It was the first time that such a step had been taken; and its constitutionality was so doubtful, that after the ballot, a resolution declaring Mr.
Cobb to be speaker was adopted by general concurrence on a yea and nay vote.
The message of the President was immediately transmitted, and proved a tower of strength to the friends of the Union, and a heavy blow to the secession element, which was rampant in Congress.

The President recommended that California, with her constitution, already known to be anti-slavery, be promptly admitted to the Union.
He also suggested that New Mexico, already better protected in property, life, liberty, and religion than she had ever been before, be quietly left under her existing military government until she should form a State constitution, and apply for admission,--an event deemed probable in the very near future.

That accomplished, as he added in a special message a few days later, the claims of Texas to a portion of New Mexico could be judicially determined, which could not be done while New Mexico remained a territory, organized or unorganized.

These recommendations were intensely distasteful to the South, and grew to be correspondingly popular in the North.

The sectional feeling rapidly developed and the agitation in Congress communicated itself to the entire country.
THE UNITED STATES SENATE IN 1850.
The character and eminence of the men who took part in the discussion gave it an intense, almost dramatic interest.