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.