REJECTION OF MR. CLAY'S PLAN OF COMPROMISE.
The Committee of Thirteen had reported in favor of Mr. Clay's plan. It was a committee so numerous, almost a quarter of the Senate, that its recommendation would seem to insure the senatorial concurrence. Not so the fact. The incongruities were too obvious and glaring to admit of conjunction. The subjects were too different to admit of one vote—yea or nay—upon all of them together. The injustice of mixing up the admission of California, a State which had rejected slavery for itself, with all the vexations of the slave question in the territories, was too apparent to subject her to the degradation of such an association. It was evident that no compromise, of any kind whatever, on the subject of slavery, under any one of its aspects separately, much less under all put together, could possibly be made. There was no spirit of concession—no spirit in which there could be giving and taking—in which a compromise could be made. Whatever was to be done, it was evident would be done in the ordinary spirit of legislation, in which the majority gives law to the minority. The only case in which there was even forbearance, was in that of rejecting the Wilmot proviso. That measure was rejected again as heretofore, and by the votes of those who were opposed to extending slavery into the territories, because it was unnecessary and inoperative—irritating to the slave States without benefit to the free States—a mere work of supererogation, of which the only fruit was to be discontent. It was rejected, not on the principle of non-intervention—not on the principle of leaving to the territories to do as they pleased on the question; but because there had been intervention! because Mexican law and constitution had intervened! had abolished slavery by law in those dominions! which law would remain in force, until repealed by Congress. All that the opponents to the extension of slavery had to do then, was to do nothing. And they did nothing.
The numerous measures put together in Mr. Clay's bill were disconnected and separated. Each measure received a separate and independent consideration, and with a result which showed the injustice of the attempted conjunction. United, they had received the support of the majority of the committee: separated, and no two were passed by the same vote: and only four members of the whole grand committee that voted alike on each of the measures.
[CHAPTER CXCVI.]
THE ADMISSION OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA: PROTEST OF SOUTHERN SENATORS: REMARKS UPON IT BY MR. BENTON.
This became the "test" question in the great slavery agitation which disturbed Congress and the Union, and as such was impressively presented by Mr. Calhoun in the last and most intensely considered speech of his life—read for him in the Senate by Mr. Mason of Virginia. In that speech, and at the conclusion of it, and as the resulting consequence of the whole of it, he said:
"It is time, senators, that there should be an open and manly avowal on all sides, as to what is intended to be done. If the question is not now settled, it is uncertain whether it ever can hereafter be; and we, as the representatives of the States of this Union, regarded as governments, should come to a distinct understanding as to our respective views, in order to ascertain whether the great questions at issue can be settled or not. If you, who represent the stronger portion, cannot agree to settle them on the broad principle of justice and duty, say so; and let the States we both represent agree to separate and part in peace. If you are unwilling that we should part in peace, tell us so, and we shall know what to do, when you reduce the question to submission or resistance. If you remain silent, you will compel us to infer by your acts what you intend. In that case, California will become the test question. If you admit her, under all the difficulties that oppose her admission, you compel us to infer that you intend to exclude us from the whole of the acquired territories, with the intention of destroying irretrievably the equilibrium between the two sections. We would be blind not to perceive, in that case, that your real objects are power and aggrandizement, and infatuated not to act accordingly."
Mr. Calhoun died before the bill for the admission of California was taken up: but his principles did not die with him: and the test question which he had proclaimed remained a legacy to his friends. As such they took it up, and cherished it. The bill was taken up in the Senate, and many motions made to amend, of which the most material was by Mr. Turney of Tennessee, to limit the southern boundary of the State to the latitude of 36° 30', and to extend the Missouri line through to the Pacific, so as to authorize the existence of slavery in all the territory south of that latitude. On this motion the yeas and nays were: