Page:Life of Henry Clay (Schurz; v. 2).djvu/216

206 tertained.” He could not satisfy himself that a bank was necessary for the fiscal operations of the government. He objected to the bill especially because it contemplated a bank of discount, and branches to be established in the several states with or without their assent, — “a principle,” he added, “to which I have always heretofore been opposed, and which can never obtain my sanction.”

The Whigs were extremely angry. In the evening a crowd assembled before the White House, demonstrating their disapproval of the President's conduct with disorderly noises. But a very different scene was enacted within. Many of the Democratic Senators could not restrain their exultation. In a body they called upon President Tyler to congratulate him upon the “courageous and patriotic” step he had taken, and the congratulations gradually degenerated into convivial hilarity. A few days afterwards, an inquiry into the disorderly demonstrations before the White House having been moved, Clay availed himself of the opportunity to dramatize the congratulatory meeting inside in a very clever satire. He recited the speeches he supposed to have been delivered on that occasion by Democratic Senators to the Whig President, imitating the style of the different orators, especially of Calhoun, Benton, and Buchanan, in so striking and artistic a way as to win the involuntary applause even of some of the victims.

Of a more serious nature was the speech in