Other Congresses have done villanously, but thou hast surpassed then all.

It has been not more fruitful of public wickedness than it has been fertile in the development of personal depravity. It has seen the Thunderer of the Wilmot Proviso break the bolts which he himself had forged, (if he did not lie,) and hurl the fragments at those who had dared to believe him to be an honest man. It has seen Whig Representatives, elected on the faith that non-extension of Slavery was one of the fundamental articles of their creed, bullied or cajoled into withholding the only sufficient security against its interminable spread. The possession of power has shown that Whigs become worse than Democrats when that fatal gift has caused their virtue to depart from out them. The frantic fears of trade, the delusive hopes of CottonSpinners, the desperate chances of Presidential possibilities, worked a magic change in the minds and hearts, or at least in the expression of the same, of the dwellers in great cities and villages where the voice of the Spindle is ever heard. The new thunders at Washington found their altered tone reëchoed from Boston, New York, Philadelphia, not to mention the minims for which the law cares not. The members of the real Anti-Slavery party" were the loudest to shout hosannahs when the law erecting them into Slavecatchers was passed. One would think, to listen to their servile speech, that it was "a journey like the path to Heaven" to be hounded on by a Slavehunter on the track of a wretched negro, and that this was the main object for which our institutions were founded and builded up. If the tone of the press, and the voice of public meetings called for the support of these iniquities, are to be accepted as the authentic utterance of the sense of the general mind at the North, the Evil Congress might well boast of having as evil a Constituency. If it were true that those frothy and vaporing demonstrations of Pro-Slavery zeal fitly expressed the feelings of the Northern mind, one might well despair of the Republic. For a people that is swift to proclaim that it is not worth saving, cannot be saved even by Almighty grace.

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But we have faith to believe, we have cause to know, that this is not the case. Bad as the North is, corrupted and depraved as it has become by its long communications with Slavery, there is yet left a remnant sufficient to save themselves, if not the nation. The House of Representatives, thank God, do not entirely represent those standing behind them. It is true, and it will probably continue so, that the worser parts of such a polity as ours control the better for a time,

and that the prestige of success often crowns their worst endeavors. But this is but temporary and apparent, as may be seen in this very case in hand, unfavorable as it may at first sight appear to be. The more remote workings of the diabolical legislation of this Congress as to New Mexico and Utah and Texas cannot yet be discerned. But how is it as to matters nearer home? The suppression of agitation was the first good fruit the new tree of liberty was expected to bring forth. Has there ever been a time when the excitement of the public mind, South and North, has been so intense as since this olive-branch budded? Has not the very silence of Congress been a perpetual occasion of remark, whether exulting or disparaging, which was only agitation in disguise? And have they been freed from the intrusion of the National Spectre, by this magic line of compromise which they had described about them? Let Mr. GIDDINGS in the House and Mr. Then the Slaveholders were taught to

CLAY in the Senate answer. expect a general return of their lost tribes, now scattered abroad among the Gentiles, back into their patriarchal bosoms. Doubtless they saw in beatific vision the multitudes that shouted Great is Slavery and Daniel is its Prophet in Faneuil Hall, in Castle Garden, in Washington Square, would proclaim a grand battue and drive their living game before them into their toils. How far these visions have been fulfilled we shall have occasion to tell in its appropriate place. But lamentable as may have been the diabolical successes of the Slavecatchers, we have their own word for it, that they have by no means come up to their expectations.

The "being's end and aim" of this Congress, as of all others, was the making-up of Presidential candidates. All these demonstrations were part of the game played upon that chess-board for that stake. We have great comfort in believing that the basest of these gamesters are fated to disappointment. We must have a President, probably, but it is not likely to be any of the prominent players for it, unless, indeed, some concatenation of circumstances may conspire to make the Hero of Mexico the successor of the Hero of Buena Vista. But General SCOTT lacks the qualification which made his subordinate and inferior his successful competitor at the last nomination. Blood is not enough without blacks. He must bear sable as well as gules upon his coat armor who looks to be saluted suzerain of these realms. It is as essential as sixteen quarters to qualify the suitor of a German princess. Mr. CLAY has been beaten too often to leave him the sorry chance of a nomination. Mr. WEBSTER has bid high and paid dearly for the lying

promise of Slaveholding support. The Slaveholders know him too well to risk their interests in his keeping. They know that he is one, as Junius says of Wedderburn, "that treachery cannot trust!" A man that has been bought and sold all the days of his political life in market overt, though he may make a good Slave, is a very dangerous master. They may flatter him and hold out hopes as baits to lure him on to greater lengths in his disgraceful career; but they will never consent to put themselves into the hands of one who, they know, would sell them the day after his inauguration for the chance of a second nomination. His scheme of a Union party to be composed of the worst portions of the old ones has met with small favor from the party which is now predominant in the nation. The Democratic leaders are well content that Mr. WEBSTER should do to their hands the dirty work preliminary to the campaign; but they will be slow to resign in his favor the "round and top of sovereignty" which has been the dream and the labor of their lives. Whatever other evil thing this Congress. may have done, we think we shall not have to lay to its charge the elevation of the Betrayer of the North to the Chair of State. In this charitable frame of mind we part with this Evil Congress, most devoutly hoping that we may never look upon its like again.

