discounts, and multiplying its debtors and dependents, was to serve a political end in the campaign of 1836, and with characteristic persistency he urged the removal of the deposits to prevent their use for political purposes.[629] Jackson himself feared the effect of loans and legal retainers to members of the Congress. In all these suspicions there was ample justification.[630] It did not require much, knowing as he did the character of the banker, to persuade Jackson that his duty was plain, and during the winter and spring of 1833 he was in frequent consultation with Roger Taney, Amos Kendall, and Frank Blair, the three men responsible for the step he took. During these days of mysterious conferences, the conservative members of the Cabinet, and Van Buren with the traditional timidity of the candidate, were gravely concerned. To none was the prospect more appalling than to Louis McLane, then Secretary of the Treasury, a conservative, a former Federalist, and a prospective candidate for the Presidency. In his anxiety he sent for Kendall, avowed his doubts, and asked for information. In the end he frankly confessed that he was not satisfied as to the wisdom of the step, but that he would execute the plan if called upon to do so by the President. The interview was friendly, and Kendall returned to his office and prepared, for McLane’s edification, an elaborate argument in favor of the removal. It is characteristic of Kendall that, while the paper lightly touched upon the alleged insecurity of the deposits, the greater part of the paper was a discussion of the political effect. The hostility of the Bank to the Administration, he thought, could not be intensified. If the deposits were placed with the State banks, they would become partisans of the Administration. The people of the Southern and Western States would be pleased, and the New York banks, always jealous of the financial preëminence of Philadelphia, would at least secretly rejoice. The New England States were not concerned, one way or the other, and could be safely ignored. And in the end, Kendall insisted that a failure to remove the deposits would make a recharter certain. That this letter, written March 16, 1833, was promptly placed in the hands of Van Buren, who was McLane’s sponsor in the Administration, there can be no doubt. The aftermath of the letter came a few days later, when Van Buren, meeting Kendall at a White House dinner, warmly protested against the plans of the Kitchen Cabinet. The genius of that famous group rose from the table in his excitement, declared that failure to remove the deposits made a Whig victory certain in 1836, and that he was prepared to lay down his pen. “I can live under a corrupt despotism,” he exclaimed, “as well as any other man by keeping out of its way, which I shall certainly do.”[631] It was the Vice-President and not the auditor of the Treasury who afterwards apologized.