es and necessities of this government.
But the experiment of making successful use of State banks having
failed, completely failed, in this the very first endeavor; the State
banks having already proved themselves not able to fill the place and
perform the duties of a national bank, although highly useful in their
appropriate sphere; and the disastrous consequences of the measures of
government coming thick and fast upon us, the professed object of the
whole movement is at once changed, and the cry now is, Down with all the
State banks! Down with all the State banks! and let us return to our
embraces of solid gold and solid silver!

THE PRESIDENTIAL PROTEST.

A SPEECH DELIVERED IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES, ON THE 7th OF
MAY, 1834, ON THE SUBJECT OF THE PRESIDENT'S PROTEST AGAINST THE
RESOLUTION OF THE SENATE OF THE 28TH OF MARCH.

Mr. President,--I feel the magnitude of this question. We are coming to
a vote which cannot fail to produce important effects on the character
of the Senate, and the character of the government.

Unhappily, Sir, the Senate finds itself involved in a controversy with
the President of the United States; a man who has rendered most
distinguished services to his country, who has hitherto possessed a
degree of popular favor perhaps never exceeded, and whose honesty of
motive and integrity of purpose are still admitted by those who maintain
that his administration has fallen into lamentable errors.

On some of the interesting questions in regard to which the President
and Senate hold opposite opinions, the more popular branch of the
legislature concurs with the executive. It is not to be concealed that
the Senate is engaged against imposing odds. It can sustain itself only
by its own prudence and the justice of its cause. It has no patronage by
which to secure friends; it can raise up no advocates through the
dispensation of favors, for it has no favors to dispense. Its very
constitution, as a body whose members are elected for a long term, is
capable of being rendered obnoxious, and is daily made the subject of
opprobrious remark. It is already denounced as independent of the
people, and aristocratic. Nor is it, like the other house, powerful in
its numbers; not being, like that, so large as that its members come
constantly in direct and extensive contact with the whole people. Under
these disadvantages, Sir, which, we may be assured, will be pressed and
urged to the utmost leng