Within a month after Congress met, he called a meeting of the friends of the protective tariff to determine plans for party action. The then existing “tariff of abominations”[396] was doomed by public opinion. Two months before he wrote a friend acknowledging a revision inevitable, and announcing plans for one not compromising to the protective principle.[397] The conference called by Clay met at the home of Edward Everett, Representative from Boston, with the presidential nominee himself presiding. He summoned his friends, not to consult, but to take orders. He disclosed his plan--a repeal of all duties on tea, coffee, spices, indigo, and similar articles, and thereby reduce the revenue as much as seven millions that year without interfering with the prevailing duties that had been imposed for protective purposes. Jackson intended to destroy the protective system through the accumulation of revenue. It was the duty of its friends to save it through the reductions proposed. If we may accept Adams as a faithful reporter, Clay’s manner was “exceedingly peremptory and dogmatical.” Various questions, indicative of doubt, were asked. Everett, mindful of the ominous protest of the South, thought the plan might be interpreted as “setting the South at defiance.” Adams, who had a mind of his own, reported that the Committee on Manufactures in the House, of which he was chairman, was “already committed upon the principle that the reduction of the duties should be prospective, and not to commence until after the extinguishment of the public debt”; and he suggested that the Clay plan would be, not only “a defiance of the South, but of the President and the Administration.” The spirit of Clay is well disclosed in his none too gracious reply that “to preserve, maintain, and strengthen the American System, he would defy the South, the President, and the Devil; that if the Committee on Manufactures had committed themselves ... they had given a very foolish and improvident pledge; and that there was no necessity for the payment of the debt by the 4th of March, 1833.”