Senator Henry Clay of Kentucky presented resolutions on January 29, 1850 saying they represented the spirit of compromise that would keep the Union together. Former Vice President and Senator from South Carolina John C. Calhoun saw it differently. For a month he worked on a speech but was too ill to deliver it. Virginia Senator James A. Mason read it on the floor of the Senate on March 4. In a speech on March 7, Senator Daniel Webster of Massachusetts spoke in favor of compromise. Abolitionists in the North saw this as a betrayal and giving in to slavery interests. William H. Seward, then the Senator from New York, spoke next for the abolitionists. He claimed there was a "higher law than the Constitution," which prevented any compromise with slavery.