Passing by the resolutions generally without remark—­the attention of the reader is specially solicited to Mr. Clay’s substitute for Mr. Calhoun’s fifth resolution.

“Resolved, That when the District of Columbia was ceded by the states of Virginia and Maryland to the United States, domestic slavery existed in both of these states, including the ceded territory, and that, as it still continues in both of them, it could not be abolished within the District without a violation of that good faith, which was implied in the cession and in the acceptance of the territory; nor, unless compensation were made to the proprietors of slaves, without a manifest infringement of an amendment to the constitution of the United States; nor without exciting a degree of just alarm and apprehension in the states recognizing slavery, far transcending in mischievous tendency, any possible benefit which could be accomplished by the abolition.”

By advocating this resolution, the south shifted its mode of defence, not by taking a position entirely new, but by attempting to refortify an old one—­abandoned mainly long ago, as being unable to hold out against assault however unskillfully directed.  In the debate on this resolution, the southern members of Congress silently drew off from the ground hitherto maintained by them, viz.—­that Congress has no power by the constitution to abolish slavery in the District.

The passage of this resolution—­with the vote of every southern senator, forms a new era in the discussion of this question.  We cannot join in the lamentations of those who bewail it.  We hail it, and rejoice in it.  It was as we would have had it—­offered by a southern senator, advocated by southern senators, and on the ground that it “was no compromise”—­that it embodied the true southern principle—­that “this resolution stood on as high ground as Mr. Calhoun’s.”—­(Mr. Preston)—­“that Mr. Clay’s resolution was as strong as Mr. Calhoun’s”—­(Mr. Rives)—­that “the resolution he (Mr. Calhoun) now refused to support, was as strong as his own, and that in supporting it, there was no abandonment of principle by the south.”—­(Mr. Walker, of Mi.)—­further, that it was advocated by the southern senators generally as an expression of their views, and as setting the question of slavery in the District on its true ground—­that finally, when the question was taken, every slaveholding senator, including Mr. Calhoun himself, voted for the resolution.

By passing this resolution, and with such avowals, the south has unwittingly but explicitly, conceded the main point argued in the preceding pages, and surrendered the whole question at issue between them and the petitioners for abolition in the District.