Entrance on Public Life.--State of Parties in 1812.--Election to
Congress.--Extra Session of 1813.--Foreign Relations of the
Country.--Resolutions relative to the Berlin and Milan
Decrees.--Naval Defence.--Reelected to Congress in 1814.--Peace with
England.--Projects for a National Bank.--Mr. Webster's Course on
that Question.--Battle of New Orleans.--New Questions arising on the
Return of Peace.--Course of Prominent Men of Different Parties.--Mr.
Webster's Opinions on the Constitutionality of the Tariff
Policy.--The Resolution to restore Specie Payments moved by Mr.
Webster.--Removal to Boston.
Mr. Webster had hitherto taken less interest in politics than has been
usual with the young men of talent, at least with the young lawyers, of
America. In fact, at the time to which the preceding narrative refers,
the politics of the country were in such a state, that there was scarce
any course which could be pursued with entire satisfaction by a
patriotic young man sagacious enough to penetrate behind mere party
names, and to view public questions in their true light. Party spirit
ran high; errors had been committed by ardent men on both sides; and
extreme opinions had been advanced on most questions, which no wise and
well-informed person at the present day would probably be willing to
espouse. The United States, although not actually drawn to any great
depth into the vortex of the French Revolution, were powerfully affected
by it. The deadly struggle of the two great European belligerents, in
which the neutral rights of this country were grossly violated by both,
gave a complexion to our domestic politics. A change of administration,
mainly resulting from difference of opinion in respect to our foreign
relations, had taken place in 1801. If we may consider President
Jefferson's inaugural address as the indication of the principles on
which he intended to conduct his administration, it was his purpose to
take a new departure, and to disregard the former party divisions. "We
have," said he, in that eloquent state paper, "called by different names
brethren of the same principle. We are all republicans, we are all
federalists."
At the time these significant expressions were uttered, Mr. Webster, at
the age of nineteen, was just leaving college and preparing to embark on
the voyage of life. A sentiment so liberal was not only in accordance
with the generous temper of youth, but highly congenial with the spirit
of enlarged patriotism which has ever guided his public course. There is
certainly no individual who has filled a prominent place in our
political history who has shown himself more devoted to principle and
less to party. While no man has clung with greater tenacity to the
friendships which spring from agreement in political opinion (the _idem
sentire de republica_), no man has been less disposed to find in these
associations an instrument of monopoly or exclusion in favor of
individuals, interests, or sections of the country.
But however catholic may have been the intentions and wishes of Mr.
Jefferson, events both at home and abroad were too strong for him, and
defeated that policy of blending the great parties into one, which has
always been a favorite, perhaps we must add, a visionary project, with
statesmen of elevated and generous characters. The aggressions of the
belligerents on our neutral commerce still continued, and, by the joint
effect of the Berlin and Milan Decrees and the Orders in Council, it was
all but swept from the ocean. In this state of things two courses were
open to the United States, as a growing neutral power: one, that of
prompt resistance to the aggressive policy of the belligerents; the
other, that which was called "the restrictive system," which consisted
in an embargo on our own vessels, with a view to withdraw them from the
grasp of foreign cruisers, and in laws inhibiting commercial intercourse
with England and France. There was a division of opinion in the cabinet
of Mr. Jefferson and in the country at large. The latter policy was
finally adopted. It fell in with the general views of Mr. Jefferson
against committing the country to the risks of foreign war. His
administration was also strongly pledged to retrenchment and economy, in
the pursuit of which a portion of our little navy had been brought to
the hammer, and a species of shore defence substituted, which can now be
thought of only with mortification and astonishment.
Although the discipline of party was sufficiently strong to cause this
system of measures to be adopted and pursued for years, it was never
cordially approved by the people of the United States of any party.
Leading Republicans both at the South and at the North denounced it.
