more vital question, to such a community as this, than that which
regards their own employments, and the preservation of that policy which
the government has adopted and cherished for the encouragement and
protection of those employments. This is not, in a society like this, a
matter which affects the interest of a particular class, but one which
affects the interest of all classes. It runs through the whole chain of
human occupation and employment, and touches the means of living and the
comfort of all.
Gentlemen, those of you who may have turned your attention to the
subject know, that, in the quarter of the country with which I am more
immediately connected, the people were not early or eager to urge the
government to carry the protective policy to the height which it has
reached. Candor obliges me to remind you, that, when the act of 1824 was
passed, neither he who now addresses you, nor those with whom he
usually acted on such subjects, were ready or willing to take the step
which that act proposed. They doubted its _expediency_. It passed,
however, by the great and overwhelming influence of the central States,
New York, Pennsylvania, and Ohio. New England acquiesced in it. She
conformed to it, as the settled policy of the country, and gave to her
capital and her labor a corresponding direction. She has now become
vitally interested in the preservation of the system. Her prosperity is
identified, not perhaps with any particular degree of protection, but
with the preservation of the principle; and she is not likely to consent
to yield the principle, under any circumstances whatever. And who would
dare to yield it? Who, standing here, and looking round on this
community and its interests, would be bold enough to touch the spring
which moves so much industry and produces so much happiness? Who would
shut up the mouths of these vast coal-pits? Who would stay the cargoes
of manufactured goods, now floating down a river, one of the noblest in
the world, and stretching through territories almost boundless in extent
and unequalled in fertility? Who would quench the fires of so many
steam-engines, or check the operations of so much well-employed labor?
Gentlemen, I cannot conceive how any subversion of that policy which has
hitherto been pursued can take place, without great public embarrassment
and great private distress.
I have said, that I am in favor of protecting American manual labor; and
after the best reflection I can give the subject, and from the lights
which I can derive from the experience of ourselves and others, I have
come to the conclusion that such protection is just and proper; and that
to leave American labor to sustain a competition with that of the
over-peopled countries of Europe would lead to a state of things to
which the people could never submit. This is the great reason why I am
for maintaining what has been established. I see at home, I see here, I
see wherever I go, that the stimulus which has excited the existing
activity, and is producing the existing prosperity, of the country, is
nothing else than the stimulus held out to labor by compensating prices.
I think this effect is visible everywhere, from Penobscot to New
Orleans, and manifest in the condition and circumstances of the great
body of the people; for nine tenths of the whole people belong to the
laborious, industrious, and productive classes; and on these classes the
stimulus acts. We perceive that the price of labor is high, and we know
that the means of living are low; and these two truths speak volumes in
favor of the general prosperity of the country. I am aware, as has been
said already, that this high price of labor results partly from the
favorable condition of the country. Labor was high, comparatively
speaking, before the act of 1824 passed; but that fact affords no
reason, in my judgment, for endangering its security and sacrificing its
hopes, by overthrowing what has since been established for its
protection.
Let us look, Gentlemen, to the condition of other countries, and inquire
a little into the causes, which, in some of them, produce poverty and
distress, the lamentations of which reach our own shores. I see around
me many whom I know to be emigrants from other countries. Why are they
here? Why is the native of Ireland among us? Why has he abandoned scenes
as dear to him as these hills and these rivers are to you? Is there any
other cause than this, that the burden of taxation on the one hand, and
the low reward of labor on the other, left him without the means of a
comfortable subsistence, or the power of providing for those who were
dependent upon him? Was it not on this account that he left his own
land, and sought an asylum in a country of free laws, of comparative
exemption from taxation, of boundless extent, and in which the means of
living are cheap, and the prices of labor just and adequate? And do not
these remarks apply, with more or less accuracy, to every other part of
Europe? Is it not true, that sobriety, and industry, and good character,
can do more for a man here than in any other part of the world? And is
not this truth, which is so obvious that none can deny it, founded in
this plain reason, that labor in this country earns a better reward than
anywhere else, and so gives more comfort, more individual independence,
and more elevation of character? Whatever else may benefit particular
portions of society, whatever else may assist capital, whatever else may
favor sharp-sighted commercial enterprise, professional skill, or
extraordinary individual sagacity or good fortune, be assured,
Gentlemen, that nothing can advance the mass of society in prosperity
and happiness, nothing can uphold the substantial interest and steadily
improve the general condition and character of the whole, but this one
thing, _compensating rewards to labor_. The fortunate situation of our
country tends strongly, of itself, to produce this result; the
government has adopted the policy of cooeperating with this natural
tendency of things; it has encouraged and fostered labor and industry,
by a system of discriminating duties; and the result of these combined
causes may be seen in the present circumstances of the country.
Gentlemen, there are important considerations of another kind connected
with this subject. Our government is popular; popular in its foundation,
and popular in its exercise. The actual character of the government can
never be better than the general moral and intellectual character of the
community. It would be the wildest of human imaginations, to expect a
poor, vicious, and ignorant people to maintain a good popular
government. Education and knowledge, which, as is obvious, can be
generally attained by the people only where there are adequate rewards
to labor and industry, and some share in the public interest, some stake
in the community, would seem indispensably necessary in those who have
the power of appointing all public agents, passing all laws, and even of
making and unmaking constitutions at their pleasure. Hence the truth of
the trite maxim, that knowledge and virtue are the only foundation of
republics. But it is to be added, and to be always remembered, that
there never was, and never can be, an intelligent and virtuous people
who at the same time are a poor and idle people, badly employed and
badly paid. Who would be safe in any community, where political power is
in the hands of the many and property in the hands of the few? Indeed,
such an unnatural state of things could nowhere long exist.
