MR. CLAY'S PLAN OF COMPROMISE.
Early in the session Mr. Clay brought into the Senate a set of resolutions, eight in number, to settle and close up once and for ever, all the points of contestation in the slavery question, and to consolidate the settlement of the whole into one general and lasting compromise. He was placed at the head of a grand committee of thirteen members to whom his resolutions were to be referred, with a view to combine them all into one bill, and make that bill the final settlement of all the questions connected with slavery. Mr. Benton opposed this whole plan of pacification, as mixing up incongruous measures—making one measure dependent upon another—tacking together things which had no connection—as derogatory and perilous to the State of California to have the question of her admission confounded with the general slavery agitation in the United States—as being futile and impotent, as no such conglomeration of incongruities (though christened a compromise) could have any force:—as being a concession to the spirit of disunion—a capitulation to those who threatened secession—a repetition of the error of 1833:—and itself to become the fruitful source of more contentions than it proposed to quiet. His plan was to settle each measure by itself, beginning with the admission of California, settling every thing justly and fairly, in the spirit of conciliation as well as of justice—leaving the consequences to God and the country—and having no compromise with the threat of disunion. The majority of the Senate were of Mr. Benton's opinion, which was understood also to be the plan of the President: but there are always men of easy or timid temperaments in every public body that delight in temporizations, and dread the effects of any firm and straightforward course; and so it was now, but with great difficulty—Mr. Clay himself only being elected by the aid of one vote, given to him by Mr. Webster after it was found that he lacked it. The committee were: Mr. Clay, chairman: Messrs. Cass, Dickinson, Bright, Webster, Phelps, Cooper, King, Mason, Downs, Mangum, Bell, and Berrien, members. Mr. Clay's list of measures was referred to them; and as the committee was selected with a view to promote the mover's object, a bill was soon returned embracing the comprehensive plan of compromise which he proposed. The admission of California, territorial governments for Utah and New Mexico, the settlement of the Texas boundary, slavery in the District of Columbia, a fugitive slave law—all—all were put together in one bill, to be passed or rejected by the same vote! and to be called a system. United they could not be. Their natures were too incongruous to admit of union or mixture. They were simply tied together—called one measure; and required to be voted on as such. They were not even bills drawn up by the committee, but existing bills in the Senate—drawn up by different members—occupying different places on the calendar—and each waiting its turn to be acted on separately. Mr. Clay had made an ample report in favor of his measure, and further enforced it by an elaborate speech: the whole of which Mr. Benton contested, and answered in an ample speech, some extracts from which constitute a future chapter.
[CHAPTER CLXXXIX.]
EXTENSION OF THE MISSOURI COMPROMISE LINE TO THE PACIFIC OCEAN: MR. DAVIS, OF MISSISSIPPI, AND MR. CLAY: THE WILMOT PROVISO.
In the resolutions of compromise submitted by Mr. Clay there was one declaring the non-existence of slavery in the territory recently acquired from Mexico, and affirming the "inexpediency" of any legislation from Congress on that subject within the said territories. His resolution was in these words:
"Resolved, That as slavery does not exist by law, and is not likely to be introduced into any of the territory acquired by the United States from the Republic of Mexico, it is inexpedient for Congress to provide by law either for its introduction into or exclusion from any part of the said territory; and that appropriate territorial governments ought to be established by Congress in all of the said territory, not assigned as the boundaries of the proposed State of California, without the adoption of any restriction or condition on the subject of slavery."
This proposition, with some half-dozen others, formed the system of compromise with which Mr. Clay expected to pacify the slavery agitation in the United States. Mr. Davis, of Mississippi, did not perceive any thing of a compromise in a measure which gave nothing to the South in the settlement of the question, and required the extension of the Missouri compromise line to the Pacific ocean as the least that he would be willing to take. Thus:
"But, sir, we are called on to receive this as a measure of compromise! Is a measure in which we of the minority are to receive nothing, a measure of compromise? I look upon it as but a modest mode of taking that, the claim to which has been more boldly asserted by others; and that I may be understood upon this question, and that my position may go forth to the country in the same columns that convey the sentiments of the senator from Kentucky, I here assert that never will I take less than the Missouri compromise line extended to the Pacific ocean, with the specific recognition of the right to hold slaves in the territory below that line; and that, before such territories are admitted into the Union as States, slaves may be taken there from any of the United States at the option of their owners."