With Mr. Jefferson's retirement from office it fell rapidly into
disrepute. It continued, however, to form the basis of our party
divisions till the war of 1812. In these divisions, as has been
intimated, both parties were in a false position; the one supporting and
forcing upon the country a system of measures not cordially approved,
even by themselves; the other, a powerless minority, zealously opposing
those measures, but liable for that reason to be thought backward in
asserting the neutral rights of the country. A few men of well-balanced
minds, true patriotism, and sound statesmanship, in all sections of the
country, were able to unite fidelity to their party associations with a
comprehensive view to the good of the country. Among these, mature
beyond his years, was Mr. Webster. As early as 1806 he had, in a public
oration, presented an impartial view of the foreign relations of the
country in reference to both belligerents, of the importance of our
commercial interests and the duty of protecting them. "Nothing is
plainer," said he, "than this: if we will have commerce, we must protect
it. This country is commercial as well as agricultural. Indissoluble
bonds connect him who ploughs the land with him who ploughs the sea.
Nature has placed us in a situation favorable to commercial pursuits,
and no government can alter the destination. Habits confirmed by two
centuries are not to be changed. An immense portion of our property is
on the waves. Sixty or eighty thousand of our most useful citizens are
there, and are entitled to such protection from the government as their
case requires."
At length the foreign belligerents themselves perceived the folly and
injustice of their measures. In the strife which should inflict the
greatest injury on the other, they had paralyzed the commerce of the
world and embittered the minds of all the neutral powers. The Berlin and
Milan Decrees were revoked, but in a manner so unsatisfactory as in a
great degree to impair the pacific tendency of the measure. The Orders
in Council were also rescinded in the summer of 1812. War, however,
justly provoked by each and both of the parties, had meantime been
declared by Congress against England, and active hostilities had been
commenced on the frontier. At the elections next ensuing, Mr. Webster
was brought forward as a candidate for Congress of the Federal party of
that day, and, having been chosen in the month of November, 1812, he
took his seat at the first session of the Thirteenth Congress, which was
an extra session called in May, 1813. Although his course of life
hitherto had been in what may be called a provincial sphere, and he had
never been a member even of the legislature of his native State, a
presentiment of his ability seems to have gone before him to Washington.
He was, in the organization of the House, placed by Mr. Clay, its
Speaker, upon the Committee of Foreign Affairs, a select committee at
that time, and of necessity the leading committee in a state of war.
There were many men of uncommon ability in the Thirteenth Congress.
Rarely has so much talent been found at any one time in the House of
Representatives. It contained Clay, Calhoun, Lowndes, Pickering, Gaston,
Forsyth, in the front rank; Macon, Benson, J. W. Taylor, Oakley,
Grundy, Grosvenor, W. R. King, Kent of Maryland, C. J. Ingersoll of
Pennsylvania, Pitkin of Connecticut, and others of scarcely inferior
note. Although among the youngest and least experienced members of the
body, Mr. Webster rose, from the first, to a position of undisputed
equality with the most distinguished. The times were critical. The
immediate business to be attended to was the financial and military
conduct of the war, a subject of difficulty and importance. The
position of Mr. Webster was not such as to require or permit him to take
a lead; but it was his steady aim, without the sacrifice of his
principles, to pursue such a course as would tend most effectually to
extricate the country from the embarrassments of her present position,
and to lead to peace upon honorable terms.
As the repeal of the Orders in Council was nearly simultaneous with the
declaration of war, the delay of a few weeks might have led to an
amicable adjustment. Whatever regret on the score of humanity this
circumstance may now inspire, the war must be looked upon, in reviewing
the past, as a great chapter in the progress of the country, which could
not be passed over. When we reflect on the influence of the conflict, in
its general results, upon the national character; its importance as a
demonstration to the belligerent powers of the world that the rights of
neutrals must be respected; and more especially, when we consider the
position among the nations of the earth which the United States have
been enabled to take, in consequence of the capacity for naval
achievement which the war displayed, we shall readily acknowledge it to
be a part of that great training, by which the country was prepared to
take the station which she now occupies.
