And there sat Webster, upon whose eloquence and wisdom the Bank had learned to lean. But he sat there that day, less as the champion of the Bank than as a partisan supporter of Clay and Sergeant.
The compromise proposition was submitted by Biddle, and, after some pretense at discussion, it was vetoed by Clay and Webster, on the ground that “the question of a recharter had progressed too far to render any compromise or change of front expedient.”[455]
A little nonplussed, Biddle and Sergeant retired for further consideration, and returned to the conference with the politicians in the evening still convinced that the McLane compromise should be accepted. And it was then that Clay and Webster, by assuming an injured air, literally blackmailed their Philadelphia friends into the acceptance of their plan, asserting their ability at the time to carry the charter through in the face of a veto, but significantly adding that they would no longer be responsible for anything that might occur “if in the heat of the contest the Bank, abandoning its reliable friends, should strike hands with its foe.”[456] Thus it was neither Jackson nor Biddle that forced the Bank into the campaign of 1832, but Henry Clay, thinking solely in terms of politics and self-interest, as he saw them.
III
The winter roads between Philadelphia and Washington were ribbons of mud, cut across by frozen streams. A stagecoach, bumping and splattering through the mire, struck an obstruction, turned over, and General Cadwalader, with the Bank’s memorial in his pocket, arose from the wreck with an injured shoulder that was to delay its presentation to the Congress. But three weeks after the conference in Washington it was delivered into the hands of its friends.
In the Senate it was presented by a Democrat, George M. Dallas of Pennsylvania, acting under strict instructions from the Legislature of his State, but very much against his personal judgment. In the House it was entrusted to one who could act with greater spirit, because of venomous hostility to Jackson—the vehement and picturesque McDuffie.
On the motion of Dallas, a select committee was chosen in the Senate to consider the memorial, composed of four friends of the Bank and one enemy. In the House, the fighting began at once. Instead of requesting a select committee, McDuffie asked a reference to his own Committee on Ways and Means—packed with friends of the Bank. This was good tactics. Andrew Stevenson, Speaker of the House, and a Jacksonian Democrat, could clearly not be entrusted with the selection of a special committee. An animated debate followed, and the McDuffie motion prevailed by a narrow margin of ten votes. But that was not to be the end of the matter—not so long as there was a Jackson in the White House, a Benton in the Senate, and a Kendall on the side lines. The plan of parliamentary warfare was devised by the master parliamentarian from Missouri. It contemplated numerous amendments and elaborate discussion in the Senate; and in the House, an investigation into the condition and methods of the Bank. Benton immediately furnished a new member of the House, Clayton, with an indictment in many counts, some justifiable, and others having nothing more substantial than gossip behind them. But even these served. The debate was brisk. James K. Polk led for the Administration in the strongest speech of his congressional career; and McDuffie, sincerely believing in the purity of the Bank, and fearing the effect of opposition to an investigation, making only a perfunctory objection. At the time it was presented, Biddle was relying for information on Charles Jared Ingersoll, who had been sent to Washington in an attempt to conciliate Jackson, and was in constant communication with Livingston and McLane. It is significant of Jackson’s methods that his Secretary of State authorized Ingersoll to inform Biddle that the President had nothing to do with the resolution, wished to end the matter that session, and would sign a rechartering measure if satisfactorily framed.[457] But the easy capitulation of McDuffie in permitting the passage of the resolution caused poignant distress in Bank circles. Ingersoll concluded that the Carolinian preferred to have the tariff debate precede that on the Bank.[458]
Thus the investigation was ordered. The apologists for the Bank among historians persist in the fallacy that its enemies had no expectation of finding anything wrong. This is a remarkable conclusion. Benton thoroughly expected it. The son of Alexander Hamilton had no doubt of it.[459] Jackson was serious about it. “The affairs of the Bank I anticipated to be precisely such as you have intimated,” he wrote to Hamilton. “When fully disclosed, and the branches looked into it will be seen that its corrupting influence has been extended everywhere that could add to its strength and secure its recharter. I wish it may not have extended its influence over too many members of Congress.”[460]
The committee of investigation submitted three reports. The majority report charged usury, the issuance of branch bank notes as currency, the selling of coin, loans to editors, brokers, and members of Congress, donations to roads and canals, the construction of houses to rent and sell, and the sale of stock obtained from the Government through special acts of Congress. The minority report, and that of Adams, who reported separately, were laudatory of the institution. Nothing was proved. Campaign material was furnished, and nothing more.
In the midst of the fighting, on May 30th, Nicholas Biddle moved upon the capital and took personal charge of his forces. He entertained at dinners at Barnard’s. He daily repaired to the Capitol to meet emergencies. He conferred freely with Livingston and McLane, hoping through them to conciliate the President. So positive was he that the investigation, by proving nothing, had disarmed hostility, that he wrote expansively, on his arrival, of his willingness to consider with Jackson such modifications as would satisfy the President.[461] In less than a week he was disillusioned of the idea of an easy triumph. “It has been a week of hard work, anxiety and alternating hopes and fears,” he wrote Cadwalader, “but I think that we may now rely with confidence in a favorable result.”[462] All through June the battle raged in the Senate, and it was not until July 3d that the “Emperor Nicholas” was able to write of the passage of the bill by that body, and to “congratulate our friends most cordially upon their most satisfactory results.” The victory was achieved by a vote of 28 to 20, with Dallas, Wilkins, and Poindexter, among the Democrats, voting for the bill. In the House, the Bank won by a vote of 106 to 84.