that a select committee should be intrusted with these and other
delicate questions, in order to secure a basis of compromise in the
spirit of Clay's resolutions. Believing that such a course would
indefinitely delay, and even put in jeopardy, the measure that lay
nearest to his heart,--the admission of California,--Douglas resisted
the appointment of such a committee. If it seemed best to join the
California bill with others now pending, he preferred that the Senate,
rather than a committee, should decide the conditions. But when he was
outvoted, Douglas adopted the sensible course of refusing to obstruct
the work of the Committee of Thirteen by any instructions. He was
inclined to believe the whole project a farce: well, if it was, the
sooner it was over, the better; he was not disposed to wrangle and
turn the farce into a tragedy.[354]

Douglas was not chosen a member of the select Committee of Thirteen.
He could hardly expect to be; but he contributed not a little to its
labors, if a traditional story be true. In a chance conversation,
Clay, who was chairman of the committee, told Douglas that their
report would recommend the union of his two bills,--the California and
the Territorial bills,--instead of a bill of their own. Clay intimated
that the committee felt some delicacy about appropriating Douglas's
carefully drawn measures. With a courtesy quite equal to Clay's,
Douglas urged him to use the bills if it was deemed wise. For his
part, he did not believe that they could pass the Senate as a single
bill. In that event, he could then urge the original bills separately
upon the Senate. Then Clay, extending his hand, said, "You are the
most generous man living. I _will_ unite the bills and report them;
but justice shall nevertheless be done you as the real author of the
measures." A pretty story, and not altogether improbable. At all
events, the first part of "the Omnibus Bill," reported by the