It was during this period, however, that the "State socialistic" characteristic of radical democracy received a strong development in the Commonwealth of Kentucky, through the relief measures for debtors; which measures threatened to destroy the constitutional guarantees of private property. The "relief party" secured the legislature and the executive of the Commonwealth. The judiciary, however, stood out against them, and they did not have the necessary two-thirds majority in the legislature to remove the judges. The legislature, however, passed a new judiciary act, and created another supreme court of the Commonwealth. This scandal of judicial anarchy existed for nearly two years, when, at last, in 1826, the {196} "anti-relief" party elected a majority of the legislative members, and the new legislature repealed the act establishing the new court. Jackson's friends in Kentucky belonged almost exclusively to the "relief party," and it is hardly fanciful to attribute to this movement in Kentucky some influence in the formation of Jackson's ideas in regard to the United States Bank, and in regard to his plan for a Government bank, responsible to the people and managed for the benefit of the people. [Sidenote: Benton's attack on the Bank.] On March 3rd, 1828, Senator Benton began his warfare upon the Bank. He attacked its privilege of being the depository of Government money. He claimed that there were two or three millions of dollars of Government money used in loans by the Bank, which earned about one hundred and fifty thousand dollars a year of interest, all of which went to the stockholders of the Bank and none of it to the Government, while the Government was all the time paying interest on the public debt and taxing the people for the purpose. He wanted to take the surplus deposits out of the Bank and pay a part of the public debt with them. This was the first charge of the Western Democracy upon privilege, as being opposed to the principle of universal equality. [Sidenote: Benton repulsed.] There were, however, enough practical men in the Senate who considered this privilege as only a fair compensation for the service rendered by the Bank to the Government in transporting the Government funds without any specific return therefor, and who knew that it is not good banking to pay interest on deposits, to reject Mr. Benton's resolution. Benton repeated his motion on January 1st, 1829, but with no greater success. [Sidenote: Jackson and Benton.] After March 4th, 1829, the leadership of the party was {197} in the hands of the President, and Benton became Jackson's lieutenant in the Senate. There had been personal feuds between the two men, but they now harmonized politically, and in no point did that harmony become more complete than in the war against the Bank.