I purposely refrain from discussing the original merit of the Compromise, because I consider it, to employ the expressive language of the day, as a “finality”—a fixed fact—a most important enactment of law, the agitation or disturbance of which could do no possible good, but might produce much positive evil. Our noble vessel of State, freighted with the hope of mankind, both for the present and future generations, has passed through the most dangerous breakers which she has ever encountered, and has triumphantly ridden out the storm. Both those who supported the measures of the Compromise as just and necessary, and those who, regarding them in a different light, yet acquiesce in them for the sake of the Union, have arrived at the same conclusion—that it must and shall be executed. They have thus, for every practical purpose, adopted the same platform, and have resolved to sustain it against the common enemy.—Why, then, should they wrangle, and divide and waste their energies, not respecting the main question, which has already been definitely settled, but in regard to the process which has brought them, though from different directions, to the same conclusion? Above all, why should the strength of the Democratic party of the country be impaired and its ascendency be jeoparded for any such cause? We who believe that the triumph of Democratic principles is essential not only to the prosperity of the Union, but even to the preservation of the Constitution, ought reciprocally to forget, and, if need be, to forgive the past, and cordially unite with our political brethren in sustaining for the future the good old cause of Democracy. It must be a source of deep and lasting pleasure to every patriotic heart that our beloved country has so happily passed through the late trying and dangerous crisis. The volcano has been extinguished, I trust, forever; and the man who would apply a firebrand, at the present moment, to the combustible materials which still remain, may produce an eruption to overwhelm both the Constitution and the Union. With sentiments of high and grateful respect, I remain your fellow citizen, JAMES BUCHANAN. [TO JOHN NELSON, WM. F. GILES, JOHN O. WHARTON, JOHN MORRIS, CARROLL SPENCE, AND OTHER CITIZENS OF BALTIMORE.] WHEATLAND, near LANCASTER, February 3, 1852. GENTLEMEN:—