until the time for that should arrive, the return of the deposits,
with its consequent relief to business and a restoration of stability and
of confidence for the time being at least. He soon found that the
administration had determined that no law should be passed, and that the
doctrine that Congress had no power to establish a bank should be upheld.
He also discovered that the constitutional pundit in the White House, who
was so opposed to a single national bank, had created, by his own fiat, a
large number of small national banks in the guise of state banks, to which
the public deposits were committed, and the collection of the public
revenues intrusted. Such an arbitrary policy, at once so ignorant,
illogical, and dangerous, aroused Mr. Webster thoroughly, and he entered
immediately upon an active campaign against the President. Between the
presentation of the Boston resolutions and the close of the session he
spoke on the bank, and the subjects necessarily connected with it, no less
than sixty-four times. He dealt entirely with financial topics,--chiefly
those relating to the currency, and with the constitutional questions
raised by the extension of the executive authority. This long series of
speeches is one of the most remarkable exhibitions of intellectual power
ever made by Mr. Webster, or indeed by any public man in our history. In
discussing one subject in all its bearings, involving of necessity a
certain amount of repetition, he not only displayed an extraordinary grasp
of complicated financial problems and a wide knowledge of their scientific
meaning and history, but he showed an astonishing fertility in argument,
coupled with great variety and clearness of statement and cogency of
reasoning. With the exception of Hamilton, Mr. Webster is the only
statesman in our history who was capable of such a performance on such a
subject, when a thorough knowledge had to be united with all the resources
of debate and all the arts of the highest eloquence.

The most important speech of all was that delivered in answer to Jackson's
"Protest," sent in as a reply to Mr. Clay's resolutions which had been
sustained by Mr. Webster as chairman of the Committee on Finance. The
"Protest" asserted, in brief, that the Legislature could not order a
subordinate officer to perform certain duties free from the control of the
President; that the President had the right to put his own conception of
the law into execution; and, if the su