The Compromise of 1850 313California should be brought directly into the
Union as a free state, he argued. The rest of the
Southwest should be organized as a territory without
mention of slavery: The Southerners would retain the
right to bring slaves there, while in fact none would
do so. “You have got what is worth more than a
thousand Wilmot Provisos,” Clay pointed out to his
northern colleagues. “You have nature on your side.”
Empty lands in dispute along the Texas border should
be assigned to the New Mexico Territory, Clay con-
tinued, but in exchange the United States should take
over Texas’s preannexation debts. The slave trade
should be abolished in the District of Columbia (but
not slavery itself), and a more effective federal fugitive
slave law should be enacted and strictly enforced in
the North.
Clay’s proposals occasioned one of the most mag-
nificent debates in the history of the Senate. Every
important member had his say. Calhoun, perhaps
even more than Clay, realized that the future of the
nation was at stake and that his own days were num-
bered (he died four weeks later). He was so feeble
that he could not deliver his speech himself. He sat
impassive, wrapped in a great cloak, gripping the
arms of his chair, while Senator James M. Mason of
Virginia read it to the crowded Senate. Calhoun
thought his plan would save the Union, but his
speech was an argument for secession; he demanded
that the North yield completely on every point,
ceasing even to discuss the question of slavery.
Clay’s compromise was unsatisfactory; he himself
had no other to offer. If you will not yield, he said
to the northern senators, “let the States...agreeto
separate and part in peace. If you are unwilling we
should part in peace, tell us so, and we shall know
what to do.”
Three days later, on March 7, Daniel Webster
took the floor. He too had begun to fail. Years ofIn this contemporary engraving, Senator Henry Clay proposes admission of California as a free state, part of the Compromise of 1850.