bound to receive and treat with respect petitions touching slavery in the District; 5. That such petitions should be referred to the appropriate committees; 6. That it would be “highly inexpedient to abolish slavery in Florida, the only territory of the United States in which it now exists,” because it would excite alarm in the South, because the people of Florida had not asked for it, and because they would be exclusively entitled to decide the question when admitted as a state; 7. That Congress had no power to abolish the slave-trade between Slave States; 8. That the agitation of the abolition question was to be regretted, that the Union should be cherished, and that the prevailing attachment to the Union was beheld “with the deepest satisfaction.”
Calhoun was exasperated. “The difference between me and the Senator from Kentucky,” he said, “is as wide as the poles.” No doubt it was. Calhoun would have preserved the Union if slavery could have been made secure in it. But he would willingly have sacrificed the Union to save slavery. Clay tried to pacify the slave-holders, and opposed the abolitionists, to avert from the Union a threatening danger. But he would have sacrificed slavery to save the Union. To him it was “not expedient” to abolish slavery in the District of Columbia and in Florida. Calhoun would hear nothing of “expediency.” He insisted on placing the constitutional duty of protecting slavery on “the high ground of principle.” He would hear nothing of
