Philadelphia and twenty-two other designated state banks. Deposits in
the United States Bank and its branches were not immediately
"removed"; they were left, rather, to be withdrawn as the money was
actually needed. Nevertheless there considerable disturbance of
business, and deputation after deputation came to the White House to
ask that Taney's order be rescinded. Jackson, however, was sure that
most of the trouble was caused by Biddle and his associates, and to
all these appeals he remained absolutely deaf. After a time he refused
so much as to see the petitioners. In his message of the 3d of
December he assumed full responsibility for the removals, defending
his course mainly on the ground that the Bank had been "actively
engaged in attempting to influence the elections of the public
officers by means of its money."

From this point the question became entirely one of politics. The Bank
itself was doomed. On the one side, the National Republicans united in
the position that the Administration had been entirely in the wrong,
and that the welfare of the country demanded a great fiscal
institution of the character of the Bank. On the other side, the
Democrats, deriving, indeed, a new degree of unity from the
controversy on this issue, upheld the President's every word and act.
"You may continue," said Benton to his fellow partizans in the Senate,
"to be for a bank and for Jackson, but you cannot be for this Bank and
Jackson." Firmly allied with the Bank interests, the National
Republicans resolved to bring all possible discomfiture upon the
Administration.

The House of Representatives was controlled by the Democrats, and
little could be accomplished there. But the Senate contained not only
the three ablest anti-Jacksonians of the day--Clay, Webster,