Nevertheless, under the twofold pretence we have cited,--the one reconciling the conscience with the cowardice of the North, and the other conceding the arrogant pretensions of the South,--the negation of the power of the central government over Slavery was carried into effect. By a legislative hocus-pocus, known as the Compromise Measures of 1850, Congress, contrary to the uniform tendency of bodies entrusted with a discretion, vacated instead of enlarging its powers. Its sovereign function of territorial legislation was abdicated, in favor of that wretched and ragged pretender, Squatter Sovereignty; and silly or misguided people everywhere, who professed to regard as dangerous that political excitement and agitation which are the life of republics, hailed the accession of King Log as a glorious triumph of legitimacy. In the remanding of a delicate question from the central to a local jurisdiction, in the conversion of a general into a topical inflammation, they affected to see an end of the difficulty, a cure to the disease. But no expectation could have been less wise. It was a transfer, and a possible postponement, but not a settlement of the trouble. Had they looked deeper, they would have discerned that the dispute in regard to Slavery is involved in the very structure of our government, which links two incompatible civilizations under the same head, which compels a struggle for political power between the diverse elements by the terms and conditions of their union, and which, if the contest is suppressed at one time or place, forces it to break out at another, and will force it to break out incessantly, until either Freedom or Slavery has achieved a decisive triumph.