cringe to France; neither a supercilious, five-headed
Directory nor the gasconading pilgrim of Egypt will ever
dictate terms to sovereign America. The thunder of our
cannon shall insure the performance of our treaties, and
fulminate destruction on Frenchmen, till the ocean is
crimsoned with blood and gorged with pirates!"
The Fourth-of-July oration, which afterwards fell into some disrepute,
had great importance in the earlier years of the Republic, when
Revolutionary times and perils were fresh in the recollection of the
people. The custom arose of assigning this duty to young men covetous
of distinction, and this led in time to the flighty rhetoric which
made sounding emptiness and a Fourth-of-July oration synonymous terms.
The feeling that was real and spontaneous in the sons of Revolutionary
soldiers was sometimes feigned or exaggerated in the young law
students of the next generation, who had merely read the history of
the Revolution. But with all the faults of those compositions, they
were eminently serviceable to the country. We believe that to them is
to be attributed a considerable part of that patriotic feeling which,
after a suspended animation of several years, awoke in the spring of
1861 and asserted itself with such unexpected power, and which
sustained the country during four years of a peculiarly disheartening
war. How pleasant and spirit-stirring was a celebration of the Fourth
of July as it was conducted in Webster's early day! We trust the old
customs will be revived and improved upon, and become universal. Nor
is it any objection to the practice of having an oration, that the
population is too large to be reached in that way; for if only a
thousand hear, a million may read. Nor ought we to object if the
orator _is_ a little more flowery and boastful than becomes an
ordinary occasion. There is a time to exult; there is a time to
abandon ourselves to pleasant recollections and joyous hopes.
Therefore, we say, let the young men reappear upon the platform, and
show what metal they are made of by giving the best utterance they can
to the patriotic feelings of the people on the national anniversary.
The Republic is safe so long as we celebrate that day in the spirit of
1776 and 1861.
At least we may assert that it was Mr. Webster's Fourth-of-July
orations, of which he delivered five in eleven years, that first made
him known to the people of New Hampshire. At that period the two
political parties could not unite in the celebration of the day, and
accordingly the orations of Mr. Webster had much in them that could be
agreeable only to Federalists. He was an occasional speaker, too, in
those years, at meetings of Federalists, where his power as an orator
was sometimes exerted most effectively. No speaker could be better
adapted to a New England audience, accustomed from of old to weighty,
argumentative sermons, delivered with deliberate, unimpassioned
earnestness. There are many indications that a speech by Daniel
Webster in Portsmouth in 1810 excited as much expectation and comment
as a speech by the same person in the Senate twenty years after. But
he was a mere Federalist partisan,--no more. It does not appear that
he had anything to offer to his countrymen beyond the stately
expression of party issues; and it was as a Federalist, pure and
simple, that he was elected, in 1812, a member of the House of
Representatives, after a keenly contested party conflict. His majority
over the Republican candidate was 2,546,--the whole number of voters
being 34,648.
The Federalists, from 1801 to 1825, were useful to the country only as
an Opposition,--just as the present Tory party in England can be only
serviceable in its capacity of critic and holdback. The Federalists
under John Adams had sinned past forgiveness; while the Republican
party, strong in being right, in the ability of its chiefs, in its
alliance with Southern aristocrats, and in having possession of the
government, was strong also in the odium and inconsistencies of its
opponents. Nothing could shake the confidence of the people in the
administration of Thomas Jefferson. But the stronger a party is, the
more it needs an Opposition,--as we saw last winter in Washington,
when the minority was too insignificant in numbers and ability to keep
the too powerful majority from doing itself such harm as might have
been fatal to it but for the President's well-timed antics. Next to a
sound and able majority, the great need of a free country is a
vigorous, vigilant, audacious, numerous minority. Better a factious
and unscrupulous minority than none at all. The Federalists, who could
justly claim to have among them a very large proportion of the rich
men and the educated men of the country, performed the humble but
useful service of keeping an eye upon, the measures of the
administration, and finding fault with every one of them. Daniel
Webster, however, was wont to handle only the large topics. While Mr.
