on with her Southern sister states in
the maintenance of the constitution with all its compromises." The Whig
senate, however, prevented sanctioning of the convention and sending of
delegates. Florida's governor wrote the governor of South Carolina
that Florida would co-operate with Virginia and South Carolina "in any
measure in defense of our common Constitution and sovereign dignity".
"Florida has resolved to resist to the extent of revolution", declared
her representative in Congress, March 5. Though the Whigs did not
support the movement, five delegates came from Florida to the Nashville
Convention. [34]

In Kentucky, Crittenden's repeated messages against "disunion" and
"entangling engagements" reveal the danger seen by a Southern Union
governor. [35] Crittenden's changing attitude reveals the growing
peril, and the growing reliance on Webster's and Clay's plans. By April,
Crittenden recognized that "the Union is endangered", "the case...
rises above ordinary rules", "circumstances have rather changed". He
reluctantly swung from Taylor's plan of dealing with California alone,
to the Clay and Webster idea of settling the "whole controversy".
[36] Representative Morehead wrote Crittenden, "The extreme Southern
gentlemen would secretly deplore the settlement of this question. The
magnificence of a Southern Confederacy... is a dazzling allurement."
Clay like Webster, saw "the alternative, civil war". [37]

In North Carolina, the majority appear to have been loyal to the
Union; but the extremists--typified by Clingman, the public meeting at
Wilmington, and the newspapers like the Wilmington Courier--reveal the
presence of a dangerously aggressive body "with a settled determination
to dissolve the Union" and frankly "calculating the advantages of a
Southern Confederacy." Southern observers in this state reported that
"the repeal of the Fugitive Slave Law or the abolition of slavery in
the District will dissolve the Union". The North Carolina legislature
acquiesced in the Compromise but counselled retaliation in case of
anti-slavery aggressions. [38] Before the assembling of the Southern
convention in June, every one of the Southern states, save Kentucky,
had given some encouragement to the Southern movement, and Kentucky had
given warning and proposed a compromise through Clay. [39]

Nine Southern states-Virginia, South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama,
Mississippi, Texas, Arkansas, Florida, and Tennessee sent about 176
del