Page:Nullification Controversy in South Carolina.djvu/305

 CHAPTER IX

THE COMPROMISE TARIFF AND THE FORCE BILL (1833)

In the meantime Congress was again distraught by the tariff controversy. Verplanck's tariff bill was discussed for some time. At one point of the discussion, on January 23, it was reported that a tariff bill would have passed the House had it not been for a "very insulting and irritating speech" by Richard H. Wilde, of Georgia, which greatly angered the Pennsylvania, New York, and Ohio delegates; there was great excitement and apparently no hope then that the bill would pass during that session. It was believed, the President said, that this speech was made at the instigation of the Nullifiers, who wished no adjustment. The President predicted that the whole country, including even the South, would be united against the Nullifiers when it was discovered that their object was "nothing but disunion." 286