2.  The Northern men insisted that slavery should be abolished in the District of Columbia.

3.  Southern men demanded the right to go into any territory of the United States, as New Mexico or Utah or even California, and take their slaves with them.

4.  The Free-soilers demanded that there should be no more slave states, no more slave territories.

5.  The North wanted California admitted as a free-soil state.  The South would not consent.

So violent and bitter was the feeling aroused by these questions, that it seemed in 1850 as if the Union was about to be broken up, and that there were to be two republics,—­a Northern one made up of free states, and a Southern one made up of slave states.

Happily this was not to be; for at this crisis Henry Clay, the “Compromiser,” the “Pacificator,” the “Peacemaker,” as he was fondly called, came forward with a plan of settlement.

To please the North, he proposed, first, that California should be admitted as a free state; second, that the slave trade—­that is, the buying and selling of slaves—­should be abolished in the District of Columbia.  To please the South, he proposed, third, that there should be a new and very stringent fugitive-slave law; fourth, that New Mexico and Utah should be made territories without reference to slavery—­that is, the people should make them free or slave, as they pleased.  This was called “popular sovereignty” or “squatter sovereignty.”  Fifth, that as Texas claimed so much of New Mexico as was east of the Rio Grande, she should give up her claim and be paid money for so doing.

%380.  Clay, Calhoun, Seward, and Webster on the Compromise.%—­The debate on the compromise was a great one.  Clay’s defense of his plan was one of the finest speeches he ever made.[1] Calhoun, who was too feeble to speak, had his argument read by another senator.  Webster, on the “7th of March,” made the famous speech which still bears that name.  In it he denounced the abolitionists and defended the compromise, because, he said, slavery could not exist in such an arid country as New Mexico.  William H. Seward of New York spoke for the Free-soilers and denounced all compromise, and declared that the territories were free not only by the Constitution, but by a “higher law” than the Constitution, the law of justice and humanity.[2]

[Footnote 1:  Henry Clay’s Works, Vol.  II., pp. 602-634.]

[Footnote 2:  Johnston’s American Orations, Vol.  II., pp. 123-219, for the speeches of Calhoun, Webster, and Clay.]

After these great speeches were made, Clay’s plan was sent to a committee of thirteen, from which came seven recommendations: 

1.  The consideration of the admission of any new state or states formed out of Texas to be postponed till they present themselves for admission.

2.  California to be admitted as a free state.

3.  Territorial governments without the Wilmot Proviso to be established in New Mexico and Utah.