"Slavery is a moral and religious blessing," says somebody in the present Congress. But it seems some thirty thousand slaves have been blind to the benefits--moral and religious benefits--which it confers, and have fled to the free States. Mr. Clingman estimates the value of all the fugitive slaves in the North at $15,000,000. Delaware loses $100,000 in a year in this way; her riches taking to themselves not wings, but legs. Maryland lost $100,000 in six months. I fear Mr. Mason's bill and Mr. Webster's speech will not do much to protect that sort of "property" from this kind of loss. Such action is prevented "by a law even superior to that which admits and sanctions it in Texas." Such are Mr. Webster's opinions on these four great questions. Now, there are two ways of accounting for this speech, or, at least, two ways of looking at it. One is, to regard it as the work of a statesman seeking to avert some great evil from the whole nation. This is the way Mr. Webster would have us look at it, I suppose. His friends tell us it is a statesmanlike speech--very statesmanlike. He himself says _Vera pro gratis_[3]--true words in preference to words merely pleasing. _Etsi meum ingenium non moneret necessitas cogit_--Albeit my own humor should not prompt the counsel, necessity compels it. The necessity so cogent is the attempt to dissolve the Union, in case the Wilmot Proviso should be extended over the new territory. Does any man seriously believe that Mr. Webster really fears a dissolution of this Union undertaken and accomplished on this plea, and by the Southern States? I will not insult the foremost understanding of this continent by supposing he deems it possible. No, we cannot take this view of his conduct.