the salvation of slavery. On the other hand, while every Southern legislature save one denounced the exclusion of slavery as a violation of Southern rights, every Northern legislature save one passed resolutions in favor of the Wilmot Proviso.
This was the state of things when, in December, 1849, Clay arrived at Washington to take his seat in the Senate. His relations with Taylor were those of formal civility. Clay did not expect, as he wrote, to “find much favor at court;” but the President had offered his son, James Clay, the mission to Portugal “in a handsome manner,” and the offer had been accepted. Clay sternly resented the insinuation which was reported to have been made by a member of the Cabinet, that the appointment of his son would make him, as a Senator, obedient to the administration. His reappearance in Washington was by no means welcome to all. It seems to have been especially dreaded by some Southern statesmen. When Clay's election to the Senate began to become probable, in December, 1848, Alexander H. Stephens wrote to Crittenden, then governor of Kentucky: “That ought to be averted if it can be done; more danger to the success of General Taylor's administration is to be dreaded from that source than from all others.” Jefferson Davis, too, then a Senator from Mississippi, feared it no less. “I regret exceedingly,” he wrote to Crittenden in January, 1849, “to see that Mr. Clay is to return to the Senate. Among many reasons is one in which I
