"'Resolved, That when the District of Columbia was ceded by the
States of Virginia and Maryland to the United States, domestic
slavery existed in both of those States, including the ceded
territory; and that, as it still continues in both of them, it
could not be abolished within the District without a violation
of that good faith which was implied in the cession, and in the
acceptance of the territory, nor unless compensation were made
for the slaves, without a manifest infringement of an amendment
of the Constitution of the United States, nor without exciting
a degree of just alarm and apprehension in the States
recognizing slavery, far transcending, in mischievous tendency,
any possible benefit which would be accomplished by the
abolition.' (Congressional Globe, vol. 6, page 58.)

"The utter insufficiency of this temporizing amendment scarcely
need be pointed out. Objectionable as it was in conceding to
Congress the constitutional power to abolish slavery in the
District of Columbia, and declaring against the exercise of
that power only on the ground of inexpediency, it was still
more so in this, that it made no reference whatever to the
territories of the United States. The passage of Mr. Calhoun's
resolution would have committed the Senate, not only against
the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia, but
against the application of the Wilmot Proviso and kindred
measures to the Territories. Mr. Clay's amendment was entirely
silent on the subject. It is true, that in another resolution
which he proposed to have adopted as an additional amendment,
it was declared that the abolition of slavery in the Territory
of Florida would be highly inexpedient, for the principal
reason 'that it would be in violation of a solemn compromise
made at a memorable and critical period in the history of this
country, by which, while slavery was prohibited north, it was
admitted south of the line of thirty-six degrees thirty minutes
north latitude.' The defect in the first amendment can hardly
be considered by Southern men as remedied by another which
recognized the binding force of the Missouri Compromise.

"On the question to strike out Mr. Calhoun's resolution, and
insert Mr. Clay's as an amendment, after it had been modified
by strik