Page:Life of Henry Clay (Schurz; v. 2).djvu/30

20 The first object of the measure was attained: South Carolina repealed her nullification ordinance. The manufacturers, too, gradually persuaded themselves that Clay, in view of the anti-protection character of the next Congress, had averted from them a more unwelcome fate. The compromise was received by the country, on the whole, with great favor; as Benton expresses it, “it was received as a deliverance, and the ostensible authors of it greeted as benefactors, and their work declared by legislatures to be sacred and inviolable, and every citizen doomed to political outlawry that did not give in his adhesion and bind himself to the perfecting of the act.” Clay had once more won the proud title of “pacificator.”

But before long it became clear that, beyond the repeal of the nullification ordinance, the compromise had settled nothing. The nullifiers strenuously denied that they had in any sense given up their peculiar doctrine. They denounced the Force Bill as a flagrant act of usurpation, which must be wiped from the statute-book. While at heart they were glad of their escape from a perilous situation, they assumed the attitude of having only graciously accepted the terms of capitulation proposed by a distressed foe. Even the postponement of the day when nullification was practically to begin was, in appearance, yielded only to the friendly anxiety of Virginia, which had sent a “commissioner” to South Carolina to ask that favor. They treated the assertion, that the compromise act was a pro-