THE BATTLE OF THE GODS
I
From the moment Congress convened, it was evident that the session was
to witness the most bitter party battle ever waged. This was inevitable
because of the realignments of the previous session, and the spirit of
the Bank. The coalition between Clay and Calhoun gave the Opposition a
clear majority in the Senate. It was common gossip four days after
Congress was called to order that “the understanding between Mr. Clay
and Mr. Calhoun” gave the Opposition all the numerical advantage.[691]
This was thoroughly understood by Jackson, Taney, Kendall, and Blair,
and all public papers regarding the removal of the deposits were
accordingly framed as appeals to the people, rather than to the bodies
to which they were addressed. The Presidential Message, in touching upon
this topic, was a campaign document and a challenge. Taney’s forceful
report submitting reasons for the removal was a defiance, and a clarion
call to the people in the corn rows, the villages, and the factories.
Thus Jackson and his friends forced the fighting from the beginning.
Clay led the onslaught with a resolution calling upon Taney for a report
on the new depositories. “I want to inquire where the Treasury of the
United States is,” he explained ironically. The bristling Benton
instantly moved a reference to committee. The Secretary of the Treasury
had “charged the Bank distinctly with interfering with the purity of
elections, with corrupting and subsidizing the press, with dishonoring
its own paper and that of its branches,” and these “charges of great
criminality” should be investigated. Affecting to ignore Benton, Clay
followed with another resolution calling upon the President to say
whether the Paper, “alleged” to have been read to the Cabinet, was
genuine, and if so, to lay a copy before the Senate. This was a stupid
tactical blunder, and John Forsyth, with his suave courtesy, which was
not always as innocent as it seemed, inquired the purpose of the
“unusual” call. Clay’s reply was a quibble. The Paper had been published
as having been read by the President, and even promulgated through the
press, and he, for one, refused to assume that it was genuine.
“If I understand the gentleman from Kentucky,” pressed the courtly
Forsyth, “he admits that with the intercourse between the President and
his Cabinet we have nothing to do.”
“I make no admission,” snapped Clay.
It was then that Forsyth revealed the theory on which the Administration
forces were to proceed. Why could not Clay indicate the purpose which
impelled him? he asked. Was it for the purpose of impeachment? Then the
call should have originated in the House, not the Senate. “When the
President should be brought to our bar, and put on trial for his
violation of the Constitution, that paper would be produced in support
of the charge,” he continued. But why should the Senate call for it? It
was accessible for all purposes of argument. He could understand the
resolution only “as a desire to prompt the other House to proceedings by
impeachment, and to condemn the President in advance.” But after Clay
had reiterated the absurd explanation that he merely sought authentic
verification of the genuineness of the Paper, the resolution was
adopted.[692] The response of Jackson was immediately made in a
dignified and unanswerable note of refusal. “As well might I be required
to detail to the Senate the free and private conversations I have held
with those officers on any subject relating to their duties,” he
said.[693] It was a sharp rebuke, richly merited, and left Clay in an
unenviable position.
The next brush came in the prompt rejection by the Senate of the
nominations of the Government directors who had furnished the report on
which Jackson had based his charge of wrongdoing. The moment their names
were sent to the Senate, Biddle began to deluge his senatorial friends
with demands for their rejection. “They are unfit to be there [on the
board],” he wrote Webster; “unfit to associate with the other
members.”[694] In the Bank circles they were denounced as “spies,” and
thus, in response to the demand of Biddle, they were rejected. Such was
the intimacy of the relation between the party of the Opposition and the
Bank of the United States. The sinister nature of this relationship is
painfully illustrated in the case of Daniel Webster, who, two weeks
after the opening of the session, had written Biddle of his rejection of
a professional employment against the Bank, with the bald suggestion
that “I believe my retainer has not been renewed or refreshed as usual,”
and that “if it be wished that my relation to the Bank should be
continued, it may be well to send me the usual retainers.”[695]
Thus the first days of the session were passed in maneuvering for
position, with frequent incidents of a petty nature indicative of the
rancorous party spirit of the times. Having observed the unobtrusive
figure of Major Lewis, that most consummate of politicians and
presidential reporters, moving about the floor of the House, Richard
Henry Wilde, poet and politician, Nullifier and Whig, framed a
resolution to exclude him, but it was defeated.[696] Meanwhile Clay was
busy mapping his campaign, preparing the resolutions on which he
proposed to make the issue. The Opposition leaders were clearly
embarrassed in determining their course of action. Webster appealed to
Justice Story, the scholarly associate of John Marshall, for an opinion
on the legal phases; and writing from Cambridge that great jurist would
not advise that the deposits could not be legally withdrawn unless
danger to their security was involved, but he advanced the theory on
which the Bank champions acted--that the Secretary of the Treasury did
not become custodian of the funds by virtue of his position in the
Cabinet, but held them as a “personal trust, and as much so as if
confided to the Chief Justice of the United States.” Thus he furnished
the Opposition with the opinion it required. The President had no right
to interfere; more--if he did interfere, and the Secretary submitted
against his own judgment, he violated his trust; and the State banks had
no proper authority to take over the deposits.[697] Unhappily, the
learned jurist failed to take the next necessary step, and conclude that
the President had no power to remove a Secretary of the Treasury.
And it was just this queer opinion that Clay was zealously seeking.
About the time Webster was appealing to Story for the elucidation of
legal points, Clay was writing to former Senator Tazewell at Norfolk, a
great constitutional lawyer, inquiring as to whether or not Jackson had
transcended his power in dismissing Duane. It must have been with some
embarrassment that he read the Virginian’s reply, that to him it was
“manifestly absurd to regard the President as responsible for the acts
of subordinate agents, and yet to deny him the uncontrolled power of
supervising them, and removing them from office whenever they had lost
his confidence.”[698] This opinion, however, did not deter some
statesmen from advancing the idea that Tazewell had contemptuously
rejected.
But the position of Story was accepted, and Clay submitted his
resolutions censuring the President, and holding the reasons given by
Taney for the removal “unsatisfactory and insufficient.” Thus the decks
were cleared for action. The real fight began in the debate that day
upon these resolutions, and upon these, and others growing out of them,
the verbal battle, which at times threatened to be other than bloodless,
raged with intemperate fury for seven months.
