this society have a close connection, it may yet be added, generally,
that this is a period of great activity, of industry, of enterprise in
the various walks of life. It is a period, too, of growing wealth and
increasing prosperity. It is a time when men are fast multiplying, but
when means are increasing still faster than men. An auspicious moment,
then, it is, full of motive and encouragement, for the vigorous
prosecution of those inquiries which have for their object the discovery
of farther and farther means of uniting the results of scientific
research to the arts and business of life.
FOOTNOTES
[88] Introductory Lecture, read at this Opening of the Course for the
Season, on the 12th of November, 1828.
[89] See Beckmann's Inventions, Vol. I. p. 373, where the passage is
quoted from the Miscellaneous State Papers.
PUBLIC DINNER AT NEW YORK.
INTRODUCTORY NOTE.
In February, 1831, several distinguished gentlemen of the city cf New
York, in behalf of themselves and a large number of other citizens,
invited Mr. Webster to a public dinner, as a mark of their respect for
the value and success of his efforts, in the preceding session of
Congress, in defence of the Constitution of the United States. His
speech in reply to Mr. Hayne (contained in a subsequent volume of this
collection), which, by that time, had been circulated and read through
the country to a greater extent than any speech ever before delivered in
Congress, was the particular effort which led to this invitation.
The dinner took place at the City Hotel, on the 10th of March, and was
attended by a very large assembly.
Chancellor Kent presided, and, in proposing to the company the health of
their guest, made the following remarks:--
"New England has been long fruitful in great men, the necessary
consequence of the admirable discipline of her institutions--and we
are this day honored with the presence of one of those cherished
objects of her attachment and pride, who has an undoubted and
peculiar title to our regard. It is a plain truth, that he who
defends the constitution of his country by his wisdom in council is
entitled to share her gratitude with those who protect it by valor
in the field. Peace has its victories as well as war. We all
recollect a late memorable occasion, when the exalted talents and
enlightened patriotism of the gentleman to whom I have alluded were
exerted in the support of our national Union and the sound
interpretation of its charter.
"If there be any one political precept preeminent above all others
and acknowledged by all, it is that which dictates the absolute
necessity of a union of the States under one government, and that
government clothed with those attributes and powers with which the
existing Constitution has invested it. We are indebted, under
Providence, to the operation and influence of the powers of that
Constitution for our national honor abroad and for unexampled
prosperity at home. Its future stability depends upon the firm
support and due exercise of its legitimate powers in all their
branches. A tendency to disunion, to anarchy among the members
rather than to tyranny in the head, has been heretofore the
melancholy fate of all the federal governments of ancient and
modern Europe. Our Union and national Constitution were formed, as
we have hitherto been led to believe, under better auspices and with
improved wisdom. But there was a deadly principle of disease
inherent in the system. The assumption by any member of the Union of
the right to question and resist, or annul, as its own judgment
should dictate, either the laws of Congress, or the treaties, or the
decisions of the federal courts, or the mandates of the executive
power, duly made and promulgated as the Constitution prescribes, was
a most dangerous assumption of power, leading to collision and the
destruction of the system. And if, contrary to all our expectations,
we should hereafter fail in the grand experiment of a confederate
government extending over some of the fairest portions of this
continent, and destined to act, at the same time, with efficiency
and harmony, we should most grievously disappoint the hopes of
mankind, and blast for ever the fruits of the Revolution.
"But, happily for us, the refutation of such dangerous pretensions,
on the occasion referred to, was signal and complete. The false
images and delusive theories which had perplexed the thoughts and
disturbed the judgments of men, were then dissipated in like manner
as spectres disappear at the rising of the sun. The inestimable
value of the Union, and the true principles of the Constitution,
were explained by clear and accurate reasonings, and enforced by
pathetic and eloquent illustrations. The result was the more
auspicious, as the heretical doctrines which were then fairly
reasoned down had been advanced by a very respectable portion of the
Union, and urged on the floor of the Senate by the polished mind,
manly zeal, and honored name of a distinguished member from the
South.
"The consequences of that discussion have been extremely beneficial.
It turned the attention of the public to the great doctrines of
national rights and national union. Constitutional law ceased to
remain wrapped up in the breasts, and taught only by the responses,
of the living oracles of the law. Socrates was said to have drawn
down philosophy from the skies, and scattered it among the schools.
It may with equal truth be said that constitutional law, by means of
those senatorial discussions and the master genius that guided them,
was rescued from the archives of our tribunals and the libraries of
lawyers, and placed under the eye, and submitted to the judgment, of
the American people. _Their verdict is with us, and from it their
lies no appeal._"
As soon as the immense cheering and acclamations with which this address
and toast were received had subsided, Mr. Webster rose and addressed the
company as follows.
PUBLIC DINNER AT NEW YORK.
I owe the honor of this occasion, Gentlemen, to your patriotic and
affectionate attachment to the Constitution of our country. For an
effort, well intended, however otherwise of unpretending character, made
in the discharge of public duty, and designed to maintain the
Constitution and vindicate its just powers, you have been pleased to
tender me this token of your respect. It would be idle affectation to
deny that it gives me singular gratification. Every public man must
naturally desire the approbation of his fellow-citizens; and though it
may be supposed that I should be anxious, in the first place, not to
disappoint the expectations of those whose immediate representative I
am, it is not possible but that I should feel, nevertheless, the high
value of such a mark of esteem as is here offered. But, Gentlemen, I am
conscious that the main purpose of this occasion is higher than mere
manifestation of personal regard. It is to evince your devotion to the
Constitution, your sense of its transcendent value, and your just alarm
at whatever threatens to weaken its proper authority, or endanger its
existence.
Gentlemen, this could hardly be otherwise. It would be strange, indeed,
if the members of this vast commercial community should not be first and
foremost to rally for the Constitution, whenever opinions and doctrines
are advanced hostile to its principles. Where sooner than here, where
louder than here, may we expect a patriotic voice to be raised, when the
union of the States is threatened? In this great emporium, at this
central point of the united commerce of the United States, of all
places, we may expect the warmest, the most determined and universal
feeling of attachment to the national government. Gentlemen, no one can
estimate more highly than I do the natural advantages of your city. No
one entertains a higher opinion than myself, also, of that spirit of
wise and liberal policy, which has actuated the government of your own
great State in the accomplishment of high objects, important to the
growth and prosperity both of the State and the city. But all these
local advantages, and all this enlightened state policy, could never
have made your city what it now is, without the aid and protection of a
general government, extending over all the States, and establishing for
all a common and uniform system of commercial regulation. Without
national character, without public credit, without systematic finance,
without uniformity of commercial laws, all other advantages possessed by
this city would have decayed and perished, like unripe fruit. A general
government was, for years before it was instituted, the great object of
desire to the inhabitants of this city. New York, at a very early day,
was conscious of her local advantages for commerce; she saw her destiny,
and was eager to embrace it; but nothing else than a general government
could make free her path before her, and set her forward on her
brilliant career. She early saw all this, and to the accomplishment of
this great and indispensable object she bent every faculty, and exerted
every effort. She was not mistaken. She formed no false judgment. At the
moment of the adoption of the Constitution, New York was the capital of
one State, and contained thirty-two or three thousand people. It now
contains more than two hundred thousand people, and is justly regarded
as the commercial capital, not only of all the United States, but of the
whole continent also, from the pole to the South Sea. Every page of her
history, for the last forty years, bears high and irresistible testimony
to the benefits and blessings of the general government. Her astonishing
growth is referred to, and quoted, all the world over, as one of the
most striking proofs of the effects of our Federal Union. To suppose her
now to be easy and indifferent, when notions are advanced tending to its
dissolution, would be to suppose her equally forgetful of the past and
blind to the present, alike ignorant of her own history and her own
interest, metamorphosed, from all that she has been, into a being tired
of its prosperity, sick of its own growth and greatness, and infatuated
for its own destruction. Every blow aimed at the union of the States
strikes on the tenderest nerve of her interest and her happiness. To
bring the Union into debate is to bring her own future prosperity into
debate also. To speak of arresting the laws of the Union, of interposing
State power in matters of commerce and revenue, of weakening the full
and just authority of the general government, would be, in regard to
this city, but another mode of speaking of commercial ruin, of abandoned
wharfs, of vacated houses, of diminished and dispersing population, of
bankrupt merchants, of mechanics without employment, and laborers
without bread. The growth of this city and the Constitution of the
United States are coevals and contemporaries. They began together, they
have flourished together, and if rashness and folly destroy one, the
other will follow it to the tomb.
Gentlemen, it is true, indeed, that the growth of this city is
extraordinary, and almost unexampled. It is now, I believe, sixteen or
seventeen years since I first saw it. Within that comparatively short
period, it has added to its number three times the whole amount of its
population when the Constitution was adopted. Of all things having power
to check this prosperity, of all things potent to blight and blast it,
of all things capable of compelling this city to recede as fast as she
has advanced, a disturbed government, an enfeebled public authority, a
broken or a weakened union of the States, would be most efficacious.
This would be cause efficient enough. Every thing else, in the common
fortune of communities, she may hope to resist or to prevent; but this
would be fatal as the arrow of death.
Gentlemen, you have personal recollections and associations, connected
with the establishment and adoption of the Constitution, which are
necessarily called up on an occasion like this. It is impossible to
forget the prominent agency exercised by eminent citizens of your own,
in regard to that great measure. Those great men are now recorded among
the illustrious dead; but they have left names never to be forgotten,
and never to be remembered without respect and veneration. Least of all
can they be forgotten by you, when assembled here for the purpose of
signifying your attachment to the Constitution, and your sense of its
inestimable importance to the happiness of the people.
I should do violence to my own feelings, Gentlemen, I think I should
offend yours, if I omitted respectful mention of distinguished names yet
fresh in your recollections. How can I stand here, to speak of the
Constitution of the United States, of the wisdom of its provisions, of
the difficulties attending its adoption, of the evils from which it
rescued the country, and of the prosperity and power to which it has
raised it, and yet pay no tribute to those who were highly instrumental
in accomplishing the work? While we are here to rejoice that it yet
stands firm and strong, while we congratulate one another that we live
under its benign influence, and cherish hopes of its long duration, we
cannot forget who they were that, in the day of our national infancy, in
the times of despondency and despair, mainly assisted to work out our
deliverance. I should feel that I was unfaithful to the strong
recollections which the occasion presses upon us, that I was not true to
gratitude, not true to patriotism, not true to the living or the dead,
not true to your feelings or my own, if I should forbear to make mention
of ALEXANDER HAMILTON.
