During a long and troubled session, this intricate question was argued both by Congress and the people, with a violence unknown before. Mr. Clay, for a long time, struggled in vain to close the rapidly widening breach. In vain, his famous Committee of Thirteen reported a series of compromising resolutions; both sides were too far advanced to retract, and the platform was angrily rejected. No question, however insignificant, could be taken up, into which these bitter feelings were not dragged; the business of the Nation was wholly suspended, while the contending forces hurled harangues of defiance at each others’ heads, which were re-echoed with equal fury from every village in the country. A settlement grew more and more hopeless; and, at last, a formal plan of secession was agreed upon by a minority of the State. The cry of “_Danger to the Union_” has become so hackneyed of late years, as to be treated with contempt by rational men of all parties; but, if ever it had a serious and alarming meaning, it was at the time we are speaking of. Even President making and President greeting, failed to drown the dismal foreboding, that soon all Presidents might be memories of the past. A storm was raised that no one had power to quell; “the spirits had come from the vasty deep,” and no magician was found who could charm them back again. At length, by slow and cautious advances, Mr. Clay again approached the troubled circle; increased his Committee to twenty-three, representing all the States of the Union, reasoned with them, exhorted them, entreated them; brought all those wondrously conciliatory talents with which he was gifted, to bear personally upon each member he could reach; and after the most laborious and exhausting efforts, succeeded in passing the Compromise, which, at last, quieted the Missouri question. It consisted substantially in referring the subject to the National Judiciary, to whose province it undoubtedly belonged, and to whose solemn decision the North should, from the beginning, have been content to leave it. That it has never been settled by this high authority, and that we are still unable to answer the apparently simple question--“Who are citizens of the United States?”--is certainly a very singular predicament for a great people to be placed in, but one for which the South are in no way to blame.