Another paper-money scheme was introduced, and the conflict began again,
but was abruptly terminated by the news of peace, and on March 4 the
thirteenth Congress came to an end.

The fourteenth Congress, to which he had been reëlected, Mr. Webster said
many years afterward, was the most remarkable for talents of any he had
ever seen. To the leaders of marked ability in the previous Congress, most
of whom had been reëlected, several others were added. Mr. Clay returned
from Europe to take again an active part. Mr. Pinkney, the most eminent
practising lawyer in the country, recently Attorney-General and Minister to
England, whom John Randolph, with characteristic insolence, "believed to be
from Maryland," was there until his appointment to the Russian mission.
Last, but not least, there was John Randolph himself, wildly eccentric and
venomously eloquent,--sometimes witty, always odd and amusing, talking
incessantly on everything, so that the reporters gave him up in despair,
and with whom Mr. Webster came to a definite understanding before the close
of the session.

Mr. Webster did not take his seat until February, being detained at the
North by the illness of his daughter Grace. When he arrived he found
Congress at work upon a bank bill possessing the same objectionable
features of paper money and large capital as the former schemes which he
had helped to overthrow. He began his attack upon this dangerous plan by
considering the evil condition of the currency. He showed that the currency
of the United States was sound because it was gold and silver, in his
opinion the only constitutional medium, but that the country was flooded by
the irredeemable paper of the state banks. Congress could not regulate the
state banks, but they could force them to specie payments by refusing to
receive any notes which were not paid in specie by the bank which issued
them. Passing to the proposed national bank, he reiterated the able