II
Never up to that time, nor again for more than a generation, did
Congress so completely hold the interest of the country. The great
orators of the Opposition never shone with greater luster, and by their
impassioned eloquence, and not a little of consummate histrionics, they
persuaded their followers, if not themselves, that they were actually
fighting the battle of liberty against despotism. The Democrats
contended, on the defensive, that Jackson had the right to dismiss
Duane, and that Taney had the legal right to order the removal.
It is not surprising that the little city of Washington, with all its
interests revolving about the performances at the Capitol, should have
poured forth its people daily to pack the galleries and crowd the
lobbies. The Senate Chamber became the peacock alley of fashion--they
who met at the dinner or the dance the night before mingled there in the
day-time. The debate drew many from other sections, and the belles of
country places and remote towns helped to crowd the Chamber to
suffocation.[699] In the fashionable character of the gallery audiences
we catch the hostility of the aristocracy to the President and his
party. The distress committees with their petitions were wont to pack
the galleries “applauding the speakers against the President--saluting
with noise and confusion those who spoke on his side.”[700] Confirmation
of such scenes are to be found in the official report of the
proceedings.[701] It has been the fashion to refer to the Jacksonians as
the “rabble” and the “mob,” and as partaking of the nature of the
Jacobins, but throughout the Bank fight the “mob” in the galleries,
resorting to the Jacobin methods of hissing and cheering the proceedings
on the floor, were largely confined to the enemies of the President.
The debate on the Clay resolutions had scarcely begun when the daily
arrival of distress petitions furnished a diversion in the Senate. The
memorials were lugubrious recitals of wreck and ruin, and pathetic
appeals for the restoration of the deposits. Frequently presented by
committees, the bearers repaired to the gallery to give sympathetic ear
to the mournful speeches of the Senators to whom their petitions had
been entrusted. There was a marked similarity in the petitions, and an
even more striking resemblance in the speeches. The burden of both was
that the happiness of a prosperous community had been struck down by a
tyrant, and that nothing but the restoration of the deposits could end
the agony. That the action of such men as Clay, Webster, and Calhoun, in
picturing in lurid and exaggerated colors the distress of the moment,
and predicting even greater calamities, was calculated to frighten the
timid and create panic must have been understood by them. At any rate,
these petitions were part of the leaders’ plan.[702] This phase of the
fight developed with the presentation of Clay’s resolution to “inquire
into the expediency of affording temporary relief to the community from
the present pecuniary embarrassments by prolonging the payment of
revenue bonds as they fall due.” This resolution opened the way for
Clay’s first “distress speech.” And Forsyth, who was something of a
cynic in his way, saw no objection to the resolution, provided it were
amended by instructing the committee “to inquire into the extent and
causes of the alleged distress of the community, and into the propriety
of legislative interference to relieve them.” The proposal of the
amendment gave Forsyth the opportunity to present the Administration’s
opinion of the panic. He had no doubt that there was distress, but it
had been greatly exaggerated. “Whence does it arise?” he asked. “From
the conflict--the war that the Bank is waging to get the deposits back.
The deposits have been removed. The Bank stands still to see what will
follow, and it stands still, too, that its power may be felt in every
nerve and fiber of the community--and every man shall feel the necessity
of the institution.”[703]
Thus the panic speeches began. “There sits Mr. Biddle,” rather stupidly
exclaimed one Senator, presenting a petition, “in the presidency of the
Bank, as calm as a summer’s morning, with his directors around him,
receiving his salary, with everything moving on harmoniously; and has
this strike reached him? No, sir. The blow has fallen on the friends of
the President and the country.”[704] Thus did one Opposition leader
rejoice in the serenity of the Bank and its president in the midst of
the distress of his country.
Very early the friends of the Administration took their cue from its
enemies, and began to flood the Senate with memorials against the Bank.
Thus day by day the proceedings were opened by the reading of petitions,
followed by speeches on the “distress,” and replies belittling the
panic. Mr. Clay’s heart was wrung by news of the distress in Savannah
and Augusta; whereupon Mr. Forsyth rose to deny that there was distress
in those cities. “I know the individuals,” he said. “They are highly
respectable men--merchants and members of the Bar. They are friends of
the Bank of the United States.”[705] A New Jersey Senator, opposed to
the Administration, presented conflicting petitions from his State, with
the Jackson petitions numerically the stronger. Ah, laughed Forsyth,
“from the State of New Jersey we have three cheers for one groan.”[706]
When an Opposition Senator presented a petition from Portsmouth with a
doleful tale, Senator Isaac Hill killed the effect by explaining the
dubious manner in which the signatures had been obtained. And when, a
little later, Hill undertook to present a petition of the New Hampshire
Legislature against the Bank, Webster moved to lay it on the table. In
truth the actions of legislatures were beginning to annoy the
panic-breeders. Maine, New York, New Hampshire, and other States had
spoken in support of Jackson’s policy. It became necessary to devote
more attention to that end of the petition business. “What is doing in
your legislature about the deposits?” Clay wrote to his friend, Judge
Brooke of Virginia. “We want all aid here on that subject which can be
given us from Richmond.”[707] And when the Legislature acted, John Tyler
lost all patience with the Governor for not sending the petition on at
once. “The resolutions of the legislature have not yet reached me,” he
wrote impatiently to Mrs. Tyler, “nor can I conceive what Floyd is after
that he does not forward them.”[708] They arrived in time, and Webster
did not move to lay them on the table.
Then, with the effect of a bomb exploding among the Bank champions, came
the message of Governor Wolf of Pennsylvania, denouncing the Bank for
responsibility for the depression. Clay lost no time in denouncing him
as a man worshiper, albeit the Governor had previously favored the Bank.
Another Bank Senator rushed forward with a resolution “disapproving the
vacillating or time-serving policy of the Governor of Pennsylvania,”
while Forsyth and others criticized the taste of the proceedings.[709]
Thus the battle of the petitions went merrily on, some spontaneous, most
inspired by the Bank agents, while the conflicting memorials were
conceived to offset the intended effect. As the weeks extended into
months, and the depression began to lift, extraordinary efforts were
made to reawaken the country against the “tyrant in the White House.”
