Page:Life of Henry Clay (Schurz; v. 2).djvu/343

Rh was one of interest, with the North one of sentiment, and on neither side would there be any sacrifice of principle; but, he added, it was easier to make a concession of sentiment than of interest, — an utterance which plainly proved that Clay indulged in pleasing delusions, not, perhaps, as to the enactment of the compromise, but as to its ultimate effects, if enacted.

Although he deprecated immediate debate, and admonished Senators to consider his plan calmly before forming their opinion, there was at once a rattling fusillade of objections and protests from Southern men, Whigs as well as Democrats. Jefferson Davis, who thought that the scheme conceded nothing to the South, and demanded as a minimum the extension of the Missouri Compromise line to the Pacific Ocean, with a provision establishing slavery to the south of that line, called forth from Clay a remarkable answer. “Coming from a Slave State, as I do,” said Clay, “I owe it to myself, I owe it to truth, I owe it to the subject, to say that no earthly power could induce me to vote for a specific measure for the introduction of slavery where it had not before existed, either south or north of that line. Sir, while you reproach, and justly too, our British ancestors for the introduction of this institution upon the continent of America, I am, for one, unwilling that the posterity of the present inhabitants of California and New Mexico shall reproach us for doing just what we reproach Great Britain for doing to us.”