large sum.

But he could not manage his money affairs well and, no matter how large
his income, he was always in debt. This unfortunate state of affairs was
owing to a reckless extravagance, which he displayed in many ways.

Indeed, Webster was a man of such large ideas that of necessity he did all
things on a large scale. It was vastness that appealed to him. And this
ruling force in his nature explains his eagerness to keep the Union whole
and supreme over the States. This we shall soon clearly see.

SLAVERY AND THE TARIFF

Having taken this glimpse of our three heroes, let us see how the great
events of their time were largely moulded by their influence. All of these
events, as we are soon to learn, had a direct bearing on slavery, and that
was the great question of the day.

Up to the Revolution there was slavery in all the thirteen colonies. Some
of them wished to get rid of it; but England, the mother country, would
not allow them to do so, because she profited by the trade in slaves.
After the Revolution, however, when the States were free to do as they
pleased about slavery, some put an end to it on their own soil, and in
time Pennsylvania and the States to the north and east of it became free
States.

Many people then believed that slavery would by degrees die out of the
land, and perhaps this would have happened if the growing of cotton had
not been made profitable by Eli Whitney's invention of the cotton-gin.

After that invention came into use, instead of slavery's dying out, it
took a much stronger hold upon the planters of the South than it had ever
done before.

This fact became very evident when Missouri applied for admission into the
Union. The South, of course, wished it to come into the Union as a slave
State; the North, fearing the extension of slavery into the Louisiana
Purchase, was equally set upon its coming in as a free State.

The struggle over the question was a long and bitter one, but finally both
the North and the South agreed to give up a part of what they wanted; that
is, they agreed upon a compromise. It was this: Missouri was to enter the
Union as a slave State, but slavery was not to be allowed in any part of
the Louisiana Purchase which lay north or west of Missouri. This was
called the Missouri Compromise (1820).

It was brought about largely through the eloquence and power of Henry
Clay, and because of his part in it he was called "the Great Peacemaker."
But Calhoun wa