Webster harangued a crowd in New York City; but the major part of the
platform propaganda work was assigned to McDuffie, who better than most
men knew how to “ride on the whirlwind and direct the storm”; to
Preston, who could arouse men to frenzy or move them to tears; and to
Poindexter, who was a veritable fire-eater. These three consummate
mob-baiters set forth on a journey that took them to Baltimore,
Philadelphia, and New York. The orators reached Baltimore on Sunday. But
no matter; as a minister of the Gospel piously said, “in revolutionary
times there were no Sabbaths,” and the meeting was held. It was on this
occasion that McDuffie, with the true spirit of the demagogue, solemnly
discussed the “rumor” that Jackson, the tyrant, might attempt to dismiss
Congress at the point of the bayonet, and promised that “ten days after
the entrance of the soldiers into the Senate Chamber, to send the
Senators home, 200,000 volunteers would be in Washington.”[710]
Meanwhile the Kitchen Cabinet was capitalizing all the intemperate
attacks upon Jackson, and Blair was publishing letters in the “Globe”
threatening the life of the President if he did not restore the
deposits. One of these recited that three young men in New York had been
selected to “proceed in the course of the present month to the capital,
there to put in execution the design entrusted to their hands.”[711]
III
Such, however, were the side issues of the session. The real fight was
waged on Clay’s resolutions to censure, and later on the President’s
Protest. Clay opened the debate on the censure resolutions in a
three-days speech bristling with extravagant invective--a tremendous
philippic, not only against Jackson’s Bank policy, but against his
entire presidential career. Intended to serve outside the Senate Chamber
in alarming the people, his appeal was to the passions and the fears of
the multitude. The central idea of it all was that all power was being
concentrated in one man. The constitutional rights of the Senate had
been outraged. The public domain was threatened with sacrifice. The
Indian tribes had been miserably wronged. Even the tariff was in danger.
An “elective monarchy” was all but established. On every hand was
depression, suffering, gloom. The power over the purse had been lodged
with that over the sword--a combination fatal to free government. The
President’s conduct had been lawless. Such, in brief, was the tone and
temper of one of the greatest philippics that ever poured from the lips
of Clay.[712] As he sank into his seat, Benton instantly began his
three-days reply, meeting the attack with a counter-offensive. “Who are
these Goths?” he demanded--referring to Clay’s call upon the people to
drive the Goths from the Capitol. “They are President Jackson and the
Democratic Party--he just elected President over the Senator himself,
and the party just been made a majority in the House--all by the votes
of the people. It is their act which has placed these Goths in
possession of the Capitol to the discomfiture of the Senator and his
friends.”
Calhoun followed in a speech of an hour and a half in support of the
resolutions, proclaiming the coalition. “The Senator from Kentucky
anticipates with confidence,” he said, “that the small party who were
denounced at the last session as traitors and disunionists will be found
on this trying occasion in the front rank, and manfully resisting the
advance of despotic power.” But Calhoun’s intellectual self-respect
deterred him from contending that the removal of Duane was an act of
Executive usurpation.
Then followed Rives in a manly defense of the Administration which he
well knew would force his retirement from the Senate under the
instructions of the Virginia Legislature. And then the new orator of the
Opposition, William Campbell Preston, entered the lists, attacking
Government directors for furnishing the President with a report of the
Bank’s activities. The President had no right to ask information, and
the directors no right to comply. The galleries were moved to applause,
and the Carolinian took his place among the popular orators of the
day.[713] Forsyth followed Preston, to be succeeded by Grundy, who was
trailed by Frelinghuysen for the resolutions.
Meanwhile Webster was impressively silent. Unwilling longer to make the
Bank the football of party politics, he looked disapprovingly upon the
war of personalities. He knew that no constructive measure had been
proposed, and that Biddle’s frenzied pressure on the people was driving
supporters from the institution. He had no heart at this time for an
attack on Jackson--recalling the “reciprocal kindnesses” of the last few
months.[714] He realized that a senatorial censure and exterior pressure
would never drive Jackson to such a recharter measure as had been
proposed. And yet, in January, Calhoun was positive that the
Administration had been mortally wounded.[715] Preston was exuberantly
proclaiming that the removal of the deposits would force a recharter on
the Bank’s terms.[716] In February, when the Bank was losing ground with
the people and making no congressional converts, Clay was writing to
Brooke that “we are gaining, both in public opinion and in number in the
House of Representatives.”[717] That Clay was supremely selfish in his
relations with the Bank is generally conceded by historians now,[718]
and was keenly felt even by Biddle, who preferred a joint resolution
ordering the restoration to wasting months in wrangling over a vote of
censure. This plan he urged upon Webster, through Horace Binney of the
House. But Clay scoffed at the idea. He was more interested in making
Jackson obnoxious for party reasons than in serving his friends in
Philadelphia, and he actually felt that he was succeeding in his
purpose.
At length Webster determined to strike out for himself.
IV
Early in March he came forward with his compromise recharter measure
providing a renewal for six years only; for an abandonment of the
monopoly features to the end that Congress might, in the meantime, if it
saw fit, grant a charter to another company; for the restoration of the
deposits only after July 1st; and for the issuance of no note under the
$20 denomination. This compromise had been discussed with friends of the
Administration, who were ready to support it provided the friends of the
Bank would unite upon it. Three days later Webster addressed the Senate
on the virtues and purposes of the measure, carefully refraining from
personalities or denunciation of the President. The most militant of
Jackson’s friends could have found no fault with the orator’s treatment
of their idol. Nor did he imitate his party colleagues in an intemperate
discussion of the removal. He traced the origin of the distress to
Taney’s order; showed the relation between commerce and credit, and
between credit and banking, and effectively disposed of Jackson’s
fallacy that men who operate on credit are undeserving of consideration.
