When the question of the admission of Oregon came up, Calhoun attempted to apply to it a dogma wholly at variance with all his former positions on the subject. This was the theory of the self-extension of the slavery part of the Constitution to the territories; that is, he held that the exclusion of slavery from any part of the new territory was itself a subversion of the Constitution. Such a dogma was so monstrous in character, so illogical, so inconsistent with all his former theories, and so absolutely incompatible with the preservation of the Union, that it renders it impossible to believe that his asseverations of devotion to the latter were uttered honestly or in good faith. Most modern readers will agree with Benton that he deliberately worked to bring about secession. Meanwhile the Missourian had gained an ally of his own stamp in the Senate. This was Houston, from the new State of Texas, who represented in that state, like Andrew Jackson in Tennessee, and Benton himself in Missouri, the old Nationalist Democracy, which held the preservation of the Union dear above all other things. Houston was a man after Benton's own heart, and was thoroughly Jacksonian in type. He was rough, honest, and fearless, a devoted friend and a vengeful enemy, and he promised that combination of stubborn courage and capacity of devotion to an ideal that renders a man an invaluable ally in a fight against odds for principle. After much discussion and amendment, the Oregon bill, containing a radical anti-slavery clause, passed both houses and became a law in spite of the violent opposition of some of the Southerners, headed by Calhoun, who announced that the great strife between the North and the South was ended, and that the time had come for the South to show that, though she prized the Union, yet there were matters which she regarded as of greater importance than its preservation. His ire was most fiercely excited by the action of Benton and Houston in supporting the bill, and after his return to South Carolina he denounced them by name as traitors to the South,--"a denunciation," says Benton, "which they took for a distinction; as what he called treason to the South they knew to be allegiance to the Union." When it was proposed to extend by bill the Constitution of the United States into the territories, with a view to carrying slavery into California, Utah, and New Mexico, Benton was again opposed to Calhoun. As a matter of course, too, he was the stoutest opponent of the Southern convention and other similar disunion movements that were beginning to take shape throughout the South, instigated by the two rank secession states of South Carolina and Mississippi.