Then arose the burning question: "Shall the
territory we have acquired from Mexico be free or open to slavery?" Of
course, the North wanted it to be free; the South wanted it to be open to
slavery.
Henry Clay tried again, as he had tried twice before--in 1820 and in
1833--to pour oil upon the troubled waters. Although he was now an old man
of seventy-two and in poor health, he spoke seventy times in his powerful,
persuasive way, to bring about the Compromise of 1850, which he hoped
would establish harmony between the North and the South and save the
Union.
On one occasion when he was to speak he had to enter the Capitol leaning
upon the arm of a friend, because he was too weak to climb the steps
alone. After entering the Senate Chamber that day, the great speech he
made was so long that his friends, fearing fatal results, urged him to
stop. But he refused. Later he said that he did not dare to stop for fear
he should never be able to begin again.
[Illustration: Henry Clay Addressing the United States Senate in 1850.]
Calhoun was no less ready to do all he could. Early in March, 1850, the
white-haired man, now in his sixty-eighth year and, like Clay, struggling
with illness, went to the Senate Chamber, swathed in flannels, to make his
last appeal in behalf of the slaveholders.
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