Through some inferior officers of the State Department Ingersoll got what he considered proofs, and then introduced resolutions calling for an account of all payments from the secret service fund; for communications made by Mr.Webster to Messrs.

Adams and Gushing of the Committee on Foreign Affairs; for all papers relating to McLeod, and for the minutes of the committee on Foreign Affairs, to show that Mr.Webster had expressed an opinion adverse to our claim in the Oregon dispute.

Mr.Ingersoll closed his speech by a threat of impeachment as the result and reward of all this evil-doing, and an angry debate followed, in which Mr.Webster was attacked and defended with equal violence.

President Polk replied to the call of the House by saying that he could not feel justified, either morally or legally, in revealing the uses of the secret service fund.

Meantime a similar resolution was defeated in the Senate by a vote of forty-four to one, Mr.Webster remarking that he was glad that the President had refused the request of the House; that he should have been sorry to have seen an important principle violated, and that he was not in the least concerned at being thus left without an explanation; he needed no defence, he said, against such attacks.
Mr.Ingersoll, rebuffed by the President, then made a personal explanation, alleging specifically that Mr.Webster had made an unlawful use of the secret service money, that he had employed it to corrupt the press, and that he was a defaulter.