Page:Life of Henry Clay (Schurz; v. 2).djvu/25

Rh the manufacturers needed was stability in legislation, certainty at least for a fixed period of time. Such certainty, he argued, was given by his bill for the period of nine years; for, although the present Congress could not bind its successors, yet every honorable man would consider himself in conscience bound to respect as inviolable the terms of a compromise.

He felt the awkwardness of his position in offering a compromise to a party standing in an attitude of defiance to the authority of the United States. He confessed to have felt “a strong repugnance to any legislation at the commencement of the session,” principally because he had “misconceived, as he found from subsequent observation, the purposes which South Carolina had in view.” He had supposed that the state had “arrogantly required the immediate abandonment of a system which had long been the settled policy of the country.” Supposing this, he had “felt a disposition to hurl defiance back again.” But since his arrival at Washington he had found that South Carolina “did not contemplate force,” for she disclaimed it, and asserted that she was merely making an experiment, namely, “by a change in her fundamental laws, by a course of state legislation, and by her civil tribunals to prevent the general government from carrying the laws of the United States into operation within her limits.” This, he admitted, was indeed rash and unjustifiable enough, but it was not so wicked as a direct appeal to