denounced the attack made upon it by President Jackson in his messages, and declared that, “if the President be reëlected, it may be considered certain that the bank will be abolished.” Thus the issue was made up: Jackson must be defeated if the Bank of the United States was to be saved. The memorial of the bank, praying for a renewal of its charter, was presented in the Senate early in January, 1832, to the end of forcing Congress and the President to act without delay. If it was Clay's object to make the bank question the most prominent one in the canvass, he succeeded beyond expectation; and if he had cast about for the greatest blunder possible under the circumstances, he could not have found a more brilliant one. This we shall appreciate when, at a later period of the session, we hear both sides speak.
The first subject which Clay took up for discussion in the Senate was the tariff. Two circumstances of unusual moment had brought this topic into the foreground: one was the excitement produced by the tariff of 1828, “the tariff of abominations,” in the planting states, and especially in South Carolina, where it had assumed the threatening form of the nullification movement; and the other was the fact that the revenue furnished by the existing tariff largely exceeded the current expenditures, and would, after the extinguishment of the national debt, which was rapidly going forward, bring on that bane of good government in a free country, a heavy surplus in the treasury,