Coming from the military service of the country yet a youth, but with
knowledge and maturity, even in civil affairs, far beyond his years,
he made this city the place of his adoption; and he gave the whole
powers of his mind to the contemplation of the weak and distracted
condition of the country. Daily increasing in acquaintance and
confidence with the people of New York, he saw, what they also saw,
the absolute necessity of some closer bond of union for the States.
This was the great object of desire. He never appears to have lost
sight of it, but was found in the lead whenever any thing was to be
attempted for its accomplishment One experiment after another, as is
well known, was tried, and all failed. The States were urgently called
on to confer such further powers on the old Congress as would enable
it to redeem the public faith, or to adopt, themselves, some general
and common principle of commercial regulation. But the States had not
agreed, and were not likely to agree. In this posture of affairs, so
full of public difficulty and public distress, commissioners from five
or six of the States met, on the request of Virginia, at Annapolis, in
September, 1786. The precise object of their appointment was to take
into consideration the trade of the United States; to examine the
relative situations and trade of the several States; and to consider
how far a uniform system of commercial regulations was necessary to
their common interest and permanent harmony. Mr. Hamilton was one of
these commissioners; and I have understood, though I cannot assert the
fact, that their report was drawn by him. His associate from this
State was the venerable Judge Benson, who has lived long, and still
lives, to see the happy results of the counsels which originated in this
meeting. Of its members, he and Mr. Madison are, I believe, now the
only survivors. These commissioners recommended, what took place the
next year, a general Convention of all the States, to take into serious
deliberation the condition of the country, and devise such provisions
as should render the constitution of the federal government adequate
to the exigencies of the Union. I need not remind you, that of this
Convention Mr. Hamilton was an active and efficient member. The
Constitution was framed, and submitted to the country. And then
another great work was to be undertaken. The Constitution would
naturally find, and did find, enemies and opposers. Objections to it
were numerous, and powerful, and spirited. They were to be answered; and
they were effectually answered. The writers of the numbers of the
Federalist, Mr. Hamilton, Mr. Madison, and Mr. Jay, so greatly
distinguished themselves in their discussions of the Constitution,
that those numbers are generally received as important commentaries
on the text, and accurate expositions, in general, of its objects and
purposes. Those papers were all written and published in this city. Mr.
Hamilton was elected one of the distinguished delegation from the city
to the State Convention at Poughkeepsie, called to ratify the new
Constitution. Its debates are published. Mr. Hamilton appears to have
exerted, on this occasion, to the utmost, every power and faculty of
his mind.
The whole question was likely to depend on the decision of New York. He
felt the full importance of the crisis; and the reports of his speeches,
imperfect as they probably are, are yet lasting monuments to his genius
and patriotism. He saw at last his hopes fulfilled; he saw the
Constitution adopted, and the government under it established and
organized. The discerning eye of Washington immediately called him to
that post, which was far the most important in the administration of the
new system. He was made Secretary of the Treasury; and how he fulfilled
the duties of such a place, at such a time, the whole country perceived
with delight and the whole world saw with admiration. He smote the rock
of the national resources, and abundant streams of revenue gushed forth.
He touched the dead corpse of the Public Credit, and it sprung upon its
feet. The fabled birth of Minerva, from the brain of Jove, was hardly
more sudden or more perfect than the financial system of the United
States, as it burst forth from the conceptions of ALEXANDER HAMILTON.
Your recollections, Gentlemen, your respect, and your affections, all
conspire to bring before you, at such a time as this, another great
man, now too numbered with the dead. I mean the pure, the disinterested,
the patriotic JOHN JAY. His character is a brilliant jewel in the
sacred treasures of national reputation. Leaving his profession at an
early period, yet not before he had singularly distinguished himself in
it, his whole life, from the commencement of the Revolution until his
final retirement, was a life of public service. A member of the first
Congress, he was the author of that political paper which is generally
acknowledged to stand first among the incomparable productions of that
body;[90] productions which called forth that decisive strain of
commendation from the great Lord Chatham, in which he pronounced them
not inferior to the finest productions of the master states of the
world. Mr. Jay had been abroad, and he had also been long intrusted
with the difficult duties of our foreign correspondence at home. He had
seen and felt, in the fullest measure and to the greatest possible
extent, the difficulty of conducting our foreign affairs honorably and
usefully, without a stronger and more perfect domestic union. Though
not a member of the Convention which framed the Constitution, he was
yet present while it was in session, and looked anxiously for its
result. By the choice of this city, he had a seat in the State
Convention, and took an active and zealous part for the adoption of
the Constitution. On the organization of the new government, he was
selected by Washington to be the first Chief Justice of the Supreme
Court of the United States; and surely the high and most responsible
duties of that station could not have been trusted to abler or safer
hands. It is the duty of that tribunal, one of equal importance and
delicacy, to decide constitutional questions, occasionally arising
on State laws. The general learning and ability, and especially the
prudence, the mildness, and the firmness of his character, eminently
fitted Mr. Jay to be the head of such a court. When the spotless
ermine of the judicial robe fell on John Jay, it touched nothing
less spotless than itself.
These eminent men, Gentlemen, the contemporaries of some of you, known
to most, and revered by all, were so conspicuous in the framing and
adopting of the Constitution, and called so early to important stations
under it, that a tribute, better, indeed, than I have given, or am able
to give, seemed due to them from us, on this occasion.
There was yet another, of whom mention is to be made. In the
Revolutionary history of the country, the name of CHANCELLOR LIVINGSTON
became early prominent. He was a member of that Congress which declared
Independence; and a member, too, of the committee which drew and
reported the immortal Declaration. At the period of the adoption of the
Constitution, he was its firm friend and able advocate. He was a member
of the State Convention, being one of that list of distinguished and
gifted men who represented this city in that body; and he threw the
whole weight of his talents and influence into the doubtful scale of the
Constitution.
Gentlemen, as connected with the Constitution, you have also local
recollections which must bind it still closer to your attachment and
affection. It commenced its being and its blessings here. It was in this
city, in the midst of friends, anxious, hopeful, and devoted, that the
new government started in its course. To us, Gentlemen, who are younger,
it has come down by tradition; but some around me are old enough to have
witnessed, and did witness, the interesting scene of the first
inauguration. They remember what voices of gratified patriotism, what
shouts of enthusiastic hope, what acclamations rent the air, how many
eyes were suffused with tears of joy, how cordially each man pressed the
hand of him who was next to him, when, standing in the open air, in the
centre of the city, in the view of assembled thousands, the first
President of the United States was heard solemnly to pronounce the words
of his official oath, repeating them from the lips of Chancellor
Livingston. You then thought, Gentlemen, that the great work of the
Revolution was accomplished. You then felt that you had a government;
that the United States were then, indeed, united. Every benignant star
seemed to shed its selectest influence on that auspicious hour. Here
were heroes of the Revolution; here were sages of the Convention; here
were minds, disciplined and schooled in all the various fortunes of the
country, acting now in several relations, but all cooeperating to the
same great end, the successful administration of the new and untried
Constitution. And he,--how shall I speak of him?--he was at the head,
who was already first in war, who was already first in the hearts of his
countrymen, and who was now shown also, by the unanimous suffrage of the
country, to be first in peace.
Gentlemen, how gloriously have the hopes then indulged been fulfilled!
Whose expectation was then so sanguine, I may almost ask, whose
imagination then so extravagant, as to run forward, and contemplate
as probable, the one half of what has been accomplished in forty
years? Who among you can go back to 1789, and see what this city, and
this country, too, then were; and, beholding what they now are, can be
ready to consent that the Constitution of the United States shall be
weakened,--dishonored,--_nullified_?
Gentlemen, before I leave these pleasant recollections, I feel it an
irresistible impulse of duty to pay a tribute of respect to another
distinguished person, not, indeed, a fellow-citizen of your own, but
associated with those I have already mentioned in important labors, and
an early and indefatigable friend and advocate in the great cause of the
Constitution. I refer to MR. MADISON. I am aware, Gentlemen, that a
tribute of regard from me to him is of little importance; but if it
shall receive your approbation and sanction, it will become of value.
Mr. Madison, thanks to a kind Providence, is yet among the living, and
there is certainly no other individual living, to whom the country is so
much indebted for the blessings of the Constitution. He was one of the
commissioners who met at Annapolis, in 1786, to which meeting I have
already referred, and which, to the great credit of Virginia, had its
origin in a proceeding of that State. He was a member of the Convention
of 1787, and of that of Virginia in the following year. He was thus
intimately acquainted with the whole progress of the formation of the
Constitution, from its very first step to its final adoption. If ever
man had the means of understanding a written instrument, Mr. Madison has
the means of understanding the Constitution. If it be possible to know
what was designed by it, he can tell us. It was in this city, that, in
conjunction with Mr. Hamilton and Mr. Jay, he wrote the numbers of the
Federalist; and it was in this city that he commenced his brilliant
career under the new Constitution, having been elected into the House of
Representatives of the first Congress. The recorded votes and debates of
those times show his active and efficient agency in every important
measure of that Congress. The necessary organization of the government,
the arrangement of the departments, and especially the paramount subject
of revenue, engaged his attention, and divided his labors.
The legislative history of the first two or three years of the
government is full of instruction. It presents, in striking light, the
evils intended to be remedied by the Constitution, and the provisions
which were deemed essential to the remedy of those evils. It exhibits
the country, in the moment of its change from a weak and ill-defined
confederacy of States, into a general, efficient, but still restrained
and limited government. It shows the first working of our peculiar
system, moved, as it then was, by master hands.
Gentlemen, for one, I confess I like to dwell on this part of our
history. It is good for us to be here. It is good for us to study the
situation of the country at this period, to survey its difficulties, to
look at the conduct of its public men, to see how they struggled with
obstacles, real and formidable, and how gloriously they brought the
Union out of its state of depression and distress. Truly, Gentlemen,
these founders and fathers of the Constitution were great men, and
thoroughly furnished for every good work. All that reading and learning
could do; all that talent and intelligence could do; and, what perhaps
is still more, all that long experience in difficult and troubled times
and a deep and intimate practical knowledge of the condition of the
country could do,--conspired to fit them for the great business of
forming a general, but limited government, embracing common objects,
extending over all the States, and yet touching the power of the States
no further than those common objects require. I confess I love to linger
around these original fountains, and to drink deep of their waters. I
love to imbibe, in as full measure as I may, the spirit of those who
laid the foundations of the government, and so wisely and skilfully
balanced and adjusted its bearings and proportions.