It certainly appears to me, Gentlemen, to be quite evident at this time,
and in the present condition of the world, that it is necessary to
protect the industry of this country against the pauper labor of England
and other parts of Europe. An American citizen, who has children to
maintain and children to _educate_, has an unequal chance against the
pauper of England, whose children are not to be educated, and are
probably already on the parish, and who himself is half fed and clothed
by his own labor, and half from the poor-rates, and very badly fed and
clothed after all. As I have already said, the condition of our country
of itself, without the aid of government, does much to favor American
manual labor; and it is a question of policy and justice, at all times,
what and how much government shall do in aid of natural advantages. In
regard to some branches of industry, the natural advantages are less
considerable than in regard to others; and those, therefore, more
imperiously demand the regard of government. Such are the occupations,
generally speaking, of the numerous classes of citizens in cities and
large towns; the workers in leather, brass, tin, iron, &c.; and such,
too, under most circumstances, are the employments connected with
ship-building.
Our own experience has been a powerful, and ought to be a convincing and
long-remembered, preacher on this point. From the close of the war of
the Revolution, there came on a period of depression and distress, on
the Atlantic coast, such as the people had hardly felt during the
sharpest crisis of the war itself. Ship-owners, ship-builders,
mechanics, artisans, all were destitute of employment, and some of them
destitute of bread. British ships came freely, and British goods came
plentifully; while to American ships and American products there was
neither protection on the one side, nor the equivalent of reciprocal
free trade on the other. The cheaper labor of England supplied the
inhabitants of the Atlantic shores with every thing. Ready-made clothes,
among the rest, from the crown of the head to the soles of the feet,
were for sale in every city. All these things came free from any general
system of imposts. Some of the States attempted to establish their own
partial systems, but they failed. Voluntary association was resorted to,
but that failed also. A memorable instance of this mode of attempting
protection occurred in Boston. The ship-owners, seeing that British
vessels came and went freely, while their own ships were rotting at the
wharves, raised a committee to address the people, recommending to them,
in the strongest manner, not to buy or use any articles imported in
British ships. The chairman of this committee was no less distinguished
a character than the immortal John Hancock. The committee performed its
duty powerfully and eloquently. It set forth strong and persuasive
reasons why the people should not buy or use British goods imported in
British ships. The ship-owners and merchants having thus proceeded, the
mechanics of Boston took up the subject also. They answered the
merchants' committee. They agreed with them cordially, that British
goods, imported in British vessels, ought not to be bought or consumed;
but then they took the liberty of going a step farther, and of insisting
_that such goods ought not to be bought or consumed at all_. (Great
applause.) "For," said they, "Mr. Hancock, what difference does it make
to us, whether hats, shoes, boots, shirts, handkerchiefs, tin-ware,
brass-ware, cutlery, and every other article, come in British ships or
come in your ships; since, in whatever ships they come, they take away
our means of living?"
Gentlemen, it is an historical truth, manifested in a thousand ways by
the public proceedings and public meetings of the times, that the
necessity of a general and uniform impost system, which, while it should
provide revenue to pay the public debt, and foster the commerce of the
country, should also encourage and sustain domestic manufactures, was
the leading cause in producing the present national Constitution. No
class of persons was more zealous for the new Constitution, than the
handicraftsmen, artisans, and manufacturers. There were then, it is
true, no large manufacturing establishments. There were no manufactories
in the interior, for there were no inhabitants. Here was Fort Pitt,--it
had a place on the map,--but here were no people, or only a very few.
But in the cities and towns on the Atlantic, the full importance, indeed
the absolute necessity, of a new form of government and a general system
of imposts was deeply felt.
It so happened, Gentlemen, that at that time much was thought to depend
on Massachusetts; several States had already agreed to the Constitution;
if her convention adopted it, it was likely to go into operation. This
gave to the proceedings of that convention an intense interest, and the
country looked with trembling anxiety for the result. That result was
for a long time doubtful. The convention was known to be almost equally
divided; and down to the very day and hour of the final vote, no one
could predict, with any certainty, which side would preponderate. It was
under these circumstances, and at this crisis, that the tradesmen of the
town of Boston, in January, 1788, assembled at the Green Dragon tavern,
the place where the Whigs of the Revolution, in its early stages, had
been accustomed to assemble. They resolved, that, in their opinion, if
the Constitution should be adopted, "trade and navigation would revive
and increase, and employ and subsistence be afforded to many of their
townsmen, then suffering for the want of the necessaries of life"; and
that, on the other hand, should it be rejected, "the small remains of
commerce yet left would be annihilated; the various trades and
handicrafts dependent thereon decay; the poor be increased, and many
worthy and skilful mechanics compelled to seek employ and subsistence in
strange lands." These resolutions were carried to the Boston delegates
in the convention, and placed in the hands of Samuel Adams. That great
and distinguished friend of American liberty, it was feared, might have
doubts about the new Constitution. Naturally cautious and sagacious, it
was apprehended he might fear the practicability, or the safety, of a
general government. He received the resolutions from the hands of Paul
Revere, a brass-founder by occupation, a man of sense and character, and
of high public spirit, whom the mechanics of Boston ought never to
forget. "How many mechanics," said Mr. Adams, "were at the Green Dragon
when these resolutions were passed?" "More, Sir," was the reply, "than
the Green Dragon could hold." "And where were the rest, Mr. Revere?" "In
the streets, Sir." "And how many were in the streets?" "More, Sir, than
there are stars in the sky." This is an instance only, among many, to
prove, what is indisputably true, that the tradesmen and mechanics of
the country did look to the new Constitution for encouragement and
protection in their respective occupations. Under these circumstances,
it is not to be expected that they will abandon the principle, in its
application to their own employments, any more than in its application
to the commercial and shipping interests. They believe the power is in
the Constitution; and doubtless they mean, so far as depends on them, to
keep it there. Desirous of no extravagant measure of protection,
desirous of oppressing or burdening nobody, seeking nothing as a
substitute for honest industry and hard work, as a part of the American
family, having the same interests as other parts, they will continue
their attachment to the Union and the Constitution, and to all the great
and leading interests of the country.
