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366 edly changed his tactics, but not essentially his attitude. He had always believed in the statesmanship of compromise, and, as always, so in this crisis. Seeing in the South the principal danger to the Union, he insisted upon concessions on the part of the North to avert that danger. Of such concessions he gave the example by sacrificing his own inclinations as to the Wilmot Proviso, and by accepting in the Committee of Thirteen some modifications of his plan which were distasteful to him. His inmost feelings would indeed repeatedly break forth. Unequivocally he threw the theory of a necessary equilibrium between the Free and the Slave States to the winds, and almost exultingly recognized the inevitable and constantly growing superiority of the North. If slavery was ultimately to succumb, he was far from regretting its inevitable fate. But he sincerely believed that by compromise measures he could keep the two antagonistic forces at peace, so that the final deliverance might effect itself in the way of a quiet, gradual development without disturbing the Union. In this he erred; but it was an honest error of judgment, not a conscious self-deception for the occasion.

The compromise of 1850 was perhaps the best that could be made under the circumstances to effect a temporary truce. But no compromise could have been devised to keep the antagonistic forces of freedom and slavery permanently at peace. Calhoun was perfectly right in his conclusion that slavery, in order to exist with security in