Advocates of these national enterprises were encouraged by a clause in the Bank bill of 1816. In order to compel the State banks to resume specie payment and to rearrange the national finances after the war, the Republicans had been compelled to resort to the infamous Hamiltonian remedy of chartering a United States bank. Only financial desperation could warrant the adoption of a suggestion which the party had rejected five years before. Unconstitutionally scarcely had a mention in the debates on the bill. Republican speakers and writers advocated a bank as eagerly as they had opposed one in 1791 and 1811. Calhoun was in favour of a new bank and Webster was opposed to it. This second bank was chartered, like the first, for twenty years. It had a similar plan of organisation, although with a larger capital. It differed most in offering to the National Government, not only a share of stock, but a "bonus," or gift, of a million and a half dollars for the privilege of the charter. Visions of internal improvements made possible by such a handsome gift immediately arose in the minds of some, although suspicion was the strongest feeling in the minds of others. The proposition was precisely along the Federalist idea of invested interests purchasing a monopoly from the Government, and was viewed in that light by old Republicans. It was denounced as a bribe similar to that given Parliament by the East India Company. Such scruples were overcome by comparing the "bonus" to the fee paid the National Government for a patent, which gave to the holder a monopoly, or to the free passage granted troops over toll bridges in payment for a State charter. Undoubtedly the desire to use this money for public improvements aided in securing the passage of the Bank bill. These hopes assumed shape in the next session in "An act to set apart and pledge certain funds for internal improvements," which pledged the proceeds of the "bonus" for constructing roads and canals, and improving the navigation of watercourses. It was passed by a close vote in each branch of Congress, after a long debate in the House upon the powers of the General Government. This debate showed Calhoun, the future spokesman of State rights, in favour of extended expenditures in the various States without constitutional restriction, and Timothy Pickering, former member of John Adams's Cabinet, in the attitude of denying the right of the National Government under the implied powers to expend a dollar without the consent of the State in which the improvement lay. Neither would he admit that the regulation of commerce included more than waterways. It was an additional evidence of the reversal of parties.