petitions to abolish slavery. He was overruled and the result was, an oppressive partiality had marked the course of the government. At last the Executive had taken sides. Throwing out the intimation that the Mexican law prohibited Southern men to enter California with their property, the utmost encouragement of our common government had been given to Northern men to carry their property thither. The next step in the program was the sending to Congress, by the Executive, of a paper purporting to be a State Constitution. It was a very grave crisis in the history of the American people when they were called on to tolerate the action of the Executive. It was a very grave assumption of authority in the Executive to pronounce California a "State." Could the Senate account for such a State? Had any authority gone forth for its creation? Whence came the legal or Constitutional existence of such a political community? He knew of no sufficient ground on which it could claim appearance before the Senate. Texas, a fully organized Republic, had been annexed by treaty that all understood. Ohio and other fully organized States, under processes known to the Constitution, and authorized by Congress, had been admitted. But, in the case before the Senate, the operation of the Constitution had had nothing to do. The Executive had undertaken to enlarge the Union of his own will, or to establish a State, to stand away to itself, made out of the common estate of the Union. "The State, before it is admitted, (said the speech) is actually a State and does not become so by act of admission, as would be the case with California, should you admit her contrary to the Constitutional provisions and established usage heretofore." It was high time to endeavor to stay the progress toward disunion which such measures were calculated to effect. Of the many and various chords that held the people of the sections togather, nearly all were overstrained. Except the Catholic Church, the religious bodies were organized in smaller and greater assemblies on the same general principle of the political government. When it was remembered that the great Methodist Episcopal denomination had been rent by sectional questions, the Baptists, also, with the Presbyterians about to follow, evidence was found to prove the Union was already destroyed to the extent that these disruptured organizations

represented public opinion in both sections. Washington was born and reared under a political union that he served with distinguished fidelity, but his devotion was rational and, therefore, under circumstances of a just nature, he abandoned it to serve another Union.

Mr. Webster spoke for the Union, March 7th, with great effect. March 11th, Mr. Seward replied to Mr. Calhoun's speech. He repudiated the postulate, that a government could be founded on compromise. Mr. Calhoun had demanded an amendment of the Constitution providing for a Northern and a Southern Executive. The theory that there could be an operative compact between co-ordinate powers of government was incompatible with progress. "But it is insisted (he said) that the admission of California shall be attended by a compromise of questions which have arisen out of slavery. I am opposed to any such compromise in any and all forms in which it has been proposed. * But there is a higher law than the Constitution which regulates our authority over the domain and devotes it to the same noble purpose."

*

Mr. Calhoun returned to the Senate the day after his speech was read. He arrived late and found Mr. Foote had severely criticised the speech, denouncing him as a disunionist. He repelled, with animation, the impeachment. It was disunion to destroy the character of the government, even if the integrity of the empire be maintained. He appeared no more. The resolutions of Messrs. Clay and Bell, with many other resolutions and bills on the same general subject, thirty-nine in all, were referred to a special Committee of Thirteen, composed of Messrs. Clay, Cass, Webster, Bell, William R. King, John M. Mason, Phelps, from Vermont, Daniel S. Dickinson, from New York, Cooper, from Pennsylvania, Mangum, from North Carolina, and Bright, from Indiana. They reported the Omnibus bill on May 8th. There was a provision allowing the people of the "new" Territories to determine the question of slavery for themselves. Mr. Douglas, speaking in ultimate defense of squatter sovereignty, objected to the word "new." A long debate followed, the report was recommitted and the objectionable word eliminated. Mr. Jefferson Davis said he would be content with nothing less than the extension of the Missouri" compromise" line to the Pacific.

The debate continued in both Houses and the unrest of the

people in their homes grew apace. A county meeting in Mississippi, following the example of the Legislature of Alabama, called on the slave States to meet in Convention, at Nashville. Many of the ablest men of the South met there in response to the call, June 3, 1850. Chief Justice Sharkey, of Mississippi, a Union Whig, was chosen to preside. John A. Campbell, of Alabama, wrote the resolutions and Robert Barnwell Rhett wrote the Address to the People. The resolutions declared the willingness of the South to accept the extension of the Missouri "compromise," or the line 36° 30′, north latitude, to the Pacific, as the boundary, north of which slavery should not go and south of which the people of the Territories might, when they came to form States, tolerate or prohibit the institution at will. They deprecated any decisive movement of the Southern people at that time. The Address was far more emphatic in recommending an active policy. The Convention adjourned, to meet again after the adjournment of Congress, should that body fail to act favorably toward the South, in the opinion of the presiding officer.