It was only in his affectation of indignation over the charge that the
Bank was deliberately contributing to the distress that he departed from
the high ground of statesmanship, and played the hypocritical
politician. But the Senators listening eagerly to his words did not know
of the letter he had written to Biddle predicting that the
“disciplining” of the people would result in a renewal of the charter,
or that he had urged upon Biddle, through Binney, that he ought to
“occasionally ease off, where it is requisite to prevent extreme
distress.” No one knew better than he that the Bank not only possessed,
but exerted, the power charged by the Administration. This aside,
Webster’s was the most dignified, impersonal, and statesmanlike speech
of the session.
But the moment he resumed his seat, the schism among the leaders of the
Opposition was emphasized when Leigh arose to announce that the Virginia
view of the unconstitutionality of the Bank would make it impossible for
him to support the bill. Three days later Calhoun criticized the measure
as only a temporary expedient, and proposed, instead, a bill of his own
providing a recharter for twelve years. The only extensive attack on the
Webster compromise, however, was that of the “Cato of the Senate,” Hugh
Lawson White, who had not up to that time wholly broken with his old
friend in the White House. Respected as a financier, he was always heard
with profound respect. He vigorously defended the removal of the
deposits on the grounds set forth in Jackson’s Message. His speech was
all the more impressive because he had advised against the removal and
his letter had been read to the Cabinet. The day before taking the
floor, he wrote of his embarrassment, but later developments having
changed his opinion, he felt it would be censurable to remain
silent.[719]
But in the end it was not the opposition of Democratic Senators that
suddenly terminated the consideration of the Webster compromise. It was
soon found that the friends of the Bank were hopelessly divided on any
constructive programme. Even in the inner Bank circles there were
clashing views. Biddle favored the Webster plan; Sergeant, the chief
counsel, and Binney, leading spokesman in the House, preferred the
Calhoun measure. Even these differences might have been reconciled but
for the selfishness of Clay, who persisted in his determination to use
the Bank for party purposes. “If Mr. C [Clay] and Mr. C [Calhoun] would
go along with us,” Webster wrote Biddle, “we could carry the compromise
bill through the Senate by a strong two thirds majority. Can you write
through anybody to talk with Mr. Calhoun?”[720] In the meanwhile Calhoun
was attempting the conversion of such Administration Senators as Benton
and Silas Wright, without success.
While these negotiations were in progress, the fury of Clay over the
independence of Webster increased in intensity, culminating in the
threat that, if the New Englander failed to move to lay his own motion
on the table, he would make the motion himself. Thus, one week after the
delivery of his speech, Webster killed his own measure. When, with the
explanation that he had been disappointed in his hopes, he made the
motion to table, John Forsyth demanded the yeas and nays to show that
Webster’s bill had not been killed by the Administration Senators, but
by his own party friends. The roll-call showed practically all the Bank
Senators voting to table, with Benton, Forsyth, White, Hill, Wright, and
Grundy voting against the motion. Thus the only practical and
constructive attempt made by the friends of the Bank to save the
institution was slaughtered in the house of its friends.[721]
V
With the accumulating evidence of impatience in the country, Clay at
length determined to bring to a vote the resolutions, submitted merely
to irritate and provoke a debate that would give the panic time to act.
So firmly was Clay convinced that the “disciplining” of the people was
working the destruction of Jackson’s popularity, that he sought to
transfer a portion of his fancied resentment to Van Buren, who was all
but certain to be the Democratic nominee in 1836.[722] There has
probably never been a more transparent bit of histrionics perpetrated
upon a deliberative body than that of Clay in his pathetic appeal to Van
Buren, seated in the chair, and with a padlock on his lips, to hasten to
Jackson with a plea for the suffering people.
“To you, sir, in no unfriendly spirit, but with feelings softened and
subdued by the deep distress which pervades every class of our
countrymen, I make this appeal,” he exclaimed, his eyes moist with
tears. “...Depict to him, if you can find language to portray, the
heartrending wretchedness of thousands of the working classes cast out
of employment. Tell him of the tears of helpless widows, no longer able
to earn their bread, and of unclad and unfed orphans, who have been
driven by this policy, out of the busy pursuits, in which, but
yesterday, they were gaining an honest livelihood.... Tell him that he
has been abused, deceived, betrayed by the wicked counsels of
unprincipled men around him. Inform him that all efforts in Congress to
alleviate or terminate the public distress are paralyzed and likely to
prove totally unavailing, from his influence upon a large portion of its
members who are unwilling to withdraw their support, or to take a course
repugnant to his wishes and feelings. Tell him that in his bosom alone,
under actual circumstances, does the power reside to relieve the
country; and that unless he opens it to conviction, and corrects the
errors of his Administration, no human imagination can conceive, and no
human tongue can express the awful consequences which may follow.”
With this piece of play-acting, Clay, looking as much distressed as one
of his petitioners, sank exhausted in his seat. Throughout the ludicrous
scene, Van Buren “maintained the utmost decorum of countenance, looking
respectfully and even innocently at the speaker all the while as if
treasuring up every word he said to be repeated to the President.”[723]
But all the while the more astute Red Fox was thinking that the speech
“would tend to strengthen greatly the attachment of his friends; would
warm up their sympathies in his behalf and concentrate their
regard.”[724] With the eyes of all upon him--and the Senate had been
really affected by Clay’s voice and manner--Van Buren called a Senator
to the chair, placidly descended to the floor as though he were not the
object of interest, deliberately walked to Clay’s seat, and, in his most
courtly manner, and with his most courtly bow, asked for a pinch of his
snuff. The startled orator gave him his snuffbox. Van Buren took a
pinch, applied it to his nostrils, returned the box, bowed again, and
resumed the chair as though nothing had happened. And the Senate smiled.
Clay’s appeal had hovered dangerously near the ridiculous, and Van Buren
pushed it over. No single incident so well illustrates the political
purpose of Clay’s activities on the removal of the deposits.
But even panics and politics cannot go on forever, and the discussion on
the Clay resolutions had covered “the longest period which had been
occupied in a single debate in either House of Congress since the
organization of the Government.”[725] Thus, on March 27th the Senate, by
a vote of 26 to 20, placed the stigma of a censure upon the action of
the President.