Jefferson was struggling to keep the peace with Great Britain, he
censured the policy as timorous, costly, and ineffectual; but when Mr.
Madison declared war against that power, he deemed the act unnecessary
and rash. His opposition to the war was never carried to the point of
giving aid and comfort to the enemy; it was such an opposition as
patriotic "War Democrats" exhibited during the late Rebellion, who
thought the war might have been avoided, and ought to be conducted
more vigorously, but nevertheless stood by their country without a
shadow of swerving.
He could boast, too, that from his boyhood to the outbreak of the war
he had advocated the building of the very ships which gave the infant
nation its first taste of warlike glory. The Republicans of that time,
forgetful of what Paul Jones and others of Dr. Franklin's captains had
done in the war of the Revolution, supposed that, because England had
a thousand ships in commission, and America only seventeen, therefore
an American ship could not venture out of a harbor without being
taken. We have often laughed at Colonel Benton's ludicrous confession
of his own terrors on this subject.
"Political men," he says,
"believed nothing could be done at sea but to lose the few
vessels which we had; that even cruising was out of the
question. Of our seventeen vessels, the whole were in port
but one; and it was determined to keep them there, and the
one at sea with them, if it had the luck to get in. I am
under no obligation to make the admission, but I am free to
acknowledge that I was one of those who supposed that there
was no salvation for our seventeen men-of-war but to run
them as far up the creek as possible, place them under the
guns of batteries, and collect camps of militia about them
to keep off the British. This was the policy at the day of
the declaration of the war; and I have the less concern to
admit myself to have been participator in the delusion,
because I claim the merit of having profited from
experience,--happy if I could transmit the lesson to
posterity. Two officers came to Washington,--Bainbridge and
Stewart. They spoke with Mr. Madison, and urged the
feasibility of cruising. One half of the whole number of the
British men-of-war were under the class of frigates,
consequently no more than matches for some of our seventeen;
the whole of her merchant marine (many thousands) were
subject to capture. Here was a rich field for cruising; and
the two officers, for themselves and brothers, boldly
proposed to enter it.
"Mr. Madison had seen the efficiency of cruising and
privateering, even against Great Britain, and in our then
infantile condition, during the war of the Revolution; and
besides was a man of sense, and amenable to judgment and
reason. He listened to the two experienced and valiant
officers; and without consulting Congress, which perhaps
would have been a fatal consultation (for multitude of
counsellors is not the counsel for _bold_ decision),
reversed the policy which had been resolved upon; and, in
his supreme character of constitutional commander of the
army and navy, ordered every ship that could cruise to get
to sea as soon as possible. This I had from Mr. Monroe."
This is a curious example of the blinding effect of partisan strife,
and of the absolute need of an Opposition. It was the hereditary
prejudice of the Republicans against the navy, as an "aristocratic"
institution, and the hereditary love of the navy cherished by the
Federalists as being something stable and British, that enlivened the
debates of the war. The Federalists had their way, but failed to win a
partisan advantage from the fact, through their factious opposition to
the military measures of the administration. Because the first attempt
at the seizure of Canada had failed through the incompetency of
General Hull, which no wisdom of man could have foreseen, Daniel
Webster called upon the government to discontinue all further attempts
on the land, and fight the war out on the sea. "Give up your futile
projects of invasion," said he in 1814.
"Extinguish the fires that blaze on your inland borders."
"Unclench the iron grasp of your embargo." "With all the war
of the enemy on your commerce, if you would cease to make
war upon it yourselves, you would still have some commerce.
That commerce would give you some revenue. Apply that
revenue to the augmentation of your navy. That navy, in
turn, will protect your commerce."
In war time, however, there are _two_ powers that have to do with the
course of events; and very soon the enemy, by his own great scheme of
invasion, decided the policy of the United States. Every port was
blockaded so effectively that a pilot-boat could not safely go out of
sight of land, and a frigate was captured within sight of it. These
vigilant blockaders, together with the threatening armament which
finally attacked New Orleans, compelled every harbor to prepare for
defence, and most effectually refuted Mr. Webster's speech. The "blaze
of glory" with which the war ended at New Orleans consumed all the
remaining prestige of the Federalist party, once so powerful, so
respectable, and so arrogant.