Mr. Webster was not a member of Congress when war was declared, nor in
any other public station. He was too deeply read in the law of nations,
and regarded that august code with too much respect, not to contemplate
with indignation its infraction by both the belligerents. With respect
to the Orders in Council, the highest judicial magistrate in England
(Lord Chief Justice Campbell) has lately admitted that they were
contrary to the law of nations.[4] As little doubt can exist that the
French decrees were equally at variance with the public law. But however
strong his convictions of this truth, Mr. Webster's sagacity and
practical sense pointed out the inadequacy, and what may be called the
political irrelevancy, of the restrictive system, as a measure of
defence or retaliation. He could not but feel that it was a policy which
tended at once to cripple the national resources, and abase the public
sentiment, with an effect upon the foreign powers doubtful and at best
indirect. In the state of the military resources of the country at that
time, he discerned, in common with many independent men of all parties,
that less was to be hoped from the attempted conquest of foreign
territory, than from a gallant assault upon the fancied supremacy of the
enemy at sea. It is unnecessary to state, that the whole course of the
war confirmed the justice of these views. They furnish the key to Mr.
Webster's course in the Thirteenth Congress.
Early in the session, he moved a series of resolutions of inquiry,
relative to the repeal of the Berlin and Milan Decrees. The object of
these resolutions was to elicit a communication on this subject from the
executive, which would unfold the proximate causes of the war, as far as
they were to be sought in those famous Decrees, and in the Orders in
Council. On the 10th of June, 1813, Mr. Webster delivered his maiden
speech on these resolutions. No full report of this speech has been
preserved. It is known only from extremely imperfect sketches, contained
in the contemporaneous newspaper accounts of the proceedings of
Congress, from the recollection of those who heard it, and from general
tradition. It was a calm and statesmanlike exposition of the objects of
the resolutions; and was listened to with profound attention by the
House. It was marked by all the characteristics of Mr. Webster's
maturest parliamentary efforts,--moderation of tone, precision of
statement, force of reasoning, absence of ambitious rhetoric and
high-flown language, occasional bursts of true eloquence, and, pervading
the whole, a genuine and fervid patriotism. We have reason to believe
that its effect upon the House is accurately described in the following
extract from Mr. March's work.
"The speech took the House by surprise, not so much from its
eloquence as from the vast amount of historical knowledge and
illustrative ability displayed in it. How a person, untrained to
forensic contests and unused to public affairs, could exhibit so
much parliamentary tact, such nice appreciation of the difficulties
of a difficult question, and such quiet facility in surmounting
them, puzzled the mind. The age and inexperience of the speaker had
prepared the House for no such display, and astonishment for a time
subdued the expression of its admiration.
"'No member before,' says a person then in the House, 'ever riveted
the attention of the House so closely, in his first speech. Members
left their seats, where they could not see the speaker face to face,
and sat down, or stood on the floor, fronting him. All listened
attentively and silently, during the whole speech; and when it was
over, many went up and warmly congratulated the orator; among whom
were some, not the most niggard of their compliments, who most
dissented from the views he had expressed.'
"Chief Justice Marshall, writing to a friend some time after this
speech, says: 'At the time when this speech was delivered, I did not
know Mr. Webster, but I was so much struck with it, that I did not
hesitate then to state, that Mr. Webster was a very able man, and
would become one of the very first statesmen in America, and perhaps
the very first.'"--pp. 35, 36.[5]
The resolutions moved by Mr. Webster prevailed by a large majority, and
drew forth from Mr. Monroe, then Secretary of State, an elaborate and
instructive report upon the subject to which they referred.
