All
deprecated and deplored this, but none saw how to avert it. For the
judgment of members to be convinced of the necessity of yielding was not
the whole difficulty; each had a constituency to meet and to answer to.
Mr. Clay, though worn down and exhausted, was appealed to by members to
renew his efforts at compromise. He did so, and by some judicious
modifications of his plan, coupled with laborious efforts with individual
members and his own overmastering eloquence upon that floor, he finally
secured the admission of the State. Brightly and captivating as it had
previously shown, it was now perceived that his great eloquence was a
mere embellishment, or at most but a helping hand to his inventive genius
and his devotion to his country in the day of her extreme peril.
After the settlement of the Missouri question, although a portion of the
American people have differed with Mr. Clay, and a majority even appear
generally to have been opposed to him on questions of ordinary
administration, he seems constantly to have been regarded by all as the
man for the crisis. Accordingly, in the days of nullification, and more
recently in the reappearance of the slavery question connected with our
territory newly acquired of Mexico, the task of devising a mode of
adjustment seems to have been cast upon Mr.
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