William Alexander Linn, Horace Greeley Founder and Editor of The New York Tribune

[157] talk of disunion became more wide-spread. In the North public opinion was quite as emphatic, and by July, 1849, the Legislature of every free State but Iowa had instructed its representatives in Congress to vote against the introduction of slavery in territories where it was not already authorized. In January, 1850, President Taylor recommended to Congress the admission of California.

On January 29 of that year Clay introduced his famous compromise resolutions. They favored the admission of California, and the establishment of territorial governments in lands acquired from Mexico, without any conditions as to slavery; declared it inexpedient to abolish slavery in the District of Columbia, while it continued in Maryland, and without the consent of the people of the District, but opposed the slave-trade therein; pronounced in favor of a more efficient provision for the restitution of fugitive slaves, and asserted that Congress had no power to prohibit or abolish trade in slaves between slaveholding States.

The Tribune parted from its leader at once, and on January 31 compared Clay's effort to secure peace to the man who rushed between a fighting husband and wife, and was whipped by both. “No,” it declared, “we are ”