A member of the anti-war party during the existence of a war occupies
a position which can only cease to be insignificant by the misfortunes
of his country. But when we turn from the partisan to the man, we
perceive that Daniel Webster was a great presence in the House, and
took rank immediately with the half-dozen ablest debaters. His
self-possession was perfect at all times, and at thirty-three he was
still in the spring and first lustre of his powers. His weighty and
deliberate manner, the brevity, force, and point of his sentences, and
the moderation of his gestures, were all in strong contrast to the
flowing, loose, impassioned manner of the Southern orators, who ruled
the House. It was something like coming upon a stray number of the old
Edinburgh Review in a heap of novels and Ladies' Magazines.
Chief-Justice Marshall, who heard his first speech, being himself a
Federalist, was so much delighted to hear his own opinions expressed
with such power and dignity, that he left the House, believing that
this stranger from far-off New Hampshire was destined to become, as he
said, "one of the very first statesmen of America, and perhaps the
very first." His Washington fame gave him new _éclat_ at home. He was
re-elected, and came back to Congress in 1815, to aid the Federalists
in preventing the young Republicans from being too Federal.
This last sentence slipped from the pen unawares; but, ridiculous as
it looks, it does actually express the position and vocation of the
Federalists after the peace of 1815. Clay, Calhoun, Story, Adams, and
the Republican majority in Congress, taught by the disasters of the
war, as they supposed, had embraced the ideas of the old Federalist
party, and were preparing to carry some of them to an extreme. The
navy had no longer an enemy. The strict constructionists had dwindled
to a few impracticables, headed by John Randolph. The younger
Republicans were disposed to a liberal, if not to a latitudinarian
construction of the Constitution. In short, they were Federalists and
Hamiltonians, bank men, tariff men, internal-improvement men. Then was
afforded to the country the curious spectacle of Federalists opposing
the measures which had been among the rallying-cries of their party
for twenty years. It was not in Daniel Webster's nature to be a
leader; it was morally impossible for him to disengage himself from
party ties. This exquisite and consummate artist in oratory, who could
give such weighty and brilliant expression to the feelings of his
hearers and the doctrines of his party, had less originating power,
whether of intellect or of will, than any other man of equal eminence
that ever lived. He adhered to the fag end of the old party, until it
was absorbed, unavoidably, with scarcely an effort of its own, in
Adams and Clay. From 1815 to 1825 he was in opposition, and in
opposition to old Federalism revived; and, consequently, we believe
that posterity will decide that his speeches of this period are the
only ones relating to details of policy which have the slightest
permanent value. In fact, his position in Congress, as a member of a
very small band of Federalists who had no hope of regaining power, was
the next thing to being independent, and he made an excellent use of
his advantage.
That Bank of the United States, for example, of which, in 1832, he was
the ablest defender, and for a renewal of which he strove for ten
years, he voted _against_ in 1816; and for reasons which neither he
nor any other man ever refuted. His speeches criticising the various
bank schemes of 1815 and 1816 were serviceable to the public, and made
the bank, as finally established, less harmful than it might have
been.
So of the tariff. On this subject, too, he always followed,--never
led. So long as there was a Federal party, he, as a member of it,
opposed Mr. Clay's protective, or (as Mr. Clay delighted to term it)
"American system." When, in 1825, the few Federalists in the House
voted for Mr. Adams, and were merged in the "conservative wing" of the
Republican party, which became, in time, the Whig party, then, and
from that time forward to the end of his life, he was a protectionist.
