It is not singular that a final settlement, which disposed of all the slavery questions on which Congress could in any way act, should have been acceptable to the people of the whole Union, excepting the extremists of the two sections. The abolitionists of the North denounced it, because it admitted of the possible and theoretical establishment of slavery in New Mexico, notwithstanding the patent fact that neither the soil nor the climate of that region could ever make it a profitable form of labor, and because it recognized and provided for the execution of that provision of the Constitution which required the extradition of fugitives from service. The extreme men of the South disliked the settlement, because it admitted the great and rich State of California as a free State. But when the Presidential election of 1852 approached, the general approval of this settlement was made manifest. The national convention of the Whig party nominated as its candidate for the Presidency General Scott, who was supposed to be somewhat closely affiliated, both personally and politically, with public men who opposed and continued to denounce the compromise. But in their “platform” the Whigs pledged themselves to maintain it as a binding settlement, and to discountenance all attempts in or out of Congress to disturb it. The Democratic national convention not only made equally emphatic declarations of their purpose to maintain this settlement inviolate, but by nominating a candidate who could not be suspected of any lukewarmness on this, the great political question of the time, they secured a majority of the electoral votes of both free and slave States that was almost unprecedented. General Pierce received 254 electoral votes out of 296, or 105 votes more than were necessary to a choice. All the free States, excepting Massachusetts and Vermont, and all the slave States, excepting Kentucky and Tennessee, gave him their electoral votes. Never did a party come into power with greater strength, and never was there a more distinct political issue than that which placed General Pierce at the head of the Government. The people at large distrusted the soundness of the Whig candidate and his friends upon the compromise of 1850, and being determined to maintain that settlement as final, and to have no more agitation of slavery questions in Congress, they entrusted the destinies of the country to the Democratic party.