Gentlemen, your worthy Mayor has alluded to the subject of internal
improvements. Having no doubt of the power of the general government
over various objects comprehended under that name, I confess I have
felt great pleasure in forwarding them, to the extent of my ability, by
means of reasonable aid from the government. It has seemed strange to
me, that, in the progress of human knowledge and human virtue (for I
have no doubt that both are making progress), the efforts of government
should so long have been principally confined to external affairs, and
to the enactment of the general laws, without considering how much may
be done by government, which cannot be done without it, for the
improvement of the condition of the people. There are many objects, of
great value to man, which cannot be attained by unconnected individuals,
but must be attained, if at all, by association. For many of them
government seems the most natural and the most efficient association.
Voluntary association has done much, but it cannot do all. To the great
honor and advantage of your own State, she has been forward in applying
the agency of government to great objects of internal utility. But even
States cannot do every thing. There are some things which belong to all
the States; and, if done at all, must be done by all the States. At the
conclusion of the late war, it appeared to me that the time had come for
the government to turn its attention inward; to survey the condition of
the country, and particularly the vast Western country; to take a
comprehensive view of the whole; and to adopt a liberal system of
internal improvements. There are objects not naturally within the sphere
of any one State, which yet seemed of great importance, as calculated to
unite the different parts of the country, to open a better and shorter
way between the producer and consumer, to promise the highest advantage
to government itself, in any exigency. It is true, Gentlemen, that the
local theatre for such improvement is not mainly in the East. The East
is old, pretty fully peopled, and small. The West is new, vast, and
thinly peopled. Our rivers can be measured; yours cannot. We are
bounded; you are boundless. The West was, therefore, most deeply
interested in this system, though certainly not alone interested, even
in such works as had a Western locality. To clear her rivers was to open
them for the commerce of the whole country; to construct harbors, and
clear entrances to existing harbors, whether on the Gulf of Mexico or on
the Lakes, was for the advantage of that whole commerce. And if this
were not so, he is but a poor public man whose patriotism is governed
by the cardinal points; who is for or against a proposed measure,
according to its indication by compass, or as it may happen to tend
farther from, or come nearer to, his own immediate connections. And look
at the West; look at these rivers; look at the Lakes; look especially at
Lake Erie, and see what a moderate expenditure has done for the safety
of human life, and the preservation of property, in the navigation of
that lake; and done, let me add, in the face of a fixed and ardent
opposition.
I rejoice, sincerely, Gentlemen, in the general progress of internal
improvement, and in the completion of so many objects near you, and
connected with your prosperity. Your own canal and railroad unite you
with the Atlantic. Near you is the Ohio Canal, which does so much credit
to a younger State, and with which your city will doubtless one day have
a direct connection. On the south and east approaches the Baltimore and
Ohio Railroad, a great and spirited enterprise, which I always thought
entitled to the aid of government, and a branch of which, it may be
hoped, will yet reach the head of the Ohio.
I will only add, Gentlemen, that for what I have done in the cause of
internal improvement I claim no particular merit, having only acted with
others, and discharged, conscientiously and fairly, what I regarded as
my duty to the whole country.
Gentlemen, the Mayor has spoken of the importance and necessity of
education. And can any one doubt, that to man, as a social and an
immortal being, as interested in the world that is, and infinitely more
concerned for that which is to be, education, that is to say, the
culture of the mind and the heart, is an object of infinite importance?
So far as we can trace the designs of Providence, the formation of the
mind and character, by instruction in knowledge, and instruction in
righteousness, is a main end of human being. Among the new impulses
which society has received, none is more gratifying than the awakened
attention to public education. That object begins to exhibit itself to
the minds of men in its just magnitude, and to possess its due share of
regard. It is but in a limited degree, and indirectly only, that the
powers of the general government have been exercised in the promotion of
this object. So far as these powers extend, I have concurred in their
exercise with great pleasure. The Western States, from the recency of
their settlement, from the great proportion of their population which
are children, and from other circumstances which must, in all new
countries, more or less curtail individual means, have appeared to me to
have peculiar claims to regard; and in all cases where I have thought
the power clear, I have most heartily concurred in measures designed for
their benefit, in this respect. And amidst all our efforts for
education, literary, moral, or religious, be it always remembered that
we leave opinion and conscience free. Heaven grant that it may be the
glory of the United States to have established two great truths, of the
highest importance to the whole human race; first, that an enlightened
community _is_ capable of self-government; and, second, that the
toleration of all sects does _not_ necessarily produce indifference to
religion.
