"At the commencement of the last session, as you know, gentlemen, a resolution was brought forward in the Senate for annulling and abrogating this order, by Mr. Ewing, a gentleman of much intelligence, of sound principles, of vigorous and energetic character, whose loss from the service of the country, I regard as a public misfortune. The whig members all supported this resolution, and all the members, I believe, with the exception of some five or six, were very anxious, in some way, to get rid of the treasury order. But Mr. Ewing's resolution was too direct. It was deemed a pointed and ungracious attack on executive policy. Therefore, it must be softened, modified, qualified, made to sound less harsh to the ears of men in power, and to assume a plausible, polished, inoffensive character. It was accordingly put into the plastic hands of the friends of the executive, to be moulded and fashioned, so that it might have the effect of ridding the country of the obnoxious order, and yet not appear to question executive infallibility. All this did not answer. The late President is not a man to be satisfied with soft words; and he saw in the measure, even as it passed the two houses, a substantial repeal of the order. He is a man of boldness and decision; and he respects boldness and decision in others. If you are his friend, he expects no flinching; and if you are his adversary, he respects you none the less, for carrying your opposition to the full limits of honorable warfare." Mr. Webster must have been greatly dissatisfied with his democratic allies, when he could thus, in a public speech, before such an audience, and within one short month after they had been co-operating with him, hold them up as equally unmeritable in the eyes of both parties. History deems it essential to present this New York speech of Mr. Webster as part of a great movement, without a knowledge of which the view would be imperfect. It was the first formal public step which was to inaugurate the new distress, and organize the proceedings for shutting up the banks, and with them, the federal treasury, with a view to coerce the government into submission to the Bank of the United States and its confederate politicians. Mr. Van Buren was a man of great suavity and gentleness of deportment, and, to those who associated the idea of violence with firmness, might be supposed deficient in that quality. An experiment upon his nerves was resolved on--a pressure of public opinion, in the language of Mr. Webster, under which his gentle temperament was expected to yield. CHAPTER IV. PROGRESS OF THE DISTRESS, AND PRELIMINARIES FOR THE SUSPENSION.