“Now,” says he to Banker Biddle, who is becoming a bit weak, “we have him helpless! That veto is his death warrant! The campaign is at hand; I shall be the candidate of my party, he of his. That veto shall be the issue! Money, you know, is all powerful. Being so, who shall doubt the result when now the public is driven to choose between the Bank and the White House--Prosperity and Andrew Jackson?”
CHAPTER XII--THE DOWNFALL OF MACHIAVELLI CLAY
MACHIAVELLI CLAY is one who looks seldom from the window and often in the glass. No man carries himself more upon the back of his own regard than does Machiavelli Clay. He believes in the wisdom of the classes, the ignorance of the masses, and thinks that government should be of people, by statesmen, for statesmen. Also he has a profound respect for Money, and little for perishing flesh and blood. As to each of these thought-conditions he lives in head-on collision with the General, who in all things is his precise contradiction.
As a guide by which the popular view may direct itself, Machiavelli Clay asks the Senate to pass a vote of censure upon the General. With the help of Statesman Calhoun, he puts it through. The Clay-invoked “censure” strikes these sparks from the General:
“Major,” he cries, thinking on his saw-handles as he and Wizard Lewis sit with their evening pipes, “if I live to get these robes of office off, I may yet bring that rascal to a dear account.”
Banker Biddle, now when his precious Bank for its life or death will be made the campaign issue, is not without those pale misgivings which ever shake the livid heart of Money on the eve of war. Observing this knee-knocking trepidation, Machiavelli Clay attempts to give him courage. This is no difficult task for Machiavelli Clay to undertake; since, in his native ignorance of the popular, he harbors no doubt of the General's downfall. Also he extends cheering word the more readily to the quaking Banker Biddle, because the latter and his jeopardized Bank are to furnish those golden sinews of war, which will be required for the Whig campaign.
Machiavelli Clay uplifts the confidence of Banker Biddle to a point where the latter, from his money lair in Philadelphia, writes him the following: