While the slander battle against the pretty Peg is raging, a storm cloud of a different character is gathering over the General. Although Statesman Clay has no part in that war upon the pretty Peg, he by no means sits with folded hands in idleness.
There is a certain money-creature called the United States Bank. It is controlled by one Biddle of Philadelphia. Banker Biddle is a glistening, serpentine personage, oily and avaricious—a polished composite of assurance, greed, and lies. He is a proven and unscrupulous corruptionist, and a majority of both Senate and House wait upon his money-bidding. Under the Biddle influence, the Bank never fails to consider the mere “name” of a Congressman as perfect collateral for a loan. Even so incorrigible a bankrupt as the lion-faced Webster is good at the Biddle Bank for thousands.
Secure in its hold on Congress, and insolent—as Money ever is when it feels secure—the Biddle Bank thinks to crack a political whip. The main bank is in Philadelphia. There are twenty-five branch banks scattered here and there throughout the country. In pursuance of its determination to dominate politics, the Biddle Bank suddenly refuses loans to the General's friends. Banker Biddle and the Bank are secretly moved to these doughty attitudes by Statesman Clay, who, with his party of the Whigs, has for long been their ally.
Statesman Clay, in possession of the machinery of his party, is resolved to put his own name forward at the head of the next Whig ticket against the formidable General. He foresees that Statesman Calhoun—who is of the General's party of the Democrats—will come to utter grief in his intrigues to supplant the General and make himself a candidate. And yet, the blue-grass Machiavelli can use Statesman Calhoun. The latter is powerful with the Senate. The Senate hates the General as blindly as does Statesman Calhoun.
Machiavelli Clay resolves to have advantage of this double condition of hatred. He will beguile the General to attack the Biddle Bank. The attack can only be made by message to Congress. That should be the opportunity of Machiavelli Clay. He will have the Senate for the battle ground; and it shall go hard if he do not emerge with the General defeated and the Bank and Banker Biddle at his back. With such friends in the campaign to come later he should have the General and his party of democracy at his mercy. Thus dreams Machiavelli Clay.
It is a beautiful dream—this long-drawn chicane of Machiavelli Clay. As a move toward its realization he suggests the policy of a loan hostility toward the General's friends; for the General will fight almost as quickly for a friend as for a woman.
Banker Biddle adopts it, and the Bank develops it in Portsmouth. The paper of one of the General's friends—a Mr. Isaac Hill—is dishonored, and the General's friendship is understood to be the reason. The thing is managed like a challenge, and has the instant effect of bringing the General—ever ready for such a war—to the field. In its invidious attitude toward his friends, the Bank throws down the glove; and the General promptly picks it up. In a message to Congress, he assails the Bank; and the fight is on.