Jackson was now to have his inning.
VI
With mass meetings being organized against him in all sections, with the
capital crowded with hostile delegations, and with the Senators
thundering their extravagant philippics at the tyrant responsible for
the widows’ and the orphans’ woes, Jackson remained serene and
unafraid.[726] But with the adoption of the resolutions of censure, he
determined to strike back in such a way as effectively to reach the
people. There were men in those days who thought that a senatorial
censure would wreck any reputation. They had not yet sensed the spirit
of the times. Three weeks after the Senate acted, Major Donelson
appeared in the Chamber with the famous Protest. Nothing could have been
more merciless than the cold logic with which the iron man pounded the
resolutions of condemnation; nothing more biting than his reference to
those Senators supporting them, who had thus “deliberately disregarded
the recorded opinion of their States.” He solemnly protested “against
the proceedings ... as unauthorized by the Constitution, contrary to the
spirit and to several of its express provisions, subversive of that
distribution of powers of government which it has ordained and
established, destructive of the checks and safeguards by which those
powers were intended on the one hand to be controlled and on the other
to be protected, and calculated, by their immediate and collateral
effects, by their character and tendency, to concentrate in the hands of
a body, not directly amenable to the people, a degree of influence and
power dangerous to their liberties and fatal to the Constitution of
their choice.”
Not only had his public character been assailed, but imputations had
been cast upon his private character. “In vain do I bear upon my
person,” he continued in a passage of no little eloquence, “enduring
memorials of that contest in which American liberty was purchased; in
vain have I since periled property, fame, and life in defense of the
rights and privileges so dearly bought; in vain am I now, without a
personal aspiration or the hope of individual advantage, encountering
responsibilities and dangers from which by mere inactivity in relation
to a single point I might have been exempt, if any serious doubts can be
entertained as to the purity of my purpose and motives. If I had been
ambitious, I should have sought an alliance with that powerful
institution which even now aspires to no divided empire. If I had been
venal, I should have sold myself to its designs. Had I preferred
personal comfort and official ease to the performance of my arduous
duty, I should have ceased to molest it. In the history of conquerors
and usurpers, never in the fire of youth nor in the vigor of manhood
could I find an attraction to lure me from the path of duty, and now I
shall scarcely find an inducement to commence the career of ambition
when gray hairs and a decaying frame, instead of inviting to toil and
battle, call me to the contemplation of other worlds where conquerors
cease to be honored and usurpers expiate their crimes.” And he closed
with the request that the Protest be entered upon the journals of the
Senate.[727]
Whatever else may be said of this remarkable document, its effect upon
the masses of the people, idolizing Jackson as they never had another
American, was certain to be tremendous. The ideas were largely
Jackson’s. Attorney-General Butler, a brilliant lawyer, worked out the
legal end, while Amos Kendall devoted his genius to those portions
intended for political effect. The Protest appeared immediately in
Blair’s “Globe,” and was soon published in all the Administration papers
of the country.
VII
The effect on the Senate may be better imagined than described.
Poindexter, whose private grudge was the inspiration of his renegadism,
could not “express the feeling of indignation” the paper had excited in
his bosom, and he would “spurn it from the Senate”--“that body which
stands as a barrier between the people and the encroachments of
executive power.” It was not a Message--merely “a paper, signed ‘Andrew
Jackson,’” and “nothing else.”[728] Sprague of Maine, who had been
pilloried, spoke “more in grief than in anger,” and while the President
had referred to “his Secretary” and felt that this was “his Government,”
he, the Senator, “never bowed the knee to Baal.” And while the tyrant
was appealing to the people, look about. “Behold your green fields
withered; listen to the cries of distress of the widows and orphans,
rising almost in execration of the exercise of that power which has
blasted their hopes and reduced them to despair.”[729] Frelinghuysen of
New Jersey, another pilloried statesman, next arose to discuss “this
most extraordinary proceeding--one which would form an era in American
history.” What a spectacle! “When the busy hum of industry was silenced,
when the laborer was in want of employment, when banks were breaking in
every direction, and the cries for relief from the unrelenting hand of
power were heard everywhere around us,” the Senate had listened to a
lecture of an hour and a half. And why refer to the New Jersey
Legislature? He had “dared to meet the frowns of his constituents”
because of his zeal for his country.[730] Southard of New Jersey, also
pilloried by Jackson, hoped that he might “school himself into that
degree of moderation necessary for the occasion.” He could find no
excuse for Jackson’s indignation. And yet “we have received, not from
Charles I, Cromwell, or Napoleon Bonaparte, but from a man combining the
characters of the whole of them, a warning to cease our further
proceedings.”[731] And Leigh closed the day’s events by declaring
“before God that upon the fate of these resolutions, and the disposition
of this question, depends the permanency of the Constitution, handed
down to us by our fathers.”[732]
To get the right perspective upon these speeches, it should be borne in
mind that at the time of their delivery the business men were openly
charging Biddle with responsibility for the panic. Niles’s “Register”
had admitted that the Bank’s power was too great, and the “St. Louis
Republican,” a stanch supporter of the Bank, had turned upon it with a
bitter denunciation of its course.[733] Thus, however, the debate began,
and in this spirit was it continued for a month--a month of fierce
invective. On the second day, following the philippic of Leigh, the
crowds in the packed galleries clashed with cheers and hisses.
Especially pleased were the galleries when, apropos of Jackson’s
reference to his gray hairs, the fiery cripple compared him to Mount
Ætna, “whose summit was capped with eternal snow, but which was always
vomiting forth its liquid fire.”[734] The discussion finally revolved
around the Poindexter resolutions not to receive. A few days later
Calhoun attacked the Protest with great bitterness, and amendments were
offered by both Calhoun and Forsyth. That of the Carolinian declared the
President had no right to send, and the Senate no right to receive, such
a document. Then the Administration disclosed its hand in the Forsyth
resolution providing that “an authenticated copy of the original
resolution [Clay’s] with a list of the ayes and nays, of the President’s
Message and the pending resolution be prepared ... and transmitted to
the Governor of each State of the Union to be laid before their
legislature at the next session, as the only authority authorized to
decide upon the opinions and conduct of the Senators.”[735] Here was a
declaration, by indirection, from the leader of the Administration that
the President was not authorized to pass upon the opinions and conduct
of Senators. Had the resolution stopped there, it would not have
differed materially from those of Poindexter or the resolution of
Calhoun. But it declared that there was an authority to pass upon the
conduct of Senators--the people who elected them to the Senate; and
that, with the facts before them, they should pass upon the conduct of
the public servants. This was an impressive proclamation that the
Jacksonian Senators were convinced that the people sustained them; and
the fact that the Forsyth resolution was defeated by a party vote was an
admission from the Opposition that it lacked such faith.
