r free Constitution.

2. Territorial governments for the other territory acquired from
Mexico, without any restriction as to slavery.

3. The disputed boundary between Texas and New Mexico to be
determined.

4. The _bona fide_ public debt of Texas, contracted prior to
annexation, to be paid from duties on foreign imports, upon condition
that Texas relinquish her claim to any part of New Mexico.

5. The declaration that it was inexpedient to abolish slavery in
the District of Columbia, without the consent of Maryland and the
people of the District, and without compensation to owners of
slaves.

6. The prohibition of the slave trade in the District of Columbia.

7. A more effectual provision for the rendition of fugitive slaves.

8. A declaration that Congress has no power to interfere with the
slave trade between States.

These resolutions and the plan embodied led to a most noteworthy
discussion, chiefly participated in by Clay, Webster, Calhoun,
Benton, Seward, and Foote. The debate was opened by Clay. He
favored the admission of California with her already formed free
State Constitution, but he exclaimed:

"I shall go with the Senator from the South who goes farthest in
making penal laws and imposing the heaviest sanctions for the
recovery of fugitive slaves and the restoration of them by their
owners."

He, however, tried to hold the olive branch to both the North and
the South, and pleaded for the Union. He pathetically pleaded for
mutual concessions, and deprecated, what he then apprehended, _war_
between the sections, exclaiming:

"War and dissolution of the Union are identical."

After prophesying that if a war came it would be more ferocious,
bloody, implacable, and exterminating than were the wars of Greece,
the Commoners of England, or the Revolutions of France, Senator
Clay predicted that it would be "not of two or three years' duration,
but a war of interminable duration, during which some Philip or
Alexander, some Caesar or Napoleon, would arise and cut the Gordian
knot and solve the problem of the capacity of man for self-government,
and crush the liberties of both the several portions of this common
empire."

Happily, events have falsified most of these prophecies.

Then came the dying Calhoun, with a last speech in behalf of slavery
and on the imaginary wrongs of the South. His last appearance in
public life was pathetic. Broken with age and disease, enveloped
in flannels,