"Sir, we are called upon to receive this as a measure of compromise! As a measure in which we of the minority are to receive nothing. A measure of compromise! I look upon it as but a modest mode of taking that, the claim to which has been more boldly asserted by others; and, that I may be understood upon this question, and that my position may go forth to the country in the same columns that convey the sentiments of the Senator from Kentucky, I here assert, that never will I take less than the Missouri compromise line extended to the Pacific Ocean, with the specific recognition of the right to hold slaves in the territory below that line; and that, before such territories are admitted into the Union as States, slaves may be taken there from any of the United States at the option of the owners. I can never consent to give additional power to a majority to commit further aggressions upon the minority in this Union, and will never consent to any proposition which will have such a tendency, without a full guaranty or counteracting measure is connected with it." A number of very able speeches were made on the resolutions of Mr. Clay, but the most characteristic one--the one most thoroughly representing the sentiment of the South--was made by John C. Calhoun. He said: "The Union was in danger. The cause of this danger was the discontent at the South. And what was the cause of this discontent? It was found in the belief which prevailed among them that they could not, consistently with honor and safety, remain in the Union. And what had caused this belief? One of the causes was the long-continued agitation of the slave question at the North, and the many aggressions they had made on the rights of the South. But the primary cause was in the fact, that the equilibrium between the two sections at the time of the adoption of the Constitution had been destroyed. The first of the series of acts by which this had been done, was the ordinance of 1787, by which the South had been excluded from all the northwestern region. The next was the Missouri compromise, excluding them from all the Louisiana territory north of thirty-six degrees thirty minutes, except the State of Missouri,--in all 1,238,025 square miles, leaving to the South the southern portion of the original Louisiana territory, with Florida, to which had since been added the territory acquired with Texas,--making in all but 609,023 miles. And now the North was endeavoring to appropriate to herself the territory recently acquired from Mexico, adding 526,078 miles to the territory from which the South was, if possible, to be excluded. Another cause of the destruction of this equilibrium was our system of revenue (the tariff), the duties falling mainly upon the Southern portion of the Union, as