302 ANDREW JACKSON 



the bank by Democratic representatives were investi- 

 gated by a committee, which returned a majority report 

 in favour of the bank. A minority report sustained 

 the charges. After prolonged discussion the bill to 

 renew the charter passed both houses and July 10, 

 1832, was vetoed by the President. An attempt to 

 pass the bill over the veto failed of the requisite two- 

 thirds majority. 



Circumstances had already given a flavour of per- 

 sonal contest to Jackson's assaults upon the bank. 

 There was no man whom he hated so fiercely as 4 Clay, 

 who was at the same time his chief political rival. 

 Clay made the mistake of forcing the bank question 

 into the foreground, in the belief that it was an issue 

 upon which he was likely to win in the coming presi- 

 dential campaign. . Clay's movement was an invitation 

 to the people to defeat Jackson in order to save the 

 bank ; and this naturally aroused all the combative- 

 ness in Jackson's nature. His determined stand im- 

 pressed upon the popular imagination the picture of a 

 dauntless " tribune of the people " fighting against the 

 "monster monopoly." Clay unwisely attacked the 

 veto power of the President, and thus gave Benton an 

 opportunity to defend it by analogies drawn from the 

 veto power of the ancient Roman tribune, which in 

 point of fact it does not at all resemble. The discus- 

 sion helped Jackson more than Clay. It was also a 

 mistake on the part of the Whig leader to risk the 

 permanence of such an institution as the United 

 States Bank upon the fortunes of a presidential cam- 

 paign. It dragged the bank into politics in spite of 

 itself, and by thus affording justification for the fears 

 to which Jackson had appealed, played directly into 



