The Whig leaders entered upon the congressional session of December in a bitter mood. Calhoun was especially vicious and in a chronic rage against the President and the Administration. The fury of the Whigs was not moderated by the fact that State Legislatures were beginning to demand the expunging from the records of the resolution of censure. Benton, in the previous session, had served notice of his intention to move to expunge, and the Kitchen Cabinet in the meanwhile had been busy in building backfires against the offending Senators among their constituents. The first State to act was Alabama. The day before Senator King presented the Alabama resolutions, during a running discussion of the revelations of mismanagement and crookedness in the Post-Office Department, Senator Preston suggested that the Senate should censure some one. Just whom he would censure was not made clear, but he did refer to the previous declaration of Jackson that he was responsible for the Executive departments. “Does any one doubt the turpitude of the Post-Office?” asked Preston. “When hardly the age of man, it is found steeped in corruption the most foul, the most melancholy. If the President is responsible, and the officers acted improperly, is this the house to present the subject? And shall we stand by without saying or doing anything in regard to the present state of things in that department?” Calhoun was instantly on his feet. He had listened to the report on the Post-Office “with sorrow and deep mortification.” After twenty-two years of connection with the Government he was able to say that “in all that time the charges of corruption against all the departments of the Government that he had ever heard of were not equal to the disclosures here made.” In truth he thought that “the exhibition would disgrace the rottenest age of the Roman Republic.” He hoped some resolution would be presented. This implied threat was not lost on the ever alert Benton, and on the following day he took the floor, reminded the Senate of his promise, declared that nothing less than the expurgation of the offensive censure would suffice, and served notice of his intention to present the resolution. This opened the first debate on expurgation. Clay, with a personal fling at Benton, saltily expressed the hope that before acting the Missourian would carefully examine the Constitution, and concluded that he would “oppose such a resolution at the very threshold.” Preston conceded that his party had been “beaten down,” and demanded to know whether “everything that we have done shall be expunged.” Calhoun would “like to see a resolution which proposed to repeal the journal--to repeal a fact.” If the thing could be done, “the Senate itself could be expunged,” and the Government itself was at an end. He was “anxious to see who would attempt to carry out the doctrines of the Protest of last year--doctrines as despotic as those which were held by the autocrat of all the Russias.”