rise, are nothing in comparison to those which have
sprung out of the acquisitions recently made from the Republic of
Mexico. These are not only great and leading causes of just apprehension
as respects the future, but all the minor circumstances of the day
intimate danger ahead, whatever may be its final issue and consequence.
* * *

Mr. President, I will not dwell upon other concomitant causes, all
having the same tendency, and all well calculated to awaken, to arouse
us--if, as I hope the fact is, we are all of us sincerely desirous
of preserving this Union--to rouse us to dangers which really exist,
without underrating them upon the one hand, or magnifying them upon the
other. * * *

It has been objected against this measure that it is a compromise. It
has been said that it is a compromise of principle, or of a
principle. Mr. President, what is a compromise? It is a work of mutual
concession--an agreement in which there are reciprocal stipulations--a
work in which, for the sake of peace and concord, one party abates his
extreme demands in consideration of an abatement of extreme demands
by the other party: it is a measure of mutual concession--a measure of
mutual sacrifice. Undoubtedly, Mr. President, in all such measures
of compromise, one party would be very glad to get what he wants, and
reject what he does not desire, but which the other party wants. But
when he comes to reflect that, from the nature of the Government and its
operations, and from those with whom he is dealing, it is necessary upon
his part, in order to secure what he wants, to grant something to the
other side, he should be reconciled to the concession which he has made,
in consequence of the concession which he is to receive, if there is no
great principle involved, such as a violation of the Constitution of the
United States. I admit that such a compromise as that ought never to be
sanctioned or adopted. But I now call upon any senator in his place to
point out from the beginning to the end, from California to New Mexico,
a solitary provision in this bill which is violative of the Constitution
of the United States.

Sir, adjustments in the shape of compromise may be made without
producing any such consequences as have been apprehended. There may be
a mutual forbearance. You forbear on your side to insist upon the
application of the restriction denominated the Wilmot proviso. Is
there any violation of principle there? The most that can be sa