Such is the mutuality of Mr. Clay’s compromises. They are such compromises as the wolf offers to the lamb, or the vulture to the dove. They make the rightful admission of California into the Union, with her free constitution, contingent upon opening the new territories to slavery; they ratify one part of the predatory claim of Texas, and propose to give her millions for the other part; they give an unconditional veto to the state of Maryland and to the citizens of the District of Columbia, over a unanimous vote of both Houses of Congress, even when approved by the President; in connection with Mr. Butler’s bill and Mr. Mason’s amendments, they expose our white citizens to grievous penalties and imprisonments for not doing what the Supreme Court of the United States has decided we are not bound to do, in relation to fugitive slaves, and they offer our colored citizens to be kidnapped and spirited away into bondage; and they foreclose, in favor of the south, the disputed question of the inter-state commerce in slaves. In one particular only do they appear to concede any thing to northern rights, or northern convictions, or northern feelings. They propose to transfer the District of Columbia slave trade across an ideal line into Virginia or into Maryland, so that the slave planter or slave trader, when he comes to our American Congo to replenish his stock of human cattle, shall be obliged to go a mile or two, to the slave marts, instead of walking down Pennsylvania Avenue. I deem this to be no concession. If it is honorable to produce corn and cotton, it is honorable to buy and sell them,--and if it is honorable to hold beings created in God’s image in slavery, it is honorable to stand between the producer and consumer, and to make merchandise of the bodies and the souls of men. Let this Light of the Age be set upon a hill, that all nations may behold it. I will refer to Mr. Bell’s resolutions no further than to say, that they propose the formation of three slave states out of what is now claimed by Texas, one of which is to be admitted into the Union forthwith as an offset to California. Mr. Buchanan has not regarded the movements of his rival, General Cass, with indifference. He has spent a considerable portion of the winter in Washington, and it is understood that he holds out the Missouri compromise line, from the western boundary of Missouri to the Pacific Ocean, as his lure to the south, for their favorable regards in the ensuing presidential contest.