Page:Life of Henry Clay (Schurz; v. 2).djvu/361

Rh to the boundary question, he did not think it his business either to recognize or to deny the claims of Texas; but he considered it his duty, until Congress should have disposed of the matter, to keep things in statu quo, and to maintain the public peace against any disturber.

Such being his feelings, Clay's compromise measure found little favor in his eyes. He looked upon any compromise as a concession to a revolutionary and treasonable spirit; and to Senator Hannibal Hamlin, who informed him that he considered the “Omnibus Bill” wrong in principle and that he would do his best to defeat it, he replied: “Stand firm; don't yield; it means disunion, and I am pained to learn that we have disunion men to contend with; disunion is treason.” And, with an expression of emphasis sometimes heard among old soldiers, he added that, if they really attempted to carry out their scheme of disunion, “they should be dealt with by law as they deserved, and executed.”

The “President's policy,” therefore, was to admit California as a state immediately and unconditionally, and to leave New Mexico under the military governor, and Utah, perhaps, under such a government as the Mormons had set up for themselves, until the people of those territories should have formed state constitutions and applied for admission, when the new states should be promptly received; and this, he hoped, would come about very soon. The administration was in a somewhat iso-