The opening of the Thirty-Second Congress has not been auspicious to the pacific hopes of the Compromisers. At the preliminary caucus of the Democratic party, now largely in the ascendant, an attempt was made to endorse the Compromise measures and to pledge the party to their maintenance. The drift of the proposition was discerned and the party declined making a Whig platform the basis of their policy and dividing the spoils of office, now almost within their grasp, with their antagonists. The Democrats were well content to allow the Whigs to do the servile work necessary to pacify the Slaveholders, but they had no intention of sharing with them the plunder of the nation, thus obtained. So the motion was laid on the table, and Mr. LINN BOYD, of Kentucky, obtained the Speaker's Chair solely on this condition. In the Senate, Mr. FooтE, of Mississippi, introduced the same proposition, as soon as it came together. But his attempts to push it through perfunctorily, failed. It opened the whole subject to debate, and was violently opposed by the extreme Southern wing, as well as by the Northern side of the Senate. It still drags its length slowly along. Whatever its fate may be, it is certain that the question of Slavery will still be the prominent topic of public and private speech, and also, that the wicked purpose of the Compromise,

the election of a Whig President by Democratic votes, — is forever

defeated.

THE WORKING OF THE COMPROMISES. NEW MEXICO, Utah, and

CALIFORNIA.

The operation of the Compromise measures of 1850, in the performance of their due functions of saving the Union, has been the chief point of observation during the past year. New Mexico has been furnished, in furtherance of the plan for including her within the limits of the Area of Freedom, with a staff of Governors, Judges, and other officials, almost exclusively from the Slaveholding States. Accordingly, we have the best reason for believing that there has been a steady immigration of Slaves and their masters into that Territory, in the most flagrant defiance of Mr. Webster's laws of “ Oriental scenery and physical Geography." The same is confidently affirmed of Utah, and it is even asserted that continual migrations of Slaves take place into California, itself. It is yet too soon to affirm what the result of these demonstrations will be, but it is too probable that Slavery will obtain a safe foothold in the two first named Territories. movement is even now in progress, and has advanced far enough to have called a Convention to consider it, the object of which is the division of California into two Territories. Of these two, the Southern would be eminently fitted for the introduction of Slavery; and this is, unquestionably, the design of the movers of the scheme. Thus we see how the wily policy of the Slave Power, aided by the treason of WEBSTER and his fellow-conspirators, has triumphed in this direction, over the hopes and the just demands of Freedom.

And a

THE FUGITIVE SLAVE LAW.

While the working of this part of the Compromise Measures has been going on secretly and almost unobserved by the nation, the operation of that portion designed to assist the masters in the recovery of their fugitive Slaves, has necessarily excited a stronger attention. This was bringing Slavery home to the business and bosoms of the inhabitants of almost every part of the Free States. The most hateful scenes of the Peculiar Institution were transferred from the South, and

enacted in the streets of Northern cities and villages. Peaceful citizens, supporting themselves by honest industry, were seized by force or fraud, held in chains, and delivered up to a new tyranny by the willing tools of the Abominable Law. Buildings dedicated to the service of public justice, were degraded into Slave-pens and barracoons. All the defences which the jealous care of centuries had reared around personal liberty, disappeared before the fell presence of the manhunter. Obedience to the simplest promptings of humanity and Christianity, was tortured into misdemeanor or erected into treason. The people of the Free States found that their native soil was not merely no protection for the guests who claimed their hospitality, but was no sanctuary even to themselves. These things could not but excite atten-` tion and awaken indignation. Black and disgraceful as have been the events of the last year, numerous as have been the successful attempts of the hunters of men to recapture their human prey, with the aid of their official bloodhounds, we do not believe that they have left the Northern mind better affected towards Slavery or the National Institutions which foster it, than before. However designed, we feel assured that these horrors have done much more towards weakening than strengthening the ties which bind the North to the South.

THE RESCUE OF SHADRACH.

Within the limits to which we must confine ourselves, we cannot enter at large into details of all the cases that have occurred, or even do sufficient justice to any of them. Two cases, of very different issues, but which created the widest and deepest excitement, occurred in this city. On the Fifteenth day of February, a colored man, Shadrach, a waiter in a coffee-house, was arrested by Deputy Marshals Riley and Sawin, under a warrant from Commissioner George T. Curtis, ("fit body to fit head!") while engaged in his honest business. He was taken before the Commissioner, and, after the case was opened, it was adjourned over for a few days. The prisoner, guilty of a suspicion of loving liberty better than Slavery, was to be held in custody in the United States Court Room, as the gaols of Massachusetts are still the only portion of her soil where a Slave cannot breathe. After the adjournment, and while the court room was clearing, a body of colored men entered the room, invited Shadrach to accompany them, which he lost no time in doing; and, before the officials of the United States had