AND THE WHIG COALITION 329 



he was admitted to the bar, and had already begun 

 to obtain a good practice when he was elected to the 

 legislature, and took his seat in that body in Decem- 

 ber, 1811. He was here a firm supporter of Mr. 

 Madison's administration, and the war with Great 

 Britain, which soon followed, afforded him an oppor- 

 tunity to become conspicuous as a forcible and per- 

 suasive orator. One of his earliest public acts is 

 especially interesting in view of the famous struggle 

 with the Whigs, which in later years he conducted 

 as President. The charter of the first bank of the 

 United States, established in 1791, was to expire in 

 twenty years, and in 1811 the question of renewing 

 the charter came before Congress. The bank was 

 very unpopular in Virginia, and the assembly of that 

 state, by a vote of 125 to 35, instructed its senators 

 at Washington, Richard Brent and William E. Giles, 

 to vote against a recharter. The instructions de- 

 nounced the bank as an institution, in the founding 

 of which Congress had exceeded its powers and 

 grossly violated state rights. Yet there were many 

 in Congress who, without approving the principle 

 upon which the bank was founded, thought the eve 

 of war an inopportune season for making a radical 

 change in the financial system of the nation. Of 

 the two Virginia senators, Brent voted in favour of 

 the recharter, and Giles spoke on the same side, 

 and although, in obedience to instructions, he voted 

 contrary to his own opinion, he did so under pro- 

 test. On January 14, 1812, Mr. Tyler, in the Vir- 

 ginia legislature, introduced resolutions of censure, 

 in which the senators were taken to task, while the 

 Virginia doctrines, as to the unconstitutional char- 



