es which would result from Southern
independence; and assumed to tell how Southern cities would recover
colonial superiority; how ships of all nations would crowd Southern
ports and carry off the rich staples, bringing back ample returns,
and how Great Britain would be the ally of the new "United States
South." In brief, it asserted that a Southern convention should
meet and decree a separation unless the North surrendered to Southern
demands for the extension of slavery, for its protection in the
States, and for the certain return of fugitive slaves; it urged
also that military preparation be made to maintain what the convention
might decree.

A disunion convention actually met at Nashville, near the home of
Jackson, but the old hero was then in his grave.(67) It assumed
to represent seven States. It invited the assembling of a "Southern
Congress." South Carolina and Mississippi alone responded to this
call. In the Legislature of South Carolina secession and disunion
speeches were delivered, and throughout the South public addresses
were made, and the press advocated and threatened dissolution of
the Union unless the North yielded all.(68)

All this and more to immediately effect the introduction of slavery
into California and New Mexico. The South saw clearly that the
free people of the Republic were resolved that there should be no
more slave States, but believed that the mercantile, trading people,
and small farmers of the North would not fight for their rights,
and hence intimidation seemed to them to promise success.

It had its effect on many, and, unfortunately, on some of America's
greatest statesmen.

By a singular coincidence the Thirty-first Congress, which met
December, 1849, embraced among its members Webster, Clay, Calhoun,
Benton, Cass, Corwin, Seward, Salmon P. Chase, John P. Hale, Hamlin
of Maine, James M. Mason, Douglas of Illinois, Foote and Davis of
Mississippi, of the Senate; and Joshua R. Giddings, Horace Mann,
Wilmot of Pennsylvania, Robert C. Schenck, Robert C. Winthrop,
Alexander H. Stephens, and Thaddeus Stevens, of the House.

To avert the impending storm of slavery agitation then threatening
disunion, Clay, by a set of resolutions, with a view to a "_lasting
compromise_," on January 29, 1850, proposed in the Senate a general
plan of compromise and a committee of thirteen to report a bill or
bills in accordance therewith.

His plan was:

1. The admission of California with he