The motion of Senator Jefferson Davis to extend the Missouri "compromise" line to the Pacific had been rejected, June 17th; Mr. Soule's amendment to the Omnibus bill, that when a Territorial government should be organized thereafter, it should be with the proviso that the State which might be formed, from the area, should come "into the Union with or without slavery as their Constitution may prescribe at the time of admission," had been adopted, 38 to 12, Mr. Seward, although near by, failing to vote. These facts being known, a meeting of the citizens of the city and county of Montgomery was called to hear a report from Honorable George Goldthwaite, delegate to the Nashville Convention. Watts, May es, Noble, Seibles, Bagby, Semple, Belser, Yancey, Whigs and Democrats, with a throng of planters and merchants assembled at the court room on Saturday morning, July 13. Two presiding officers were chosen, John A. Elmore, Democrat, and Thomas Williams, Jr., Whig, also two Secretaries of opposite parties Adam Felder and Jefferson Noble. The forenoon was given to the speech of Judge Goldthwaite. He was pleased with the action of the Nashville Convention. He had

met many eminent men there and no temper of submission. He had been a Union man, he was not now a disunionist, "but if the assertion of just rights brings disunion, let it come!" The meeting received in the afternoon the majority report of ex-Governor Bagby, from the Committee on Resolutions, and a minority report from the same Committee, made by Judge Mayes. The ladies were now in attendance in considerable numbers. Bagby, Watts, Semple, and Ware had spoken, some for the non-committal majority report, some for the more positive minority report. "All eyes were now turned toward Mr. Yancey, many of the audience knowing pretty well what to expect from him. He rose in his seat and began, but he was called upon to take the stand. He ascended the stand. But how shall his speech be described? To what shall be compared the exhilerating, spirit moving eloquence that fell from his lips? There were those (he said) who continually cried out for unanimity!' He was, himself for unanimity upon an honorable line of conduct. He was not for unanimity of submission to premeditated wrong. The South was approaching, if not already arrived at, a unanimous determination to uphold her Constitutional rights. He impeached no man's motives but this was a time to dispense with party claims." Mr. Watts replied with much feeling to Mr. Yancey. He would oppose the separate action of any State of the South in the prevailing crisis. He would await the contingencies provided for by the resolutions of the Nashville Convention. When the time for action came, he would trust the whole South to take the steps proper and expedient. Mr. Yancey brought up some resolutions of his own which, with Judge Mayes' consent, he offered as a substitute for the minority report. He said he regretted to discover a disingenuous effort in the majority report to separate the resolutions, adopted at Nashville, from the Address that Convention had sent out to the people. He preferred the Address to the resolutions. He objected to the minority report because it proposed to the South to revenge itself on the North by certain commercial resorts, non-intercourse, for example. objected, farther, to that report because it suggested certain contingencies in the future which might justify the Governor of Alabama in calling a secession Convention. He would not

He

deceive the people, but inform them; he would not fritter away public spirit but fortify it to consider the truth in all its perilous meaning. He was especially anxious that the Southern States should pledge themselves to assist Texas in any attempt of that State to resist the partition of her territory by the federal government, a measure now threatened..

Mr. Noble presented a series of resolutions in which the sense and many of the expressions of Mr. Yancey's resolutions together with certain parts of both reports, were skillfully combined. Mr. Yancey cheerfully accepted Mr. Noble's resolutions on the one condition, that one of his resolutions be incorporated intact, and they were adopted. Colonel Seible's resolution that the people of the State of Alabama be invited to attend a barbecue, in Montgomery county, to consider the situation, was unanimously adopted. It being now after candle light, Mr. Yancey moved a resolution of thanks to the ladies for their attendance and patience. They were always on the side of union, he said, "but only a union of equal rights, mutual fidelity and reciprocated love." "The meeting adjourned in excellent humor," after appointing Messrs. Yancey and Moss as additional delegates to the Nashville Convention, should that body be re-convened.

The "compromise" had been exhaustively discussed in the Senate. Mr. King, from Alabama, moved to make 35° 30′, north latitude, the Southern boundary of the new State, because the lay of the mountains favored that line. The vote was taken and the motion rejected. Mr. Davis, from Mississippi, moved that the same rule apply to California that had applied to Texas, to-wit: that the line 36° 30′ should divide free from slave territory, and the vote being taken stood, 32 against to 23 in favor. Mr. Douglas moved that the Southern boundary of the new State should be the 38th parallel of north latitude, and the motion was voted down, 37 to 26. Mr. Foote moved that "the State of California shall never claim as within her boundaries any territory south of 36° 30'," and the motion was voted down. Mr. Turney, from Tennessee, moved, that "the southern limits of California shall be restricted to the Missouri Compromise line," and the motion was rejected, 30 to 20. Mr. Davis, from Mississippi, moved that, in the Territories of Utah and New Mexico, the old Mexican