personal popularity, prevailed and obtained the acceptance of his doctrines.  But the conflict has gone on, and the balance of advantage now rests with the Legislature.  This tendency is quite as dangerous as that of which Jackson was the exponent, if not more so.  The executive department has been crippled; and the influence and power of Congress, and especially of the Senate, have become far greater than they should be, under the system of proportion and balance embodied in the Constitution.  Despite Jackson’s victory there is, to-day, far more danger of undue encroachments on the part of the Senate than on that of the President.

At the next session the principal subject of discussion was the trouble with France.  Irritated at the neglect of the French government to provide funds for the payment of their debt to us, Jackson sent in a message severely criticising them, and recommending the passage of a law authorizing reprisals on French property.  The President and his immediate followers were eager for war, Calhoun and his faction regarded the whole question as only matter for “an action of assumpsit,” while Mr. Webster and Mr. Clay desired to avoid hostilities, but wished the country to maintain a firm and dignified attitude.  Under the lead of Mr. Clay, the recommendation of reprisals was rejected, and under that of Mr. Webster a clause smuggled into the Fortification Bill to give the President three millions to spend as he liked was struck out and the bill was subsequently lost.  This affair, which brought us to the verge of war with France, soon blew over, however, and caused only a temporary ripple, although Mr. Webster’s attack on the Fortification Bill left a sting behind.

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.