To the honor of the Whig party be it said, there was not a northern man to be found, who, to gain the support of the south, would espouse its pro-slavery doctrines, or invent any new reading of the constitution to give them a semblance of law. Hence, at the Philadelphia Convention, no northern Whig received even so much as a complimentary vote. The judicial eminence of Judge McLean, the military eminence of General Scott, were passed contemptuously by; and Mr. Webster, acknowledged to be the greatest statesman of the age, received but fourteen votes out of almost three hundred; and twelve of these were from Massachusetts. Mr. Webster had spoken more eloquent words for liberty than any other living man, and this distinguished neglect was doubtless intended to teach him the lesson, that the path to presidential honors did not lie through an advocacy of the rights of man. General Taylor was nominated and chosen. He was understood to take neutral ground. Discountenancing the veto power, if the House of Representatives, who are chosen directly from and by the people, and the Senate, who are chosen by the states, will pass a territorial bill, either with or without a prohibition of slavery, he will approve it. This is the common opinion, and I have no doubt of its correctness. Under these circumstances, a most desperate effort was made at the close of the last Congress to provide a government for the territories with no prohibition of slavery. Had General Cass been elected, no such effort would have been necessary, for he was pledged to veto a prohibition. General Taylor was supposed to be pledged to an opposite course; and hence the struggle. The facts must be so fresh in the recollection of all, that they hardly need to be recounted. The House performed its duty to the country and to freedom, by sending territorial bills to the Senate containing the prohibitory clause. The Senate, equalling the northern by its southern votes, and far outnumbering the Whigs by its Democrats, left those bills to sleep the sleep of death upon its table. But during the closing hours of the session, it foisted a provision for the government of the territories into the general appropriation bill; and held out the menace that this bill should not pass at all, unless the territorial clause should pass with it. The flagitiousness of this proceeding it is difficult to comprehend and impossible to describe. The appropriation bill is one on which the working, and even the continuance of the government, depend. Without it, the machinery of the state must cease to move. Contracts by the government to pay money must be violated. Officers cannot obtain their salaries. Families must be left without subsistence. If long continued, all judges would resign, and courts be broken up; and when justice should cease to be administered, violence, robbery, and every form of crime would run riot through the land.