The consecration of the territory of the United States to freedom became from that day a rallying cry for every shade of anti-slavery sentiment.

If it did not go as far as the Abolitionists in their extreme and uncompromising faith might demand, it yet took a long step forward, and afforded the ground on which the battle of the giants was to be waged, and possibly decided.

Spontaneous in impulse, momentary in duration, simple in form, it was yet one of the most striking tributes ever paid to moral dignity and lofty character.

To those he added a high standard of morality, and a love and endurance of labor possessed by few.

He entered the House of Representatives in 1831, and for the remainder of his life, a period of seventeen years, he was the one grand figure in that assembly.

His warfare against those who would suppress free speech, his heroic contest in favor of the right of the humblest to petition for redress of grievances, are among the memorable events in the parliamentary history of the United States.

The amplitude of his knowledge, his industry, his unflagging zeal, his biting sarcasm, his power to sting and destroy without himself showing passion, made a combination of qualities as rare as it was formidable.

His service in the House gave him a name as enduring as the Republic whose history he adorned.

It was in large degree the moral courage of his position which first fixed the attention of the country and then attracted its admiration.

To throw these States away by an anti-slavery crusade was to accept inevitable defeat, and disband the Whig party.

No American President would dare to submit such a treaty to the Senate.

The Democratic party had precipitated the war, had organized the military force that prosecuted it, had controlled its immense patronage, and had brought it to a victorious conclusion, yet had gained no political strength in the country.

He was placed before the people on his record as a soldier, unhampered by the political declarations which make up the modern platform.

On a question of bread, the half-loaf is preferable to starvation, but when political honor and deep personal feeling are involved, so material an adjustment is not practicable.

He had disregarded a personal and political friendship of thirty years' duration, and had sundered ties which life was too short to re- unite.

He thoroughly distrusted Cass, --not in point of integrity, but of discretion and sound judgment as a statesman.

In the pithy phrase of John Van Buren, they had exposed him to the country as the candidate "powerful for mischief, powerless for good.

In point of mere intellectual force, he must rank below the really eminent men with whom he was so long associated in public life.

But he was able, industrious, and, in political management, clever beyond any man who has thus far appeared in American politics.

He had extraordinary tact in commending himself to the favor and confidence of the people.

He stood on the dividing-line between the mere politician and the statesman,-- perfect in the arts of the one, possessing largely the comprehensive power of the other.

The message of the President was immediately transmitted, and proved a tower of strength to the friends of the Union, and a heavy blow to the secession element, which was rampant in Congress.

The President recommended that California, with her constitution, already known to be anti-slavery, be promptly admitted to the Union.

Its last words insisted that "failure makes us vassals of an arrogant people--secretly if not openly hated by the most enlightened and elevated portions of mankind.

The wonder excited by the raising of the vast army which saved the Union from destruction was even surpassed by the wonder excited by its prompt and peaceful dissolution.