The Whig politicians were determined that the Bank should be dragged into politics, and they had their way. The desire of Biddle to accept compromises proposed by McLane were ruthlessly brushed aside by his political friends. The story of the meeting at which Clay forced the issue is significant and dramatic. McLane had summoned Biddle to Washington and submitted a proposition for a recharter which, he contended, would meet with the approval of the President. After returning to Philadelphia and consulting with his directors, an agreement was reached to accept the compromise. Hurrying back to the capital, Biddle conceived the unhappy notion of first consulting with the political friends of the institution in the Congress, before calling upon McLane. Fatal error! An historical political conference was called. There, of course, was Nicholas Biddle, financial American autocrat of his time, elegant, suave, polished to scintillation, a lover of literature, a brilliant conversationalist, with a graceful epistolary style, which was as dangerous to him as loquacity to a diplomat. He had been schooled in tact while serving as the Secretary of the American Legation at Paris under Monroe. Clever, unscrupulous, practicing diplomacy where [Illustration: _N. Biddle_] straightforward methods would have served better, he had assiduously cultivated public men until he had created a bipartisan Bank party in both branches of the Congress. In his Philadelphia home the great men of his day partook of his hospitality. Before Jackson reached the Presidency, the president of the Bank of the United States was in better position to foresee the proceedings of Congress than the responsible Chief Executive of the people. Instead of concealing his power, he loved to flaunt it in the face of authority. “Emperor Nicholas” smiled and bowed blandly to his title. And there, of course, was Clay, leader of his party, the greatest genius in the Senate, seemingly destined to the presidential dignity, and for years one of Biddle’s most trusted friends and advisers. He had been on the pay-roll of the Bank as its counsel in Kentucky and Ohio. There, too, was John Sergeant, there by right as chief counsel of the Bank, but there, too, by right, as Clay’s running mate in the election, for he had been nominated for Vice-President. And there sat Webster, upon whose eloquence and wisdom the Bank had learned to lean. But he sat there that day, less as the champion of the Bank than as a partisan supporter of Clay and Sergeant. The compromise proposition was submitted by Biddle, and, after some pretense at discussion, it was vetoed by Clay and Webster, on the ground that “the question of a recharter had progressed too far to render any compromise or change of front expedient.”[455]