wishes of the slave-holding states. This man had to take upon himself the troubles left behind by Jackson, — troubles which would have sorely tried the stoutest heart and the strongest mind. He confronted them with unexpected fortitude.
As is always the case under such circumstances, the distressed business community turned to the government for relief. It demanded the recall of the specie circular, which Van Buren firmly refused, and the speedy convocation of Congress in extra session, which he was obliged to grant. The deposit banks having suspended specie payments with the rest, the government funds were locked up, or had to be drawn from the banks in depreciated bank paper. The distribution of the first three installments of the treasury surplus had well-nigh exhausted the resources of the government, and there was a prospect of a deficit, instead of a surplus, before the end of the year. Congress met on September 4, 1837.
The business crisis had brought forth a strong reaction against the administration party, which showed itself in one local election after another. The Democratic members of Congress arrived at Washington in a somewhat dejected state of mind. The Whigs saw their opportunity for a successful opposition, and the spirit in which Clay was ready to lead that opposition had already been foreshadowed in a letter written to his friend Brooke shortly after Van Buren's election. “Undoubtedly,” he wrote, “such an opposition should avail itself of
