The American President his returned to Washington. He ap- pears
'to have been coolly received throughout his progress. Mr. Webster, .who was. prevented by his sees indisposition from, at-• tending the chief magistrate, has. since gone over the same ground, and with much more eclat; !having.liddressed numerous assemblies along the whole line of the Erie' railroad, and been received with enthutiiism. • His greatest anxiety appears to have been, to vin- &eater the course pursued 'by himself and his party in relation to the Fugitive Slave Bill.; and to convince his auditors that upon the ground of that bill ohmic= the Union be peipetuated.: The vehemence- with which Mr. Webster professed sincerity while indulging in something very closely, resembling special- pleading, and the frequency of his appeals to the Supreme 'Being as witness to his good faith, imply a-lively sense that the interests of his party are in danger. Indeed, the abstract of the returns of the census • of 1850, published in the Washington papers, shows that he is not apprehensive without cause. The source of danger is not the altered balance of ,the Slavery and Abolition- parties ; - on both sides the.question of. slavery is palpably with the greater number a mere pretext—" political capital,' in the Transatlantic phrase. • But it is obvious-that political power is rapidly passing from the Atlantic to the 'Western States : and the Conservative party, to which Mr. Webster belongs, has its strong holds in the Atlantic States ; the pioneers and backwoodsmen of the West belonging to a more reckless class of politicians. • The repre sentation of the States in the House of Assembly is regulated by their population. The greater rapidity with which popu- lation increases in the .new States of the West than in the cad, States on the Atlantic seaboard, has led to the transference of ne fewer than 45 votes from the latter to the former in the course and the ten years ending with 1850. These votes are in fact trains- ferred from the Whig or Conservative party to the Locofocos.
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