Giles’s bill passed the Senate December 19, and was referred at once to the House Committee on Foreign Relations, which amended it by cutting down the number of troops from twenty-five thousand to fifteen thousand men; but when this amendment was proposed to the House, it met, in the words of Peter B. Porter, with a gust of zeal and passion. Henry Clay and the ardent war democrats combined with the Federalists to force the larger army on the President, although more than one sound Democrat invoked past experience and ordinary common-sense to prove that twenty-five thousand men--or even half that number--could not be found in the United States willing to enlist in the regular army and submit for five years to the arbitrary will of officers whom they did not know and with whom they had nothing in common. The House voted to raise Giles’s army, but still took the precaution of requiring that the officers of six regiments only should be commissioned, until three fourths of the privates for these six regiments should have been enlisted. Another amendment was proposed giving the President discretion to raise only these six regiments, if he thought circumstances rendered the larger force unnecessary; but Grundy defeated this effort of caution by the argument that too much power had formerly been given to the Executive, and therefore Congress must insist on leaving him no discretion, but obliging him to take twice the army and double the patronage he had asked or could use. More than twenty Federalists supported Grundy, and gave him a majority of sixty-six to fifty-seven. Calhoun came to Grundy’s assistance with a more reasonable argument. Delay was becoming dangerous; the New Year had arrived; the public began to doubt whether Congress meant to act; he would vote to prevent delay. At length, January 6, the bill passed the House by a vote of ninety-four to thirty-four. Six or eight Federalists, including Josiah Quincy, voted with the majority; six or eight Republicans, including Macon, Randolph, and Stanford, voted with the minority. The bill returned to the Senate, where the amendments were immediately and almost unanimously struck out. The House, in no kind temper, was obliged to discuss the subject once more. Even the most zealous advocates of war were staggered at the thought that all the officers of thirteen new regiments in the regular army must be at once appointed, when no one felt confident that the ranks of these regiments could ever be filled. The support given by the Federalists to every extravagant measure increased the uneasiness of Republicans; and John Randolph’s ridicule, founded as it was on truth, did not tend to calm it.