Clay delighted and in which his peculiar talents shone. At all
costs the Kentucky politician resolved to discount the intervention of
the President, and his mind was peculiarly fertile in devising and
peculiarly skilful in executing such manoeuvres as the situation
required. The sacrifice of his commercial policy was involved, but he
loved Protection less than he hated Jackson, and less, to do him
justice, than he loved the Union. Negotiations were opened with Calhoun,
and a compromise tariff proposed, greatly modified in the direction of
Free Trade and free of the "abominations" of which South Carolina
specially complained. This compromise the Nullifiers, awed perhaps by
the vigour of Jackson, and doubtful of the issue if matters were pushed
too far, accepted.

Jackson did not like the Clay-Calhoun compromise, which seemed to him a
surrender to treason; but in such a matter he could not control
Congress. On one thing he insisted: that the Force Bill should take
precedence over the new Tariff. On this he carried his point. The two
Bills were passed by Congress in the order he demanded, and both were
signed by him on the same day.

Upon this the South Carolinian Convention repealed its ordinance
nullifying the Tariff, and agreed to the collection of the duties now
imposed. It followed this concession by another ordinance nullifying the
Force Bill. The practical effect of this was nil, for there was no
longer anything to enforce. It was none the less important. It meant
that South Carolina declined to abandon the weapon of Nullification.
Indeed, it might plausibly be urged that that weapon had justified
itself by success. It had been defended as a protection against extreme
oppression, and the extreme oppression complained of had actually ceased
in consequence of its use. At any rate, the effect was certainly to
strengthen rather than to weaken extreme particularism in the South. On
this point Jackson saw further than Clay or any of his contemporaries.
While all America was rejoicing over the peaceful end of what had looked
like an ugly civil quarrel, the President was writing to a friend and
supporter: "You have Nullifiers amongst you. Frown upon them.... The
Tariff was a mere excuse and a Southern Confederacy the real object.
_The next excuse will be the Negro or Slavery Question._"

The controversy with the Nullifiers had exhibited Jackson's patriotism
and force of character in a strong and popular light, but it had