We have already observed, that, as early as 1806, Mr. Webster had
expressed himself in favor of the protection of our commerce against the
aggressions of both the belligerents. Some years later, before the war
was declared, but when it was visibly impending, he had put forth some
vigorous articles to the same effect. In an oration delivered in 1812,
he had said: "A navy sufficient for the defence of our coasts and
harbors, for the convoy of important branches of our trade, and
sufficient also to give our enemies to understand, when they injure us,
that they too are vulnerable, and that we have the power of retaliation
as well as of defence, seems to be the plain, necessary, indispensable
policy of the nation. It is the dictate of nature and common sense, that
means of defence shall have relation to the danger." In accordance with
these views, first announced by Mr. Webster a considerable time before
Hull, Decatur, and Bainbridge had broken the spell of British naval
supremacy, he used the following language in his speech on encouraging
enlistments in 1814:--
"The humble aid which it would be in my power to render to measures
of government shall be given cheerfully, if government will pursue
measures which I can conscientiously support. If even now, failing
in an honest and sincere attempt to procure an honorable peace, it
will return to measures of defence and protection, such as reason
and common sense and the public opinion all call for, my vote shall
not be withholden from the means. Give up your futile projects of
invasion. Extinguish the fires which blaze on your inland frontiers.
Establish perfect safety and defence there by adequate force. Let
every man that sleeps on your soil sleep in security. Stop the blood
that flows from the veins of unarmed yeomanry, and women and
children. Give to the living time to bury and lament their dead, in
the quietness of private sorrow. Having performed this work of
beneficence and mercy on your inland border, turn and look with the
eye of justice and compassion on your vast population along the
coast. Unclench the iron grasp of your embargo. Take measures for
that end before another sun sets upon you. 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. Let it no
longer be said, that not one ship of force, built by your hands
since the war, yet floats upon the ocean. Turn the current of your
efforts into the channel which national sentiment has already worn
broad and deep to receive it. A naval force competent to defend your
coasts against considerable armaments, to convoy your trade, and
perhaps raise the blockade of your rivers, is not a chimera. It may
be realized. If then the war must continue, go to the ocean. If you
are seriously contending for maritime rights, go to the theatre
where alone those rights can be defended. Thither every indication
of your fortune points you. There the united wishes and exertions of
the nation will go with you. Even our party divisions, acrimonious
as they are, cease at the water's edge. They are lost in attachment
to the national character, on the element where that character is
made respectable. In protecting naval interests by naval means, you
will arm yourselves with the whole power of national sentiment, and
may command the whole abundance of the national resources. In time
you may be able to redress injuries in the place where they may be
offered; and, if need be, to accompany your own flag throughout the
world with the protection of your own cannon."
The principal subjects on which Mr. Webster addressed the House during
the Thirteenth Congress were his own resolutions, the increase of the
navy, the repeal of the embargo, and an appeal from the decision of the
chair on a motion for the previous question. His speeches on those
questions raised him to the front rank of debaters. He manifested upon
his entrance into public life that variety of knowledge, familiarity
with the history and traditions of the government, and self-possession
on the floor, which in most cases are acquired by time and long
experience. They gained for him the reputation indicated by the
well-known remark of Mr. Lowndes, that "the North had not his equal, nor
the South his superior." It was not the least conspicuous of the
strongly marked qualities of his character as a public man, disclosed at
this early period, and uniformly preserved throughout his career, that,
at a time when party spirit went to great lengths, he never permitted
himself to be infected with its contagion. His opinions were firmly
maintained and boldly expressed; but without bitterness toward those who
differed from him. He cultivated friendly relations on both sides of the
House, and gained the personal respect even of those with whom he most
differed.
In August, 1814, Mr. Webster was reelected to Congress. The treaty
of Ghent, as is well known, was signed in December, 1814, and the
prospect of peace, universally welcomed by the country, opened on
the Thirteenth Congress toward the close of its third session.
