70 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS bill incorporating the fiscal bank of the United States was then passed by both houses, and on ^August 16 was vetoed. An attempt to pass the bill over the veto failed of the requisite two-thirds majority. The Whig leaders had already shown a disposi tion to entrap the president. Before the passage ,>of Mr. Clay s bill, John Minor Botts was sent to the White House with a private suggestion for a compromise. Mr. Tyler refused to listen to the suggestion except with the understanding that, should it meet with his disapproval, he should not hear from it again. The suggestion turned out to be a proposal that congress should authorize the establishment of branches of the district bank in any state of which the legislature at its very next session should not expressly refuse its consent to any such proceeding; and that, moreover, in case the interests of the public should seem to require it, even such expressed refusal might be disregarded and overridden. By this means the obnoxious insti tution might first be established in the Whig states, and then forced upon the Democratic states in spite of themselves. The president indignantly rejected the suggestion as "a contemptible subterfuge, be hind which he would not skulk." The device, nevertheless, became incorporated in Mr. Clay s bill, and it was pretended that it was put there in order to smooth the way for the president to adopt
