Among the Senators the treaty met with jeers and scowls. "Great Jehovah!" exclaimed Lieutenant W. T. Sherman on learning its terms; it is "just such a one as Mexico would have imposed on us had she been the conqueror"; and so thought a number of the Senators. It is a mere piece of waste paper, cried many; the impudent, perhaps traitorous, work of a discredited agent, whom the President had ordered out of Mexico; and it would be undignified, ridiculous, degrading, to accept such a thing. The war party opposed it. The annexationists opposed it. The no-territory men opposed it. The Little Unionists, who thought the country too big already, opposed it. Not a few hated to think of letting Polk elude them so easily.[32.21] But suddenly the head of John Quincy Adams, as he sat in the House, dropped. He was borne to the Speaker's room. "This is the last of earth; I am content," murmured the venerable statesman. For two days he lingered, unconscious; and then he passed away. This tragic event had a deep effect. There fell a hush, as when snow descends upon the city pavement. The sessions of Congress were suspended. Senators were prevented from announcing their positions hastily. And when discussion began once more, it was resumed with a new feeling of seriousness, a new sense of responsibility.[32.21] [THE TREATY BEFORE THE SENATE] If the President could put up with Trist and his work, surely the Senate could, one began to think; and in every way Polk's virtual endorsement gave the paper enough respectability. Politics played a leading rôle in almost every mind, but after a little it seemed like bad strategy to vote against the glory and the territory ensured by its terms. The committee on foreign relations, which decided to throw the treaty aside and send an "imposing" commission to do the work over, dropped the scheme when Polk told them bluntly this would be "worse than an idle ceremony." Benton, thoroughly angry at the administration because Frémont, his son-in-law, had been condemned for insubordination in California; Berrien, wedded to his "no-territory" idea; Corwin, anxious perhaps to have more Americans find hospitable graves in Mexico; Webster, who asserted that California and New Mexico were "not worth a dollar"; and certain other Senators, committed for this or that reason, were beyond argument; but all their hopes failed.[32.22]