Editing Compromise of 1850 (section)

===Opposition===
President Taylor opposed the compromise and continued to call for immediate statehood for both California and New Mexico.{{sfn|McPherson|1988|p=74}} Senator Calhoun and some other Southern leaders argued that the compromise was biased against the South because it would lead to the creation of new free states.{{sfn|Smith|1988|pp=112–113, 117}} Most Northern Whigs, led by [[William Henry Seward]], who delivered his famous "Higher Law" speech during the controversy, opposed the Compromise as well because it would apply the Wilmot Proviso to the western territories and because of the pressing of ordinary citizens into duty on slave-hunting patrols. That provision was inserted by Democratic Virginia Senator [[James M. Mason]] to entice border-state Whigs, who faced the greatest danger of losing slaves as fugitives but were lukewarm on general sectional issues related to the South on Texas's land claims.<ref>John M. Taylor, ''William Henry Seward: Lincoln's right hand'' (1996) p. 85</ref>