On the motion of Dallas, a select committee was chosen in the Senate to consider the memorial, composed of four friends of the Bank and one enemy. In the House, the fighting began at once. Instead of requesting a select committee, McDuffie asked a reference to his own Committee on Ways and Means--packed with friends of the Bank. This was good tactics. Andrew Stevenson, Speaker of the House, and a Jacksonian Democrat, could clearly not be entrusted with the selection of a special committee. An animated debate followed, and the McDuffie motion prevailed by a narrow margin of ten votes. But that was not to be the end of the matter--not so long as there was a Jackson in the White House, a Benton in the Senate, and a Kendall on the side lines. The plan of parliamentary warfare was devised by the master parliamentarian from Missouri. It contemplated numerous amendments and elaborate discussion in the Senate; and in the House, an investigation into the condition and methods of the Bank. Benton immediately furnished a new member of the House, Clayton, with an indictment in many counts, some justifiable, and others having nothing more substantial than gossip behind them. But even these served. The debate was brisk. James K. Polk led for the Administration in the strongest speech of his congressional career; and McDuffie, sincerely believing in the purity of the Bank, and fearing the effect of opposition to an investigation, making only a perfunctory objection. At the time it was presented, Biddle was relying for information on Charles Jared Ingersoll, who had been sent to Washington in an attempt to conciliate Jackson, and was in constant communication with Livingston and McLane. It is significant of Jackson’s methods that his Secretary of State authorized Ingersoll to inform Biddle that the President had nothing to do with the resolution, wished to end the matter that session, and would sign a rechartering measure if satisfactorily framed.[457] But the easy capitulation of McDuffie in permitting the passage of the resolution caused poignant distress in Bank circles. Ingersoll concluded that the Carolinian preferred to have the tariff debate precede that on the Bank.[458] Thus the investigation was ordered. The apologists for the Bank among historians persist in the fallacy that its enemies had no expectation of finding anything wrong. This is a remarkable conclusion. Benton thoroughly expected it. The son of Alexander Hamilton had no doubt of it.[459] Jackson was serious about it. “The affairs of the Bank I anticipated to be precisely such as you have intimated,” he wrote to Hamilton. “When fully disclosed, and the branches looked into it will be seen that its corrupting influence has been extended everywhere that could add to its strength and secure its recharter. I wish it may not have extended its influence over too many members of Congress.”[460]