But I have already detained you too long. My friends, fellow-citizens,
and countrymen, I take a respectful leave of you. The time I have passed
on this side the Alleghanies has been a succession of happy days. I have
seen much to instruct and much to delight me. I return you, again and
again, my unfeigned thanks for the frankness and hospitality with which
you have made me welcome; and wherever I may go, or wherever I may be, I
pray you to believe I shall not lose the recollection of your kindness.
FOOTNOTES
[102] Address delivered to the Citizens of Pittsburg, on the 8th of
July, 1833.
RECEPTION AT BANGOR.[103]
During a visit to Maine, in the summer of 1835, on business
connected with his profession, Mr. Webster was at Bangor, where he
partook of a collation with many of the citizens of that place.
There were so many more people, however, desirous to see and hear
him than could be accommodated in the hall of the hotel, that, after
the cloth was removed, he was compelled to proceed to the balcony,
where, after thanking the company for their hospitality, and their
manifestation of regard, he addressed the assembly as follows:--
Having occasion to come into the State on professional business, I have
gladly availed myself of the opportunity to visit this city, the growing
magnitude and importance of which have recently attracted such general
notice. I am happy to say, that I see around me ample proofs of the
correctness of the favorable representations which have gone abroad.
Your city, Gentlemen, has certainly experienced an extraordinary growth;
and it is a growth, I think, which there is reason to hope is not
unnatural, or greatly disproportionate to the eminent advantages of the
place. It so happened, that, at an early period of my life, I came to
this spot, attracted by that favorable position, which the slightest
glance on the map must satisfy every one that it occupies. It is near
the head of tide-water, on a river which brings to it from the sea a
volume of water equal to the demands of the largest vessels of war, and
whose branches, uniting here, from great distances above, traverse in
their course extensive tracts now covered with valuable productions of
the forest, and capable, most of them, of profitable agricultural
cultivation. But at the period I speak of, the time had not come for
the proper development and display of these advantages. Neither the
place itself, nor the country, was then ready. A long course of
commercial restrictions and embargo, and a foreign war, were yet to be
gone through, before the local advantages of such a spot could be
exhibited or enjoyed, or the country would be in a condition to create
an active demand for its main products.
I believe some twelve or twenty houses were all that Bangor could
enumerate, when I was in it before; and I remember to have crossed the
stream which now divides your fair city on some floating logs, for the
purpose of visiting a former friend and neighbor, who had just then
settled here; a gentleman always most respectable, and now venerable for
his age and his character, whom I have great pleasure in seeing among
you to-day, in the enjoyment of health and happiness.
It is quite obvious, Gentlemen, that while the local advantages of a
noble river, and of a large surrounding country, may be justly
considered as the original spring of the present prosperity of the city,
the current of this prosperity has, nevertheless, been put in motion,
enlarged, and impelled, by the general progress of improvement, and
growth of wealth throughout the whole country.
At the period of my former visit, there was, of course, neither
railroad, nor steamboat, nor canal, to favor communication; nor do I
recollect that any public or stage coach came within fifty miles of the
town.
Internal improvement (as it is comprehensively called in this country)
has been the great agent of this favorable change; and so blended are
our interests, that the general activity which exists elsewhere,
supported and stimulated by internal improvement, pervades and benefits
even those portions of the country which are locally remote from the
immediate scene of the main operations of this improvement. Whatever
promotes communication, whatsoever extends general business, whatsoever
encourages enterprise, or whatsoever advances the general wealth and
prosperity of other States, must have a plain, direct, and powerful
bearing on your own prosperity. In truth, there is no town in the Union,
whose hopes can be more directly staked on the general prosperity of the
country, than this rising city. If any thing should interrupt the
general operations of business, if commercial embarrassment, foreign
war, pecuniary derangement, domestic dissension, or any other causes,
were to arrest the general progress of the public welfare, all must see
with what a blasting and withering effect such a course must operate on
Bangor.
Gentlemen, I have often taken occasion to say, what circumstances may
render it proper now to repeat, that, at the close of the last war, a
new era, in my judgment, had opened in the United States. A new career
then lay before us. At peace ourselves with the nations of Europe, and
those nations, too, at peace with one another, and the leading civilized
states of the world no longer allowing that carrying trade which had
been the rich harvest of our neutrality in the midst of former wars, but
all now coming forward to exercise their own rights, in sharing the
commerce and navigation of the world, it seemed to me to be very plain,
that, while our commerce was still to be fostered with the most zealous
care, yet quite a new view of things was presented to us in regard to
our internal pursuits and concerns. The works of peace, as it seemed to
me, had become our duties. A hostile exterior, a front of brass, and an
arm of iron, all necessary in the just defence of the country against
foreign aggression, naturally gave place, in a change of circumstances,
to the attitude, the objects, and the pursuits of peace. Our true
interest, as I thought, was to explore our own resources, to call forth
and encourage labor and enterprise upon internal objects, to multiply
the sources of employment and comfort at home, and to unite the country
by ties of intercourse, commerce, benefits, and prosperity, in all
parts, as well as by the ties of political association. And it appeared
to me that government itself clearly possessed the power, and was as
clearly charged with the duty of helping on, in various ways, this great
business of internal improvement. I have, therefore, steadily supported
all measures directed to that end, which appeared to me to be within the
just power of the government, and to be practicable within the limits of
reasonable expenditure. And if any one would judge how far the fostering
of this spirit has been beneficial to the country, let him compare its
state at this moment with its condition at the commencement of the late
war; and let him then say how much of all that has been added to
national wealth and national strength, and to individual prosperity and
happiness, has been the fair result of internal improvement.
