Speech,” cast the great weight of his powerful influence in favor of the Compromise. His act was much criticised in the North, and he was freely accused of seeking favor with the Southerners in order to secure their help in the approaching Presidential election, when he expected to be a candidate. But Webster had always been a stanch advocate of the Union, and there was nothing in his present course that was inconsistent with the positions he had uniformly held. The feeling against him, however, became, in many quarters of the North, intensely bitter. [Illustration: WILLIAM H. SEWARD. [By courtesy of G. P. Putnam’s Sons.]] =396. Presidential Policy changed by Death of Taylor.=—Before the final passage of the Compromise measures, President Taylor died, July 9, 1850, and was succeeded by the Vice President, Millard Fillmore. Taylor, although a Southerner, had been very largely influenced by William H. Seward,[177] a senator from New York, who had led with great ability the opposition to the Compromise. Taylor did not have a strong Cabinet, and was untrained as a statesman, but he showed, in his short administration, great common sense and firmness, and, had he lived, might have prevailed on Congress to adopt a policy toward California less tortuous than that involved in Clay’s Compromise. Fillmore,[178] who succeeded to the Presidency, although a good man, was not a strong one, and had not been on friendly terms with his fellow New Yorker, Seward. In making up his Cabinet, he made Webster Secretary of State in place of Clayton, of Delaware, and leaned upon the former for advice. The policy of the administration was thus so completely changed that the weight of its influence was at once thrown in favor of the adoption and rigid enforcement of the Compromise legislation. [Illustration: MILLARD FILLMORE.] =397. The Compromise of 1850.=—The resolutions introduced by Clay were much amended in the course of their consideration, but in final form, as adopted in September, 1850, they covered the following provisions:— 1. California was to be admitted as a free state. 2. New Mexico and Utah were to be organized as territories without any restriction or condition in regard to slavery. 3. The slave trade was to be abolished within the District of Columbia. 4. A Fugitive Slave Law, stringent enough to satisfy the South, was to be passed. 5. Texas was to receive the price she demanded for the land ceded to New Mexico (§ 394, note).