At the beginning of the session, December, 1831, with the charter five years to run, we are confronted with the mystery of the injection of the issue at that time. We know, however, that the strain of uncertainty had been telling on Biddle’s temper. The vultures that play on the political necessities of corporations were beginning to swoop down upon him. Duff Green, of the “National Telegraph,” had applied for a $20,000 loan.[436] And mindful of the importance of propaganda, he had already decided to cultivate the press by paying it well for the publication of Bank literature.[437] But just before the opening of the congressional session, his negotiations with McLane and Livingston of the Cabinet, both friendly to the Bank, had again diverted him from his disposition to fight. In October the Secretary of the Treasury had sat in the marble-front building in Philadelphia and told him of confidential communications with the President. Anxious to keep the Bank question out of the campaign, Jackson had reluctantly consented, on the importunities of Livingston and McLane, to omit all references to the Bank in his Message. Biddle feared it would be a mistake. Would it not be better merely to remind Congress of his previous comments, and leave the decision “with the representatives of the people?” The fact that this course was followed is one of the ironies of history.[438] Hardly had this decision been reached when Clay wrote from Ashland urging an immediate application for a new charter. This was a sensational reversal of views. Not only had he previously advised Biddle differently, but in August, 1830, he had taken strong grounds against such application so long before the expiration of the existing charter. “I am not prepared,” he said then, “to say whether the charter ought, or ought not to be renewed on the expiration of its present term. The question is premature. I may not be alive to form any opinion on it. It belongs to posterity. It ought to be indefinitely postponed.”[439] This speech was to be used with deadly effect by Blair in the “Globe” a little later.[440] Even then, before reaching Washington, Clay had determined to “turn up” the Bank charter as an issue. II