=361. Jackson and the Bank.=—Meanwhile Jackson, though on the whole a Southern sympathizer, had a battle of his own to fight that interested him far more than the slavery contest. He had an agriculturist’s suspicion of capitalists, and in particular saw in the Bank of the United States a greedy monopoly worked in the interests of his political enemies.[159] Accordingly he early declared war against that institution, which was at that time in good condition. Henry Clay, his chief rival, took up the issue, and in 1832 had a bill passed for rechartering the corporation. Jackson at once vetoed it, and the country sustained him in the campaign of 1832, in which Henry Clay, as candidate of the National Republicans,[160] and William Wirt as candidate of the short-lived party known as the Anti-Masons,[161] were ignominiously defeated. =362. Removal of the Deposits.=—Encouraged by the popular support he had received, and believing firmly, and rightly, it would seem, that the bank was a dangerous monopoly, Jackson now resolved to deal it a crushing blow. He secured, after some trouble, a coöperating Secretary of the Treasury in Roger B. Taney of Maryland, and through him had an order given for the withdrawal of the deposits of public money in the bank and its branches.[162] This move might under other circumstances have been a wise one, but it was made in an impolitic manner; and by crippling the bank at a period when the nation was carried away by a craze for speculation, it probably helped to pave the way for the great financial panic of 1837. It also brought upon Jackson a vote of censure by the Senate, which he answered in a vigorous protest, and which his friends later, under the lead of Benton, by a rather farcical procedure succeeded in expunging from the _Senate Journal_.