e admission of Utah and New
Mexico with or without slavery as they might choose. This impugned the
admissional doctrine of California. It provided for the abolition of the
slave trade in the District of Columbia, and for the passage of a
fugitive slave law, such as would satisfy the South. A motley bill!
Calhoun was against it. He demanded the extension of slavery into the
territory acquired from Mexico, and proposed an amendment to the
Constitution providing for two presidents, one from the South and one
from the North, with a veto over each other's acts. Any absurdity for
the sake of slavery! Perhaps disease had something to do with this
unreason. He died in April before any law was passed.

Webster supported Clay's bill, thus standing for the admission of Utah
and New Mexico with or without slavery as they might decide. Douglas in
the discussion, with his eye for the concrete, pointed out that the
ordinance of 1787, and the Missouri Compromise as well, were practically
dead letters. As to the free law respecting Oregon, Oregon had
previously fixed the freedom status for herself. As to the fantastic
proposition of striking a balance between the North and the South,
giving them equal new states of freedom and slavery, he pointed out that
that was a moral and physical impossibility. The cause of freedom had
steadily advanced, the cause of slavery steadily failed. "We all look
forward with confidence to the time when Delaware, Maryland, Virginia,
Kentucky, and Missouri, and probably North Carolina and Tennessee, will
adopt a gradual system of emancipation. In the meantime we have a vast
territory, stretching from the Mississippi to the Pacific, which is
rapidly filling up with a hardy, enterprising, and industrious
population, large enough to form at least seventeen new free states.
Now, let me inquire, where are you to find the slave territory with
which to balance these seventeen free territories, or even any one of
them?"

This was not exactly placating the South. Douglas missed his opportunity
as a demagogue.

Turning to Webster Douglas said: "California came in free according to
those laws of nature and God to which the Senator of Massachusetts
alluded. It would be free under any bill you may pass or without any
bill at all." And Seward spoke for a law higher than the Constitution.
Well, there were many laws of justice, mercy, and ethics which the
Constitution did not comprehend. Still, if it came to a question o