At the time of introducing resolutions pronouncing secretary Taney’s reasons insufficient, Mr. Clay took occasion to refute an assertion which a prominent person had made in relation to his (Mr. Clay’s) connection with the United States bank, which intimated that it was dishonorable. He declared that he did not owe the bank, nor any of its branches, a cent; that he had never received a gratuity from it, in any form; that he had acted as counsel, and transacted a vast amount of business for it, in Ohio, and received only the customary fees; and that, in consequence of endorsing for a friend, he had become indebted to the bank, to a considerable amount, but that, by establishing a system of rigid economy, he had entirely liquidated it.
Immediately after the passage of the resolutions excluding the protest, Mr. Clay introduced others, providing for the restoration of the deposits, and reiterating the insufficiency of the secretary’s reasons for removing them, and remarked, that whatever might be the fate of the resolutions at the other end of the capitol, or in any other building, that consideration ought not to influence, in any degree, their action. They passed the senate, but, as had been expected, were laid on the table in the house.
During the celebrated session, of 1833–34, known as the _panic session_, Mr. Clay performed an amount of labor seldom equalled. He let no suitable occasion pass, without opposing the despotic proceedings of the president, and raising his warning voice against his suicidal policy. The distress caused by the removal of the deposits, and consequent curtailment of the issues of the United States bank, called forth memorials from the people, which poured into congress continually, denouncing the president’s financial experiment, and calling for relief. Many of these were presented by Mr. Clay, who generally accompanied them by a brief speech. One, which he made in presenting a memorial from Kentucky, and one from Troy, contains an accurate and faithful picture of the condition of the country at that period. The evils of the ‘pet bank system,’ soon began to develope themselves. On one occasion, in alluding to it, Mr. Clay remarked as follows. ‘The idea of uniting thirty or forty local banks for the establishment and security of an equal currency, could never be realized. As well might the crew of a national vessel be put on board thirty or forty bark canoes, tied together by a grape vine, and sent out upon the troubled ocean, while the billows were rising mountains high, and the tempest was exhausting its rage on the foaming elements, in the hope that they might weather the storm, and reach their distant destination in safety. The people would be contented by no such fleet of bark canoes, with admiral Taney in their command. They would be heard again calling out for old Ironsides, which had never failed them in the hour of trial, whether amidst the ocean storm, or in the hour of battle.’