Page:Life of Henry Clay (Schurz; v. 2).djvu/31

Rh tection measure, as little better than a joke. They represented the reduction of the tariff duties as a concession extorted by a threat, — as a palpable triumph of the nullification movement. In one word, not only the compromise did not include the abandonment of the doctrine that a state could constitutionally nullify a law of the United States, but it rather served to give the believers in that doctrine a higher opinion of its efficacy. In fact, attempts to terrorize the rest of the Union into compliance with the behests of the South became a settled policy when the slavery question came to the foreground; and this was owing in a large measure to the encouragement given to the spirit of resistance in 1833.

Clay evidently failed to understand at the time that there was something more potent and imperious than mere discontent with a tariff at the bottom of the chronic trouble, — the necessities of slavery; and that a mere tariff compromise could only adjourn, but by no means avert, the coming crisis, nor touch the true cause of it. In later years, however, he is reported to have often said to his friends, when speaking of the events of 1833, that, “in looking back upon the whole case, he had come seriously to doubt the policy of his interference.”

One thing was, indeed, gained for the Union. Jackson by his proclamation, and Congress by passing the Force Bill, had strongly asserted the supremacy of the general government in all national concerns, and the principle that the Republic cannot be dissolved in a constitutional way, or by anything