redecessor. In organizing, the House passed over Macon, who
belonged to the old school of statesmen, and chose as Speaker Henry
Clay, who had exchanged his seat in the Senate for this more stirring
arena. Clay's conception of the Speakership was novel. He was determined
to be something more than a mere presiding officer. As a leader of his
party he proposed to use his powers of office to shape legislation. His
heart was set upon an aggressive policy. War had no terrors for him. He
therefore named his committees with the possibility of war in mind.

There were many young men who shared Clay's impatience with the policy
of peaceable coercion and its humiliating sequel. Grundy, of Tennessee,
had been elected because he openly favored war. He admitted that he was
"anxious not only to add the Floridas to the south, but the Canadas to
the north of this Empire." John C. Calhoun, a new member from South
Carolina, openly repudiated the restrictive system of the President as a
mode of resistance suited neither to the genius of the people nor to the
geographical character of the country. "We have had a peace like a war,"
he cried; "in the name of Heaven let us not have the only thing that is
worse--a war like a peace!" Clay left the chair frequently to stir the
House by his glowing eloquence. Whatever else might be said about these
young stalwarts, no one could doubt their ardent nationalism and
devotion to the Union. Even the President was moved to allude gently in
his annual message to the duty of assuming "an attitude demanded by the
crisis and corresponding with the national spirit and expectations."

The response of Congress was exasperatingly slow. It was January before
a bill to increase the standing army by twenty-five thousand men became
law. Another month passed before Congress would agree to a bill
authorizing the President to raise a volunteer force of fifty thousand
men. No arguments would move the House to vote an appropriation of seven
and a half million dollars for a navy of twenty frigates and twelve
ships-of-the-line. Even more discouraging was the reluctance of Congress
to anticipate the financial drain of war by levying the internal revenue
taxes which Gallatin strongly recommended, now that Congress had
suffered the charter of the National Bank to expire. Without that
important instrument of credit, he saw no alternative but to revive the
excise which was so hateful to Republicans. In the end Congress
authoriz