The veto aroused a thunder of debate, Webster and Clay leading the assault upon it, and Benton, with other Jacksonians, defending it.  The attempt to pass the re-charter bill over the veto failed of the necessary two-thirds majority, and the President was triumphant.

Jackson had no idea of yielding his opinions or his will to anybody, least of all to his political enemies.  The war with the Bank must go on; but its charter had three or four years still to run.  All he could do legally was to cripple it by removing the deposits.  His animosity, inflamed by the denunciations of Benton, Kendall, Blair, Hill, and others, became ungovernable.

McLane was now succeeded in the Treasury department by Mr. Duane of Philadelphia, the firmest and most incorruptible of men, for whom the President felt the greatest respect, but whom he expected to bend to his purposes as he had Ingham.  Only the Secretary of the Treasury could remove the deposits, and this Mr. Duane unexpectedly but persistently refused to do.  Jackson brought to bear upon him all his powers of persuasion and friendship; Duane still stood firm.  Then the President resorted to threats, all to no purpose; at length Duane was dismissed from his office, and Roger B. Taney became Secretary of the Treasury, 23d of September, 1833.  Three days afterwards, Taney directed collectors to deposit the public money in certain banks which he designated.  It seems singular that the man who two years later was appointed Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, and who discharged the duties of that office so ably and uprightly, should so readily have complied with the President’s desire; but this must be accounted for by the facts that in regard to the Bank Taney’s views were in harmony with those of Jackson, and that the removal of the deposits, however arbitrary, was not unconstitutional.

The removal of more than nine millions from the Bank within the period of nine months caused it necessarily to curtail its discounts, and a financial panic was the result, which again led to acrimonious debates in Congress, in which Clay took the lead.  His opposition exasperated the President in the highest degree.  Calhoun equalled Clay in the vehemence of his denunciation, for his hatred of Jackson was greater than his hostility to moneyed corporations.  Webster was less irritating, but equally strong in his disapproval.  Jackson, in his message of December, 1833, reiterated his charge against the Bank as “a permanent electioneering engine,” attempting “to control public opinion through the distresses of some, and the fears of others.”  The Senate passed resolutions denouncing the high-handed measures of the government, which, however, were afterwards expunged when the Senate had become Democratic.  One of the most eloquent passages that Clay ever uttered was his famous apostrophe to Vice President Van Buren when presiding over the Senate, in reference to the financial distress which existed throughout the country,