ed in the ocean, the sea has
given up its dead. Never before, since the organization of the
government, has such a tempest of indignation swept over the land. Never
before, in a single instance, has there been manifested throughout the
religious portion of the community, of all creeds and names, such a
settled determination in the fear of God to withhold obedience to a law
of the land. The sentiments of the great mass of the people of the free
States, exclusive of the commercial cities, are briefly but emphatically
embodied in a resolution of the Common Council of Chicago, viz.:--"The
Fugitive Slave Act recently passed by Congress is revolting to our moral
sense, and an outrage on our feelings of justice and humanity, because
it disregards all the securities which the Constitution and laws have
thrown around personal liberty, and its direct tendency is to alienate
the people from their love and reverence for the government and
institutions of our country."

How far the clouds which hovered over our house have been dissipated,
let the recent rout of Mr. Webster's party in Massachusetts testify. Let
his own declaration, a month after the _peace_ measures were adopted,
that the Union was passing through a _fiery trial_, testify.[4] How far
the work of the two days has fortified the Constitution, let the recent
law of Vermont, denounced as an utter nullification of the Constitution,
because it rescues the alleged fugitive from the hands of the
commissioner, and gives him a jury trial before a State court, testify.
When rumors were rife that Mr. Webster intended to repudiate his own
thunder, the Wilmot Proviso, the _New York Herald_, the chief Northern
organ of the slaveholders, promised that, if the Senator would indeed
pursue a course so patriotic, a grateful country would, at the next
election, place him in the Presidential chair. But scarcely had the acts
advocated by Mr. Webster been consummated, than the _Herald_, with
sardonic malice, announces,--"The predictions of Mr. Clay, that the
Compromise Bill would speedily conciliate all parties, and restore the
era of good feeling, were exactly the reverse of the actual
consequences. Mr. Webster has been cast overboard in Massachusetts.
General Cass has been virtually condemned in Michigan. Mr. Dickinson,
the President, and his cabinet, have been routed in New York. Mr. Phelps
has been superseded in Vermont. Whilst in Ohio, Illinois, Iowa, and
Wisconsin, the Free-Soilers hav