And he, too, eagerly accepted the challenge of Webster: “Why debate the Bank question now, and not before?” he asked. “With what object do they speak? Sir, this _post facto_ debate is not for the Senate, nor the President, nor to alter the fate of the Bank Bill. It is to arouse the officers of the Bank--to direct the efforts of its mercenaries in their designs upon the people--to bring out its streams of corrupting influence, by inspiring hope, and to embody all its recruits at the polls to vote against Jackson. Without an avowal we would all know this; but we have not been left without an avowal. The Senator from Massachusetts commenced his speech by showing that Jackson must be put down; that he stood as an impassable barrier between the Bank and a new charter; and that the road to success was through the ballot boxes at the presidential election. The object of this debate is then known, confessed, declared, avowed; the Bank is in the field; enlisted for the war; a battering ram--the catapulta, not of the Romans but of the National Republicans [Whigs]; not to beat down the walls of hostile cities, but to beat down the citadel of American liberty; to batter down the rights of the people; to destroy a patriot and a hero; to command the elections and to elect a Bank President.” Thus the politicians sounded the keynotes of the two parties in the approaching campaign in the country. The debate was not to end without its serio-comedy. Benton had criticized Clay for lack of decent courtesy to the President, and when he resumed his seat, Clay arose to question the Missourian’s qualification to pass on decent courtesy, and to revive the story that Benton had once said that should Jackson ever reach the Presidency, Senators “would have to legislate with pistols and dirks.” Benton excitedly denied it. The lie was passed. The angry statesmen were called to order and forced to apologize to the Senate, and thus the Whig nominee for the Presidency closed the debate in a none too dignified fashion. The necessary two thirds to override the veto could not be mustered, and Clay left Washington on the adjournment of Congress, July 16th, happy in the knowledge that “something had turned up” that would force the Bank and all its resources and influence to battle with a personal motive for his election. And Jackson and his friends were jubilant. Thus ended one of the longest and most bitter sessions the American Congress had ever known, “fierce in the beginning, and becoming more furious to the end.”[478] CHAPTER IX THE DRAMATIC BATTLE OF 1832 I