can they derive any recommendation from that acquiescence, when that acquiescence is at an end? Is it not an insult to the present Congress, to tell them that that was meant to be inseparable, which they have a right to separate; that that is universally acquiesced in, to which they refuse their acquiescence; that that alone will produce harmony, to which they are all opposed; that that is demanded by a great majority of the people, which they, the legal, constitutional representatives of the majority of the people, protest against?

The whole question is, — Is there anything in the nature or character of the compromise act, which can prevent its being abrogated in the same manner in which it was created? Is the compromise act an exception to the general rule, which governs not only the statutory law, but even the Constitution of the United States? And if it is, can it communicate this virtue to every other statute, which the President or any succeeding Congress shall declare, or the President thinks that they mean, shall be inseparably connected with it? Is the President to be the judge of the moral obligation of every statute, and is he to force his convictions upon Congress?

The President does not condescend to give the reasons why he "regards the compromise act as imposing the highest moral obligation." He seems to consider it sufficient that he has always so regarded it, "whatever may be in theory its character." In other words, whatever may be the technical, usual, legal, essential effect of the act itself, it is enough that he so regards it. The fact of his so regarding it is, in his opinion, enough. It is of more consequence to him as a ground of action, than the nature of the act. This doctrine certainly would put an end to all argument on the subject, if it could be admitted; and that probably was its intention. But for my part I consider that the nature of the transaction is everything, and the mode in which the President regards it nothing, unless based upon considerations derived from its nature, from its technical character, or, as he calls it, "its character in theory." I have never been able to find any reason

for regarding it in any different light from any other statute, except its name. But if its name is to have any effect, it would be first necessary to ascertain who gave it that name. I believe it will be found that it is a mere nick-name, that there is no more authority for it than for that of the "little Tariff Bill," "the Sub-Treasury Bill," "the Gag Law," and other equally picturesque but insignificant epithets; and that it has just as much to do with the nature of the law it serves to distinguish, and is of about as much significance as a guide for interpretation. It would, in fact, make no difference in the nature of the transaction, if the bill had been entitled "an act to compromise, &c." Congress cannot, by baptism, give any different nature to a law. If they had called it "an addition to the Constitution," it would not have made it so. If they had entitled it "a solemn contract," it would not have made it anything else but a statute law. They were commissioned to make an act of Congress. They could make nothing but an act of Congress, having all the efficacy, the power, the permanence of an act of Congress, and no more; and having also all the frailties, the liabilities, and the conditions of such an act, one of the most inseparable of which is the being abrogated, amended, or changed, whenever their constituents, or their successors, should find it for their interest to do so. If they agreed to anything else, they agreed to what they had no commission for, no warrant for. The compromise then consisted simply in an agreement to pass that law, in preference to any other law that might have been passed. It could consist in nothing else. Anything more was out of their power. When that law was passed, the compromise was executed and fulfilled. The passing of the act was itself the compromise. It was both agreement and performance. There were a great variety of opinions and interests to be conciliated, some demanding one law and some another; and they were compromised by passing the law in question, instead of some other law which might have passed. But I cannot see that this could alter the nature or

the obligation of the act in which the compromise resulted, or that it would have made any difference, whether it was one of the extreme laws on either side which was passed, or some medium between them.

If the compromise had resulted not in a law, but in an alteration of the Constitution, that would have been a compromise which the subsequent legislation of Congress could not affect, and which could only be abrogated or altered by the same power and the same process by which it was entered into. But even then it could have been altered, for change is the inseparable condition even of our Constitution. There were difficulties and dissensions at the time of the ratification of the Constitution, which were got over by a compromise, by several compromises, compromises between the Constitution, such as the Convention made it and a majority of the States accepted it, and the wishes of the dissenting or reluctant States. These States were then independent and sovereign States, perfectly free and unconnected with the assenting States, and driven by no compulsion to accept the Constitution. And will it be pretended that those articles, which were the result of this compromise, could not now be amended? Or that there is any principle of honor or good faith, any "moral obligation" to prevent the people whenever they please to alter or amend these articles of the Constitution, as well as all the others, when the Constitution itself provides for the alteration of the whole? Is it pretended that they are of a more sacred or obligatory nature than the rest of the Constitution? The whole Constitution is a compromise, by which it was agreed to pass that constitution in preference to some other constitution, or articles which some of the contracting States might have preferred. It is a compromise Constitution. Every act of Congress is in this sense a compromise act. They are all compromises of conflicting interests and opinions, each party conceding by way of compromise what it cannot help, and getting all it can. And is this compromise act alone of all the constitutions and

the acts inscribed on the cumbrous rolls which embody the compromises of this compromising country, to be sacred, irrevocable, indelible? Is this alone to be exempt from the universal law which, according to the first State paper in our archives, attaches itself to every social institution and every social arrangement? Strange inconsistency truly, that the same party should at the same moment approve of two different acts, one of which assumes that constitutions may be altered not only by the power that made them, but by a revolutionary movement of persons having nothing to do with the government, and the other maintains that an act of legislation cannot be changed, no matter how great the changes of opinion or of interest in which it originated! Strange inconsistency, that in the same country and by the same party, who maintain that one generation cannot bind another by the most solemn and formal stipulations, expressly binding themselves and their heirs and successors forever, it should be pretended that the moral obligation of an instrument, in its nature terminable, shall become from a mere vague and disputed principle of interpretation interminable!that the same persons who repudiate the legal contracts of their agents with third persons, founded on obligations which are at the bottom of all honesty between man and man in every-day life, and essential to the mechanism of industry, and to the preservation of good faith among individuals, should insist on those delicate moral obligations which are based only on considerations of harmony among themselves, and have no legal force whatever! Strange inconsistency, which maintains that the Constitution, the fundamental law of the State, can be indefinitely changed, and that those which are passed by a body created by the Constitution, and in virtue of powers created by it, are irrevocable and unchangeable. It is a fundamental principle in the spirit, and in the letter, and in the practice of our constitutions, that everything which does not regard third persons can be changed, and changed by the same power which created. The Constitution can be altered by the peo

ple who created it, in a manner which they have prescribed for themselves, or by revolution; the acts of Congress can be altered by Congress; the regulations of the executive department by that department. But if Mr. Tyler is correct, the compromise act and all the laws "meant to be inseparable" from that act, or which shall in future be meant to be inseparable, are alone of a perpetual moral obligation, and as irrevocable as the sacred laws of the Medes and Persians. If he is correct, this act and all its supplements are an anomaly in our institutions, and an exception to the most striking and universal characteristic of their spirit.

To the allegation, that the compromise act was intended to be a solemn compact or compromise perpetually to be adhered to, in spirit at least, there are then no less than three separate, distinct, and sufficient answers. The first is, that the intentions of the persons by whose agency it was concluded upon are so difficult to be ascertained, so impossible to be proved, and the testimony of the persons themselves is so various, that it is impossible to make them the ground of any obligation. The second is, that the act does not bear upon the face of it any mark of any intentions extending beyond the year 1842; that it contains no provisions regulating anything beyond that year; and that whatever may have been the intentions of the authors, their express regulations, although they might very well have been abrogated, have in fact been suffered to take full effect, for the time prescribed. That time is now expired, and it now becomes necessary to make a new compromise; whether in the spirit or the letter resembling or differing from the preceding one, it is for those, whose interests are to be again compromised, to say. The third is, that if the instruments of the compromise really did intend to do anything more than to pass a common act, having exactly the obligation and "the character" of a common act, and no more, they exceeded their powers as agents of the persons whom they represented, and whose interests they undertook to compromise, having received no