In 1824 the Tariff question became so untenable that some of the Southern States rebelled outright, and protested through their legislatures against the measure as unconstitutional. Some favored secession; others advocated nullification, and this was what was done. They nullified the law and refused to stand by it. Clamor for State rights was heard on every side. But they did not take this step till they had waited two or three years for Congress to give relief by reducing the tariff. In 1832 the crisis came; nullification was pronounced by South Carolina, and she forbade the collection of tariff duties in her own State. She also declared that if the United States used force, she would withdraw from the Union and organize a separate government. Andrew Jackson, who was President, determined to enforce the tariff law in the State, and asked Congress for the power to use the army to sustain the law. Volunteers had offered in South Carolina, and the country stood aghast at the prospect of civil war. Here again Henry Clay's eloquence saved the day. He proposed the measure of gradually reducing the tariff through a period of ten years till it would provide only for the expenses of the government. This removed the cause of trouble, so South Carolina rescinded her act of nullification. The South had continually yielded up portions of her immense territory to the Union, and thus far there had been an equal balance of power in the legislative voting of the two sections. The annexation of Texas raised a stormy conflict. The South hoped for a division of this large tract into five slave states. The North, as usual, wished to obtain the lion's share. In 1835 Arkansas was admitted a slave State. In 1836 Michigan came in with free labor. After the Mexican War the retrospect showed that since the Declaration of Independence the North had possessed herself of nearly three-fourths of all the territory added to the original states. She fought the annexation of Texas because it would be slave-holding. In 1845 Florida was admitted with slave labor. In the same year Texas came in as a slave State. In 1846 Iowa came in with free labor; in 1848 Wisconsin, also free. When California applied for admission in 1850 there was such bitter antagonism that it was universally feared the Southern States would secede from the Union. Should she be a free state there would then be no other State to offset it with slaves. It was finally decided to leave the choice to California herself. Henry Clay was again at hand to effect a satisfactory compromise. In a former paper I have referred to the Fugitive Slave Law, whereby runaway slaves should be captured and sent back to their owners. But about a decade before the war, a great Abolition wave had begun to flood the country. Thurlow Weed, William Lloyd Garrison, Parson Brownlow, John Brown and Mrs. Stowe, by the power of tongue and pen and printing press, endeavored to stir up the North to the pitch of