Having been afterwards, for eight years, Secretary of State, and as
long President, Mr. Madison has had an experience in the affairs of the
Constitution, certainly second to no man. More than any other man
living, and perhaps more than any other who has lived, his whole
public life has been incorporated, as it were, into the Constitution;
in the original conception and project of attempting to form it, in its
actual framing, in explaining and recommending it, by speaking and
writing, in assisting at the first organization of the government
under it, and in a long administration of its executive powers,--in
these various ways he has lived near the Constitution, and with the
power of imbibing its true spirit, and inhaling its very breath, from
its first pulsation of life. Again, therefore, I ask, If he cannot tell
us what the Constitution is, and what it means, who can? He had
retired with the respect and regard of the community, and might
naturally be supposed not willing to interfere again in matters of
political concern. He has, nevertheless, not withholden his opinions on
the vital question discussed on that occasion, which has caused this
meeting. He has stated, with an accuracy almost peculiar to himself,
and so stated as, in my opinion, to place almost beyond further
controversy, the true doctrines of the Constitution. He has stated, not
notions too loose and irregular to be called even a theory, not ideas
struck out by the feeling of present inconvenience or supposed
mal-administration, not suggestions of expediency, or evasions of
fair and straightforward construction, but elementary principles,
clear and sound distinctions, and indisputable truths. I am sure,
Gentlemen, that I speak your sentiments, as well as my own, when I
say, that, for making public so clearly and distinctly as he has done
his own opinions on these vial questions of constitutional law, Mr.
Madison has founded a new and strong claim on the gratitude of a
grateful country. You will think, with me, that, at his advanced age,
and in the enjoyment of general respect and approbation for a long
career of public services, it was an act of distinguished patriotism,
when he saw notions promulgated and maintained which he deemed unsound
and dangerous, not to hesitate to come forward and to place the
weight of his own opinion in what he deemed the right scale, come
what come might. I am sure, Gentlemen, it cannot be doubted,--the
manifestation is clear,--that the country feels deeply the force of
this new obligation.[91]
Gentlemen, what I have said of the benefits of the Constitution to your
city might be said, with little change, in respect to every other part
of the country. Its benefits are not exclusive. What has it left undone,
which any government could do, for the whole country? In what condition
has it placed us? Where do we now stand? Are we elevated, or degraded,
by its operation? What is our condition under its influence, at the very
moment when some talk of arresting its power and breaking its unity? Do
we not feel ourselves on an eminence? Do we not challenge the respect of
the whole world? What has placed us thus high? What has given us this
just pride? What else is it, but the unrestrained and free operation of
that same Federal Constitution, which it has been proposed now to
hamper, and manacle, and nullify? Who is there among us, that, should he
find himself on any spot of the earth where human beings exist, and
where the existence of other nations is known, would not be proud to
say, I am an American? I am a countryman of Washington? I am a citizen
of that republic, which, although it has suddenly sprung up, yet there
are none on the globe who have ears to hear, and have not heard of it;
who have eyes to see, and have not read of it; who know any thing, and
yet do not know of its existence and its glory? And, Gentlemen, let me
now reverse the picture. Let me ask, who there is among us, if he were
to be found to-morrow in one of the civilized countries of Europe, and
were there to learn that this goodly form of government had been
overthrown, that the United States were no longer united, that a
death-blow had been struck upon their bond of union, that they
themselves had destroyed their chief good and their chief honor,--who is
there whose heart would not sink within him? Who is there who would not
cover his face for very shame?
At this very moment, Gentlemen, our country is a general refuge for the
distressed and the persecuted of other nations. Whoever is in affliction
from political occurrences in his own country looks here for shelter.
Whether he be republican, flying from the oppression of thrones, or
whether he be monarch or monarchist, flying from thrones that crumble
and fall under or around him, he feels equal assurance, that, if he get
foothold on our soil, his person will be safe, and his rights will be
respected.
And who will venture to say, that, in any government now existing in the
world, there is greater security for persons or property than in that of
the United States? We have tried these popular institutions in times of
great excitement and commotion, and they have stood, substantially, firm
and steady, while the fountains of the great political deep have been
elsewhere broken up; while thrones, resting on ages of prescription,
have tottered and fallen; and while, in other countries, the earthquake
of unrestrained popular commotion has swallowed up all law, and all
liberty, and all right together. Our government has been tried in peace,
and it has been tried in war, and has proved itself fit for both. It has
been assailed from without, and it has successfully resisted the shock;
it has been disturbed within, and it has effectually quieted the
disturbance. It can stand trial, it can stand assault, it can stand
adversity, it can stand every thing, but the marring of its own beauty,
and the weakening of its own strength. It can stand every thing but the
effects of our own rashness and our own folly. It can stand every thing
but disorganization, disunion, and nullification.
It is a striking fact, and as true as it is striking, that at this very
moment, among all the principal civilized states of the world, _that_
government is most secure against the danger of popular commotion which
is itself entirely popular. It seems, indeed, that the submission of
every thing to the public will, under constitutional restraints, imposed
by the people themselves, furnishes itself security that they will
desire nothing wrong.
Certain it is, that popular, constitutional liberty, as we enjoy it,
appears, in the present state of the world, as sure and stable a basis
for government to rest upon, as any government of enlightened states can
find, or does find. Certain it is, that, in these times of so much
popular knowledge, and so much popular activity, those governments which
do not admit the people to partake in their administration, but keep
them under and beneath, sit on materials for an explosion, which may
take place at any moment, and blow them into a thousand atoms.
Gentlemen, let any man who would degrade and enfeeble the national
Constitution, let any man who would nullify its laws, stand forth and
tell us what he would wish. What does he propose? Whatever he may be,
and whatever substitute he may hold forth, I am sure the people of this
country will decline his kind interference, and hold on by the
Constitution which they possess. Any one who would willingly destroy it,
I rejoice to know, would be looked upon with abhorrence. It is deeply
intrenched in the regards of the people. Doubtless it may be undermined
by artful and long-continued hostility; it may be imperceptibly weakened
by secret attack; it may be insidiously shorn of its powers by slow
degrees; the public vigilance may be lulled, and when it awakes, it may
find the Constitution frittered away. In these modes, or some of them,
it is possible that the union of the States may be dissolved.
But if the general attention of the people be kept alive, if they see
the intended mischief before it is effected, they will prevent it by
their own sovereign power. They will interpose themselves between the
meditated blow and the object of their regard and attachment. Next to
the controlling authority of the people themselves, the preservation of
the government is mainly committed to those who administer it. If
conducted in wisdom, it cannot but stand strong. Its genuine, original
spirit is a patriotic, liberal, and generous spirit; a spirit of
conciliation, of moderation, of candor, and charity; a spirit of
friendship, and not a spirit of hostility toward the States; a spirit
careful not to exceed, and equally careful not to relinquish, its just
powers. While no interest can or ought to feel itself shut out from the
benefits of the Constitution, none should consider those benefits as
exclusively its own. The interests of all must be consulted, and
reconciled, and provided for, as far as possible, that all may perceive
the benefits of a united government.
Among other things, we are to remember that new States have arisen,
possessing already an immense population, spreading and thickening over
vast regions which were a wilderness when the Constitution was adopted.
Those States are not, like New York, directly connected with maritime
commerce. They are entirely agricultural, and need markets for
consumption; and they need, too, access to those markets. It is the duty
of the government to bring the interests of these new States into the
Union, and incorporate them closely in the family compact. Gentlemen, it
is not impracticable to reconcile these various interests, and so to
administer the government as to make it useful to all. It was never
easier to administer the government than it is now. We are beset with
none, or with few, of its original difficulties; and it is a time of
great general prosperity and happiness. Shall we admit ourselves
incompetent to carry on the government, so as to be satisfactory to the
whole country? Shall we admit that there has so little descended to us
of the wisdom and prudence of our fathers? If the government could be
administered in Washington's time, when it was yet new, when the country
was heavily in debt, when foreign relations were in a threatening
condition, and when Indian wars pressed on the frontiers, can it not be
administered now? Let us not acknowledge ourselves so unequal to our
duties.
Gentlemen, on the occasion referred to by the chair, it became necessary
to consider the judicial power, and its proper functions under the
Constitution. In every free and balanced government, this is a most
essential and important power. Indeed, I think it is a remark of Mr.
Hume, that the administration of justice seems to be the leading object
of institutions of government; that legislatures assemble, that armies
are embodied, that both war and peace are made, with a sort of ultimate
reference to the proper administration of laws, and the judicial
protection of private rights. The judicial power comes home to every
man. If the legislature passes incorrect or unjust general laws, its
members bear the evil as well as others. But judicature acts on
individuals. It touches every private right, every private interest, and
almost every private feeling. What we possess is hardly fit to be called
our own, unless we feel secure in its possession; and this security,
this feeling of perfect safety, cannot exist under a wicked, or even
under a weak and ignorant, administration of the laws. There is no
happiness, there is no liberty, there is no enjoyment of life, unless a
man can say when he rises in the morning, I shall be subject to the
decision of no unjust judge to-day.
But, Gentlemen, the judicial department, under the Constitution of the
United States, possesses still higher duties. It is true, that it may be
called on, and is occasionally called on, to decide questions which are,
in one sense, of a political nature. The general and State governments,
both established by the people, are established for different purposes,
and with different powers. Between those powers questions may arise; and
who shall decide them? Some provision for this end is absolutely
necessary. What shall it be? This was the question before the
Convention; and various schemes were suggested. It was foreseen that the
States might inadvertently pass laws inconsistent with the Constitution
of the United States, or with acts of Congress. At least, laws might be
passed which would be charged with such inconsistency. How should these
questions be disposed of? Where shall the power of judging, in cases of
alleged interference, be lodged? One suggestion in the Convention was,
to make it an executive power, and to lodge it in the hands of the
President, by requiring all State laws to be submitted to him, that he
might negative such as he thought appeared repugnant to the general
Constitution. This idea, perhaps, may have been borrowed from the power
exercised by the crown over the laws of the Colonies. It would evidently
have been, not only an inconvenient and troublesome proceeding, but
dangerous also to the powers of the States. It was not pressed. It was
thought wiser and safer, on the whole, to require State legislatures and
State judges to take an oath to support the Constitution of the United
States, and then leave the States at liberty to pass whatever laws they
pleased, and if interference, in point of fact, should arise, to refer
the question to judicial decision. To this end, the judicial power,
under the Constitution of the United States, was made coextensive with
the legislative power. It was extended to all cases arising under the
Constitution and the laws of Congress. The judiciary became thus
possessed of the authority of deciding, in the last resort, in all cases
of alleged interference, between State laws and the Constitution and
laws of Congress.
Gentlemen, this is the actual Constitution, this is the law of the land.
