SECRET HISTORY OF THE "COMPROMISE" OF 1833.
Mr. Calhoun and Mr. Clay were early, and long, rival aspirants for the Presidency, and antagonistic leaders in opposite political systems; and the coalition between them in 1833 was only a hollow truce (embittered by the humiliations to which Mr. Calhoun was subjected in the protective features of the "compromise") and only kept alive for a few years by their mutual interest with respect to General Jackson and Mr. Van Buren. A rupture was foreseen by every observer; and in a few years it took place, and in open Senate, and in a way to give the key to the secret motives which led to that compromise. It became a question between them which had the upper hand of the other—in their own language—which was master of the other—on that occasion. Mr. Calhoun declared that he had Mr. Clay down—had him on his back—was his master. Mr. Clay retorted: He my master! I would not own him for the meanest of my slaves. Of course, there were calls to order about that time; but the question of mastery, and the causes which produced the passage of the act, were still points of contestation between them, and came up for altercation in other forms. Mr. Calhoun claimed a controling influence for the military attitude of South Carolina, and its intimidating effect upon the federal government. Mr. Clay ridiculed this idea of intimidation, and said the little boys that muster in the streets with their tiny wooden swords, had as well pretend to terrify the grand army of Bonaparte: and afterwards said he would tell how it happened, which was thus: His friend from Delaware (Mr. John M. Clayton), said to him one day—these South Carolinians act very badly, but they are good fellows, and it is a pity to let Jackson hang them. This was after Mr. Clay had brought in his bill, and while it lingered without the least apparent chance of passing—paralyzed by the vehement opposition of the manufacturers: and he urged Mr. Clay to take a new move with his bill—to get it referred to a committee—and by them got into a shape in which it could pass. Mr. Clay did so—had the reference made—and a committee appointed suitable for the measure—some of strong will, and earnest for the bill, and some of gentle temperament, inclined to easy measures on hard occasions. They were: Messrs. Clay, Calhoun, Clayton, Dallas, Grundy, Rives.
This was the movement, and the inducing cause on one side: now for the cause on the other. Mr. Letcher, a representative from Kentucky, was the first to conceive an idea of some compromise to release South Carolina from her position; and communicated it to Mr. Clay; who received it at first coolly and doubtfully. Afterwards, beginning to entertain the idea, he mentioned it to Mr. Webster, who repulsed it entirely, saying—"It would be yielding great principles to faction; and that the time had come to test the strength of the constitution and the government." After that he was no more consulted. Mr. Clay drew up his bill, and sent it to Mr. Calhoun through Mr. Letcher—he and Mr. Calhoun not being on speaking terms. He objected decidedly to parts of the bill; and said, if Mr. Clay knew his reasons, he certainly would yield the objectionable parts. Mr. Letcher undertook to arrange an interview;—which was effected—to take place in Mr. Clay's room. The meeting was cold, distant and civil. Mr. Clay rose, bowed to his visitor, and asked him to take a seat. Mr. Letcher, to relieve the embarrassment, immediately opened the business of the interview: which ended without results. Mr. Clay remained inflexible, saying that if he gave up the parts of the bill objected to, it could not be passed; and that it would be better to give it up at once. In the mean time Mr. Letcher had seen the President, and sounded him on the subject of a compromise: the President answered, he would have no negotiation, and would execute the laws. This was told by Mr. Letcher to Mr. McDuffie, to go to Mr. Calhoun. Soon after, Mr. Letcher found himself required to make a direct communication to Mr. Calhoun. Mr. Josiah S. Johnson, senator from Louisiana, came to his room in the night, after he had gone to bed—and informed him of what he had just learnt:—which was, that General Jackson would admit of no further delay, and was determined to take at once a decided course with Mr. Calhoun (an arrest and trial for high treason being understood). Mr. Johnson deemed it of the utmost moment that Mr. Calhoun should be instantly warned of his danger; and urged Mr. Letcher to go and apprise him. He went—found Mr. Calhoun in bed—was admitted to him—informed him. "He was evidently disturbed." Mr. Letcher and Mr. Clay were in constant communication with Mr. Clayton.
