When in early May the Poindexter resolutions were called up for final consideration, the debate was closed by Webster in a constitutional argument pitched upon a higher plane than that of personalities, and interspersed with passages of eloquence seldom equaled even by him.[736] Nothing reveals the inability of the senatorial oligarchy to understand the altered spirit of the people so well as his contention that the Senate was expected to stand between the people and the tyranny of Executive power. The fact that the peaceful revolution of 1828 was a rising of the people against the aristocracy of the old congressional clique does not appear to have occurred to Webster or his party friends at any time during the Jacksonian period. When Webster concluded, the last word for the Administration was spoken by its most eloquent spokesman, who, better than any other, was temperamentally fitted to meet the New England orator upon the high plane he had chosen, John Forsyth. Webster rejoined, briefly, the vote was taken, and the resolutions passed with a margin of eleven votes. VIII Meanwhile the battle over the deposits was being fought in the House, albeit with less vituperation and abuse. John Quincy Adams, one of the Bank’s leaders, looked upon the proceedings in both Houses with cynical amusement as being the mere ebullitions of party politics with no terminal facilities. Though a talkative member, his name appearing ninety-three times during the session, he made none of the principal speeches on the leading questions; but whenever his vote was required, it was cast for the Bank, and whenever his advice was solicited, it was given. The more active leadership of the tempestuous McDuffie, whose partiality for the Bank had displaced him in the chairmanship of the Ways and Means Committee, was more in evidence. But more impressive than either in the front rank of the Bank champions was a new member whose extraordinary ability placed him immediately with the foremost of congressional orators. When Horace Binney entered the House, he was in his fifty-third year, at the height of his forensic fame, and at the head of the Philadelphia Bar. He was, perhaps, the sole figure among the Bank leaders in House or Senate who was not moved in the slightest degree by political considerations. He had overcome his distaste for political controversy and entered the House with the sole purpose of protecting, as best he could, the interest of the institution of which he had, but the year before, become a director. He was as much the attorney and special pleader of the Bank in the House as he could have been in the courts. His physical appearance alone would have distinguished him in any assembly. Tall, large, and perfectly proportioned, he has been described by one who observed him during the Bank fight as “an Apollo in manly beauty.”[737] As an orator he was of the Websterian mould. He spoke with great deliberation, and with perfect