Gentlemen, it has been your pleasure to give utterance to sentiments
expressing approbation of my humble efforts, on several occasions, in
defence and maintenance of the Constitution of the country. I have
nothing to say of those efforts, except that they have been honestly
intended. The country sees no reason, I trust, to suppose that on those
occasions I have taken counsel of any thing but a deep sense of duty. I
have, on some occasions, felt myself called on to maintain my opinions,
in opposition to power, to place, to official influence, and to
overwhelming personal popularity. I have thought it my imperative duty
to put forth my most earnest efforts to maintain what I considered to be
the just powers of the government, when it appeared to me that those to
whom its administration was intrusted were countenancing doctrines
inevitably tending to its destruction. And I have, with far more
pleasure, on other occasions, supported the constituted authorities,
when I have deemed their measures to be called for by a regard to its
preservation.
The Constitution of the United States, Gentlemen, has appeared to me to
have been formed and adopted for two grand objects. The first is the
Union of the States. It is the bond of that union, and it states and
defines its terms. Who can speak in terms warm enough and high enough of
its importance in this respect, or the admirable wisdom with which it is
formed? Or who, when he shall have stated the benefits and blessings
which it has conferred upon the States most strongly, will venture to
say that he has done it justice? For one, I am not sanguine enough to
believe that, if this bond of union were dissolved, any other tie
uniting all the States would take its place for generations to come. It
requires no common skill, it is no piece of ordinary political
journey-work, to form a system which shall hold together four-and-twenty
separate State sovereignties, the line of whose united territories runs
down all the parallels of latitude from New Brunswick to the Gulf of
Mexico, and whose connected breadth stretches from the sea far beyond
the Mississippi. Nor are all times or all occasions suited to such great
operations. It is only under the most favorable circumstances, and only
when great men are called on to meet great exigencies, only once in
centuries, that such fortunate political results are to be attained.
Whoever, therefore, undervalues this National Union, whoever depreciates
it, whoever accustoms himself to consider how the people might get on
without it, appears to me to encourage sentiments subversive of the
foundations of our prosperity.
It is true that these twenty-four States are, more or less, different in
climate, productions, and local pursuits. There are planting States,
grain-growing States, manufacturing States, and commercial States.
But those several interests, if not identical, are not therefore
inconsistent and hostile. Far from it. They unite, on the contrary, to
promote an aggregate result of unrivalled national happiness. It is
not precisely a case in which
"All nature's difference keeps all nature's peace";
but it is a case in which variety of climate and condition, and
diversities of pursuits and productions, all unite to exhibit one
harmonious, grand, and magnificent whole, to which the world may be
proudly challenged to show an equal. In my opinion, no man, in any
corner of any one of these States, can stand up and declare, that he is
less prosperous or less happy than if the general government had never
existed. Entertaining these sentiments, and feeling their force most
deeply, I regard it as the bounden duty of every good citizen, in public
and in private life, to follow the admonition of Washington, and to
cherish that Union which makes us one people. I most earnestly
deprecate, therefore, whatever occurs, in the government or out of it,
calculated to endanger the Union or disturb the basis on which it
rests.
Another object of the Constitution I take to be such as is common to all
written constitutions of free governments; that is, to fix limits to
delegated authority, or, in other words, to impose constitutional
restraints on political power. Some, who esteem themselves republicans,
seem to think no other security for public liberty necessary than a
provision for a popular choice of rulers. If political power be
delegated power, they entertain little fear of its being abused. The
people's servants and favorites, they think, may be safely trusted. Our
fathers, certainly, were not of this school. They sought to make
assurance doubly sure, by providing, in the first place, for the
election of political agents by the people themselves, at short
intervals, and, in the next place, by prescribing constitutional
restraints on all branches of this delegated authority. It is not among
the circumstances of the times most ominous for good, that a diminished
estimate appears to be placed on those constitutional securities. A
disposition is but too prevalent to substitute personal confidence for
legal restraint; to put trust in men rather than in principles; and this
disposition being strongest, as it most obviously is, whenever party
spirit prevails to the greatest extent, it is not without reason that
fears are entertained of the existence of a spirit tending strongly to
an unlimited, if it be but an elective, government.
Surely, Gentlemen, this government can go through no such change. Long
before that change could take place, the Constitution would be shattered
to pieces, and the Union of the States become matter of past history. To
the Union, therefore, as well as to civil liberty, to every interest
which we enjoy and value, to all that makes us proud of our country, or
which renders our country lovely in our own eyes, or dear to our own
hearts, nothing can be more repugnant, nothing more hostile, nothing
more directly destructive, than excessive, unlimited, unconstitutional
confidence in men; nothing worse, than the doctrine that official agents
may interpret the public will in their own way, in defiance of the
Constitution and the laws; or that they may set up any thing for the
declaration of that will except the Constitution and the laws
themselves; or that any public officer, high or low, should undertake to
constitute himself or to call himself _the representative of the
people_, except so far as the Constitution and the laws create and
denominate him such representative. There is no usurpation so dangerous
as that which comes in the borrowed name of the people. If from some
other authority, or other source, prerogatives be attempted to be
enforced upon the people, they naturally oppose and resist it. It is an
open enemy, and they can easily subdue it. But that which professes to
act in their own name, and by their own authority, that which calls
itself their servant, although it exercises their power without legal
right or constitutional sanction, requires something more of vigilance
to detect, and something more of stern patriotism to repress; and if it
be not seasonably both detected and repressed, then the republic is
already in the downward path of those which have gone before it.