After the committee had been appointed, Mr. Clayton assembled the manufacturers, for without their consent nothing could be done; and in the meeting with them it was resolved to pass the bill, provided the Southern senators, including the nullifiers, should vote both for the amendments which should be proposed, and for the passage of the bill itself—the amendments being the same afterwards offered in the Senate by Mr. Clay, and especially the home valuation feature. When these amendments, thus agreed upon by the friends of the tariff, were proposed in the committee, they were voted down; and not being able to agree upon any thing, the bill was carried back to the senate without alteration. But Mr. Clayton did not give up. Moved by a feeling of concern for those who were in peril, and for the state of the country, and for the safety of the protective system of which he was the decided advocate, he determined to have the same amendments, so agreed upon by the friends of the tariff and rejected by the committee, offered in the Senate; and, to help Mr. Clay with the manufacturers, he put them into his hands to be so offered—notifying Mr. Calhoun and Mr. Clay that unless the amendments were adopted, and that by the Southern vote, every nullifier inclusively, that the bill should not pass—that he himself would move to lay it on the table. His reasons for making the nullification vote a sine qua non both on the amendments and on the bill, and for them all, separately and collectively, was to cut them off from pleading their unconstitutionality after they were passed; and to make the authors of disturbance and armed resistance, after resistance, parties upon the record to the measures, and every part of the measures, which were to pacify them. Unless these leaders were thus bound, he looked upon any pacification as a hollow truce, to be succeeded by some new disturbance in a short time; and therefore he was peremptory with both Mr. Clay and Mr. Calhoun, denouncing the sacrifice of the bill if his terms were not complied with; and letting them know that he had friends enough bound to his support. They wished to know the names of the senators who were to stand by him in this extreme course—which he refused to give; no doubt restrained by an injunction of secrecy, there being many men of gentle temperaments who are unwilling to commit themselves to a measure until they see its issue, that the eclat of success may consecrate what the gloom of defeat would damn. Being inexorable in his claims, Mr. Clay and Mr. Calhoun agreed to the amendments, and all voted for them, one by one, as Mr. Clay offered them, until it came to the last—that revolting measure of the home valuation. As soon as it was proposed, Mr. Calhoun and his friends met it with violent opposition, declaring it to be unconstitutional, and an insurmountable obstacle to their votes for the bill if put into it. It was then late in the day, and the last day but one of the session, and Mr. Clayton found himself in the predicament which required the execution of his threat. He executed it, and moved to lay it on the table, with the declaration that it was to lie there. Mr. Clay went to him and besought him to withdraw the motion; but in vain. He remained inflexible; and the bill then appeared to be dead. In this extremity, the Calhoun wing retired to the colonnade behind the Vice-President's chair, and held a brief consultation among themselves: and presently Mr. Bibb, of Kentucky, came out, and went to Mr. Clayton and asked him to withdraw his motion to give him time to consider the amendment. Seeing this sign of yielding, Mr. Clayton withdrew his motion—to be renewed if the amendment was not voted for. A friend of the parties immediately moved an adjournment, which was carried; and that night's reflections brought them to the conclusion that the amendment must be passed; but still with the belief, that, there being enough to pass it without him, Mr. Calhoun should be spared the humiliation of appearing on the record in its favor. This was told to Mr. Clayton, who declared it to be impossible—that Mr. Calhoun's vote was indispensable, as nothing would be considered secured by the passage of the bill unless his vote appeared for every amendment separately, and for the whole bill collectively. When the Senate met, and the bill was taken up, it was still unknown what he would do; but his friends fell in, one after the other, yielding their objections upon different grounds, and giving their assent to this most flagrant instance (and that a new one), of that protective legislation, against which they were then raising troops in South Carolina! and limiting a day, and that a short one, on which she was to be, ipso facto, a seceder from the Union. Mr. Calhoun remained to the last, and only rose when the vote was ready to be taken, and prefaced a few remarks with the very notable declaration that he had then to "determine" which way he would vote. He then declared in favor of the amendment, but upon conditions which he desired the reporters to note; and which being futile in themselves, only showed the desperation of his condition, and the state of impossibility to which he was reduced. Several senators let him know immediately the futility of his conditions; and without saying more, he voted on ayes and noes for the amendment; and afterwards for the whole bill. And this concluding scene appears quite correctly reported in the authentic debates. And thus the question of mastery in this famous "compromise," mooted in the Senate by Mr. Clay and Mr. Calhoun as a problem between themselves, is shown by the inside view of this bit of history, to belong to neither of them, but to Mr. John M. Clayton, under the instrumentality of Gen. Jackson, who, in the presidential election, had unhorsed Mr. Clay and all his systems; and, in his determination to execute the laws upon Mr. Calhoun, had left him without remedy, except in the resource of this "compromise." Upon the outside history of this measure which I have compiled, like a chronicler, from the documentary materials, Mr. Calhoun and Mr. Clay appear as master spirits, appeasing the storm which they had raised; on the inside view they appear as subaltern agents dominated by the necessities of their condition, and providing for themselves instead of their country—Mr. Clay, in saving the protective policy, and preserving the support of the manufacturers; and Mr. Calhoun, in saving himself from the perils of his condition: and both, in leaving themselves at liberty to act together in future against General Jackson and Mr. Van Buren.