Page:Life of Henry Clay (Schurz; v. 2).djvu/368

358 When order was restored, Clay continued: —

“Mr. President, I have heard with pain and regret a confirmation of the remark I made, that the sentiment of disunion is becoming familiar. I hope it is confined to South Carolina. I do not regard as my duty what the honorable Senator seems to regard as his. If Kentucky to-morrow unfurls the banner of resistance unjustly, I never will fight under that banner. I owe a paramount allegiance to the whole Union, a subordinate one to my own state. When my state is right when it has a cause for resistance, when tyranny, and wrong, and oppression insufferable arise I will then share her fortunes; but if she summons me to the battlefield, or to support her in any cause which is unjust, against the Union, never, never will I engage with her in such a cause!”

The echo of these words was heard eleven years later, when the great crisis had come.

After Clay's closing speech the voting began. Several Southern Senators, who at first had been bitterly opposed to Clay's plan, had gradually become persuaded. But the compromise had to suffer a disheartening defeat before achieving its victory. Amendments were offered in perplexing profusion. The Omnibus Bill was disfigured almost beyond recognition. At last, after a series of confusing manipulations, Clay himself incautiously accepted an amendment offered by a Senator from Georgia, that, until a final settlement of the Texas boundary was effected with the assent of Texas, the territorial government of New Mexico should