There may be those who think it unnecessary, or who would prefer a
different mode of deciding such questions. But this is the established
mode, and, till it be altered, the courts can no more decline their duty
on these occasions than on other occasions. But can any reasonable man
doubt the expediency of this provision, or suggest a better? Is it not
absolutely essential to the peace of the country that this power should
exist somewhere? Where can it exist, better than where it now does
exist? The national judiciary is the common tribunal of the whole
country. It is organized by the common authority, and its places filled
by the common agent. This is a plain and practical provision. It was
framed by no bunglers, nor by any wild theorists. And who can say that
it has failed? Who can find substantial fault with its operation or its
results? The great question is, whether we shall provide for the
peaceable decision of cases of collision. Shall they be decided by law,
or by force? Shall the decisions be decisions of peace, or decisions of
war?
On the occasion which has given rise to this meeting, the proposition
contended for in opposition to the doctrine just stated was, that every
State, under certain supposed exigencies, and in certain supposed cases,
might decide for itself, and act for itself, and oppose its own force to
the execution of the laws. By what argument, do you imagine, Gentlemen,
was such a proposition maintained? I should call it metaphysical and
subtle; but these terms would imply at least ingenuity, and some degree
of plausibility; whereas the argument appears to me plain assumption,
mere perverse construction of plain language in the body of the
Constitution itself. As I understand it, when put forth in its revised
and most authentic shape, it is this: that the Constitution provides
that any amendments may be made to it which shall be agreed to by three
fourths of the States; there is, therefore, to be nothing in the
Constitution to which three fourths of the States have not agreed. All
this is true; but then comes this inference, namely, that, when one
State denies the constitutionality of any law of Congress, she may
arrest its execution as to herself; and keep it arrested, till the
States can all be consulted by their conventions, and three fourths of
them shall have decided that the law is constitutional. Indeed, the
inference is still stranger than this; for State conventions have no
authority to construe the Constitution, though they have authority to
amend it; therefore the argument must prove, if it prove any thing,
that, when any one State denies that any particular power is included in
the Constitution, it is to be considered as not included, and cannot be
found there till three fourths of the States agree to insert it. In
short, the result of the whole is, that, though it requires three
fourths of the States to insert any thing in the Constitution, yet any
one State can strike any thing out of it. For the power to strike out,
and the power of deciding, without appeal, upon the construction of what
is already in, are substantially and practically the same.
And, Gentlemen, what a spectacle should we have exhibited under the
actual operation of notions like these! At the very moment when our
government was quoted, praised, and commended all over the world, when
the friends of republican liberty everywhere were gazing at it with
delight, and were in perfect admiration at the harmony of its movements,
one State steps forth, and, by the power of nullification, breaks up the
whole system, and scatters the bright chain of the Union into as many
sundered links as there are separate States!
Seeing the true grounds of the Constitution thus attacked, I raised my
voice in its favor, I must confess with no preparation or previous
intention. I can hardly say that I embarked in the contest from a sense
of duty. It was an instantaneous impulse of inclination, not acting
against duty, I trust, but hardly waiting for its suggestions. I felt it
to be a contest for the integrity of the Constitution, and I was ready
to enter into it, not thinking, or caring, personally, how I might come
out.
Gentlemen, I have true pleasure in saying that I trust the crisis has in
some measure passed by. The doctrines of nullification have received a
severe and stern rebuke from public opinion. The general reprobation of
the country has been cast upon them. Recent expressions of the most
numerous branch of the national legislature are decisive and imposing.
Everywhere, the general tone of public feeling is for the Constitution.
While much will be yielded--every thing, almost, but the integrity of
the Constitution, and the essential interests of the country--to the
cause of mutual harmony and mutual conciliation, no ground can be
granted, not an inch, to menace and bluster. Indeed, menace and bluster,
and the putting forth of daring, unconstitutional doctrines, are, at
this very moment, the chief obstacles to mutual harmony and satisfactory
accommodation. Men cannot well reason, and confer, and take counsel
together, about the discreet exercise of a power, with those who deny
that any such power rightfully exists, and who threaten to blow up the
whole Constitution if they cannot otherwise get rid of its operation.
It is matter of sincere gratification, Gentlemen, that the voice of this
great State has been so clear and strong, and her vote all but
unanimous, on the most interesting of these occasions, in the House of
Representatives. Certainly, such respect to the Union becomes New York.
It is consistent with her interests and her character. That singularly
prosperous State, which now is, and is likely to continue to be, the
greatest link in the chain of the Union, will ever be, I am sure, the
strongest link also. The great States which lie in her neighborhood
agreed with her fully in this matter. Pennsylvania, I believe, was loyal
to the Union, to a man; and Ohio raises her voice, like that of a lion,
against whatsoever threatens disunion and dismemberment. This harmony of
sentiment is truly gratifying. It is not to be gainsaid, that the union
of opinion in this great central mass of our population, on this
momentous point of the Constitution, augurs well for our future
prosperity and security.
I have said, Gentlemen, what I verily believe to be true, that there is
no danger to the Union from open and avowed attacks on its essential
principles. Nothing is to be feared from those who will march up boldly
to their own propositions, and tell us that they mean to annihilate
powers exercised by Congress. But, certainly, there are dangers to the
Constitution, and we ought not to shut our eyes to them. We know the
importance of a firm and intelligent judiciary; but how shall we secure
the continuance of a firm and intelligent judiciary? Gentlemen, the
judiciary is in the appointment of the executive power. It cannot
continue or renew itself. Its vacancies are to be filled in the ordinary
modes of executive appointment. If the time shall ever come (which
Heaven avert), when men shall be placed in the supreme tribunal of the
country, who entertain opinions hostile to the just powers of the
Constitution, we shall then be visited by an evil defying all remedy.
Our case will be past surgery. From that moment the Constitution is at
an end. If they who are appointed to defend the castle shall betray it,
woe betide those within! If I live to see that day come, I shall despair
of the country. I shall be prepared to give it back to all its former
afflictions, in the days of the Confederation. I know no security
against the possibility of this evil, but an awakened public vigilance.
I know no safety, but in that state of public opinion which shall lead
it to rebuke and put down every attempt, either to gratify party by
judicial appointments, or to dilute the Constitution by creating a court
which shall construe away its provisions. If members of Congress betray
their trust, the people will find it out before they are ruined. If the
President should at any time violate his duty, his term of office is
short, and popular elections may supply a seasonable remedy. But the
judges of the Supreme Court possess, for very good reasons, an
independent tenure of office. No election reaches them. If, with this
tenure, they betray their trusts, Heaven save us! Let us hope for better
results. The past, certainly, may encourage us. Let us hope that we
shall never see the time when there shall exist such an awkward posture
of affairs, as that the government shall be found in opposition to the
Constitution, and when the guardians of the Union shall become its
betrayers.
* * * * *
Gentlemen, our country stands, at the present time, on commanding
ground. Older nations, with different systems of government, may be
somewhat slow to acknowledge all that justly belongs to us. But we may
feel without vanity, that America is doing her part in the great work of
improving human affairs. There are two principles, Gentlemen, strictly
and purely American, which are now likely to prevail throughout the
civilized world. Indeed, they seem the necessary result of the progress
of civilization and knowledge. These are, first, popular governments,
restrained by written constitutions; and, secondly, universal education.
Popular governments and general education, acting and reacting, mutually
producing and reproducing each other, are the mighty agencies which in
our days appear to be exciting, stimulating, and changing civilized
societies. Man, everywhere, is now found demanding a participation in
government,--and he will not be refused; and he demands knowledge as
necessary to self-government. On the basis of these two principles,
liberty and knowledge, our own American systems rest. Thus far we have
not been disappointed in their results. Our existing institutions,
raised on these foundations, have conferred on us almost unmixed
happiness. Do we hope to better our condition by change? When we shall
have nullified the present Constitution, what are we to receive in its
place? As fathers, do we wish for our children better government, or
better laws? As members of society, as lovers of our country, is there
any thing we can desire for it better than that, as ages and centuries
roll over it, it may possess the same invaluable institutions which it
now enjoys? For my part, Gentlemen, I can only say, that I desire to
thank the beneficent Author of all good for being born _where_ I was
born, and _when_ I was born; that the portion of human existence
allotted to me has been meted out to me in this goodly land, and at this
interesting period. I rejoice that I have lived to see so much
development of truth, so much progress of liberty, so much diffusion of
virtue and happiness. And, through good report and evil report, it will
be my consolation to be a citizen of a republic unequalled in the annals
of the world for the freedom of its institutions, its high prosperity,
and the prospects of good which yet lie before it. Our course,
Gentlemen, is onward, straight onward, and forward. Let us not turn to
the right hand, nor to the left. Our path is marked out for us, clear,
plain, bright, distinctly defined, like the milky way across the
heavens. If we are true to our country, in our day and generation, and
those who come after us shall be true to it also, assuredly, assuredly,
we shall elevate her to a pitch of prosperity and happiness, of honor
and power, never yet reached by any nation beneath the sun.
Gentlemen, before I resume my seat, a highly gratifying duty remains
to be performed. In signifying your sentiments of regard, you have
kindly chosen to select as your organ for expressing them the
eminent person[92] near whom I stand. I feel, I cannot well say how
sensibly, the manner in which he has seen fit to speak on this
occasion. Gentlemen, if I may be supposed to have made any attainment
in the knowledge of constitutional law, he is among the masters in
whose schools I have been taught. You see near him a distinguished
magistrate,[93] long associated with him in judicial labors, which
have conferred lasting benefits and lasting character, not only on
the State, but on the whole country. Gentlemen, I acknowledge myself
much their debtor. While yet a youth, unknown, and with little
expectation of becoming known beyond a very limited circle, I have
passed days and nights, not of tedious, but of happy and gratified
labor, in the study of the judicature of the State of New York. I am
most happy to have this public opportunity of acknowledging the
obligation, and of repaying it as far as it can be repaid, by the poor
tribute of my profound regard, and the earnest expression of my
sincere respect.
Gentlemen, I will no longer detain you than to propose a toast:--
The City of New York; herself the noblest eulogy on the Union of the
States.
FOOTNOTES
[90] Address to the People of Great Britain.
[91] The reference is to Mr. Madison's letter on the subject of
_Nullification_, in the North American Review, Vol. XXXI. p.
537.
[92] Chancellor Kent, the presiding officer.
[93] Judge Spencer.
THE CHARACTER OF WASHINGTON.[94]
On the 22d of February, 1832, being the centennial birthday of
GEORGE WASHINGTON, a number of gentlemen, members of Congress and
others, from different parts of the Union, united in commemorating
the occasion by a public dinner in the city of Washington.
