By voting for this resolution, the south by a simultaneous movement, shifted its mode of defence, not so much by taking a position entirely new, as by attempting to refortify an old one—­never much trusted in, and abandoned mainly long ago, as being unable to hold out against assault however unskilfully directed.  In the debate on this resolution, though the southern members of Congress did not professedly retreat from the ground hitherto maintained by them—­that Congress has no power by the constitution to abolish slavery in the District—­yet in the main they silently drew off from it.

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 surrendered irrevocably the whole question at issue between them and the petitioners for abolition in the District.  It has, unwittingly but explicitly, conceded the main question argued in the preceding pages.

The only ground taken against the right of Congress to abolish slavery in the District is, that slavery existed in Maryland and Virginia when the cession was made, and “as it still continues in both of them, it could not be abolished without a violation of that good faith which was implied in the cession,” &c.  The sole argument is not that exclusive sovereignty has no power to abolish slavery within its jurisdiction, nor that the powers of even ordinary legislation cannot do it,—­nor that the clause granting Congress “exclusive legislation in all cases whatsoever over such District,” gives no power to do it; but that the unexpressed expectation of one of the parties that the other would not “in all cases” use the power which said party had consented might be used “in all cases,” prohibits the use of it.  The only cardinal point in the discussion, is here not only yielded, but formally laid down by the South as the leading