In this same session Mr. Webster made an exhaustive speech on the question of executive patronage and the President's power of appointment and removal. He now went much farther than in his answer to the "Protest," asserting not only the right of Congress to fix the tenure of office, but also that the power of removal, like the power of appointment, was in the President and Senate jointly. The speech contained much that was valuable, but in its main doctrine was radically unsound. The construction of 1789, which decided that the power of removal belonged to the President alone, was clearly right, and Mr. Webster failed to overthrow it. His theory, embodied in a bill which provided that the President should state to the Senate, when he appointed to a vacancy caused by removal, his reasons for such removal, was thoroughly mischievous. It was more dangerous than Jackson's doctrine, for it tended to take the power of patronage still more from a single and responsible person and vest it in a large and therefore wholly irresponsible body which has always been too much inclined to degenerate into an office-broking oligarchy, and thus degrade its high and important functions. Mr. Webster argued his proposition with his usual force and perspicuity, but the speech is strongly partisan and exhibits the disposition of an advocate to fit the Constitution to his particular case, instead of dealing with it on general and fundamental principles. The session closed with a resolution offered by Mr. Benton to expunge the resolutions of censure upon the President, which was overwhelmingly defeated, and was then laid upon the table, on the motion of Mr. Webster. He also took the first step to prevent the impending financial disaster growing out of the President's course toward the bank, by carrying a bill to stop the payment of treasury warrants by the deposit banks in current banknotes, and to compel their payment in gold and silver. The rejection of Benton's resolutions served to embitter the already intense conflict between the President and his antagonists, and Mr. Webster's bill, while it showed the wisdom of the opposition, was powerless to remedy the mischief which was afoot.