He decided, with no sanction from Congress, and against the advice of his own Cabinet, that the public money already in the Bank should be drawn out as fast as it could be spent, and that no more should be deposited there. He removed the Secretary of the Treasury for refusing to carry out this plan; and obliged his successor to set about it before he was confirmed by the Senate. To all remonstrances he replied, "I take the responsibility"; and he met the vote of the Senators, that he was assuming an authority not conferred by the Constitution, by boasting that he was "the direct representative of the American people." Webster replied that this would reduce the government to an elective monarchy; and the opponents to what they called Jackson's Toryism agreed to call themselves Whigs. Their leader was Henry Clay; and they believed, like the Federalists, in centralisation, internal improvements, and protective tariffs. Jackson was sustained by the Democrats; but their quarrel with the Whigs prevented Congress from providing any safe place for the public money. It was loaned to some of the State banks; and all these institutions were encouraged to increase their liabilities enormously. Speculation was active and prices high. That of wheat in particular rose so much after the bad harvest of 1836 that there was a bread riot in New York City. Scarcely had Jackson closed his eight years of service, in 1837, when the failure of a business firm in New Orleans brought on so many others that all the banks suspended payment. Prices of merchandise fell so suddenly as to make the dealers bankrupt; many thousand men were thrown out of employment; and so much public money was lost that there was a deficit in the Treasury, where there had been a surplus.