206 T. W. Davenport. ble selfishness to all but a few. Still, with all such sugar- coating and the patriotic zeal of the compromisers, the admis- sion was harrowing and long delayed, and, very likely, if it had r]oi been for the financial inducements contained in the gift to Texas of ten millions of dollars for the little piece of territory incorporated in New Mexico, whereby Texas scrip, mainly held in the South and much of it by Southern Con- gressmen, was raised from a nominal price to par, the Cali- fornia Constitution would have been sent back to the people. Southern men did not like to abandon their dream of work- ing the "placers" with their slaves. And California as a free State was almost unbearable— the very filching away from them of the coveted fruits of the Mexican war. They were more rational than the despondent Freesoilers, for they saw^ that with California free and covering with Oregon the entire Pacific Coast, all north of 36 deg. 30 min. protected by the compromise of 1820, and New Mexico, in the language of Webster, "free by God's ordination," the prospect of main- taining the balance of powder and the control of the national government while the Union lasted and their ambition of empire after its dissolution, was reduced to very narrow limits. In truth, the question of the extension of slavery was settled, for there was no more territory to fight over, if con- ditions then existing were to continue. That this was a true view of the situation has been proved by much that has oc- curred since, and that the Northern electorate saw it, is shown by the presidential election of 1852, in which there was an almost complete collapse of the Freesoil party as compared with the vote of four years before, notwithstanding that co- lossal blunder of Southern statesmen, the Fugitive Slave law. If it had been entitled "an act to fire the Northern heart" it would have fitly expressed its operation. The territorial aspects of the extension question, the only one that ever involved the feelings and interests of any con- siderable portion of the Northern people prior to 1850, could be easily calculated by reference to a sectional map after the settlement of that year. No amount of prejudice or partiality