His anti-protection speech of 1824 is wholly in the modern spirit, and
takes precisely the ground since taken by Ricardo, John Stuart Mill,
and others of the new school. It is so excellent a statement of the
true policy of the United States with regard to protection, that we
have often wondered it has been allowed to sleep so long in the tomb
of his works. And, oh! from what evils might we have been
spared,--nullification, surplus-revenue embarrassments, hot-bed
manufactures, clothing three times its natural price,--if the
protective legislation of Congress had been inspired by the Webster of
1824, instead of the Clay! Unimportant as this great speech may now
seem, as it lies uncut in the third volume of its author's speeches,
its unturned leaves sticking together, yet we can say of it, that the
whole course of American history had been different if its counsels
had been followed. The essence of the speech is contained in two of
its phrases: "Freedom of trade, the general principle; restriction,
the exception." Free trade, the object to be aimed at; protection, a
temporary expedient. Free trade, the interest of all nations;
protection, the occasional necessity of one. Free trade, the final and
universal good; protection, the sometimes necessary evil. Free trade,
as soon as possible and as complete as possible; protection, as little
as possible and as short as possible. The speech was delivered in
reply to Mr. Clay; and, viewed merely _as_ a reply, it is difficult to
conceive of one more triumphant. Mr. Webster was particularly happy in
turning Mr. Clay's historical illustrations against him, especially
those drawn from the history of the English silk manufacture, and the
Spanish system of restriction and prohibition. Admitting fully that
manufactures the most unsuited to the climate, soil, and genius of a
country _could_ be created by protection, he showed that such
manufactures were not, upon the whole, and in the long run, a benefit
to a country; and adduced, for an illustration, the very instance
cited by Mr. Clay,--the silk manufacture of England,--which kept fifty
thousand persons in misery, and necessitated the continuance of a kind
of legislation which the intelligence of Great Britain had outgrown.
Is not the following brief passage an almost exhaustive statement of
the true American policy?
"I know it would be very easy to promote manufactures, at
least for a time, but probably for a short time only, if we
might act in disregard of other interests. We _could_ cause
a sudden transfer of capital and a violent change in the
pursuits of men. We _could_ exceedingly benefit some classes
by these means. But what then becomes of the interests of
others? The power of collecting revenue by duties on
imports, and the habit of the government of collecting
almost its whole revenue, in that mode, will enable us,
without exceeding the bounds of moderation, to give great
advantages to those classes of manufactures which we may
think most useful to promote at home."
One of his happy retorts upon Mr. Clay was the following:--
"I will be so presumptuous as to take up a challenge which
Mr. Speaker has thrown down. He has asked us, in a tone of
interrogatory indicative of the feeling of anticipated
triumph, to mention any country in which manufactures have
flourished without the aid of prohibitory laws.... Sir, I am
ready to answer this inquiry.
"There is a country, not undistinguished among the nations,
in which the progress of manufactures has been more rapid
than in any other, and yet unaided by prohibitions or
unnatural restrictions. That country, the happiest which the
sun shines on, is our own."
Again, Mr. Clay had made the rash remark that it would cost the
nation, _as_ a nation, nothing to convert our ore into iron. Mr.
Webster's reply to this seems to us eminently worthy of consideration
at the present moment, and at every moment when the tariff is a topic
of debate.
"I think," said he, "it would cost us precisely what we can
least afford, that is, _great labor_.... Of manual labor no
nation has more than a certain quantity; nor can it be
increased at will.... A most important question for every
nation, as well as for every individual, to propose to
itself, is, how it can best apply that quantity of labor
which it is able to perform.... Now, with respect to the
quantity of labor, as we all know, different nations are
differently circumstanced. Some need, more than anything,
work for hands; _others require hands for work_; and if we
ourselves are not absolutely in the latter class, we are
still, most fortunately, very near it."
The applicability of these observations to the present condition of
affairs in the United States--labor very scarce, and protectionists
clamoring to make it scarcer--must be apparent to every reader.
But this was the last of Mr. Webster's efforts in behalf of the
freedom of trade. In the spring of 1825, when it devolved upon the
House of Representatives to elect a President, the few Federalists
remaining in the House became, for a few days, an important body. Mr.