When in early May the Poindexter resolutions were called up for final
consideration, the debate was closed by Webster in a constitutional
argument pitched upon a higher plane than that of personalities, and
interspersed with passages of eloquence seldom equaled even by him.[736]
Nothing reveals the inability of the senatorial oligarchy to understand
the altered spirit of the people so well as his contention that the
Senate was expected to stand between the people and the tyranny of
Executive power. The fact that the peaceful revolution of 1828 was a
rising of the people against the aristocracy of the old congressional
clique does not appear to have occurred to Webster or his party friends
at any time during the Jacksonian period.
When Webster concluded, the last word for the Administration was spoken
by its most eloquent spokesman, who, better than any other, was
temperamentally fitted to meet the New England orator upon the high
plane he had chosen, John Forsyth. Webster rejoined, briefly, the vote
was taken, and the resolutions passed with a margin of eleven votes.
VIII
Meanwhile the battle over the deposits was being fought in the House,
albeit with less vituperation and abuse. John Quincy Adams, one of the
Bank’s leaders, looked upon the proceedings in both Houses with cynical
amusement as being the mere ebullitions of party politics with no
terminal facilities. Though a talkative member, his name appearing
ninety-three times during the session, he made none of the principal
speeches on the leading questions; but whenever his vote was required,
it was cast for the Bank, and whenever his advice was solicited, it was
given. The more active leadership of the tempestuous McDuffie, whose
partiality for the Bank had displaced him in the chairmanship of the
Ways and Means Committee, was more in evidence. But more impressive than
either in the front rank of the Bank champions was a new member whose
extraordinary ability placed him immediately with the foremost of
congressional orators. When Horace Binney entered the House, he was in
his fifty-third year, at the height of his forensic fame, and at the
head of the Philadelphia Bar. He was, perhaps, the sole figure among the
Bank leaders in House or Senate who was not moved in the slightest
degree by political considerations. He had overcome his distaste for
political controversy and entered the House with the sole purpose of
protecting, as best he could, the interest of the institution of which
he had, but the year before, become a director. He was as much the
attorney and special pleader of the Bank in the House as he could have
been in the courts. His physical appearance alone would have
distinguished him in any assembly. Tall, large, and perfectly
proportioned, he has been described by one who observed him during the
Bank fight as “an Apollo in manly beauty.”[737] As an orator he was of
the Websterian mould. He spoke with great deliberation, and with perfect
enunciation and modulation with a voice that was full and musical.
Unlike McDuffie, he was incapable of tearing a passion to tatters. Never
noisy, even in moments of great excitement, he was always graceful and
easy in his manner. He spoke the language that Addison and Swift wrote.
He addressed the House with the same scrupulous care and the same lofty
dignity with which he would have addressed John Marshall on the Supreme
Bench, or conversed with Mrs. Livingston in her drawing-room. In social
relationships, his innate refinement could not be marred by the
free-and-easy manners of the cloak-room; his suavity could not be
disturbed by the ferocity of attack; his dignity could withstand any
circumstance. Such was the Bank’s most perfect champion in its greatest
crisis. He left his profession to serve its cause, and that cause
defeated, he gladly bade farewell to public life and returned to his
profession and his habitual peace of mind.
As chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, the burden of the battle
for the Administration fell on James K. Polk. History has settled on the
verdict that he was a man of mediocre ability, with nothing to commend
him to the admiration, and little to the respect, of posterity. But he
managed the fight for the Administration with consummate parliamentary
skill. Beset on all sides by tremendous onslaughts, he remained cool,
courteous, and fair throughout, and won the open commendation of
McDuffie for the manliness of his methods. It is impossible to turn the
yellowing pages of the “Congressional Globe,” recording the day-by-day
story of the fight, without a growing feeling of admiration for Polk. He
was never diverted from the question, never excited by attacks, patient,
and yet always pressing courteously for action. In the midst of the
frenzied partisans, he looms large.
The fight began over the reference of the Taney report and Polk’s motion
that it be referred to his committee. In explaining his reasons the
latter avowed a purpose to investigate the Bank, and the forces rushed
into action. “Why investigate,” cried McDuffie, “when admissions would
be made without an investigation?” Had Bank money been used in the
campaign? Admitted! “State your sum,” he shouted, “fifty, sixty, or a
hundred thousand.” The Congress had named a depository for the public
money; it had been removed; it must be restored--that was the subject
for debate.[738] Binney immediately arose to supplement McDuffie’s
suggestion. “What is the object of the inquiry asked for?” he demanded.
“Is it to suggest reasons for the Secretary’s act ...? If you bring in
other facts, other judgments, other reasons, you annul the judgment of
the Secretary, agree that it was wrong, and assume to exercise an
original instead of a derivative power.” If Taney had acted on
sufficient reasons, “it was for the House, on behalf of the people, to
pronounce their judgment; and if they were sufficient, then there was an
end to the question.” More: “What knowledge have we of the condition of
the banks selected by the Government?”
The State banks not safe? Polk retorted. Very well, “this constitutes
one of the chief objects of the investigation proposed.” A “question of
public faith?” as Binney had hinted. “Is it not proper, then,” asked
Polk, “for a committee ... to inquire by which party the contract was
violated?” And only to inquire into the sufficiency of Taney’s reasons?
