The United States are still undergoing those two incidents of
the transition, which we have so recently noticed—boundary agitation and slavery agitation. Governor Bell of Texas is talking very big indeed, about raising regiments to command the boundary which Texas ordains for herself: but at Washington they do not tarn pale at the tremendous Governor ; on the contrary, they laugh. Nor does the swelling murmur of Nullification in the North raise much practical alarm,—although it has a practical ground,—for the simple reason, that all shrewd poli- ticians see beyond the actual stage. Not only has the Senate passed a bill to facilitate the recapture of fugitive slaves by very stringent, indeed very tyrannical provisions, but President Fi.lore has wisely resolved to administer the bill in its own sense. Wisely we say, because all reforms attained by evasion of the distinct law are precarious in duration and self- defeating in the moral effect. This resolve of the President, how- ever, has occasioned the retirement of a respectable member of his Cabinet, and has greatly exasperated the North. It seems to be forgotten, that this Fugitive Slave Bill is one among many frag- ments of Mr. Clay's Compromise Bill, and that it is counterbalanced by more than one set-off of an opposite tendency. The balance of the enactments recently passed must help to facilitate and develop the growth of ideas favourable to the emancipation of the Negro. But in the mean time, no doubt, the Republic has many a trial to undergo.
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