Clay's side the best debating talent of the Senate, — Webster, Calhoun, Ewing, Southard, and others. The resolutions had to undergo some changes, to the end of obviating constitutional scruples, and were finally, on March 28, adopted, the one declaring the reasons given by the Secretary of the Treasury for the removal of the deposits “unsatisfactory and insufficient,” by 28 to 18; and the other, “that the President, in the late executive proceeding in relation to the public revenue, has assumed upon himself authority and power not conferred by the Constitution and laws, but in derogation of both,” by 26 to 20. Clay subsequently offered a joint resolution requiring the public deposits to be restored to the Bank of the United States, which passed the Senate, but failed in the House of Representatives.
Meanwhile petitions had been pouring in from all sides setting forth that production and transportation were hampered; that an enormous number of laboring men were without work; that business was suffering fearfully from the inability of business men to obtain the necessary bank accommodations; that there was general distress; and that all this was attributable to the derangement of the banking business by the removal of the deposits. In the Senate these “distress petitions,” which formed a great feature of the session, were presented with great pomp of eloquence, especially by Webster and Clay.
An extraordinary scene occurred on March 7,
