To get the right perspective upon these speeches, it should be borne in mind that at the time of their delivery the business men were openly charging Biddle with responsibility for the panic. Niles’s “Register” had admitted that the Bank’s power was too great, and the “St. Louis Republican,” a stanch supporter of the Bank, had turned upon it with a bitter denunciation of its course.[733] Thus, however, the debate began, and in this spirit was it continued for a month--a month of fierce invective. On the second day, following the philippic of Leigh, the crowds in the packed galleries clashed with cheers and hisses. Especially pleased were the galleries when, apropos of Jackson’s reference to his gray hairs, the fiery cripple compared him to Mount Ætna, “whose summit was capped with eternal snow, but which was always vomiting forth its liquid fire.”[734] The discussion finally revolved around the Poindexter resolutions not to receive. A few days later Calhoun attacked the Protest with great bitterness, and amendments were offered by both Calhoun and Forsyth. That of the Carolinian declared the President had no right to send, and the Senate no right to receive, such a document. Then the Administration disclosed its hand in the Forsyth resolution providing that “an authenticated copy of the original resolution [Clay’s] with a list of the ayes and nays, of the President’s Message and the pending resolution be prepared ... and transmitted to the Governor of each State of the Union to be laid before their legislature at the next session, as the only authority authorized to decide upon the opinions and conduct of the Senators.”[735] Here was a declaration, by indirection, from the leader of the Administration that the President was not authorized to pass upon the opinions and conduct of Senators. Had the resolution stopped there, it would not have differed materially from those of Poindexter or the resolution of Calhoun. But it declared that there was an authority to pass upon the conduct of Senators--the people who elected them to the Senate; and that, with the facts before them, they should pass upon the conduct of the public servants. This was an impressive proclamation that the Jacksonian Senators were convinced that the people sustained them; and the fact that the Forsyth resolution was defeated by a party vote was an admission from the Opposition that it lacked such faith.