Under these circumstances, it was a courageous thing in Mr. Van Buren to take up the idea anew and recommend it to Congress. Not until the session of 1839-40, however, was Congress brought to approve the plan and pass the law of July 4th, 1840, establishing the Sub-Treasury system for the keeping of the funds of the Government. During the discussion of the bill in Congress, its principle developed into a strict party question, the Democrats supporting it and the Whigs opposing it. The Whigs represented the scheme as an attempt to break down all the banks in the country, to keep the people's money locked up in the vaults of the Treasury, instead of maintaining it in circulation for their benefit, and to make the President the arbiter of the business of the country, and thus develop still further his autocratic power. The Whig protest was a capital piece of demagogism, and it proved immediately and immensely attractive to the people. Before the summer of 1840 wore {286} away it was entirely clear that the people had made up their minds to try a Whig administration, and had arrived at this resolution under the issue of the financial questions. [Sidenote: The election of 1840.] The Whig National Convention had met in December, 1839, and had adopted no platform of principles. It had conciliated the factional differences in the Whig ranks by dropping Clay and nominating General Harrison, the military hero of the party, and the Whigs were now, therefore, free to strike any note in the campaign which would please the popular ear. The victory was a clean sweep, and the Whigs immediately set about the financial legislation, which was, as they thought, to redeem the country. [Sidenote: Whig legislative projects in regard to the Bank and the tariff.] They had attributed the distress in the country chiefly to the failure to re-charter the Bank and to the reduction of the tariff. Consequently, they immediately passed a bill for the incorporation of a bank, when, to their dismay and confusion, Mr. Tyler, elected Vice-President, and, upon the sudden death of Mr. Harrison, successor to the presidential office, vetoed the bill. The leaders of the party in Congress consulted with the President in regard to a bank bill which would be acceptable to him, and drafted one which followed his suggestions in all essential principles, and contained only a few divergent details, put in probably for the purpose of preserving a show of legislative independence, but the President considered these differences essential and vetoed the second bill. The bills for suspending the reductions of the duties met with the same fate, two of them being successively vetoed. After the Bank vetoes all the members of the Cabinet, except the Secretary of State, Mr. Webster, resigned, and after the tariff vetoes Mr. Webster retired, so soon {287} as the diplomatic negotiations with Great Britain, then in progress, permitted.