, about fifteen years ago, even in the very region in which it had its origin,

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and among the avowed disciples, too, of a truly great and patriotic personage, who, I can not doubt, is destined to be much better understood and much more accurately appre ciated hereafter than it was his fortune to be by many in his own age.

Thus speaks John C. Calhoun, as it were, from the tomb wherein he lies inurned:

"Constitutional governments, of whatever form, are, indeed, much more similar to each other in their structure and character than they are, respectively, to the absolute governments even of their own class. All constitutional. governments, of whatever class they may be, take the sense of the community by its parts, each through its ap propriate organ, and regard the sense of all its parts as the sense of the whole. They all rest on the right of suffrage, and the responsibility of rulers, directly or indirectly. On the contrary, all absolute governments, of whatever form, concentrate power in one uncontrolled and irresponsible individual or body, whose will is regarded as the sense of the community. And hence the great and broad distinction between governments is not that of the one, the few, or the many, but of the constitutional and the absolute.

"From this there results another distinction, which, although secondary in its character, very strongly marks the difference between these forms of government. I refer to their respective conservative principle—that is, the principle by which they are upheld and preserved. This principle, in constitutional governments, is compromise, and in absolute governments is force, as will be next explained.

"It has been already shown that the same constitution

*of man which leads those who govern to oppress the gov erned, if not prevented, will, with equal force and certainty, lead the latter to resist oppression, when possessed of the means of doing so peaceably and successfully. But absolute governments, of all forms, exclude all other means of resistance to their authority than that of force, and, of course, leave no other alternative to the governed but to acquiesce in oppression, however great it may be, or to resort to force to put down the government. But the dread of such a resort must necessarily lead the government to prepare to meet force in order to protect itself; and hence, of necessity, force becomes the conservative principle of all such governments.

"On the contrary, the government of the concurrent majority, where the organism is perfect, excludes the possibility of oppression, by giving to each interest, or portion, or order, where there are established classes, the means of protecting itself, by its negative, against all measures calculated to advance the peculiar interests of others at its expense. Its effect, then, is to cause the different interests, portions, or orders, as the case may be, to desist from attempting to adopt any measure calculated to promote the prosperity of one or more, by sacrificing that of others; and thus to force them to unite in such measures only as would promote the prosperity of all, as the only means to prevent the suspension of the action of the government, and thereby to avoid anarchy, the greatest of all evils. It is by means of such authorized and effectual resistance that oppression is prevented, and the necessity of resorting to force superseded, in governments of the concurrent majority; and hence compromise, instead of force, becomes their conservative principle.

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"It would perhaps be more strictly correct to trace the conservative principle of constitutional governments to the necessity which compels the different interests, or portions, or orders to compromise, as the only way to promote their respective prosperity and to avoid anarchy, rather than to the compromise itself. No necessity can be more urgent and imperious than that of avoiding anarchy. It is the same as that which makes government indispensable to preserve society, and is not less imperative than that which compels obedience to superior force. Traced to this source, the voice of a people—uttered under the necessity of avoiding the greatest of calamities, through the organs of a government so constructed as to suppress the expression of all partial and selfish interests, and to give a full and faithful utterance to the sense of the whole community in reference to its common welfare -may, without impiety, be called the voice of God. To call any other so would be impious.

"In stating that force is the conservative principle of absolute, and compromise of constitutional governments, I have assumed both to be perfect in their kind; but not without bearing in mind that few or none, in fact, have ever been so absolute as not to be under some restraint, and none so perfectly organized as to represent fully and perfectly the voice of the whole community. Such being the case, all must, in practice, depart more or less from the principles by which they are respectively upheld and preserved, and depend more or less for support on force, or compromise, as the absolute or the constitutional form predominates in their respective organizations."