Giles had long been in open opposition to the President, he had intrigued with every other factious spirit to embarrass the Government, and had scandalized his own State by the bitterness of his personal hatreds; but he had not before shown himself ready to sacrifice the nation to his animosities. Every one knew that had he expected to give the Administration the splendid success of a military triumph, he would never have thrust upon it an army competent to the purpose. Every one believed that he hoped to ruin President Madison by the war that was threatened, and wished to hasten the ruin before the next autumn election. Those who had watched Giles closely knew how successfully he had exerted himself to cripple the Treasury,--how he had guided the attacks on its resources; had by his single vote destroyed Gallatin’s only efficient instrument, the Bank; had again by his single vote repealed the salt tax against Gallatin’s wishes; and how he had himself introduced and supported that repeal of the embargo which broke the influence of Gallatin and went far to ruin Madison’s Administration before it was fairly in office. So notorious was his conduct that Senator Anderson of Tennessee and his colleague G. W. Campbell, in replying, went to the verge of the rules in charging Giles with motives of the blackest kind. Campbell pointed out that Giles’s army would frustrate its own objects; would be unable to act against Canada as quickly as would be necessary, and would cause needless financial difficulty. “I trust,” continued Campbell, “it is not the intention of any one by raising so large a regular force, thereby incurring so great an expenditure beyond what it is believed is necessary, to drain your treasury, embarrass your fiscal concerns, and paralyze the best concerted measures of government. If, however, such are the objects intended, a more effectual mode to accomplish them could not be adopted.” Giles’s speech offered an example, unparalleled in American history, of what Campbell described as “the malignity of the human mind;” but although his object was evident, only twelve senators supported Madison, while twenty-one voted for Giles’s army. As though to prove the true motive of the decision, every Federalist senator voted with Giles, and their votes gave him a majority.