At the request of the Committee of Arrangements, Mr. Webster, then a
Senator from Massachusetts, occupied the chair. After the cloth was
removed, he addressed the company in the following manner:
I rise, Gentlemen, to propose to you the name of that great man, in
commemoration of whose birth, and in honor of whose character and
services, we are here assembled.
I am sure that I express a sentiment common to every one present, when I
say that there is something more than ordinarily solemn and affecting in
this occasion.
We are met to testify our regard for him whose name is intimately
blended with whatever belongs most essentially to the prosperity, the
liberty, the free institutions, and the renown of our country. That name
was of power to rally a nation, in the hour of thick-thronging public
disasters and calamities; that name shone, amid the storm of war, a
beacon light, to cheer and guide the country's friends; it flamed, too,
like a meteor, to repel her foes. That name, in the days of peace, was a
load-stone, attracting to itself a whole people's confidence, a whole
people's love, and the whole world's respect. That name, descending with
all time, spreading over the whole earth, and uttered in all the
languages belonging to the tribes and races of men, will for ever be
pronounced with affectionate gratitude by every one in whose breast
there shall arise an aspiration for human rights and human liberty.
We perform this grateful duty, Gentlemen, at the expiration of a hundred
years from his birth, near the place, so cherished and beloved by him,
where his dust now reposes, and in the capital which bears his own
immortal name.
All experience evinces that human sentiments are strongly influenced by
associations. The recurrence of anniversaries, or of longer periods of
time, naturally freshens the recollection, and deepens the impression,
of events with which they are historically connected. Renowned places,
also, have a power to awaken feeling, which all acknowledge. No American
can pass by the fields of Bunker Hill, Monmouth, and Camden, as if they
were ordinary spots on the earth's surface. Whoever visits them feels
the sentiment of love of country kindling anew, as if the spirit that
belonged to the transactions which have rendered these places
distinguished still hovered round, with power to move and excite all who
in future time may approach them.
But neither of these sources of emotion equals the power with which
great moral examples affect the mind. When sublime virtues cease to be
abstractions, when they become embodied in human character, and
exemplified in human conduct, we should be false to our own nature, if
we did not indulge in the spontaneous effusions of our gratitude and our
admiration. A true lover of the virtue of patriotism delights to
contemplate its purest models; and that love of country may be well
suspected which affects to soar so high into the regions of sentiment as
to be lost and absorbed in the abstract feeling, and becomes too
elevated or too refined to glow with fervor in the commendation or the
love of individual benefactors. All this is unnatural. It is as if one
should be so enthusiastic a lover of poetry, as to care nothing for
Homer or Milton; so passionately attached to eloquence as to be
indifferent to Tully and Chatham; or such a devotee to the arts, in such
an ecstasy with the elements of beauty, proportion, and expression, as
to regard the masterpieces of Raphael and Michael Angelo with coldness
or contempt. We may be assured, Gentlemen, that he who really loves the
thing itself, loves its finest exhibitions. A true friend of his country
loves her friends and benefactors, and thinks it no degradation to
commend and commemorate them. The voluntary outpouring of the public
feeling, made to-day, from the North to the South, and from the East to
the West, proves this sentiment to be both just and natural. In the
cities and in the villages, in the public temples and in the family
circles, among all ages and sexes, gladdened voices to-day bespeak
grateful hearts and a freshened recollection of the virtues of the
Father of his Country. And it will be so, in all time to come, so long
as public virtue is itself an object of regard. The ingenuous youth of
America will hold up to themselves the bright model of Washington's
example, and study to be what they behold; they will contemplate his
character till all its virtues spread out and display themselves to
their delighted vision; as the earliest astronomers, the shepherds on
the plains of Babylon, gazed at the stars till they saw them form into
clusters and constellations, overpowering at length the eyes of the
beholders with the united blaze of a thousand lights.
Gentlemen, we are at the point of a century from the birth of
Washington; and what a century it has been! During its course, the human
mind has seemed to proceed with a sort of geometric velocity,
accomplishing, for human intelligence and human freedom, more than had
been done in fives or tens of centuries preceding. Washington stands at
the commencement of a new era, as well as at the head of the New World.
A century from the birth of Washington has changed the world. The
country of Washington has been the theatre on which a great part of that
change has been wrought; and Washington himself a principal agent by
which it has been accomplished. His age and his country are equally full
of wonders; and of both he is the chief.
If the poetical prediction, uttered a few years before his birth, be
true; if indeed it be designed by Providence that the grandest
exhibition of human character and human affairs shall be made on this
theatre of the Western world; if it be true that,
"The four first acts already past,
A fifth shall close the drama of the day;
Time's noblest offspring is the last";
how could this imposing, swelling, final scene be appropriately opened,
how could its intense interest be adequately sustained, but by the
introduction of just such a character as our Washington?
Washington had attained his manhood when that spark of liberty was
struck out in his own country, which has since kindled into a flame, and
shot its beams over the earth. In the flow of a century from his birth,
the world has changed in science, in arts, in the extent of commerce, in
the improvement of navigation, and in all that relates to the
civilization of man. But it is the spirit of human freedom, the new
elevation of individual man, in his moral, social, and political
character, leading the whole long train of other improvements, which has
most remarkably distinguished the era. Society, in this century, has not
made its progress, like Chinese skill, by a greater acuteness of
ingenuity in trifles; it has not merely lashed itself to an increased
speed round the old circles of thought and action; but it has assumed a
new character; it has raised itself from _beneath_ governments to a
participation _in_ governments; it has mixed moral and political objects
with the daily pursuits of individual men; and, with a freedom and
strength before altogether unknown, it has applied to these objects the
whole power of the human understanding. It has been the era, in short,
when the social principle has triumphed over the feudal principle; when
society has maintained its rights against military power, and
established, on foundations never hereafter to be shaken, its competency
to govern itself.
It was the extraordinary fortune of Washington, that, having been
intrusted, in revolutionary times, with the supreme military command,
and having fulfilled that trust with equal renown for wisdom and for
valor, he should be placed at the head of the first government in
which an attempt was to be made on a large scale to rear the fabric of
social order on the basis of a written constitution and of a pure
representative principle. A government was to be established,
without a throne, without an aristocracy, without castes, orders, or
privileges; and this government, instead of being a democracy, existing
and acting within the walls of a single city, was to be extended over
a vast country, of different climates, interests, and habits, and of
various communions of our common Christian faith. The experiment
certainly was entirely new. A popular government of this extent, it
was evident, could be framed only by carrying into full effect the
principle of representation or of delegated power; and the world was to
see whether society could, by the strength of this principle, maintain
its own peace and good government, carry forward its own great
interests, and conduct itself to political renown and glory. By the
benignity of Providence, this experiment, so full of interest to us and
to our posterity for ever, so full of interest, indeed, to the world
in its present generation and in all its generations to come, was
suffered to commence under the guidance of Washington. Destined for this
high career, he was fitted for it by wisdom, by virtue, by patriotism,
by discretion, by whatever can inspire confidence in man toward man.
In entering on the untried scenes, early disappointment and the
premature extinction of all hope of success would have been certain, had
it not been that there did exist throughout the country, in a most
extraordinary degree, an unwavering trust in him who stood at the helm.
I remarked, Gentlemen, that the whole world was and is interested in the
result of this experiment. And is it not so? Do we deceive ourselves, or
is it true that at this moment the career which this government is
running is among the most attractive objects to the civilized world? Do
we deceive ourselves, or is it true that at this moment that love of
liberty and that understanding of its true principles which are flying
over the whole earth, as on the wings of all the winds, are really and
truly of American origin?
At the period of the birth of Washington, there existed in Europe no
political liberty in large communities, except in the provinces of
Holland, and except that England herself had set a great example, so far
as it went, by her glorious Revolution of 1688. Everywhere else,
despotic power was predominant, and the feudal or military principle
held the mass of mankind in hopeless bondage. One half of Europe was
crushed beneath the Bourbon sceptre, and no conception of political
liberty, no hope even of religious toleration, existed among that nation
which was America's first ally. The king was the state, the king was the
country, the king was all. There was one king, with power not derived
from his people, and too high to be questioned; and the rest were all
subjects, with no political right but obedience. All above was
intangible power, all below quiet subjection. A recent occurrence in the
French Chambers shows us how public opinion on these subjects is
changed. A minister had spoken of the "king's subjects." "There are no
subjects," exclaimed hundreds of voices at once, "in a country where the
people make the king!"
Gentlemen, the spirit of human liberty and of free government, nurtured
and grown into strength and beauty in America, has stretched its course
into the midst of the nations. Like an emanation from Heaven, it has
gone forth, and it will not return void. It must change, it is fast
changing, the face of the earth. Our great, our high duty is to show, in
our own example, that this spirit is a spirit of health as well as a
spirit of power; that its benignity is as great as its strength; that
its efficiency to secure individual rights, social relations, and moral
order, is equal to the irresistible force with which it prostrates
principalities and powers. The world, at this moment, is regarding us
with a willing, but something of a fearful admiration. Its deep and
awful anxiety is to learn whether free states may be stable, as well as
free; whether popular power may be trusted, as well as feared; in short,
whether wise, regular, and virtuous self-government is a vision for the
contemplation of theorists, or a truth established, illustrated, and
brought into practice in the country of Washington.
Gentlemen, for the earth which we inhabit, and the whole circle of the
sun, for all the unborn races of mankind, we seem to hold in our hands,
for their weal or woe, the fate of this experiment. If we fail, who
shall venture the repetition? If our example shall prove to be one, not
of encouragement, but of terror, not fit to be imitated, but fit only to
be shunned, where else shall the world look for free models? If this
great _Western Sun_ be struck out of the firmament, at what other
fountain shall the lamp of liberty hereafter be lighted? What other orb
shall emit a ray to glimmer, even, on the darkness of the world?
There is no danger of our overrating or overstating the important part
which we are now acting in human affairs. It should not flatter our
personal self-respect, but it should reanimate our patriotic virtues,
and inspire us with a deeper and more solemn sense, both of our
privileges and of our duties. We cannot wish better for our country, nor
for the world, than that the same spirit which influenced Washington may
influence all who succeed him; and that the same blessing from above,
which attended his efforts, may also attend theirs.
The principles of Washington's administration are not left doubtful.
They are to be found in the Constitution itself, in the great measures
recommended and approved by him, in his speeches to Congress, and in
that most interesting paper, his Farewell Address to the People of the
United States. The success of the government under his administration is
the highest proof of the soundness of these principles. And, after an
experience of thirty-five years, what is there which an enemy could
condemn? What is there which either his friends, or the friends of the
country, could wish to have been otherwise? I speak, of course, of great
measures and leading principles.