Earlier in the season a project for a Bank of the United States was
introduced into the House of Representatives on the recommendation of
Mr. Dallas, Secretary of the Treasury. The charter of the first
incorporated bank of the United States had expired in 1811. No general
complaints of mismanagement or abuse had been raised against this
institution; but the opinions entertained by what has been called the
"Virginia School" of politicians, against the constitutionality of a
national bank, prevented the renewal of the charter. The want of
such an institution was severely felt in the war of 1812, although it
is probable that the amount of assistance which it could have afforded
the financial operations of the government was greatly overrated. Be
this as it may, both the Treasury Department and Congress were now
strongly disposed to create a bank. Its capital was to consist of
forty-five millions of the public stocks and five millions of specie,
and it was to be under obligation to lend the government thirty
millions of dollars on demand. To enable it to exist under these
conditions, it was relieved from the necessity of redeeming its notes
in specie. In other words, it was an arrangement for the issue of an
irredeemable paper currency. It was opposed mainly on this ground by
Mr. Calhoun, Mr. Webster, Mr. Lowndes, and others of the ablest men on
both sides of the House, as a project not only unsound in its
principles, but sure to increase the derangement of the currency already
existing. The speech of Mr. Webster against the bill will be found in
one of these volumes, and it will be generally admitted to display a
mastery of the somewhat difficult subjects of banking and finance,
rarely to be found in the debates in Congress. The project was
supported as an administration measure, but the leading members from
South Carolina and their friends united with the regular opposition
against it, and it was lost by the casting vote of the Speaker, Mr.
Cheves. It was revived by reconsideration, on motion of Mr. Webster,
and such amendments introduced that it passed the House by a large
majority. It was carried through the Senate in this amended form
with difficulty, but it was negatived by Mr. Madison, being one of
the two cases in which he exercised the veto power during his eight
years' administration.
On the 8th of January of the year 1815, the victory at New Orleans was
gained by General Jackson. No occurrence on land, in the course of the
war, was of equal immediate interest, or destined to have so abiding an
influence on the future. Besides averting the indescribable calamity of
the sack of a populous and flourishing city, it showed the immense
military power of the volunteer force of the country, when commanded
with energy and skill. The praises of General Jackson were on every
tongue throughout the land, and Congress responded to the grateful
feelings of the country. A vote of thanks was unanimously passed by the
Senate and House of Representatives.
In the interval between the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Congresses
(March-December, 1815), Mr. Webster was busily engaged at home in the
practice of the law. He had begun at this time to consider the
expediency of removing his residence to a wider professional field.
Though receiving a full share of the best business of New Hampshire, it
ceased to yield an adequate support for his increasing family, and still
more failed to afford any thing like the just reward of his legal
attainment and labors. The destruction of his house, furniture, library,
and many important manuscript collections, in "the great fire" at
Portsmouth, in December, 1813, had entailed upon him the loss of the
entire fruits of his professional industry up to that time, and made it
necessary for him to look around him for the means of a considerably
increased income. He hesitated between Albany and Boston; and, in
consequence of this indecision, the execution of his purpose was for the
present postponed.
The Fourteenth Congress assembled in December, 1815. An order of things
in a great degree new presented itself. After a momentary pause, the
country rose with an elastic bound from the pressure of the war. Old
party dissensions had lost much of their interest. The condition of
Europe had undergone a great change. The power of the French emperor was
annihilated; and with the return of general peace, all occasions for
belligerent encroachments on neutral rights had ceased. Two thirds of
our domestic feuds had turned on foreign questions, and there was a
spontaneous feeling throughout the country in favor of healing the
wounds which these feuds had inflicted upon its social and political
harmony. Nor was this all. New relations and interests had arisen. The
public debt had been swelled by the war expenditure to a large amount,
and its interest was to be paid. Domestic manufactures had, in some of
the States, grown up into importance through the operation of the
restrictive system and the war, and asked for protection. The West began
to fill up with unexampled rapidity, and required new facilities of
communication with the Atlantic coast. The navy had fought itself into
favor, and the war with Algiers, in 1816, forbade its reduction below
the recent war establishment. The necessity of a system of coast
defences had made itself felt. With all these loud calls for increased
expenditure, the public finances were embarrassed and the currency was
in extreme disorder. In a word, there were new and great wants and
interests at home and abroad, throwing former topics of dissension into
the shade, and calling for the highest efforts of statesmanship and a
patriotism embracing the whole country.
