motion to expunge the resolution of censure. Such a motion was made in
1835, and again in 1836, without result. But at last, in January,
1837, after a debate lasting thirteen hours, the Senate adopted, by a
vote of 24 to 19, a resolution meeting the Jacksonian demand.

The manuscript journal of the session of 1833-1834 was brought into
the Senate, and the secretary, in obedience to the resolution, drew
black lines around the resolution of censure, and wrote across the
face thereof, "in strong letters," the words: "Expunged by order of
the Senate, this sixteenth day of January, in the year of our Lord
1837." Many members withdrew rather than witness the proceeding; but a
crowded gallery looked on, while Benton strengthened his supporters by
providing "an ample supply of cold hams, turkeys, rounds of beef,
pickles, wines, and cups of hot coffee" in a near-by committee-room.
Jackson gave a dinner to the "ex-pungers" and their wives, and placed
Benton at the head of the table. That the action of the Senate was
unconstitutional interested no one save the lawyers, for the Bank was
dead. Jackson was vindicated, and the people were enthroned.[12]

The struggle thus brought to a triumphant close was one of the
severest in American political history. In 1836 the Bank obtained a
charter from Pennsylvania, under the name of the Bank of the United
States of Pennsylvania, and all connection between it and the Federal
Government ceased. The institution and the controversies centering
about it left, however, a deep impress upon the financial and
political history of our fifth and sixth decades. It was the bank
issue, more than anything else, that consolidated the new political
parties of the period. It was that issue that proved most conclusively
the hold of Jackson upon public opinion. And it was the destruction of
the Bank that capped the mid-century reaction against the rampant