Texas but little of the New Mexican territory she claimed, but granting her a certain sum of money for the payment of that part of her public debt for which, during her independent existence, her customs revenue had been pledged; the fifth, that it was inexpedient to abolish slavery in the District of Columbia without the consent of Maryland, etc.; the sixth, that the slave-trade in the District should be prohibited; the seventh, that a more effectual fugitive-slave law should be enacted; and the eighth, that Congress had no power to prohibit or obstruct the trade in slaves between the slave-holding states. The preamble declared the purpose of these resolutions to be “for the peace, concord, and harmony of these states, to settle and adjust amicably all existing questions of controversy between them, arising out of the institution of slavery, upon a fair, equitable, and just basis.”
This was Clay's plan of compromise. The admission of California was to be made acceptable to the South by giving slavery a chance in Utah and New Mexico, and by the enactment of a more efficient fugitive-slave law. The Northern people were to be reconciled to the abandonment of the Wilmot Proviso as to Utah and New Mexico, and to a more efficient fugitive-slave law, by the admission of California as a Free State, and by the abolition of the slave-trade in the District of Columbia. With the South, said Clay in a short speech accompanying the resolutions, the question