In the first place, all his measures were right in their intent. He
stated the whole basis of his own great character, when he told the
country, in the homely phrase of the proverb, that honesty is the best
policy. One of the most striking things ever said of him is, that "_he
changed mankind's ideas of political greatness_."[95] To commanding
talents, and to success, the common elements of such greatness, he added
a disregard of self, a spotlessness of motive, a steady submission to
every public and private duty, which threw far into the shade the whole
crowd of vulgar great. The object of his regard was the whole country.
No part of it was enough to fill his enlarged patriotism. His love of
glory, so far as that may be supposed to have influenced him at all,
spurned every thing short of general approbation. It would have been
nothing to him, that his partisans or his favorites outnumbered, or
outvoted, or outmanaged, or outclamored, those of other leaders. He had
no favorites; he rejected all partisanship; and, acting honestly for the
universal good, he deserved, what he has so richly enjoyed, the
universal love.
His principle it was to act right, and to trust the people for support;
his principle it was not to follow the lead of sinister and selfish
ends, nor to rely on the little arts of party delusion to obtain public
sanction for such a course. Born for his country and for the world, he
did not give up to party what was meant for mankind. The consequence is,
that his fame is as durable as his principles, as lasting as truth and
virtue themselves. While the hundreds whom party excitement, and
temporary circumstances, and casual combinations, have raised into
transient notoriety, sink again, like thin bubbles, bursting and
dissolving into the great ocean, Washington's fame is like the rock
which bounds that ocean, and at whose feet its billows are destined to
break harmlessly for ever.
The maxims upon which Washington conducted our foreign relations
were few and simple. The first was an entire and indisputable
impartiality towards foreign states. He adhered to this rule of
public conduct, against very strong inducements to depart from it, and
when the popularity of the moment seemed to favor such a departure. In
the next place, he maintained true dignity and unsullied honor in all
communications with foreign states. It was among the high duties
devolved upon him, to introduce our new government into the circle of
civilized states and powerful nations. Not arrogant or assuming, with
no unbecoming or supercilious bearing, he yet exacted for it from all
others entire and punctilious respect. He demanded, and he obtained at
once, a standing of perfect equality for his country in the society
of nations; nor was there a prince or potentate of his day, whose
personal character carried with it, into the intercourse of other
states, a greater degree of respect and veneration.
He regarded other nations only as they stood in political relations
to us. With their internal affairs, their political parties and
dissensions, he scrupulously abstained from all interference; and, on
the other hand, he repelled with spirit all such interference by others
with us or our concerns. His sternest rebuke, the most indignant
measure of his whole administration, was aimed against such an
attempted interference. He felt it as an attempt to wound the national
honor, and resented it accordingly.
The reiterated admonitions in his Farewell Address show his deep fears
that foreign influence would insinuate itself into our counsels through
the channels of domestic dissension, and obtain a sympathy with our own
temporary parties. Against all such dangers, he most earnestly entreats
the country to guard itself. He appeals to its patriotism, to its
self-respect, to its own honor, to every consideration connected with
its welfare and happiness, to resist, at the very beginning, all
tendencies towards such connection of foreign interests with our own
affairs. With a tone of earnestness nowhere else found, even in his last
affectionate farewell advice to his countrymen, he says, "Against the
insidious wiles of foreign influence, (I conjure you to believe me,
fellow-citizens,) the jealousy of a free people ought to be _constantly_
awake; since history and experience prove, that foreign influence is one
of the most baneful foes of republican government."
Lastly, on the subject of foreign relations, Washington never forgot
that we had interests peculiar to ourselves. The primary political
concerns of Europe, he saw, did not affect us. We had nothing to do with
her balance of power, her family compacts, or her successions to
thrones. We were placed in a condition favorable to neutrality during
European wars, and to the enjoyment of all the great advantages of that
relation. "Why, then," he asks us, "why forego the advantages of so
peculiar a situation? Why quit our own to stand upon foreign ground?
Why, by interweaving our destiny with that of any part of Europe,
entangle our peace and prosperity in the toils of European ambition,
rivalship, interest, humor, or caprice?"
Indeed, Gentlemen, Washington's Farewell Address is full of truths
important at all times, and particularly deserving consideration at the
present. With a sagacity which brought the future before him, and made
it like the present, he saw and pointed out the dangers that even at
this moment most imminently threaten us. I hardly know how a greater
service of that kind could now be done to the community, than by a
renewed and wide diffusion of that admirable paper, and an earnest
invitation to every man in the country to reperuse and consider it. Its
political maxims are invaluable; its exhortations to love of country and
to brotherly affection among citizens, touching; and the solemnity with
which it urges the observance of moral duties, and impresses the power
of religious obligation, gives to it the highest character of truly
disinterested, sincere, parental advice.
The domestic policy of Washington found its pole-star in the avowed
objects of the Constitution itself. He sought so to administer that
Constitution, as to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure
domestic tranquillity, provide for the common defence, promote the
general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty. These were objects
interesting, in the highest degree, to the whole country, and his policy
embraced the whole country.
Among his earliest and most important duties was the organization of the
government itself, the choice of his confidential advisers, and the
various appointments to office. This duty, so important and delicate,
when a whole government was to be organized, and all its offices for the
first time filled, was yet not difficult to him; for he had no sinister
ends to accomplish, no clamorous partisans to gratify, no pledges to
redeem, no object to be regarded but simply the public good. It was a
plain, straightforward matter, a mere honest choice of good men for the
public service.
His own singleness of purpose, his disinterested patriotism, were
evinced by the selection of his first cabinet, and by the manner in
which he filled the seats of justice, and other places of high trust. He
sought for men fit for offices; not for offices which might suit men.
Above personal considerations, above local considerations, above party
considerations, he felt that he could only discharge the sacred trust
which the country had placed in his hands, by a diligent inquiry after
real merit, and a conscientious preference of virtue and talent. The
whole country was the field of his selection. He explored that whole
field, looking only for whatever it contained most worthy and
distinguished. He was, indeed, most successful, and he deserved success
for the purity of his motives, the liberality of his sentiments, and his
enlarged and manly policy.
Washington's administration established the national credit, made
provision for the public debt, and for that patriotic army whose
interests and welfare were always so dear to him; and, by laws wisely
framed, and of admirable effect, raised the commerce and navigation of
the country, almost at once, from depression and ruin to a state of
prosperity. Nor were his eyes open to these interests alone. He viewed
with equal concern its agriculture and manufactures, and, so far as they
came within the regular exercise of the powers of this government, they
experienced regard and favor.
It should not be omitted, even in this slight reference to the general
measures and general principles of the first President, that he saw and
felt the full value and importance of the judicial department of the
government. An upright and able administration of the laws he held to be
alike indispensable to private happiness and public liberty. The temple
of justice, in his opinion, was a sacred place, and he would profane
and pollute it who should call any to minister in it, not spotless in
character, not incorruptible in integrity, not competent by talent and
learning, not a fit object of unhesitating trust.
Among other admonitions, Washington has left us, in his last
communication to his country, an exhortation against the excesses of
party spirit. A fire not to be quenched, he yet conjures us not to fan
and feed the flame. Undoubtedly, Gentlemen, it is the greatest danger of
our system and of our time. Undoubtedly, if that system should be
overthrown, it will be the work of excessive party spirit, acting on the
government, which is dangerous enough, or acting _in_ the government,
which is a thousand times more dangerous; for government then becomes
nothing but organized party, and, in the strange vicissitudes of human
affairs, it may come at last, perhaps, to exhibit the singular paradox
of government itself being in opposition to its own powers, at war with
the very elements of its own existence. Such cases are hopeless. As men
may be protected against murder, but cannot be guarded against suicide,
so government may be shielded from the assaults of external foes, but
nothing can save it when it chooses to lay violent hands on itself.
Finally, Gentlemen, there was in the breast of Washington one sentiment
so deeply felt, so constantly uppermost, that no proper occasion escaped
without its utterance. From the letter which he signed in behalf of the
Convention when the Constitution was sent out to the people, to the
moment when he put his hand to that last paper in which he addressed his
countrymen, the Union,--the Union was the great object of his thoughts.
In that first letter he tells them that, to him and his brethren of the
Convention, union appears to be the greatest interest of every true
American; and in that last paper he conjures them to regard that unity
of government which constitutes them one people as the very palladium of
their prosperity and safety, and the security of liberty itself. He
regarded the union of these States less as one of our blessings, than as
the great treasure-house which contained them all. Here, in his
judgment, was the great magazine of all our means of prosperity; here,
as he thought, and as every true American still thinks, are deposited
all our animating prospects, all our solid hopes for future greatness.
He has taught us to maintain this union, not by seeking to enlarge the
powers of the government, on the one hand, nor by surrendering them, on
the other; but by an administration of them at once firm and moderate,
pursuing objects truly national, and carried on in a spirit of justice
and equity.
The extreme solicitude for the preservation of the Union, at all times
manifested by him, shows not only the opinion he entertained of its
importance, but his clear perception of those causes which were likely
to spring up to endanger it, and which, if once they should overthrow
the present system, would leave little hope of any future beneficial
reunion. Of all the presumptions indulged by presumptuous man, that is
one of the rashest which looks for repeated and favorable opportunities
for the deliberate establishment of a united government over distinct
and widely extended communities. Such a thing has happened once in human
affairs, and but once; the event stands out as a prominent exception to
all ordinary history; and unless we suppose ourselves running into an
age of miracles, we may not expect its repetition.
Washington, therefore, could regard, and did regard, nothing as of
paramount political interest, but the integrity of the Union itself.
With a united government, well administered, he saw that we had nothing
to fear; and without it, nothing to hope. The sentiment is just, and its
momentous truth should solemnly impress the whole country. If we might
regard our country as personated in the spirit of Washington, if we
might consider him as representing her, in her past renown, her present
prosperity, and her future career, and as in that character demanding of
us all to account for our conduct, as political men or as private
citizens, how should he answer him who has ventured to talk of disunion
and dismemberment? Or how should he answer him who dwells perpetually on
local interests, and fans every kindling flame of local prejudice? How
should he answer him who would array State against State, interest
against interest, and party against party, careless of the continuance
of that _unity of government which constitutes us one people_?
The political prosperity which this country has attained, and which it
now enjoys, has been acquired mainly through the instrumentality of the
present government. While this agent continues, the capacity of
attaining to still higher degrees of prosperity exists also. We have,
while this lasts, a political life capable of beneficial exertion, with
power to resist or overcome misfortunes, to sustain us against the
ordinary accidents of human affairs, and to promote, by active efforts,
every public interest. But dismemberment strikes at the very being which
preserves these faculties. It would lay its rude and ruthless hand on
this great agent itself. It would sweep away, not only what we possess,
but all power of regaining lost, or acquiring new possessions. It would
leave the country, not only bereft of its prosperity and happiness, but
without limbs, or organs, or faculties, by which to exert itself
hereafter in the pursuit of that prosperity and happiness.
