When Crawford flung so freely his charges of avarice and ambition about the Senate chamber, he had Samuel Smith directly in his eye; for Smith’s action was avowedly controlled by his interests, and since his speech on Macon’s bill his attitude toward public measures was better understood than before. No one could conceive Smith to be influenced by conscientious scruples about implied powers, but many persons besides Madison and Gallatin believed him to be selfish and grasping. Baltimore favored State banks, and Smith lent his reputation as a business man to the service of local politics and interests, except so far as in doing this he aimed at the overthrow of Gallatin. He gave what amounted to a pledge of his character as a merchant to the assertion that the State, banks were better, safer, and more efficient agencies for the Treasury than the Bank of the United States could possibly be. In making the speech which advanced these doctrines, he threw out an express challenge to Gallatin. “The secretary is considered by his friends a very great man in fiscal operations; in commercial matters I may be permitted to have opinions of my own.” As a commercial authority he asserted that government had much greater control over the State banks than over the United States Bank; that more confidence could be put in the security of the State banks than in that of the National Bank; that they could more easily effect the necessary exchanges; that they were as prudently conducted; that the National Bank did not act as a check upon them, but they acted as a check upon it; that the ordinary and extraordinary business of the Treasury could be as effectually and securely done by the State banks; and that the liquidation of the United States Bank would “be remembered nine days and not much longer.” When five years afterward the fallacy of these opinions became too notorious for question, Smith did not, like Clay, throw himself on the justice of his country or admit his errors, but he voted to re-establish the Bank in a far more extensive form, and took the ground that it was the only means of repairing mistakes which he had been a principal agent in making. The other speeches made in this debate, although quite equal in ability to these, carried less political weight, for they implied less factiousness. One remained, which excited no small curiosity and some amusement.