The opposition were in a majority in the Senate, led on by Clay and Webster.  These were confronted by Forsyth, Benton, and Wright:  the wrestle was that of giants.  The world, perhaps, never furnished a more adroit debater than John Forsyth.  He was the Ajax Telemon of his party, and was rapidly rivalling the first in the estimation of that party.  He hated Calhoun, and at times was at no pains to conceal it in debate.  In the warmth of debate, upon one occasion, he alluded in severe terms, to the manner in which Mr. Crawford had been treated, during his incumbency as Secretary of the Treasury, by a certain party press in the interest of Mr. Calhoun.  This touched the Vice-President on the raw:  thus stung, he turned and demanded if the senator alluded to him.  Forsyth’s manner was truly grand, as it was intensely fierce:  turning from the Senate to the Vice-President, he demanded with the imperiousness of an emperor:  “By what right does the Chair ask that question of me?” and paused as if for a reply, with his intensely gleaming eye steadily fixed upon that of Calhoun.  The power was with the speaker, and the Chair was awed into silence.  Slowly turning to the Senate, every member of which manifested deep feeling, he continued, as his person seemed to swell into gigantic proportions, and his eye to sweep the entire chamber, “Let the galled jade wince, our withers are unwrung,” and went on with the debate.

The cause of the animosity of Jackson, toward Crawford was a report which had reached Jackson, that Crawford, as a member of Mr. Monroe’s Cabinet, had insisted in Cabinet meeting upon the arrest of Jackson for a violation of national law, in entering without orders, as the commanding general of the army of the United States, the territory of a friendly power, and seizing its principal city by military force.  General Jackson had entered Florida, then a dependency of Spain, with which power we were in amity, and seized Pensacola.

A band of desperate men had made a lodgment in Florida, headed by two Scotchmen, Ambrister and Arbuthnot.  These men had acquired great influence with the Indians, and were stimulating them to constant depredations upon the frontier people of Georgia.  When pursued, they sought safety in the territorial limits of Florida.  Remonstrances with the Government of Spain had produced no effect.  It could not, or would not expel them, or attempt any control of the Indians; and it became necessary to put a stop to their aggressions.  Jackson commanded, and was the very man for such a work.  He placed before the President the difficulties, but said he could and would break up this nest of freebooters, if he had authority from the President to enter the territory, and, if necessary, take possession of it.  It would be an act of war to authorize this course, he knew; but he was prepared for the responsibility (he generally was.) “I do not ask for formal orders:  simply say to me, ‘Do it.’  Tell Johnny Ray to say so to me, and it shall be done.”  Johnny Ray was a member of Congress at that time from East Tennessee, and devoted to Jackson.  This was done, and the work was accomplished.  The two leaders were captured and summarily executed, claiming to be British subjects.