fathers thought it no tampering with holy things to enact them; and, in times of struggle and peril, they have been to many a tempted man as an anchor to the soul, sure and steadfast. I approach Mr. Webster’s treatment of the Texas question with no ordinary anxiety. Having been accustomed from my very boyhood to regard him as the almost infallible expounder of constitutional law, it is impossible to describe the struggle, the revulsion of mind, with which I have passed from an instructed and joyous acquiescence in his former opinions to unhesitating dissent from his present ones. I must premise that I cannot see any necessary or beneficial connection between the subject of new Texan states and the admission of California and the government of the territories. The former refers to some indefinite future, when, from its fruitful womb of slavery, Texas shall seek to cast forth an untimely birth. In this excited state of the country, at this critical juncture of our affairs, when there is sober talk of massacring a majority of the House of Representatives on their own floor, and a senator, instead of merely threatening to hang a brother senator on the highest tree, provided he could catch him in his own state, now draws a revolver of six barrels on another brother senator, on the floor of the Senate, in mid-session; at such a time, I say, when, however few Abels there may be at work in the political field, there are Cains more than enough, would it not have been well to have acted upon the precept, “Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof”? As the basis of his argument, Mr. Webster quotes the following resolution for the admission of Texas, passed March 1, 1845:-- “New states of convenient size, not exceeding four in number, in addition to said State of Texas, and having sufficient population, may hereafter, by the consent of the said state, be formed out of the territory thereof, which shall be entitled to admission under the provisions of the federal constitution. And such states as may be formed out of that portion of said territory lying south of 36° 30´ north latitude, commonly known as the Missouri compromise line, shall be admitted into the Union with or without slavery, as the people of each state asking admission may desire; and in such state or states as shall be formed out of said territory north of said Missouri compromise line, slavery or involuntary servitude, (except for crime,) shall be prohibited.”