Among those who responded with the greatest cordiality and promptness to
the new demand were the distinguished statesmen of the preceding
Congress, and conspicuous among them Clay, Calhoun, Webster, Lowndes,
and Cheves. It will excite some surprise at the present day, in
consideration of the political history of the last thirty years, to find
how little difference as to leading measures existed in 1816 between
these distinguished statesmen. No line of general party difference
separated the members of the first Congress after the peace. The great
measures brought forward were a national bank, internal improvement, and
a protective tariff. On these various subjects members divided, not in
accordance with any party organization, but from individual convictions,
supposed sectional interests, and general public grounds. On the two
first-named subjects no systematic difference of views disclosed itself
between the great Northern and Southern leaders; on the third alone
there was diversity of opinion. In the Northern States considerable
advances had been made in manufacturing industry, in different places,
especially at Waltham (Mass.); but a great manufacturing interest had
not yet grown up. The strength of this interest as yet lay mainly in
Pennsylvania. Navigation and foreign trade were the leading pursuits of
the North; and these interests, it was feared, would suffer from the
attempt to build up manufactures by a protective tariff. It is
accordingly a well-known fact, which may teach all to entertain
opinions on public questions with some distrust of their own judgment,
that the tariff of 1816, containing the _minimum_ duty on coarse cotton
fabrics, the corner-stone of the protective system, was supported by Mr.
Calhoun and a few other Southern members, and carried by their influence
against the opposition of the New England members generally, including
Mr. Webster. It has been stated, that, during the pendency of this law
before Congress, he denied the constitutionality of a tariff for
protection. This statement is inaccurate; although, had it been true, it
would have placed him only in the same relation to the question with Mr.
Calhoun and other Southern members, who at that time admitted the
principle of protection, but lived to reject it as the grossest and most
pernicious constitutional heresy. It would have shown only that, in a
long political career, he had, on the first discussion of a new
question, expressed an opinion which, in the lapse of time and under a
change of circumstances, he had seen occasion to alter. This is no
ground of just reproach. It has happened to every public man in every
free country, who has been of importance enough to have his early
opinions remembered. It has happened to a large portion of the prominent
men at the South, in reference to almost every great question agitated
within the last generation. The bank, internal improvements, a navy, the
Colonization Society, the annexation of Texas, the power of Congress
over the territories, this very question of the tariff, the doctrine of
State rights generally, are subjects on which many prominent statesmen
of the South, living or recently deceased, have in the course of their
career entertained opposite views.
But it is not true that Mr. Webster in 1816 denied the constitutionality
of a tariff for protection. In 1820, in discussing the subject in
Faneuil Hall, he argued that, if the right of laying duties for
protection were derived from the revenue power, it was of necessity
incidental; and on that assumption, as the incident cannot go beyond
that to which it is incidental, duties avowedly for protection, and not
having any reference to revenue, could not be constitutionally laid. The
hypothetical form of the statement shows a degree of indecision; while
the proposition itself is not to be gainsaid. At a later period, and
after it had been confidently stated, and satisfactorily shown by Mr.
Madison, that the Federal Convention intended, under the provision for
regulating commerce, to clothe Congress with the power of laying duties
for the protection of manufactures; and after Congress had, by repeated
laws, passed against the wishes of the navigating and strictly
commercial interests, practically settled this constitutional question,
and turned a vast amount of the capital of the country into the channel
of manufactures; Mr. Webster considered a moderate degree of protection
(such as would keep the home market steady under the occasional gluts in
the foreign market, and shield the domestic manufacturer from the
wholesale frauds of foreign importation) as the established policy of
the United States; and he accordingly supported it. It is unnecessary to
state, that this course has been pursued with the approbation of his
constituents, and to the manifest good of the country. No change has
taken place in Mr. Webster's opinions on the subject of protection which
has not been generally shared and sanctioned by the intelligence of the
manufacturing States. There are strong indications, even, that in the
Southern States the superiority of the home market over the foreign is
beginning to be felt.
