Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 2, No. 12, May, 1851.Various
History
Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 2, No. 12, May, 1851.
Various
American literature -- Periodicals; Civilization -- Periodicals; Culture -- Periodicals
bill for the suppression of gambling, containing some stringent
provisions, having been introduced into the Senate, and referred to a
committee of three, GEORGE W. BULL, sergeant-at-arms of that body,
endeavored to enter into negotiations with the reputed proprietor of a
gambling "hell" in New York to delay or defeat the bill, for an adequate
compensation. He managed to procure a note from the committee to the
effect that the bill would not come up the present session. The attempt
was exposed, and the offender forthwith dismissed from his office. An
unsuccessful attempt was made to implicate the senatorial committee in
this scandalous affair, upon the ground that they could not have been
ignorant of the purpose for which their note was procured.
Nothing of special importance has occurred in any section of the
country. In Ohio the Legislature has adopted a series of resolutions
concerning the Fugitive Slave law, urging a faithful execution of the
law, but recommending such modifications as experience may prove to be
essential. In view of the Act of the Legislature of South Carolina,
providing for the appointment of delegates to a Southern Congress, the
General Assembly of Virginia has passed a series of resolutions to the
following purport: 1. That while Virginia sympathizes in the feelings
excited by the interference of the non-slaveholding States with the
domestic institutions of the South, yet the people of that State "are
unwilling to take any action, in consequence of the same, calculated to
destroy the integrity of this Union." 2. That regarding the Compromise
measures, "taken together, as an adjustment of the exciting questions to
which they relate, and cherishing the hope that if fairly executed, they
will restore to the country that harmony and confidence, which of late
have been so unhappily disturbed, the State of Virginia deems it unwise,
in the present condition of the country, to send delegates to the
proposed Southern Congress." 3. Virginia appeals to South Carolina "to
desist from any meditated secession upon her part, which can not but
tend to the destruction of the Union, and the loss to all the States of
the blessings that spring from it." 4. Believing that the Constitution
provides adequate protection to the rights of all the States, Virginia
"invokes all who live under it to adhere more strictly to it, and to
preserve inviolate the safeguards which it affords to the rights of
individual States, and the interests of sectional minorities." 5.
Reprobates all legislation or combinations designed to affect the
institutions peculiar to the South, as derogatory and offensive to the
Southern States, and calculated to "defeat the restoration of peaceful
and harmonious sentiments in these States." These dignified and
temperate resolutions passed with singular unanimity: the 3d with but
three, the 1st with only one, and the 4th and 5th without a single
dissenting voice, out of 118 members present and voting. They were
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