Why, “some of the reasons given may involve the charter of the
Bank.”[739]
After a week of wrangling, the Administration won on the reference, but
the moment the vote was announced, McDuffie moved instructions to the
committee to report a joint resolution providing for the depositing of
all revenues thereafter collected in the Bank of the United States--and
this was the peg on which the main discussion hung.
The impetuous McDuffie was the first to rush into the arena. His was a
bitter, brilliant excoriation of Jackson, a fulsome glorification of the
Bank, and he thundered on for two days,[740] impassioned, in a state of
constant volcanic eruption, but little more than “a fierce attack upon
the President.”[741] One week later Polk consumed two days in a reply
which, in its moderation of tone and language and its argumentative
character, was in striking contrast to that of the vituperative
Carolinian. Defending in detail the position of Jackson, discussing the
legal and constitutional phases, citing precedents and authorities, he
built up a case for the Administration which could not have been other
than impressive in view of the attempt of most of the Bank’s champions
to answer him.[742] Another week elapsed before Horace Binney rose to
reply, in a masterpiece of parliamentary oratory. In musically flowing
sentences he described the prosperity preceding the attack upon the
Bank, the nature of the currency and credit, the effect of the shaking
of confidence, the necessity for the Bank’s curtailments, and argued
that “the control of the public deposits is inherent in the Congress.”
But had the Bank been charged with exercising political power?
“Granted--granted--the charge is granted, but the Bank has not succeeded
in this exercise of political power.... The late election proves that it
did not succeed. The force of array, legislative and executive, is
against the Bank; and it did not succeed. The act of removal was not,
therefore, an imperative and retributive act; but an act of malignant
dye--an act vindictive.” In all his historical researches he knew of
only one instance where a charter had been destroyed “on the alleged
ground of the assumption of political power.” That was in the reign of
Charles II, when, on that ground, he obtained possession of the charter
of London. “But it was restored when constitutional liberty dawned.”
Thus he approached his conclusion--a demand for the immediate
restoration of the deposits, and, speaking with a rapidity that the
reporter could not follow, launched upon his peroration, with the plea
that the question be not considered in the spirit of party, but “rather
as one affecting the general interest of the community; as one involving
the integrity of the Constitution, the stability of contracts, and the
permanence of free government; as a question involving public faith,
national existence, and the honor and integrity of the country, at home
and abroad.”[743]
Thus, refraining from personalities, and frowning upon the party aspect
of the controversy, the most clever of the Bank’s champions, speaking
with the cunning of the proverbial “Philadelphia lawyer,” attempted, too
late, to undo the work Clay had done to serve a selfish end. The night
after the conclusion of the speech found him at the White House, one of
numerous guests, and Jackson sought him, devoted himself to him with an
embarrassing assiduity, and thanked him for advocating his cause without
indulgence in personal abuse.
But it was not every Philadelphia lawyer that was to be looked upon so
kindly in Jacksonian circles. In the midst of the struggle in the House
a series of Bank articles began to appear in the “National Gazette” over
the signature of “Vindex.” It was just at the time Joseph Hopkinson, the
Federal Judge for eastern Pennsylvania, began to haunt the floor and
lobby of the House--a privilege he enjoyed by virtue of previous
membership in that body. His activity among the members became so open
as to create comment, and the “National Gazette” made a laborious
attempt to explain his presence. It was a purely social visit. He had
come on the invitation of the Judges of the Supreme Court. It was
natural that he should delight in renewing old friendships. This
explanation gave Blair his opportunity, in a column editorial, to assail
the Philadelphia jurist as a lobbyist, to insist that he had
disqualified himself to sit on any Bank case, and to challenge the
“National Gazette” to deny that he was the author of the “Vindex”
articles.
“But further we would inquire,” wrote Blair, “whether the judge is not a
debtor of the Bank as well as its anonymous vindicator? We believe he
is--and it is difficult to say whether the judge’s extreme solicitude
and activity in behalf of the Bank arises from its pecuniary favors, the
bonds of family affection which bind him to Mr. Biddle, his son having
married Mr. Biddle’s sister, or the old Federal feeling which always
distinguished him, and which inclined him against his country during the
last war, and prompted his speech after its close, declaring the Nation
was disgraced by the peace.”[744] Such was the bitterness and such were
the blunt weapons in evidence in the contest even in the House.
Early in March, Polk submitted his report justifying every step of the
Administration, and including the sensational resolution providing for
an investigation of the Bank at Philadelphia. Binney submitted a
minority report favoring the restoration of the deposits, and the debate
took a fresh start. The outstanding speech of this phase of the debate
was that of Rufus Choate, described by Adams, on the evening of its
delivery, as “the most eloquent speech of the session, and, in a course
of reasoning, altogether impressive and original.”[745] Still young, and
his public career but brief, his great intellectual labors had already
undermined his health, and even thus early in life he presented to the
House when he arose the “cadaverous look” which confronts us to-day in
the portraits of his later life.[746] With all the consummate skill
which so distinguished his advocacy in the courts, he sought to divert
the discussion from the channels it had followed. “As to the Bank
itself,” he said, “I shall go throughout on the supposition that it will
not be rechartered. I call on gentlemen to look upon the proposition to
restore the deposits merely as a temporary measure of relief.” The
crying need of the immediate hour was the use of the public money, and
this could be had in a beneficial way at the time only through the Bank
of the United States. Like Binney, he won the respect of Administration
forces, and the succeeding speaker, hostile to the restoration, found
the views expressed “new and interesting, and delivered in a tone and
spirit becoming the representatives of a free people.”[747] But the
debate dragged on without any high lights until in early April, when
McDuffie returned to the attack, still in a superheated condition, and
seeing swords and daggers gleaming in the air. Never in all history, he
thought, had “the progress of the usurpation of the Executive been more
rapid, more bold, or more successful than in the United States in the
last fifteen months.” As he sat down, the previous question was moved,
and with the appointment of tellers there fell a deep silence with the
contending forces “glowering upon each other.”[748] The roll was
called--and victory fell to the Jacksonians with an overwhelming
majority.
