Lynchburg Virginian

THE COMPROMISE ACT

Perhaps the public will be surprised to learn that the Richmond Enquirer, which now affects to be very much horror struck at the idea of violating the Compromise Act, has declared, over and over, not only that that Act has no peculiar claims to sanctity, but that in point of fact, it was so imperfect, and even objectionable in some of its features, that it ought to be violated! "It is eminently defective," said the Enquirer, in 1833, "and must be amended." And yet now it says, it is too holy to be touched, and must be preserved "sacred and inviolate."

Mr. Tyler, it is true, in 1838, when he made his celebrated Report and Speech, in favor of Distribution, voted for a resolution declaring that the Compromise Act ought not to be violated—but, at the same time, he gave to that Act a construction, which, if he adhered to it now, would show that the Bill lately vetoed by him does not conflict with its provisions, but does, in fact maintain it "sacred and inviolate."

There is another fact, deserving to be mentioned in this connection. The resolution of 1833, declaring that the Compromise Act ought to be held sacred and inviolate, was adopted in the House of Delegates, by a vote of 83 to 35—and will it be believed that nearly all the members who voted against it, and who, by that vote, declared that the Compromise Act ought not to be held sacred and inviolate, were Loco Focos? Yet the fact is so. Why are they all at once so solicitous to preserve this act sacred and inviolate, to which they were then hostile?

But to cap the climax, this Act, to preserve which from violation Mr. Tyler professedly vetoed the Tariff Bill, was the other day, on the floor of the Senate, pronounced to be "UNCONSTITUTIONAL" by John C. Calhoun! And so Mr. Tyler is lauded to the skies for a veto, the object of which is to preserve sacred and inviolate an UNCONSTITUTIONAL law!!!