The bill known as the Compensation Bill was reported March 6, and was debated for two days with some animation. Among its supporters John Randolph was prominent, and gave offence to the opponents of the measure by his usual tactics. Most of the friends of the bill stoutly insisted that it did not increase the pay; most of its opponents averred that it more than doubled the amount. Calhoun admitted the increase of pay, and favored it, in order to retain “young men of genius without property” in the public service. The bill was hurried through the House. “The Compensation Bill,” said Forsyth at the next session,[133] “was the only one of any interest pushed through the Committee of the whole House and ordered to a third reading in a single day. All motions to amend were rejected; for the committee to rise and report progress and ask leave to sit again, met with a similar fate.... The House refused repeated propositions to adjourn, and continued its sittings until the bill was ordered to be engrossed.” No time was lost. Johnson moved for a committee March 4; the committee reported the bill March 6; the House in committee took it up March 7, and reported it the same day. The House passed it March 8, by a vote of eighty-one to sixty-seven. In the Senate the bill was read for a second time March 12. In the course of the debate one of the New Jersey senators, commenting on the haste shown by the House to pass the bill, added that also “in the Senate postponement, commitment, and amendment are all refused, and it is to be pushed through by main strength with a haste altogether unusual.” The Senate passed it March 14, by a vote of twenty-one to eleven; and it received the President’s signature March 19, barely a fortnight after Johnson’s request for a committee. At the time when the bill was still under consideration by the President, and the House had just passed the Bank Act, the Republican members of both Houses met to nominate a candidate to succeed Madison as President. Three candidates were in the field,--Daniel D. Tompkins, William H. Crawford, and James Monroe.