Other misfortunes may be borne, or their effects overcome. If
disastrous war should sweep our commerce from the ocean, another
generation may renew it; if it exhaust our treasury, future industry
may replenish it; if it desolate and lay waste our fields, still,
under a new cultivation, they will grow green again, and ripen to
future harvests. It were but a trifle even if the walls of yonder
Capitol were to crumble, if its lofty pillars should fall, and its
gorgeous decorations be all covered by the dust of the valley. All
these might be rebuilt. But who shall reconstruct the fabric of
demolished government? Who shall rear again the well-proportioned
columns of constitutional liberty? Who shall frame together the
skilful architecture which unites national sovereignty with State
rights, individual security, and public prosperity? No, if these
columns fall, they will be raised not again. Like the Coliseum and
the Parthenon, they will be destined to a mournful, a melancholy
immortality. Bitterer tears, however, will flow over them, than were
ever shed over the monuments of Roman or Grecian art; for they will be
the remnants of a more glorious edifice than Greece or Rome ever saw,
the edifice of constitutional American liberty.
But let us hope for better things. Let us trust in that gracious Being
who has hitherto held our country as in the hollow of his hand. Let us
trust to the virtue and the intelligence of the people, and to the
efficacy of religious obligation. Let us trust to the influence of
Washington's example. Let us hope that that fear of Heaven which expels
all other fear, and that regard to duty which transcends all other
regard, may influence public men and private citizens, and lead our
country still onward in her happy career. Full of these gratifying
anticipations and hopes, let us look forward to the end of that century
which is now commenced. A hundred years hence, other disciples of
Washington will celebrate his birth, with no less of sincere admiration
than we now commemorate it. When they shall meet, as we now meet, to do
themselves and him that honor, so surely as they shall see the blue
summits of his native mountains rise in the horizon, so surely as they
shall behold the river on whose banks he lived, and on whose banks he
rests, still flowing on toward the sea, so surely may they see, as we
now see, the flag of the Union floating on the top of the Capitol; and
then, as now, may the sun in his course visit no land more free, more
happy, more lovely, than this our own country!
Gentlemen, I propose--"THE MEMORY OF GEORGE WASHINGTON."
* * * * *
From the excellent speeches delivered by gentlemen on this interesting
occasion, we cannot refrain from selecting for this publication, though
a little out of place, the appropriate, just, and classic remarks of Mr.
Robbins.
Mr. Webster having retired, Mr. Chambers, being in the chair, called
upon Mr. Robbins of Rhode Island; when Mr. Senator ROBBINS of that State
addressed the company as follows:--
* * * * *
"GENTLEMEN,--I beg leave to offer a sentiment; but first, with your
indulgence, will offer a few remarks, not inappropriate, I hope, to the
occasion.
"It is the peculiar good fortune of this country to have given birth to
a citizen, whose name everywhere produces a sentiment of regard for his
country itself. In other countries, whenever or wherever this is spoken
of to be praised, and with the highest praise, it is called the country
of Washington. I believe there is no people, civilized or savage, in any
place, however remote, where the name of Washington has not been heard,
and where it is not repeated with the fondest admiration. We are told,
that the Arab of the desert talks of Washington in his tent, and that
his name is familiar to the wandering Scythian. He seems, indeed, to be
the delight of human kind, as their beau ideal of human nature. 'Nil
oriturum alias, nil ortum tale fatentes.'
"No American, in any part of the world, but has found the regard
for himself increased by his connection with Washington, as his
fellow-countryman; and who has not felt a pride, and had occasion to
exult, in the fortunate connection?
"Half a century and more has now passed away since he came upon the
stage, and his fame first broke upon the world; for it broke like the
blaze of day from the rising sun,--almost as sudden, and seemingly as
universal. The eventful period since that era has teemed with great men,
who have crossed the scene and passed off. Some of them have arrested
great attention, very great; still Washington retains his preeminent
place in the minds of men, still his peerless name is cherished by them
in the same freshness of delight as in the morn of its glory.
"History will keep her record of his fame; but history is not necessary
to perpetuate it. In regions where history is not read, where letters
are unknown, it lives, and will go down from age to age, in all future
time, in their traditionary lore.
"Who would exchange this fame, the common inheritance of our country,
for the fame of any individual which any country of any time can boast?
I would not; with my sentiments, I could not.
"I recollect the first time I ever saw Washington: indeed, it is
impossible I should forget it, or recollect it without the liveliest
emotion. I was then a child at school. The school was dismissed, and we
were told, that General Washington was expected in town that day, on his
way to Cambridge, to take command of the American army. We, the
children, were permitted to mingle with the people, who had assembled in
mass to see him. I did see him; I riveted my eyes upon him; I could now,
were I master of the pencil, delineate with exact truth his form and
features, and every particular of his costume: so vivid are my
recollections. I can never forget the feelings his sublime presence
inspired. How often, afterwards, when I came, in my studies, to learn
them, have I repeated and applied, as expressive of that feeling, these
lines,--
"Quem sese ore ferens! quam forti pectore et armis!
Credo equidem, nec vana fides, genus esse Deorum."
He did seem to me more than mortal. It is true this was young and
ignorant enthusiasm; but, though young and ignorant, it was not false;
it was enthusiasm, which my riper judgment has always recognized as
just; it was but the anticipated sentiment of the whole human kind.
"I now beg leave to offer this sentiment:--
"The written legacy of Washington to his countrymen,--a code of politics
by which, and by which alone, as he believed, their union and their
liberties can be made immortal."
* * * * *
FOOTNOTES
[94] A Speech delivered at a Public Dinner in Honor of the Centennial
Birthday of Washington, on the 22d of February, 1832.
[95] See Works of Fisher Ames, pp. 122, 123.
NATIONAL REPUBLICAN CONVENTION AT WORCESTER.[96]
Mr. President,--I offer no apology for addressing the meeting. Holding,
by the favor of the people of this Commonwealth, an important public
situation, I deem it no less than a part of my duty, at this interesting
moment, to make known my opinions on the state of public affairs, and,
however I may have performed other duties, this, at least, it is my
purpose, on the present occasion, fully to discharge. Not intending to
comment at length on all the subjects which now attract public
attention, nor to discuss any thing in detail, I wish, nevertheless,
before an assembly so large and respectable as the present, and through
them before the whole people of the State, to lay open, without reserve,
my own sentiments, hopes, and fears respecting the state and the
prospects of our common country.
The resolutions which have been read from the chair express the opinion,
that the public good requires an effectual change, in the administration
of the general government, both of measures and of men. In this opinion
I heartily concur.
Mr. President, there is no citizen of the State, who, in principle and
by habitual sentiment, is less disposed than myself to general
opposition to government, or less desirous of frequent changes in its
administration. I entertain this feeling strongly, and at all times,
towards the government of the United States; because I have ever
regarded the Federal Constitution as a frame of government so peculiar,
and so delicate in its relations to the State governments, that it might
be in danger of overthrow, as well from an indiscriminate and wanton
opposition, as from a weak or a wicked administration. But a case may
arise in which the government is no longer safe in the hands to which it
has been intrusted. It may come to be a question, not so much in what
particular manner, or according to what particular political opinions,
the government shall be administered, as whether the Constitution itself
shall be preserved and maintained. Now, Sir, in my judgment, just such a
case and just such a question are at this moment before the American
people. Entertaining this sentiment, and thoroughly and entirely
convinced of its truth, I wish, as far as my humble power extends, to
produce in the people a more earnest attention to their public concerns.
With the people, and the people alone, lies any remedy for the past or
any security for the future. No delegated power is equal to the exigency
of the present crisis. No public servants, however able or faithful,
have ability to check or to stop the fearful tendency of things. It is a
case for sovereign interposition. The rescue, if it come at all, must
come from that power which no other on earth can resist. I earnestly
wish, therefore, unimportant as my own opinions may be, and entitled, as
I know they are, to no considerable regard, yet, since they are honest
and sincere, and since they respect nothing less than dangers which
appear to me to threaten the government and Constitution of the country,
I fervently wish that I could now make them known, not only to this
meeting and to this State, but to every man in the Union. I take the
hazard of the reputation of an alarmist; I cheerfully submit to the
imputation of over-excited apprehension; I discard all fear of the cry
of false prophecy, and I declare, that, in my judgment, not only the
great interests of the country, but the Constitution itself, are in
imminent peril, and that nothing can save either the one or the other
but that voice which has authority to say to the evils of misrule and
misgovernment, "Hitherto shall ye come, but no further."
It is true, Sir, that it is the natural effect of a good constitution to
protect the people. But who shall protect the constitution? Who shall
guard the guardian? What arm but the mighty arm of the people itself is
able, in a popular government, to uphold public institutions? The
constitution itself is but the creature of the public will; and in every
crisis which threatens it, it must owe its security to the same power to
which it owes its origin.
The appeal, therefore, is to the people; not to party nor to partisans,
not to professed politicians, not to those who have an interest in
office and place greater than their stake in the country, but to the
people, and the whole people; to those who, in regard to political
affairs, have no wish but for a good government, and who have power to
accomplish their own wishes.
* * * * *
Mr. President, are the principles and leading measures of the
administration hostile to the great interests of the country?
Are they dangerous to the Constitution, and to the union of the States?
Is there any prospect of a beneficial change of principles and measures,
without a change of men?
Is there reasonable ground to hope for such a change of men?
On these several questions, I desire to state my own convictions fully,
though as briefly as possible.
* * * * *
As government is intended to be a practical institution, if it be wisely
formed, the first and most natural test of its administration is the
effect produced by it. Let us look, then, to the actual state of our
affairs. Is it such as should follow a good administration of a good
constitution?
Sir, we see one State openly threatening to arrest the execution of the
revenue laws of the Union, by acts of her own. This proceeding is
threatened, not by irresponsible persons, but by those who fill her
chief places of power and trust.
In another State, free citizens of the country are imprisoned, and held
in prison, in defiance of a judgment of the Supreme Court, pronounced
for their deliverance. Immured in a dungeon, marked and patched as
subjects of penitentiary punishment, these free citizens pass their days
in counting the slow-revolving hours of their miserable, captivity, and
their nights in feverish and delusive dreams of their own homes and
their own families; while the Constitution stands adjudged to be
violated, a law of Congress is effectually repealed by the act of a
State, and a judgment of deliverance by the Supreme Court is set a
naught and contemned.[97]
Treaties, importing the most solemn and sacred obligations, are denied
to have binding force.
