Power. The war between Andrew Jackson’s allies and enemies over his use and abuse of power commanded public and political attention into the waning weeks of his administration. Thomas Hart Benton, who had personally attempted to end Old Hickory’s life in a Nashville tavern almost 25 years earlier, made an impassioned plea before the Senate in January 1837, urging the repeal of that body’s censure of Jackson in 1834. Reputation and right mattered in erasing from the record blame for King Andrew’s singlehanded destruction of the Bank of the United States. Calhoun and Clay rose to denounce the resolution, unsubtly referencing such actions as appropriate to the era of despotic Roman emperors Nero and Caligula. Clay fatalistically counted the votes, and they were not in his favor. The Kentuckian still found time for Shakespeare. “The deed is to be done,” he admitted, “that foul deed, like the blood-stained hands of the guilty Macbeth, all ocean’s waters will never wash out.” “Proceed then,” Clay implored, “like other skilled executioners, do it quickly.”