attracted most
attention. Jefferson Davis, of Mississippi, said:

"Sir, we are called upon to receive this as a measure of
compromise! As 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 the owners. I can never
consent to give additional power to a majority to commit further
aggressions upon the minority in this Union, and will never
consent to any proposition which will have such a tendency,
without a full guaranty or counteracting measure is connected
with it."

A number of very able speeches were made on the resolutions of Mr.
Clay, but the most characteristic one--the one most thoroughly
representing the sentiment of the South--was made by John C. Calhoun.
He said:

"The Union was in danger. The cause of this danger was the
discontent at the South. And what was the cause of this
discontent? It was found in the belief which prevailed among them
that they could not, consistently with honor and safety, remain
in the Union. And what had caused this belief? One of the causes
was the long-continued agitation of the slave question at the
North, and the many aggressions they had made on the rights of
the South. But the primary cause was in the fact, that the
equilibrium between the two sections at the time of the adoption
of the Constitution had been destroyed. The first of the series
of acts by which this had been done, was the ordinance of 1787,
by which the South had been excluded from all the northwestern
region. The next was the Missouri compromise, excluding them from
all the Louisiana territory north of thirty-six degrees thirty
minutes, except the State of Missouri,--in all 1,238,025 square