I hold, therefore, Gentlemen, that a strict submission, by every
branch of the government, to the limitations and restraints of the
Constitution, is of the very essence of all security for the
preservation of liberty; and that no one can be a true and intelligent
friend of that liberty, who will consent that any man in public station,
whatever he may think of the honesty of his motives, shall assume to
exercise an authority above the Constitution and the laws. Whatever
government is not a government of laws, is a despotism, let it be
called what it may.
Gentlemen, on an occasion like this, I ought not to detain you longer.
Let us hope for the best, in behalf of this great and happy country,
and of our glorious Constitution. Indeed, Gentlemen, we may well
congratulate ourselves that the country is so young, so fresh, and so
vigorous, that it can bear a great deal of bad government. It can take
an enormous load of official mismanagement on its shoulders, and yet go
ahead. Like the vessel impelled by steam, it can move forward, not
only without other than the ordinary means, but even when those means
oppose it; it can make its way in defiance of the elements, and
"Against the wind, against the tide,
Still steady, with an upright keel."
There are some things, however, which the country cannot stand. It
cannot stand any shock of civil liberty, or any disruption of the Union.
Should either of these happen, the vessel of the state will have no
longer either steerage or motion. She will lie on the billows helpless
and hopeless, the scorn and contempt of all the enemies of free
institutions, and an object of indescribable grief to all their
friends.
FOOTNOTES
[103] Remarks made to the Citizens of Bangor, Maine, on the 25th of
August, 1835.
PRESENTATION OF A VASE.
INTRODUCTORY NOTE.
A large number of the citizens of Boston being desirous to offer
to Mr. Webster some enduring testimony of their gratitude for his
services in Congress, and more especially for his defence of the
Constitution during the crisis of Nullification, a committee was
raised, in the spring of 1835, to procure a piece of plate which
should be worthy of such an object. By their direction, and more
particularly under the superintendence of one of their number,
the late Mr. George W. Brimmer, to whose taste and skill the
committee were deeply indebted for the selection of the model and
the arrangement of the devices, the beautiful vase, now well
known throughout the country as the WEBSTER VASE, was prepared
at the manufactory of Messrs. Jones, Lows, & Ball, in Boston.
After it was finished, the committee found it impossible to
withstand the wish, both of the numerous subscribers and of the
public generally, to witness the ceremonies and hear the remarks by
which its presentation might be accompanied. It was accordingly
presented to Mr. Webster in the presence of three or four
thousand spectators, assembled at the Odeon, on the evening of
the 12th of October. The Vase was placed on a pedestal covered with
the American flag, and contained on its front the following
inscription:--
PRESENTED TO
DANIEL WEBSTER
THE DEFENDER OF THE CONSTITUTION,
BY THE CITIZENS OF BOSTON,
Oct. 12, 1835.
The chairman of the committee (Mr. Z. Jellison) opened the meeting
with the following remarks:--
"Fellow-Citizens:--The friends of the Hon. Daniel Webster in this city,
conceiving the propriety of giving that gentleman an expression of the
high estimation in which they hold his public services, and wishing
also to tender him a testimonial of their regard for his moral worth and
social virtues, called a meeting of consultation on the subject, some
months since, at which a committee was appointed, with instructions to
procure a suitable piece of plate, to be presented to him in their
behalf, before his official duty should again require his departure
hence for the seat of government. In obedience to their instructions,
that committee have procured, from the hands of the most skilful artists
in this country, the piece of plate I now have the honor to exhibit to
you.
"They have now called their constituents together, for the purpose of
presenting this Vase in their presence. Had the committee consulted the
wishes only of the gentleman for whom it is intended, this presentation
might, perhaps, have taken place in a more private or less imposing
manner; but, in the course they have adopted, they have been governed by
the wishes of the citizens at large. They now respectfully ask your kind
indulgence while they proceed in the discharge of this part of their
duty.
"The committee have appointed, as their organ of communication, the Hon.
Francis C. Gray, with whom I now have the pleasure to leave the
subject."
Mr. GRAY then rose, and spoke as follows:--
"Mr. Webster:--By direction of the committee, and in behalf of your
fellow-citizens, who have caused this Vase to be made, I now request
your acceptance of it. They offer it in token of their high sense of
your public character and services. But on these it were not becoming to
dwell in addressing yourself. Nor is a regard for these the only, or the
principal, motive of those for whom I speak. They offer it mainly to
evince the high estimation in which they hold the political sentiments
and principles which you have professed and maintained. There may
undoubtedly be differences of opinion among them with regard to this or
that particular measure; and a blind, indiscriminate, wholesale adhesion
to the life and opinions of any one would not be worth offering, nor
worth accepting, among freemen. We are not man-worshippers here in
Massachusetts. But the great political principles, the leading views of
policy, which you have been forward to assert and vindicate, these they
all unite to honor; and in rendering public homage to these, they feel
that they are not so much paying a compliment to you, as performing a
duty to their country.
