Such, however, were the side issues of the session. The real fight was waged on Clay’s resolutions to censure, and later on the President’s Protest. Clay opened the debate on the censure resolutions in a three-days speech bristling with extravagant invective--a tremendous philippic, not only against Jackson’s Bank policy, but against his entire presidential career. Intended to serve outside the Senate Chamber in alarming the people, his appeal was to the passions and the fears of the multitude. The central idea of it all was that all power was being concentrated in one man. The constitutional rights of the Senate had been outraged. The public domain was threatened with sacrifice. The Indian tribes had been miserably wronged. Even the tariff was in danger. An “elective monarchy” was all but established. On every hand was depression, suffering, gloom. The power over the purse had been lodged with that over the sword--a combination fatal to free government. The President’s conduct had been lawless. Such, in brief, was the tone and temper of one of the greatest philippics that ever poured from the lips of Clay.[712] As he sank into his seat, Benton instantly began his three-days reply, meeting the attack with a counter-offensive. “Who are these Goths?” he demanded--referring to Clay’s call upon the people to drive the Goths from the Capitol. “They are President Jackson and the Democratic Party--he just elected President over the Senator himself, and the party just been made a majority in the House--all by the votes of the people. It is their act which has placed these Goths in possession of the Capitol to the discomfiture of the Senator and his friends.” Calhoun followed in a speech of an hour and a half in support of the resolutions, proclaiming the coalition. “The Senator from Kentucky anticipates with confidence,” he said, “that the small party who were denounced at the last session as traitors and disunionists will be found on this trying occasion in the front rank, and manfully resisting the advance of despotic power.” But Calhoun’s intellectual self-respect deterred him from contending that the removal of Duane was an act of Executive usurpation. Then followed Rives in a manly defense of the Administration which he well knew would force his retirement from the Senate under the instructions of the Virginia Legislature. And then the new orator of the Opposition, William Campbell Preston, entered the lists, attacking Government directors for furnishing the President with a report of the Bank’s activities. The President had no right to ask information, and the directors no right to comply. The galleries were moved to applause, and the Carolinian took his place among the popular orators of the day.[713] Forsyth followed Preston, to be succeeded by Grundy, who was trailed by Frelinghuysen for the resolutions.