glorious spectacle of a free, united, prosperous, and fraternal people.” It was the chronic candidate for the presidency who found it necessary to assure his hearers that his measure was in truth an inspiration of patriotism, and not a mere electioneering trick.
One objection to the compromise bill — that a bill to raise revenue could not originate in the Senate — was overcome, at the very moment he made this moving appeal, by a stroke of shrewd management. The House of Representatives had been long and drearily wrangling over the Verplanck bill, when suddenly, on February 25th, Letcher of Kentucky, Clay's intimate friend and ally, moved to amend the Verplanck bill by striking out all after the enacting clause, and inserting a new set of provisions agreeing literally with Clay's compromise bill as then shaped in the Senate. Clay's and Calhoun's friends in the House having been secretly instructed as to what was to come, and the opposition being taken by surprise, the amendment was adopted, and the bill so amended passed to a third reading the same day, “while members were putting on their overcoats to go to their dinners.” The next day the bill passed the House by 119 to 85, and thus Clay's compromise was sent to the Senate in the shape of a House bill. The last objection being thus removed, the bill was adopted in the Senate by 29 to 16. President Jackson signed it on the same day with the Force Bill, which had meanwhile passed the House, and thus the compromise of 1833 was consummated.
