Efforts were made to postpone and amend the bill, but it was so ably enforced, and the objections to it so completely refuted, that it passed the senate by a vote of twenty to eighteen, on the third of July. The house, in regard to some of its provisions, disagreed, and this circumstance enabled its enemies to postpone its consideration, until December, next following, by a vote of ninety-one to eighty-eight. At the next session it was taken up and passed, by votes of twenty-four to twenty in the senate, and ninety-six to forty in the house, and sent to the president for his signature. Had he returned it immediately, even with his veto, it would have become a law, according to the constitution, requiring a vote of two thirds; but, unfortunately for the country, the president’s constitutional privilege of retaining bills a designated length of time, did not expire until after the adjournment of congress, which gave general Jackson an opportunity of taking the business of legislation out of the hands of the people, which he eagerly embraced――to trample this bill, as Mr. Benton exultingly said, ‘under his big foot,’ although he knew it expressed the obvious wishes of the people. He, therefore, kept the bill, until the commencement of the next session, (fifth of December, 1833,) when he returned it to the house, with his objections. He regarded Mr. Clay’s proposition of giving a certain per centage of the sales of the public lands to the states in which they were located, as an ‘indirect and undisguised violation of the pledge given by congress to the states before a single cession was made, abrogating the condition on which some of the states came into the union, and setting at nought the terms of cession spread upon the face of every grant, under which the title of that portion of the public lands are held by the federal government.’ In close connection with his objection to surrendering a _part_ of the public domain to the several states, as mentioned, came his proposal to yield them the _whole_. To grant them a _part_, would be unconstitutional; but to grant them the _whole_, would be constitutional. This reasoning is perfectly _sui generis_; presenting a singular specimen of _logic and consistency_ united. It behoved the president to support his veto by some prop, but no person supposed he would select such a crooked and frail one. The fact that he did, shows how long and tedious must have been his wanderings through the political forest, with his executive axe upon his shoulder, in search of a straight and firm one. The truth of the whole matter probably is, that the veto originated more from his personal hostility to Mr. Clay himself, than from any valid constitutional objection to his land bill. This view of the subject receives strong confirmation, by a reference to his message of December fourth, 1832. In this, the president _specifically recommended_ the basis of _just such a bill_ as that introduced by Mr. Clay.