354 HARRISON, TYLER 



Mr. Clay's bill, John Minor Botts was sent to the White 

 House with a private suggestion for a compromise. 

 Mr. Tyler refused to listen to the suggestion except 

 with the understanding that, should it meet with his 

 disapproval, he should not hear from it again. The 

 suggestion turned out to be a proposal that Congress 

 should authorize the establishment of branches of the 

 district bank in any state of which the legislature at 

 its very next session should not expressly refuse its 

 consent to any such proceeding ; and that, moreover, 

 in case the interests of the public should seem to 

 require it, even such express refusal might be disre- 

 garded and overridden. By this means the obnoxious 

 institution might first be established in the Whig 

 states, and then forced upon the Democratic states 

 in spite of themselves. The President indignantly 

 rejected the suggestion as " a contemptible subterfuge, 

 behind which he would not skulk." The device 

 nevertheless became incorporated in Mr. Clay's bill, 

 and an impression got abroad that it was put there in 

 order to smooth the way for the President to adopt the 

 measure, but that in his unreasonable obstinacy he 

 refused to avail himself of the opportunity. After his 

 veto of August 1 6 these tortuous methods were 

 renewed. Messengers went to and fro between the 

 President and members of his cabinet on the one hand 

 and leading Whig members of Congress on the other, 

 conditional assurances were translated into the indica- 

 tive mood, whispered messages were magnified and 

 distorted, and presently appeared upon the scene an 

 outline of a bill that it was assumed the President 

 would sign. This new measure was known as the 

 " fiscal corporation " bill. Like the fiscal bank bill, it 



