Page:Life of Henry Clay (Schurz; v. 2).djvu/27

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THE COMPROMISE OF 1833.
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compromise, moved to lay the bill on the table; giving Calhoun and his friends to understand that, unless they all voted for that amendment, and finally for the bill with the amendment added to it, he would defeat the measure. Calhoun's friends begged for themselves and their chief to be spared the humiliation of such a vote. Even Clay generously interceded for them. But Clayton remained firm, saying, “If they cannot vote for a bill to save their necks from a halter, their necks may stretch.” He insisted especially that Calhoun himself should vote for it, not without reason; for Calhoun, as it was proved beyond doubt by several circumstances, desired the compromise to pass without his own vote, so that he might be at liberty afterwards to repudiate such parts of it as did not suit his doctrines and aims. At last, when he saw that the compromise was doomed unless he consented to vote for the amendment, he promised to do so. Clayton with drew his motion to lay on the table, and the amendment passed with the support of the nullifiers.

Meanwhile the Force Bill, vigorously advocated by Webster, had, after a long discussion, passed the Senate, — John Tyler having made himself its conspicuous opponent. On February 25th Clay made a final appeal to the Senate for his measure of peace. Once more he assured the manufacturers that his compromise was their only salvation; that “the true theory of protection supposed, too, that after a certain time the protected arts would have acquired such strength and protection as