The party leaders felt the necessity of a compromise, and Henry Clay brought forward in the Senate a bill which, in March, 1833, became a law, which reduced the tariff.  It apparently appeased the South, not yet prepared to go out of the Union, and the storm blew over.  There was no doubt, however, that, had the South Carolinians resisted the government with force of arms they would have been put down, for Jackson was both Infuriated and firm.  He had even threatened to hang Calhoun as high as Haman,—­an absurd threat, for he had no power to hang anybody, except one with arms in his hands,—­and then only through due process of law,—­while Calhoun was a Senator, as yet using only legitimate means to gain his ends.

In the compromise which Clay effected, the South had the best of the bargain, and in view of it the culmination of the “irrepressible conflict” was delayed nearly thirty years.  Calhoun himself maintained that the Compromise Tariff of 1833 was due to the resistance which his State had made, but he also felt that the Force Bill with which Congress had backed up the President was a standing menace, and, as usual with him, he looked forward to impending dangers.  The Compromise Tariff, which reduced duties to twenty per cent in the main, and made provision for still further reduction, found great opponents in the Senate, and was regarded by Webster as anything but a protection bill; nor was Calhoun altogether satisfied with it.  It was received with favor by the country generally, however, and South Carolina repealed her nullification ordinance.

That subject being disposed of for the present, the attention of Congress and the country was now turned to the President’s war on the United States Bank.  As this most important matter has already been treated in the lecture on Jackson, I have only to show the course Mr. Calhoun took in reference to it.  He was now fifty-three years old, in the prime of his life and the full vigor of his powers.  In the Senate he had but two peers, Clay and Webster, and was not in sympathy with either of them, though not in decided hostility as he was toward Jackson.  He was now neither Whig nor Democrat, but a South Carolinian, having in view the welfare of the South alone, of whose interests he was the recognized guardian.  It was only when questions arose which did not directly bear on Southern interests that he was the candid and patriotic statesman, sometimes voting with one party and sometimes with another.  He was opposed to the removal of deposits from the United States Bank, and yet was opposed to a renewal of its charter.  His leading idea in reference to the matter was, the necessity of divorcing the government altogether from the banking system, as a dangerous money-power which might be perverted to political purposes.  In pointing out the dangers, he spoke with great power and astuteness, for he was always on the look-out for breakers.  He therefore argued against the removal of deposits