d?

It is a remarkable coincidence that in the midst of the passing of the
old and the coming in of the new order there should be a change in the
political leadership of the country. Webster, Clay, Calhoun, John Quincy
Adams, not to mention others, all died near the middle of the century,
and their political power passed to younger men. Adams gave his blessing
to a young friend and co-laborer, William H. Seward of New York,
intimating that he expected him to do much to curb the threatening power
of the slaveholding oligarchy; while Andrew Jackson, who died earlier,
had already conferred a like distinction upon young Stephen A. Douglas.
There was no lack of aspirants for the fallen mantles.

John C. Calhoun continued almost to the day of his death to modify his
interpretation of the Constitution in the interest of his section. As
a young man he avowed protectionist principles. Becoming convinced that
slave labor was not suited to manufacture, he urged South Carolina to
declare the protective tariff laws null and void within her limits.
When his section seemed endangered by the distribution of anti-slavery
literature through the mail, he extemporized a theory that each State
had a right to pass statutes to protect itself in such an emergency, in
which case it became the duty of the general Government and of all other
States to respect such laws. When it finally appeared that the territory
acquired from Mexico was likely to remain free, the same statesman made
further discoveries. He found that Congress had no right to exclude
slavery from any Territory belonging to the United States; that the
owners of slaves had equal rights with the owners of other property;
that neither Congress nor a territorial authority had any power
to exclude slaves from a Territory. This doctrine was accepted by
extremists in the South and was finally embodied in the Dred Scott
decision of 1857.

Abolitionists had meantime evolved a precisely contradictory theory.
They asserted that the Constitution gave no warrant for property in man,
except as held under state laws; that with this exception freedom was
guaranteed to all; that Congress had no more right to make a slave than
it had to make a king; and that it was the duty of Congress to maintain
freedom in all the Territories. Extremists expressed the view that all
past acts whereby slavery had been extended were unconstitutional
and therefore void. Between these extreme conflicting views was e