us intelligence of a most important step taken by one of the Southern States in connection with this subject, which will give some conception of the tone of feeling which begins to prevail in that quarter." It was such speaking as this that induced some votes against the resolutions. All the senators were dissatisfied at the constant exhibition of the same remedy (disunion), for all the diseases of the body politic; but the greater part deemed it right, if they voted at all, to vote their real sentiments. Many were disposed to lay the resolutions on the table, as the disturbing petitions had been; but it was concluded that policy made it preferable to vote upon them. Mr. BENTON did not speak in this debate. He believed, as others did, that discussion was injurious; that it was the way to keep up and extend agitation, and the thing above all others which the abolitionists desired. Discussion upon the floor of the American Senate was to them the concession of an immense advantage--the concession of an elevated and commanding theatre for the display and dissemination of their doctrines. It gave them the point to stand upon from which they could reach every part of the Union; and it gave them the _Register of the Debates_, instead of their local papers, for their organ of communication. Mr. Calhoun was a fortunate customer for them. The Senate, in laying all their petitions and the memorial of Vermont on the table without debate, signified its desire to yield them no such advantage. The introduction of Mr. Calhoun's resolution frustrated that desire, and induced many to do what they condemned. Mr. Benton took his own sense of the proper course, in abstaining from debate, and confining the expression of his opinions to the delivery of votes: and in that he conformed to the _sense_ of the Senate, and the _action_ of the House of Representatives. Many hundreds of these petitions were presented in the House, and quietly laid upon the table (after a stormy scene, and the adoption of a new rule), under motions to that effect; and this would have been the case in the Senate, had it not been for the resolutions, the introduction of which was so generally deprecated.