through its officers, loans, and participation in politics it could
build up or pull down parties or men, because it created a monopoly of
the money power, because much of the stock was owned by foreigners,
because it would always support him who supported it, and because it
weakened the state and strengthened the general government." Congress
paid no attention to either criticisms or recommendations, and the
supporters of the Bank took fresh heart.

When Congress again met, in December, 1831, a presidential election
was impending and everybody was wondering what part the bank question
would play. Most Democrats were of the opinion that the subject should
be kept in the background. After all, the present bank charter had
more than four years to run, and there seemed to be no reason for
injecting so thorny an issue into the campaign. With a view to keeping
the bank authorities quiet, two members of the reconstructed Cabinet,
Livingston and McLane, entered into a _modus vivendi_ with Biddle
under which the Administration agreed not to push the issue until
after the election. In his annual report as Secretary of the Treasury,
McLane actually made an argument for rechartering the Bank; and in his
message of the 6th of December the President said that, while he still
held "the opinions heretofore expressed in relation to the Bank as at
present organized," he would "leave it for the present to the
investigation of an enlightened people and their representatives." He
had been persuaded that his own plan for a Bank, suggested a year
earlier, was not feasible.

Biddle now made a supreme mistake. Misled in some degree
unquestionably by the optimistic McLane, he got the idea that Jackson
was weakening, that the Democrats were afraid to take a stand on the
subject until after the election, and that now was the strategic time