A feeling that there is great insecurity for property, and the stability
of the means of living, extensively prevails.
The whole subject of the tariff, acted on for the moment, is at the same
moment declared not to be at rest, but liable to be again moved, and
with greater effect, just so soon as power for that purpose shall be
obtained.
The currency of the country, hitherto safe, sound, and universally
satisfactory, is threatened with a violent change; and an embarrassment
in pecuniary affairs, equally distressing and unnecessary, hangs over
all the trading and active classes of society.
A long-used and long-approved legislative instrument for the collection
of revenue, well secured against abuse, and always responsible to
Congress and to the laws, is denied further existence; and its place is
proposed to be supplied by a new branch of the executive department,
with a money power controlled and conducted solely by executive agency.
The power of the VETO is exercised, not as an extraordinary, but as an
ordinary power; as a common mode of defeating acts of Congress not
acceptable to the executive. We hear, one day, that the President needs
the advice of no cabinet; that a few secretaries, or clerks, are enough
for him. The next, we are informed that the Supreme Court is but an
obstacle to the popular will, and the whole judicial department but an
encumbrance to government. And while, on one side, the judicial power is
thus derided and denounced, on the other arises the cry, "Cut down the
Senate!" and over the whole, at the same time, prevails the loud avowal,
shouted with all the lungs of conscious party strength and party
triumph, that the spoils of the enemy belong to the victors. This
condition of things, Sir, this general and obvious aspect of affairs, is
the result of three years' administration, such as the country has
experienced.
But, not resting on this general view of results, let me inquire what
the principles and policy of the administration are, on the leading
interests of the country, subordinate to the Constitution itself. And
first, what are its principles, and what its policy, respecting the
tariff? Is this great question settled, or unsettled? And is the present
administration for, or against, the tariff?
Sir, the question is wholly unsettled, and the principles of the
administration, according to its most recent avowal of those
principles, are adverse to the protective policy, decidedly hostile to
the whole system, root and branch; and this on permanent and alleged
constitutional grounds.
In the first place, nothing has been done to settle the tariff question.
The anti-tariff members of Congress who voted for the late law have,
none of them, said they would adhere to it. On the contrary, they
supported it, because, as far as it went, it was reduction, and that was
what they wished; and if they obtained this degree of reduction now, it
would be easier to obtain a greater degree hereafter; and they frankly
declared, that their intent and purpose was to insist on reduction, and
to pursue reduction, unremittingly, till all duties on imports should be
brought down to one general and equal percentage, and that regulated by
the mere wants of the revenue; or, if different rates of duty should
remain on different articles, still, that the whole should be laid for
revenue, and revenue only; and that they would, to the utmost of their
power, push this course, till protection by duties, as a special object
of national policy, should be abandoned altogether in the national
councils. It is a delusion, therefore, Sir, to imagine that the present
tariff stands, safely, on conceded ground. It covers not an inch that
has not been fought for, and must not be again fought for. It stands
while its friends can protect it, and not an hour longer.
In the next place, in that compend of executive opinion contained in the
veto message, the whole principle of the protective policy is plainly
and pointedly denounced.
Having gone through its argument against the bank charter, as it now
exists, and as it has existed, either under the present or a former law,
for near forty years, and having added to the well-doubted logic of that
argument the still more doubtful aid of a large array of opprobrious
epithets, the message, in unveiled allusion to the protective policy of
the country, holds this language:--
"Most of the difficulties our government now encounters, and most of
the dangers which impend over our Union, have sprung from an
abandonment of the legitimate objects of government by our national
legislation, and the adoption of such principles as are embodied in
this act. Many of our rich men have not been content with equal
protection and equal benefits, but have besought us to make them
richer by act of Congress. By attempting to gratify their desires,
we have, in the results of our legislation, arrayed section against
section, interest against interest, and man against man, in a
fearful commotion which threatens to shake the foundations of our
Union. It is time to pause in our career, to review our principles,
and, if possible, revive that devoted patriotism and spirit of
compromise which distinguished the sages of the Revolution and the
fathers of our Union. If we cannot at once, in justice to interests
vested under improvident legislation, make our government what it
ought to be, we can at least take a stand against all new grants of
monopolies and exclusive privileges, against any prostitution of our
government to the advancement of the few at the expense of the many,
and in favor of compromise and gradual reform in our code of laws
and system of political economy."
Here, then, we have the whole creed. Our national legislature has
abandoned the legitimate objects of government. It has adopted such
principles as are embodied in the bank charter; and these principles are
elsewhere called objectionable, odious, and unconstitutional. All this
has been done, because rich men have besought the government to render
them richer by acts of Congress. It is time to pause in our career. It
is time _to review these principles_. And if we cannot at once MAKE OUR
GOVERNMENT WHAT IT OUGHT TO BE, we can, at least, take a stand against
new grants of power and privilege.
The plain meaning of all this is, that our protecting laws are founded
in an abandonment of the legitimate objects of government; that this is
the great source of our difficulties; that it is time to stop in our
career, to review the principles of these laws, and, as soon as we can,
MAKE OUR GOVERNMENT WHAT IT OUGHT TO BE.
No one can question, Mr. President, that these paragraphs, from the last
official publication of the President, show that, _in his opinion, the
tariff, as a system designed for protection, is not only impolitic, but
unconstitutional also_. They are quite incapable of any other version or
interpretation. They defy all explanation, and all glosses.
Sir, however we may differ from the principles or the policy of the
administration, it would, nevertheless, somewhat satisfy our pride of
country, if we could ascribe to it the character of consistency. It
would be grateful if we could contemplate the President of the United
States as an identical idea. But even this secondary pleasure is denied
to us. In looking to the published records of executive opinions,
sentiments favorable to protection and sentiments against protection
either come confusedly before us, at the same moment, or else follow
each other in rapid succession, like the shadows of a phantasmagoria.
Having read an extract from the veto message, containing the statement
of _present opinions_, allow me to read another extract from the annual
message of 1830. It will be perceived, that in that message both the
clear constitutionality of the tariff laws, and their indispensable
policy, are maintained in the fullest and strongest manner. The argument
on the constitutional point is stated with more than common ability; and
the policy of the laws is affirmed in terms importing the deepest and
most settled conviction. We hear in this message nothing of improvident
legislation; nothing of the abandonment of the legitimate objects of
government; nothing of the necessity of pausing in our career and
reviewing our principles; nothing of the necessity of changing our
government, _till it shall be made what it ought to be_. But let the
message speak for itself.
"The power to impose duties on imports originally belonged to the
several States. The right to adjust those duties with a view to the
encouragement of domestic branches of industry is so completely
incidental to that power, that it is difficult to suppose the
existence of the one without the other. The States have delegated
their whole authority over imports to the general government,
without limitation or restriction, saving the very inconsiderable
reservation relating to their inspection laws. This authority having
thus entirely passed from the States, the right to exercise it for
the purpose of protection does not exist in them; and consequently,
if it be not possessed by the general government, it must be
extinct. Our political system would thus present the anomaly of a
people stripped of the right to foster their own industry, and to
counteract the most selfish and destructive policy which might be
adopted by foreign nations. This surely cannot be the case; this
indispensable power, thus surrendered by the States, must be within
the scope of the authority on the subject expressly delegated to
Congress.
"In this conclusion I am confirmed, as well by the opinions of
Presidents Washington, Jefferson, Madison, and Monroe, who have each
repeatedly recommended the exercise of this right under the
Constitution, as by the uniform practice of Congress, the continued
acquiescence of the States, and the general understanding of the
people.
"I am well aware that this is a subject of so much delicacy, on
account of the extended interests it involves, as to require that it
should be touched with the utmost caution; and that, while an
abandonment of the policy in which it originated, a policy coeval
with our government, pursued through successive administrations, is
neither to be expected nor desired, the people have a right to
demand, and have demanded, that it be so modified as to correct
abuses and obviate injustice."
Mr. President, no one needs to point out inconsistencies plain and
striking as these. The message of 1830 is a well-written paper; it
proceeded, probably, from the cabinet proper. Whence the veto message of
1832 proceeded, I know not; perhaps from the cabinet improper.
But, Sir, there is an important record of an earlier date than 1830. If,
as the President avers, we have been guilty of improvident legislation,
what act of Congress is the most striking instance of that improvidence?
Certainly it is the act of 1824. The principle of protection, repeatedly
recognized before that time, was, by that act, carried to a new and
great extent; so new and so great, that the act was considered as the
foundation of the system. That law it was which conferred on the
distinguished citizen, whose nomination for President this meeting has
received with so much enthusiasm, (Mr. Clay,) the appellation of the
"Author of the American System." Accordingly, the act of 1824 has been
the particular object of attack, in all the warfare waged against the
protective policy. If Congress ever abandoned legitimate objects of
legislation in favor of protection, it did so by that law. If any laws
now on the statute-book, or which ever were there, show, by their
character as laws of protection, that our government is not what it
ought to be, and that it ought to be altered, and, in the language of
the veto message, _made_ what it ought to be, the law of 1824 is the
very law which, more than any and more than all others, makes good that
assertion. And yet, Sir, the President of the United States, then a
Senator in Congress, voted for that law! And, though I have not recurred
to the journal, my recollection is, that, as to some of its provisions,
his support was essential to their success. It will be found, I think,
that some of its enactments, and those now most loudly complained of,
would have failed, but for his own personal support of them by his own
vote.
After all this, it might have been hoped that there would be, in 1832,
some tolerance of opinion toward those who cannot think that
improvidence, abandonment of all the legitimate objects of legislation,
a desire to gratify the rich, who have besought Congress to make them
still richer, and the adoption of principles unequal, oppressive, and
odious, are the true characteristics to be ascribed to the system of
protection.
But, Sir, it is but a small part of my object to show inconsistencies
in executive opinions. My main purpose is different, and tends to
more practical ends. It is, to call the attention of the meeting, and
of the people, to the principles avowed in the late message as being
the President's _present opinions_, and proofs of _his present
purposes_, and to the consequences, if they shall be maintained by
the country. These principles are there expressed in language which
needs no commentary. They go, with a point-blank aim, against the
fundamental stone of the protective system; that is to say, against
the constitutional power of Congress to establish and maintain that
system, in whole or in part. The question, therefore, of the tariff,
the question of every tariff, the question between maintaining our
agricultural and manufacturing interests where they now are, and
breaking up the entire system, and erasing every vestige of it from
the statute book, is a question materially to be affected by the pending
election.
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