Mr. Webster took an active and efficient part, at the first session of
the Fourteenth Congress, in the debates on the charter of the Bank of
the United States, which passed Congress in April, 1816. While the bill
was before the House, he moved and carried several amendments similar to
those which he had caused to be introduced into the bill of the former
year. He exerted himself in vain, however, against the participation of
the government in its management, and, in common with several
independent members usually supporting the administration, he voted
against it on its passage. Among the amendments to the bill, of which
Mr. Webster procured the adoption, was one which required _deposits_, as
well as the _notes_ of the bank, to be paid on demand in specie.
But the great service rendered by Mr. Webster to the currency of the
country in the Fourteenth Congress was in procuring the adoption of the
specie resolution, in virtue of which, from and after the 20th of
February, 1817, all debts due to the treasury were required to be paid
in the legal currency of the country (gold or silver), in treasury
notes, or the notes of the Bank of the United States, or in notes of
banks which are payable and paid on demand in the same legal currency.
This service can hardly be appreciated at the present day by those too
young to recollect the state of things existing in this respect during
the war and after its close. This resolution passed the two houses, and
was approved by the President on the 30th of April, 1816. It completely
accomplished its object; and that object was to restore to a sound basis
the currency of the country, and to give the people a uniform
circulating medium. Of this they were destitute at the close of the war.
All the banks, except those of the New England States, had suspended
specie payments; but their depreciated bills were permitted by general
consent, and within certain limits, to circulate as money. They were
received of each other by the different banks; they passed from hand to
hand; and even the public revenue was collected at par in this degraded
paper. The rate of depreciation was different in different States, and
with different banks in the same States, according as greater or less
advantage had been taken of the suspension of the specie obligation.
What was not less harassing than this diversity was the uncertainty
everywhere prevailing, how far the reputed rate of depreciation in any
particular case might represent justly the real condition of a bank or
set of banks. In other words, men were obliged to make and receive
payments in a currency of which, at the time, the value was not
certainly known to them, and which might vary as it was passing
through their hands. The enormous injustice suffered by the citizens
of different States, in being obliged to pay their dues at the
custom-houses in as many different currencies as there were States,
varying at least twenty-five per cent. between Boston and Richmond,
need not be pointed out. For all these mischiefs the resolution of Mr.
Webster afforded a remedy as efficient as simple; and what chiefly
moves our astonishment at the present day is, that a measure of this
kind, demanded by the first principles of finance, overlooked by the
executive and its leading friends in Congress, should be left to be
brought forward by one of its youngest members, and he not belonging to
the supporters of the administration. But commanding talent and
profound knowledge of the subjects to be treated vindicate to
themselves a position in public bodies, which official relations can
neither confer nor take away. It would not be easy to name a political
measure, in the history of the government, which has accomplished its
design with greater simplicity and directness; and that design one of
paramount importance to the country, and coming home to the business
of every individual.
In all the other public measures brought forward in this Congress for
meeting the new conditions of the country, Mr. Webster bore an active
part, but they furnish no topic requiring illustration. At the close of
the first session, in August, 1816, he executed the project to which we
have already alluded of removing to a wider professional field. After
some hesitation he decided on Boston, in which and its vicinity he has
ever since made his home. He had established friendly relations here at
an early period of life. In no part of the Union was his national
reputation more cordially recognized than in the metropolis of New
England. He took at once the place in his profession which belonged to
his commanding talent and legal eminence, and was welcomed into every
circle of social life.
FOOTNOTES
[4] Lives of the Chancellors, Vol. VII. p. 218; see also p. 301.
[5] The friend to whom the letter referred to by Mr. March was
written, was Mr. Justice Story, who adds: "Such praise from such
a man ought to be very gratifying. Consider that he is now
seventy-five years old, and that he speaks of his recollections
of some eighteen years ago with a freshness which shows how
deeply your reasoning impressed itself upon his mind. Keep this
_in memoriam rei_."