Webster had an hereditary love for the house of Adams; and the aged
Jefferson himself had personally warned him against Andrew Jackson.
Webster it was who, in an interview with Mr. Adams, obtained such
assurances as determined the Federalists to give their vote for the
New England candidate; and thus terminated the existence of the great
party which Hamilton had founded, with which Washington had
sympathized, which had ruled the country for twelve years, and
maintained a vigorous and useful opposition for a quarter of a
century. Daniel Webster was in opposition no longer. He was a defender
of the administration of Adams and Clay, supported all their important
measures, and voted for, nay, advocated, the Tariff Bill of 1828,
which went far beyond that of 1824 in its protective provisions.
Taunted with such a remarkable and sudden change of opinion, he said
that, New England having been compelled by the act of 1824 to transfer
a large part of her capital from commerce to manufactures, he was
bound, as her representative, to demand the continuance of the system.
Few persons, probably, who heard him give this reason for his
conversion, believed it was the true one; and few will ever believe it
who shall intimately know the transactions of that winter in
Washington. But if it _was_ the true reason, Mr. Webster, in giving
it, ruled himself out of the rank of the Great,--who, in every age and
land, lead, not follow, their generation. In his speech of 1824 he
objects to the protective system on _general_ principles, applicable
to every case not clearly exceptional; and the further Congress was
disposed to carry an erroneous system, the more was he bound to lift
up his voice against it. It seems to us that, when he abandoned the
convictions of his own mind and took service under Mr. Clay, he
descended (to use the fine simile of the author of "Felix Holt") from
the rank of heroes to that of the multitude for whom heroes fight. He
was a protectionist, thenceforth, as long as he lived. If he was right
in 1824, how wrong he was in 1846! In 1824 he pointed to the high
wages of American mechanics as a proof that the protective system was
unnecessary; and he might have quoted Adam Smith to show that, in
1770, wages in the Colonies were just as high, compared with wages in
Europe, as in 1824. In 1846 he attributed high wages in America to the
operation of the protective system. In 1824 free trade was the good,
and restriction the evil; in 1846 restriction was the good, and free
trade the evil.
Practical wisdom, indeed, was not in this man. He was not formed to
guide, but to charm, impress, and rouse mankind. His advocacy of the
Greek cause, in 1824, events have shown to be unwise; but his speech
on this subject contains some passages so exceedingly fine, noble, and
harmonious, that we do not believe they have ever been surpassed in
extempore speech by any man but himself. The passage upon Public
Opinion, for example, is always read with delight, even by those who
can call to mind the greatest number of instances of its apparent
untruth.
"The time has been, indeed, when fleets, and armies, and
subsidies were the principal reliances, even in the best
cause. But, happily for mankind, a great change has taken
place in this respect. Moral causes come into consideration
in proportion as the progress of knowledge is advanced; and
the public opinion of the civilized world is rapidly gaining
an ascendency over mere brutal force.... It may be silenced
by military power, but it cannot be conquered. It is
elastic, irrepressible, and invulnerable to the weapons of
ordinary warfare. It is that impassible, unextinguishable
enemy of mere violence and arbitrary rule, which, like
Milton's angels,
"'Vital in every part,...
Cannot, but by annihilating, die.'
"Until this be propitiated or satisfied, it is vain for power
to talk either of triumphs or of repose. No matter what
fields are desolated, what fortresses surrendered, what
armies subdued, or what provinces overrun.... There is an
enemy that still exists to check the glory of these
triumphs. It follows the conqueror back to the very scene of
his ovations; it calls upon him to take notice that Europe,
though silent, is yet indignant; it shows him that the
sceptre of his victory is a barren sceptre; that it shall
confer neither joy nor honor; but shall moulder to dry ashes
in his grasp. In the midst of his exultation, it pierces his
ear with the cry of injured justice; it denounces against
him the indignation of an enlightened and civilized age; it
turns to bitterness the cup of his rejoicing, and wounds him
with the sting which belongs to the consciousness of having
outraged the opinion of mankind."--_Works_, Vol. III. pp.
77, 78.