Mr. President: I am conscious of having detained you and the Senate much
too long. I was drawn into the debate with no previous deliberation, such
as is suited to the discussion of so grave and important a subject. But it
is a subject of which my heart is full, and I have not been willing to
suppress the utterance of its spontaneous sentiments. I can not, even now,
persuade myself to relinquish it, without expressing once more my deep
conviction, that, since it respects nothing less than the union of the
states, it is of most vital and essential importance to the public
happiness.
I profess, sir, in my career hitherto, to have kept steadily in view the
prosperity and honor of the whole country, and the preservation of our
federal Union. It is to that Union we owe our safety at home, and our
consideration and dignity abroad. It is to that Union that we are chiefly
indebted for whatever makes us most proud of our country. That Union we
reached only by the discipline of our virtues, in the severe school of
adversity. It had its origin in the necessities of disordered finance,
prostrate commerce, and ruined credit. Under its benign influences, these
great interests immediately awoke, as from the dead, and sprang forth with
newness of life. Every year of its duration has teemed with fresh proofs
of its utility and its blessings; and, although our territory has
stretched out wider and wider, and our population spread farther and
farther, they have not outrun its protection or its benefits. It has been
to us all a copious fountain of national, social, and personal happiness.
I have not allowed myself, sir, to look beyond the Union, to see what
might lie hidden in the dark recess behind. I have not coolly weighed the
chances of preserving liberty, when the bonds that unite us together shall
be broken asunder. I have not accustomed myself to hang over the precipice
of disunion, to see whether, with my short sight, I can fathom the depth
of the abyss below; nor could I regard him as a safe counselor in the
affairs of this government, whose thoughts should be mainly bent on
considering, not how the Union should be best preserved, but how tolerable
might be the condition of the people when it shall be broken up and
destroyed.
While the Union lasts, we have high, exciting, gratifying prospects spread
out before us, for us and our children. Beyond that, I seek not to
penetrate the veil. God grant that in my day, at least, that curtain may
not rise. God grant that on my vision never may be opened what lies
behind. When my eyes shall be turned to behold, for the last time, the sun
in heaven, may I not see him shining on the broken and dishonored
fragments of a once glorious Union; on States dissevered, discordant,
belligerent; on a land rent with civil feuds, or drenched, it may be, in
fraternal blood.
Let their last feeble and lingering glance rather behold the gorgeous
ensign of the Republic, now known and honored throughout the earth, still
full high advanced, its arms and trophies streaming in their original
luster, not a stripe erased or polluted, not a single star
obscured--bearing for its motto no such miserable interrogatory as, What
is all this worth? nor those other words of delusion and folly, Liberty
first, and Union afterwards--but everywhere, spread all over in characters
of living light, blazing on all its ample folds, as they float over the
sea and over the land, and in every wind under the whole heavens, that
other sentiment, dear to every true American heart--Liberty and Union, now
and forever, one and inseparable!
--Daniel Webster.
NOTE.--This selection is the peroration of Mr. Webster's speech in reply
to Mr. Hayne during the debate in the Senate on Mr. Foot's Resolution in
regard to the Public Lands.