of Taney's successor, Levi Woodbury, to control them, the pet banks expanded their loans, helping to create a speculative boom in the final years of Jackson's administration. In January 1835, Jackson paid off the national debt, the only time in U.S. history that it had been accomplished. It was paid down through tariff revenues, carefully managing federal funding of internal improvements like roads and canals, and the sale of public lands. Between 1834 and 1836, the government had unprecedented spike in land sales: At its peak in 1836, the profits from land sales were eight to twelve times higher than a typical year. During Jackson's presidency, 63 million acres of public land—about the size of the state of Oklahoma—was sold. After Jackson stepped down from the presidency in 1837, a Democrat-majority Senate expunged Jackson's censure. Panic of 1837 Despite the economic boom following Jackson's victory in the Bank War, land speculation in the west caused the Panic of 1837. Jackson's transfer of federal monies to state banks in 1833 caused western banks to relax their lending standards; the Indian Removal Act made large amounts of former Native American lands available for purchase and speculation. Two of Jackson's acts in 1836 contributed to the Panic of 1837. One was the Specie Circular, which mandated western lands only be purchased by money backed by specie. The act was intended to stabilize the economy by reducing speculation on credit, but it caused a drain of gold and silver from the Eastern banks to the Western banks to address the needs of financing land transactions. The other was the Deposit and Distribution Act, which transferred federal monies from eastern to western state banks. Together, they left Eastern banks unable to pay specie to the British when they recalled their loans to address their economic problems in international trade. The panic drove the U.S. economy into a depression that lasted until 1841. Physical assault and assassination attempt Jackson was the first president to be subjected to physical assault as well an assassination attempt. On May 6, 1833, Robert B. Randolph struck Jackson in the face with his hand because Jackson had ordered Randolph's dismissal from the navy for embezzlement. Jackson declined to press charges. While leaving the United States Capitol on January 30, 1835, Richard Lawrence, an unemployed house painter from England, aimed a pistol at Jackson, which misfired. Lawrence pulled out a second pistol,