Page:Life of Henry Clay (Schurz; v. 2).djvu/382

372 against compromises as an invention of the enemy: it adjourned the decisive conflict until the superiority of the North over the South in population and material resources was overwhelming, and, as it happened, until a party, and at its head a man, held the helm of affairs, whose anti-slavery principles and aims made it sure that the cause of the mischief would not in any form survive the issue of the struggle.