From 1819 to 1821 Congress was debating over the admission of Missouri as a slave state. The North opposed, and the South favored, the admission of Missouri. The excitement spread to the state legislatures and to the people. Many meetings were held. Resolutions strongly favoring, or strongly opposing, the admission of Missouri as a slave state, were drawn up and voted upon. [Sidenote: =The Missouri Compromise=] Wise men thought the Union was in danger and Henry Clay, by his eloquence, succeeded in getting Congress to pass the famous Missouri Compromise. This resolution provided that Missouri should be admitted as a slave state, but that no other slave state north of the line of 36 degrees 30 minutes should ever be admitted. Both sides were pleased and the excitement died out. We have seen how South Carolina threatened to refuse to pay the tariff in 1832, and how President Jackson hurried the army and the navy there to make her people pay it, as the people of the other states were obliged to do. [Sidenote: =The Compromise Tariff Law=] [Sidenote: =Henry Clay as a peacemaker again=] Henry Clay came forward again and introduced the Compromise Tariff Law. It was called a compromise because it gave each side a part of what it wished. Calhoun and other Carolinians favored it, because by this law the tariff was reduced very greatly. It was carried through Congress. The law made unnecessary the warlike preparations of both the president and South Carolina, and again Henry Clay was hailed by the people as "pacificator" or peacemaker. [Sidenote: =The founder of the Whig party=] =151. Henry Clay the Founder of the Whig Party.= But Henry Clay was not only a peacemaker. He was now a great statesman, and like Hamilton and Jefferson he led in forming a part of the people into a political party. It was called the Whig party. [Illustration: HENRY CLAY _From a daguerreotype owned by Garrett Brown, Jr., Chicago_] In 1824, before there was a Whig party, Clay ran for president, but was beaten. Again in 1832, just as the new party was being formed, he ran a second time. Although he was beaten for the presidency by Andrew Jackson, he was the life and soul of his party. It was his eloquence, the music of his words, that made men Whigs. On one occasion Clay spoke on the question of the abolition of slavery. Some one said that this might hurt his chances of being president. Clay replied: "I had rather be right than be president." [Sidenote: =Unfortunate Henry Clay=] Finally, in 1844, he was again the Whig candidate, but he was defeated for the third time. When the Whig party had a good chance of electing a president, they nominated somebody else. When they had a poor chance they nominated Henry Clay! [Sidenote: =Dispute over the new territory=]