"In a free republic, where all men exercise political power, the
prevalence of correct views and principles on political subjects is
essential to the safety of the state. It is not enough that their truth
should be recognized. Their operation and tendency must be understood
and appreciated; they must be made familiar to the mass of the
people, become closely interwoven with their whole habits of thought
and feeling, objects of attachment to which they may cling instantly and
instinctively in all time of doubt or peril, so as not to be swept away
by any sudden flood of prejudice or passion. Hence it is the duty of
every man to embrace all fit occasions, nay, to seek fit occasions, for
declaring his adherence to such principles, and giving them the
support of his influence, however high or however humble that influence
may be. There is no justice, therefore, in the complaint often made
against the members of our legislative assemblies, that they sometimes
speak not for their audience merely, but for their constituents;
seeking not simply to affect the decision of the question then
pending, but to influence the public sentiment with regard to the
principles involved in it. This affords no ground of censure against
them, so they speak well and wisely. The practice may be abused, no
doubt; but, in itself, it is a natural, inevitable right. So it should
be in relation to all important principles in a free country.
Nothing else but the excitement, kindled by the conflict of debate,
will ever make those great principles subjects of general attention
and interest. Nothing else but the observation of their application in
practice can make them generally understood and appreciated. We all
recollect questions (and among them that on Mr. Foot's resolutions,
not likely soon to be forgotten), the vote on which was as certainly
known before the discussion as after it, and known to be unalterable
by any argument or persuasion; and yet the discussion of which was
so far from being uninteresting and unprofitable, that it was echoed
and reechoed through the land, making a deep and lasting impression
on the public mind, establishing incontrovertibly vital principles
before disputed, and thus giving new strength and stability to our
free institutions, and forming, I may almost say, an epoch in our
political history.
"On this and similar occasions, not to dwell on your steadfast
adherence to those more general principles of civil liberty, which are
equally important in every age and country,--on such occasions the
fundamental principles peculiar to our system of government have always
had in you a decided advocate, ever ready to develop and illustrate
their nature and operation, and to enforce the obligations which they
impose. Among the most prominent peculiarities of our system is the fact
that the United States are not a confederacy of independent sovereigns,
the subjects of each of whom are responsible to him alone for their
compliance with the obligations of the compact, but that, for certain
specified purposes, they form one nation, every citizen of which is
responsible, directly, immediately, exclusively, to the whole nation for
the performance of his duties to the whole; that the Constitution is not
a treaty, nor any thing like a treaty, but a frame of government,
resting on the same foundations, and supported by the same sanctions,
as any other government, to be subverted only by the same means, by
revolution,--revolution to be brought about by the same authority which
would warrant a revolution in any government, and by none other,--to be
justified, when justifiable, by the same paramount necessity, and by
nothing less. This government is not the government of the States, but
that of the people; and it behooves the people, every one of the
people, to do his utmost to preserve it; not in form merely, but in
its full efficiency, as a practical system; to maintain the Union as it
is, in all its integrity,--the Constitution as it is, in all its
purity, and in all its strength; and when they are in danger, to hasten
to their support promptly, frankly, fearlessly, undeterred, and
unencumbered by any political combination, let who will be his
companions in the good cause, and let who will hang back from it.
"The other great peculiarity of our political system--and on these two
hang all the liberty and hopes of America--is this: that the supreme
power or sovereignty is divided between the State and national
governments, and the portion allotted to each distributed--among
several independent departments; and this, notwithstanding the maxim of
European politicians, too hastily adopted by some of our own statesmen,
that sovereignty is, in its nature, indivisible. By sovereignty, I do
not mean, and they do not mean, the ultimate right of the people to
establish and subvert governments, the right of revolution, as it has
been called; for, thus understood, it would be absurd to inquire, as
they constantly do, where the sovereignty resides in any particular
government, since this ultimate sovereignty never can reside anywhere
but in the people themselves. It is inherent in them and inalienable,
existing equally as a right, however its exercise may be impeded, in
free and despotic governments. But by sovereignty must be understood the
supreme power of the government, the highest power which can lawfully be
exercised by any constituted authority. Now, let the politicians of
Europe say what they will of the indivisibility of this power, we know
that, among us, it is in point of fact divided; that in relation to some
objects, the supreme power is in the national government, subject to no
earthly control but that of the people, exercising their right of
revolution; and that in relation to others, it is in the State
governments, subject to the same and to no other control; and that in
each of these governments the power conferred is divided among the
legislative, executive, and judicial departments, each of which is
entirely independent in the performance of its appropriate duties.
"This system of practical cheeks and balances, altogether peculiar
to us, is designed to operate, and does operate, for the restraint of
power and the protection of liberty. But, like every earthly good, it
brings with it its attendant evil in the danger of encroachment and
collision. To guard against these dangers is one of the most important,
most difficult, most delicate of our public duties; to see that the
national government shall not encroach upon the power of the States,
nor the States on that of the nation; that no State shall interfere
with the domestic legislation of another, nor lightly nor unjustly
suspect another of seeking to interfere with its own; but that each of
these several governments, and every department in each, shall be
strictly confined to its proper sphere; that no one shall evade any
responsibility which is imposed on him by the Constitution and the laws,
and no one assume any responsibility which is not so.
