The House went at once into secret session; the Message was referred to the Committee of Foreign Relations; and two days afterward, June 3, Calhoun brought in a report recommending an immediate appeal to arms. As a history of the causes which led to this result, Calhoun’s report was admirable, and its clearness of style and statement forced comparisons not flattering to the President’s Message; but as an argument for the immediate necessity of war, the report like the Message contented itself with bare assertions. “The United States must support their character and station among the nations of the earth, or submit to the most shameful degradation.” Calhoun’s arguments were commonly close in logic, and avoided declamation; but in the actual instance neither he nor his followers seemed confident in the strength of their reasoning. After the House had listened in secret session, June 3, to the reading of this report, Josiah Quincy moved that the debate should be public. The demand seemed reasonable. That preliminary debates should be secret might be proper, but that war with any Power, and most of all with England, should be declared in secret could not be sound policy, while apart from any question of policy the secrecy contradicted the professions of the party in power. Perhaps no single act, in a hundred years of American history, showed less regard for personal and party consistency than the refusal by the Republicans of 1812 to allow society either rights or privileges in regard to the declaration of war upon England. Quite apart from military advantages to be hoped from secrecy, Henry Clay and his friends were weary of debate and afraid of defeat. Only a few days before, May 29, Clay forced Randolph from the floor by tactics which showed that no more discussion was to be allowed. The secret session gave the Speaker absolute power, and annihilated opposition. By seventy-six votes to forty-six, the House rejected Quincy’s motion; and a similar motion by Randolph shared the same fate. This demand being refused, the minority declined further discussion. They said that any act of theirs which admitted the validity of what they held to be a flagrant abuse of power could do no good, and might create a dangerous precedent. Henceforward they contented themselves with voting. On the same day Calhoun presented the bill declaring war against England, and on the second reading the opposition swelled to forty-five votes; while of the Republican majority, numbering about one hundred and five members, only seventy-six could be brought to the test. June 4 the third reading was carried by a vote of seventy-eight to forty-five, and the same day the bill passed by a vote of seventy-nine to forty-nine.