I merely throw out these sentiments for the purpose of showing you that South Carolina, having declared her purpose to be this,
to make an experiment whether, by a course of legislation, in a conventional form, or legislative form of enactment, she can defeat the execution of certain laws of the United States, I for one, will express my opinion that I believe it is utterly impractical, whatever course of legislation she may choose to adopt, for her to succeed ___ I say it is impossible that South Carolina ever desired for a moment to become a separate and independent state.
The lines above are an excerpt belonging to the speech to the US senate delivered by American attorney Henry Clay, speaker of the House of Representatives around the 1830s. The assessment requires to integrate a personal interpretation of such document.
Clay's speech is an example of how conflicts have been solved in the US by compromising since the nation's inception, back to the founding.
Clay was delivering his perspective and opinion on the state of South Carolina’s decision of formally withdrawing from the federal union; he was also proposing solutions to the issue, such as the "Compromise Tariff of 1833" which offered to reduce some percentage on certain tariff rates, in the end, the compromise succeeded and the parties benefitted from it.
Due to its large population, the state of Virginia suggested the
Virginia Plan in order to maximize its influence (and the influence of
larger states) in the new national government. By having two houses with
representation based on population, the Virginia Plan would give the
state of Virginia a greater number of representatives.
