... interest more or less constantly under discussion. The great public men of the period were Clay, Webster, and Calhoun; while Benton, Dayton, Davis, Douglas, Crittenden, Sumner, Foote, Seward, and Mangum were lesser lights; but each was striving in his own way to compose the differences between the sections by compromises and arrangements, which it was hoped would not only save the Union, but would a...