Here the friends of Calhoun balked, and Clayton, never given to idle bluster, immediately made his motion to table the bill. Clay implored, and Clayton set his jaws and shook his head. The measure seemed doomed. Meanwhile, the Nullifiers, greatly alarmed, withdrew to the space behind the Vice-President’s chair for consultation. Finally Clayton was requested to withdraw his motion to give Calhoun and his friends time for consideration. With the understanding that, unless the votes were forthcoming, the motion would be renewed, the request was granted, and the Senate adjourned for the night. The morning found Clayton confronted with a plan devised during the night to spare Calhoun the humiliation of voting for the hated amendment, provided enough votes were assured to carry it through without his vote. The immovable Clayton sternly shook his head. Calhoun must vote for every amendment and for the bill. When the Senate convened, it was still uncertain what the Carolinian would do. At length, after all of his friends had first stated their objections, and yet reluctantly yielded, Calhoun arose, repeated the performance, and, having voted for the amendment at the dictation of Clayton, voted for the bill.[605] The unhappy plight of Calhoun was not lost upon his enemies, and Blair found in it an inspiration for his sarcasm. “A single night,” he wrote, “was sufficient to change the settled opinion of the profound reader of the Constitution. We exceedingly doubt whether in the private interview in which Mr. Clay disposed of Mr. Calhoun’s constitutional scruples, a word was uttered in relation to the Constitution.”[606] Thus passed into law, under circumstances deserving of Benton’s reprehension, the measure concocted by a combination of erstwhile foes.[607] The Nullifiers died hard, and Duff Green, the pen of Nullification, made printer to the Senate by this incongruous combination, in performing the hateful official duty of publishing the Force Bill in the “Telegraph,” had the impudence to dress his paper in mourning. “This is the way,” observed a Jacksonian paper, “this ungrateful wretch shows his gratitude to the Senate for his recent appointment.”[608] VIII Meanwhile, what of South Carolina?