In pursuance of the resolutions providing for an investigation, a
committee was appointed, and with no thought of meeting opposition, it
repaired to Philadelphia, sent Biddle a copy of the resolutions,
informed him of the committee’s presence and its readiness to visit the
Bank on the following day at any hour that he would indicate. Then
followed days of struggle, with the committee obstructed at every turn
by the technical barricades thrown up by John Sergeant. It was not for
nothing, in the old days, that men characterized the cunning as “smart
as a Philadelphia lawyer.” Having exhausted their resources, the
committeemen returned to Washington and prepared reports to the House.
The minority report, submitted by Edward Everett, excused the Bank. The
majority charged contempt of the House, and asked that warrants be
issued for the arrest of Biddle and the directors. A few days later
Adams offered his resolution to discharge the committee from further
duty, setting forth that there had been no contempt, and characterizing
the proposed arrest of Biddle and his directors as “unconstitutional,
arbitrary, and an oppressive abuse of power.” If this resolution was
novel, under the circumstances, the speech in which it was supported was
even more remarkable. “The House has sent a committee to investigate the
affairs of the Bank,” Adams said. “Have they not done it? Not one word
on that subject is to be found in the report. It contains no information
on the affairs of the Bank.”[749] And how could the House enforce its
decrees? he asked. “We have not a soldier to enforce our orders.” And
Adams was more laudatory in his references to the bankers,
“distinguished for their talents,” than he ever was to political friend
or foe.
Thus nothing came of the resolutions. Perhaps nothing was expected. If
the Bank’s curt treatment of the committee amused the business element
and the Whig politicians, it delighted Kendall and Blair, for they knew
how effectively the incident could be used with the masses.
IX
After the adoption of the Poindexter resolutions no further steps were
taken in the Senate until Clay, three weeks later, presented his
resolution ordering the restoration of the deposits. This was in the
midst of the difficulties of the House committee with the Bank. Why,
demanded Benton, had it not been presented in the early part of the
session? Why now with no possibility of concurrence in the House? And
why now in the midst of a controversy between the House and the Bank,
with contempt proceedings pending against the Bank, and the House
awaiting the report of its investigation? What right had the Senate to
interfere in behalf of the Bank? He hoped the Senate would postpone the
consideration of the resolution for a week to permit the House to decide
the question of contempt.[750] Nevertheless, the Senate, by a party
vote, passed the futile resolution.
But the senatorial champions of the Bank were to encounter
embarrassments other than those growing out of the action of the House.
In May, Mr. Clay had called upon Taney for a report upon the finances.
At the time this was done, the Senate was being deluged with distress
petitions, mass meetings were being held, and the doleful senatorial
descriptions of wreck and ruin were falling mournfully upon the Senate
Chamber, day by day. It was the middle of June when Taney’s report
reached the Senate. The facts as set forth were in such startling
contrast with conditions as they had been depicted by Clay and his
followers that the Administration leaders, always clever, and always
thinking more of the voters in the country than of the politicians in
the Senate house, determined that it should have the greatest possible
publicity. The day before, Taney had summoned Benton to the Treasury,
and had gone over the report with him, furnishing him with all the data,
and preparing him for a speech that could be sent to the country. As
anticipated, the reading in the Senate had not proceeded far when
Webster arose to move that further reading be dispensed with, and the
report sent to the Finance Committee. Benton objected. The report was
read. Then Benton, in his most flamboyant mood, arose to comment upon
it.
“Well, the answer comes,” he exclaimed with the Bentonian flourish. “It
is a report to make the patriot heart rejoice, replete with rich
information, pregnant with evidences of national prosperity. How is it
received--how received by those who called for it? With downcast looks
and wordless tongues. A motion is made to stop the reading.” But he did
not propose that such a report should be disposed of “in this
unceremonious and compendious style.” No, “a pit was dug for Mr. Taney;
the diggers of the pit have fallen into it: the fault is not his; and
the sooner they clamber out, the better for themselves.” And, regardless
of the embarrassment of the conspirators, he proposed that the country
should know that “never since America had a place among nations was the
prosperity of the country equal to what it is this day.”[751]
In this exordium he did not exaggerate the story of the figures of the
report; and the report did not misrepresent the condition of the
country. The Bank panic had run out. Only its friends were now
suffering, and even Philip Hone in New York was secretly cursing the
name of Biddle.
But the enemies of the Administration in the Senate were to have their
revenge. Andrew Stevenson, for almost seven years Speaker of the House,
one of the most courtly and talented men in public life, had been
nominated for the English Mission. He resigned from the Speakership and
from Congress, and his name was sent to the Senate for confirmation. And
the political combination that, in a spirit of proscription, had refused
to confirm Van Buren, declined to confirm the man selected as his
successor. This act was too flagrant even for John Tyler, who voted to
confirm.[752] As a result of this petty policy, America was
unrepresented in England from 1832, when Van Buren was humiliated, until
1836, when a Democratic Senate confirmed Stevenson.
As the end of the session approached, Jackson sent to the Senate the
nominations of Taney and Butler, as Secretary of the Treasury and
Attorney-General. The latter was confirmed; the former rejected. But the
rejection of Taney had been considered more than probable by Jackson,
who had refrained from sending the nomination to the Senate until the
last minute. This was the first time, however, in the history of the
Government that a Cabinet officer had failed of confirmation. It was in
no sense, however, a reflection upon the man; it merely reflected the
insane bitterness of the time. On his return to Maryland, Taney was
greeted with a series of ovations. At Baltimore he was met by a
multitude and conveyed in a barouche drawn by four white horses,
escorted by a cavalcade of several hundred horsemen, and given a dinner.
Another dinner awaited him at Frederick, and another at Elkton, and each
was made the occasion for a powerful speech which made an impression on
the country.
Thus the prolonged session of Congress, lasting almost seven months,
had accomplished nothing for the Bank. The anti-Jackson Senate had
censured the President and ordered the restoration of the deposits. The
Jacksonian House had declared against the restoration of the deposits,
against the renewal of the charter, and had summoned Nicholas Biddle to
its bar for contempt. The politicians had fought the battle in Congress
to a deadlock, and the next and final fight was to be waged at the
polls.
We shall now note the effect of the sham battles of the Congress on the
people.