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338 It is the true policy of those who seek our destruction.” From the pro-slavery point of view, Calhoun was unquestionably right. The slave-holding states would have been more able to hold their own in 1820 than in 1850, and more in 1850 than they proved to be in 1861.

Calhoun's speech against Clay's plan of adjustment was his last great manifesto. He argued that the Union could not endure without a perfect equilibrium between the slave-holding and the Free States; that this equilibrium had been disturbed by the growth of the Free States; that this growth had been brought about by legislation favorable to the North and inimical to the South, — the anti-slavery Ordinance of 1787, the Missouri Compromise, the revenue laws oppressive to the planting interest; that the equilibrium would be lost beyond all hope by the admission of California and the exclusion of slavery from the newly acquired territories; that the admission of California was the test as to whether the South ever could expect justice; that, unless the South received justice, the Union would fall to pieces; that to preserve the Union the equilibrium must be restored, and that this could be done only by an amendment to the Constitution restoring to the South the power of protecting herself. As to what that amendment to the Constitution should be, Calhoun did not express himself clearly. It was subsequently revealed that he meant an amendment providing for the election of two presidents, one from the