ad foreign backers, and he showed an almost
startling prescience as to the evils that were to follow in the train of
cosmopolitan finance, "more formidable and more dangerous than the naval
and military power of an enemy." But above all he knew that the Bank was
odious to the people, and he was true to his political creed, whereby
he, as the elect of the people, was bound to enforce its judgment
without fear or favour.

Jackson's Veto Message contained a vigorous exposition of his objections
to the Bank on public grounds, together with a legal argument against
its constitutionality. It was admitted that the Supreme Court had
declared the chartering of the Bank to be constitutional, but this, it
was urged, could not absolve the President of the duty of following his
own conscience in interpreting the Constitution he had sworn to
maintain. The authority of the Supreme Court must not, therefore, be
permitted to control the Congress or the Executive, but have only such
influence as the force of its reasoning may discover. It is believed
that this part of the message, which gave scandal to legalists, was
supplied by Taney, the Attorney-General. It is a curious coincidence, if
this be so, that more than twenty years later we shall find another
great President, though bred in the anti-Jacksonian Whig tradition,
compelled to take up much the same attitude in regard to a Supreme Court
decision delivered by Taney himself.

Biddle and his associates believed that the Message would be fatal to
the President. So did the leaders of the political opposition, and none
more than Clay. Superlatively skilful in managing political assemblies,
he was sometimes strangely at fault in judging the mind of the mass--a
task in which Jackson hardly ever failed. He had not foreseen the anger
which his acceptance of a place for Adams would provide; and he now
evidently believed that the defence of the Bank would be a popular cry
in the country. He forced the "Whig" Convention--for such was the name
which the very composite party opposed to Jackson had chosen--to put it
in the forefront of their programme, and he seems to have looked forward
complacently to a complete victory on that issue.

His complacency could not last long. Seldom has a nation spoken so
directly through the complex and often misleading machinery of elections
as the American nation spoke in 1832 against the bank. North, south,
east and west the Whigs were routed. Jackson was re-