time allowed for payment, and especially by the subsequent conduct of
those receiving the accommodations.

Having taken these preliminary steps to obtain control over public
opinion, the bank came into Congress and asked a new charter. The object
avowed by many of the advocates of the bank was _to put the President
to the test_, that the country might know his final determination
relative to the bank prior to the ensuing election. Many documents and
articles were printed and circulated at the expense of the bank to bring
the people to a favorable decision upon its pretensions. Those whom the
bank appears to have made its debtors for the special occasion were
warned of the ruin which awaited them should the President be sustained,
and attempts were made to alarm the whole people by painting the
depression in the price of property and produce and the general loss,
inconvenience, and distress which it was represented would immediately
follow the reelection of the President in opposition to the bank.

Can it now be said that the question of a recharter of the bank was not
decided at the election which ensued? Had the veto been equivocal, or
had it not covered the whole ground; if it had merely taken exceptions
to the details of the bill or to the time of its passage; if it had not
met the whole ground of constitutionality and expediency, then there
might have been some plausibility for the allegation that the question
was not decided by the people. It was to compel the President to take
his stand that the question was brought forward at that particular
time. He met the challenge, willingly took the position into which his
adversaries sought to force him, and frankly declared his unalterable
opposition to the bank as being both unconstitutional and inexpedient.
On that ground the case was argued to the people; and now that the
people have sustained the President, notwithstanding the array of