of California and New Mexico, both for and against slavery, but all were unsuccessful.
At the first session of Congress in 1850 efforts for organizing these territories were resumed. The doctrine of Popular Sovereignty (though not by that name) was forcibly announced by such spirits as Jefferson Davis, W. L. Yancy and J. M. Mason, and the Missouri Compromise was held up as a sacred compact between the Restrictionists and Anti-Restrictionists in the division of territory; whereas it was framed near thirty years before the United States had acquired this territory, and could relate only to the partition of that of the Louisiana purchase. After considerable debate and the defeat of several bills for the organization of the territory of New Mexico and the admission of California into the Union, whose people had framed a Constitution and presented herself for this purpose, the whole subject was referred to a Committee of Thirteen, of which Mr. Clay was constituted chairman. The report of this committee formed the basis of a Compromise between the two contending parties, in the following words:
“1. The admission of any new State or States formed out of Texas to be postponed until they shall hereafter present themselves to be received into the Union, when it shall be the duty of Congress fairly and faithfully to execute the compact with Texas, by admitting such State or States.
“2. The admission forthwith of California into the Union, with the boundaries which she has proposed.
“3. The establishment of Territorial Governments, without the Wilmot Proviso, for New Mexico and Utah, embracing all the territory recently acquired from Mexico, not contained in the boundaries of California.
“4. The combination of these two last measures in the same bill.
“5. The establishment of the western and northern boundaries of Texas, and the exclusion from her jurisdiction of all New Mexico, with the grant to Texas of a pecuniary equivalent; and the section for that purpose to be incorporated in the bill admitting California, and establishing Territorial Governments for Utah and New Mexico.
