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Mr. Clay's Compromise, and the Cabinet.
The very fair and reasonable proposition made by Mr. Clay, the other day, in the Senate, to settle the slavery question and all its agitations, receives no attention, no encouragement, no approbation from the organs of the cabinet, either at Washington or elsewhere. In fact, those organs discourage all attempts at a practical settlement of question, and seem to think that their purposes can be better served by granting a constitution to California, and leaving all the rest of the new territory an open question, to serve the purposes of agitation, up to the point of disunion. When the agitation shall have reached the joint of disunion and rebellion under the constitution, then they will endeavor to avail themselves of such a happy contingency, and bring out General Taylor with a prodigious proclamation—put down the attempt at dissolution, for the purpose of operating on the public mind and organizing a splendid Union party, for the purpose of continuing in power the same set of weak, and imbecile, and incompetent men who occupy the cabinet.
The state of public mind in the South, and the weakness of the small politicians there, offer a very favorable opportunity for the realization of such stool-pigeoning purposes in political action.—In certain portions of the South there are expeditions forming for the purpose of sailing to San Domingo, and of conquering that island; and in other parts, expeditions are forming for a descent on the Island of Cuba; and others are looking to the acquisition of Mexico, with the ultimate creation of a new republic, commencing with Virginia at the North, and embracing San Domingo, Cuba, and Mexico up to Central America. All these wild measures, to our certain knowledge, are embraced more or less by certain parties now in Washington, and scattered over the South. We have similar cliques of wild, impracticable and unprincipled, but resolute, fools at the North. The whole tribe of socialists in this region, are looking to a great Northern republic, embracing Canada down to the North Pole. The ultra and original abolitionists of New England and New York are of the same kind of men. Thus we see there is plenty of inflammable materials in every section of the country, sufficiently mad to enable the present cabinet of General Taylor to humbug and deceive that good man, and to postpone the settlement of the slavery question until a revolution, in its first stages, should break out. Of course, the cabinet and their unprincipled associates in Washington and elsewhere, care nothing about the compromise proposed by Mr. Clay, nor will they see anything in any other compromise sufficient to encourage their friends to adopt that, or make it the basis of a final adjudication of this troublesome question during the present season. We have hope, however, that by enlightening the public mind on the wicked purposes of the cabinet and their counsellors, something yet may be done by the present Congress.
