Page:Life of Henry Clay (Schurz; v. 2).djvu/156

146 ren administration. Calhoun was especially anxious to establish the consistency of his “record,” which he tried to do with great elaborateness, and to prove that the compromise of 1833 had been his victory and Clay's defeat. He drew a picture of himself striking down the protective policy, the American system, by “state interposition,” another name for nullification; and of Clay finding himself deserted by his friends and proposing the compromise to save his political life, the compromise then being accepted by Calhoun as the capitulation of a discomfited foe is accepted by the victor. Clay retorted with his version of the story. He had found Calhoun at that period in an untenable, miserable, and perilous situation; he held out the compromise to the unfortunate nullifier as a rope is thrown to a drowning man, almost from mere motives of pity; Calhoun eagerly grasped it as a last chance of escape from Jackson's clutches. He (Clay) desired, too, to save the protective system from greater damage, and the country from an exciting conflict.

This controversy, going through a variety of repetitions, at last culminated in an angry explosion. “Events had placed him (Clay) flat on his back,” said Calhoun, “and he had no way to recover himself but by the compromise. He was forced by the action of the state, which I in part represent, against his system, by my counsel to compromise, in order to save himself. I had the mastery over him on that occasion.” This set