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 President from the records of the Senate; so that one of the bitterest purely political struggles in the history of the country, before the civil war, grew out of the removal of the deposits. Jackson's supporters won control of the Senate in 1836, and the resolution was expunged, January 16, 1837.

In the House, Polk reported from the Committee on Ways and Means, March 4, 1834, supporting Jackson and Taney in all their positions about the removal. He offered four resolutions, which were passed, April 4th, as follows:—First, That the Bank ought not to be rechartered, 132 to 82; second, that the deposits ought not to be restored, 118 to 103; third, that the State banks ought to be depositories of the public funds, 117 to 105; fourth, that a select committee should be raised on the Bank and the commercial crisis, 171 to 42. The committee last mentioned was appointed, and endowed with inquisitorial power, which J. Q. Adams thought was unjust and un-American. They reported, May 22d, that the Bank had resisted all their attempts to investigate, which was so far true that the Bank had drawn the line beyond which they would not allow the committee to go. The majority proposed that the directors should be arrested and brought to the bar of the House. The minority of the committee justified the Bank in the position which it had taken, and while they were very careful to ascribe only the purest motives to the majority, yet showed strong disapproval of the line of examination which had been attempted; that was, to find evidence to support the charges against the Bank and its officers in the books and in an inquisitorial examination of the officers themselves.

The Senate also undertook another investigation. It instructed the Committee on Finance, June 30th, to investigate all the allegations against the Bank made by Jackson and Taney in justification of the removal. This produced Tyler's report of December 18, 1834, which is very valuable for the history, but was very little heeded at the time. Its conclusions were all favorable to the Bank. Tyler appended to his report statistical statements of the condition of the Bank, which show what its internal history had been during the last years. It had drawn back from the perilous position into which it was drifting under the western debt, and the operation of the branch drafts, in the spring of 1832, and had improved its whole status down to October, 1833, when it was extremely strong.

We have already noticed the panic which was occasioned by the removal of the deposits and which may properly be so called, if we are correct in the opinion that there was no rational ground for commercial distress in that proceeding. During the winter of 1833-4, there was a stringent money market, and commercial distress due to other causes, which were indeed incidental to, or contingent on, the removal. The State banks were trying to strengthen themselves and to put themselves on the level of the Treasury requirements, in the hope of getting a share of the deposits. It was they