"But by what power can this be accomplished? There is only one. Physical
force will not do it. The system of our government has been compared to
that of the heavenly bodies, which move on, orb within orb cycle within
cycle, in apparent confusion, but in real, uninterrupted, unalterable
harmony. And the harmony of our system can only be maintained by a
power, which, like that regulating their movements, is unseen, unfelt,
yet irresistible,--_Public Opinion_.
"This is the precise circumstance which renders the prevalence of just
political views and principles peculiarly important among us, and
secures to him, who labors faithfully and successfully to promote their
diffusion, the praise of having deserved well of his country.
"The opinions of men, however, are invariably and inevitably affected
by their interests and their feelings. This consideration opens a wide
field of duty to the American statesman, requiring him to prevent,
by every means in his power, all collisions of interest and all
exasperations of feeling; to correct and rebuke the misrepresentations
which tend to array one part of the country against another, or one
portion of society against another, as if their interests were adverse,
whereas in truth they are one; and, avoiding the paltry cunning which
plays off the different parts of the country against each other,
sacrificing the interests of the whole to this part to-day, on
condition that they shall be sacrificed to another to-morrow, by
which means they are always sacrificed, to be governed by that
liberal, enlightened, far-sighted policy, which in all questions of
expediency looks invariably and exclusively to the permanent interests
of the whole nation, considered as one,--which aims to impress on the
minds and the hearts of this people, deeply, indelibly, the great
truth, that the prosperity and the glory of the United States, their
improvement and happiness at home, their rank among the nations of
the earth, must be proportioned to the strength and cordiality of their
union, and can only be carried to their highest pitch by the universal
conviction, the deep-seated and overruling sentiment, that, for the
purposes set forth in the Constitution, we are one people, one and
indivisible; and that for us to break the bond that makes us one, and
resolve this glorious Union into its original elements, would be as
mad and as fatal as for England to go back again to her Heptarchy.
"The statesman who is governed by these principles and this policy,
whose great object is not to win the spoils of victory, nor even its
laurels, but to fight the good fight and render faithful service to his
country, will never want opportunity to merit the public gratitude,
whatever may be his political position. If in the majority, considering
that the duration of any administration is only a day in the existence
of the government, and yet a day which must affect all that are to
follow it, he will never be tempted to swerve from these great
principles by any temporary advantage, even to the whole community,
still less by any local or partial benefit, and least of all by any
party or personal consideration. He will not make it the chief object of
government to extend and perpetuate the power of his party. He will not
regard his political opponents as enemies, over whom he has triumphed
and whom he is to despoil. He will not seek to throw off or evade the
restraints imposed by the Constitution on all power, nor will he bestow
public offices as the reward or the motive for adherence to his party or
his person. If in the minority, he will find inducement enough and
reward enough for the most strenuous exertion, in the conviction, that
an intelligent, resolute, vigilant minority is not utterly powerless in
our government, but may often control, modify, or even arrest the most
pernicious schemes of reckless rulers, and diminish, if not prevent, the
evils of misrule. He will consider also, that in political science, as
in the other moral sciences, truth must always force its way slowly
against general opposition, and that although the great principles for
which he contends should not triumph in the debate of the day, they may
yet, if ably sustained, ultimately triumph in the hearts of the people,
and come at last to rule the land; and that thenceforward, so long as
their beneficent influence shall endure, so long as they shall be
remembered upon earth, so long will his name and his praise endure who
shall have watched over them in their weakness, and struggled for them
in their adversity.
"But I must not be tempted beyond the tone which befits the part
assigned me, which is simply to state the motives and feelings of those
for whom I speak on this occasion; and I am sure, Gentlemen, that I am
the faithful interpreter of your sentiments, when I say, that it is from
attachment to the great principles of civil liberty and constitutional
government, that you offer this token of respect to one who has always
maintained them and been governed by them; to one whom this people,
because he has been guided by those principles, and for the sake of
those principles, delight to honor; whom they honor with their
confidence, whom they honor by cherishing the memory of his past
services, and by their best hopes and wishes for the future, and whom
they will honor, let who else may shrink and falter, by their cordial
efforts to raise him to that high station for which so many patriotic
citizens, in various parts of the country, are now holding him up as a
candidate; and they will do this on the full conviction, that he will
always be true to those principles, wherever his country may call him."
To this address Mr. WEBSTER made the following reply.
PRESENTATION OF A VASE.[104]
MR. CHAIRMAN AND GENTLEMEN:--I accept, with grateful respect, the
present which it is your pleasure to make. I value it. It bears an
expression of your regard for those political principles which I have
endeavored to maintain; and though the material were less costly, or the
workmanship less elegant, any durable evidence of your approbation could
not but give me high satisfaction.
This approbation is the more gratifying, as it is not bestowed for
services connected with local questions, or local interests, or which
are supposed to have been peculiarly beneficial to yourselves, but for
efforts which had the interests of the whole country for their object,
and which were useful, if useful at all, to all who live under the
blessings of the Constitution and government of the United States.
It is twelve or thirteen years, Gentlemen, since I was honored with a
seat in Congress, by the choice of the citizens of Boston. They saw fit
to repeat that choice more than once; and I embrace, with pleasure, this
opportunity of expressing to them my sincere and profound sense of
obligation for these manifestations of confidence. At a later period,
the Legislature of the State saw fit to transfer me to another
place;[105] and have again renewed the trust, under circumstances which
I have felt to impose upon me new obligations of duty, and an increased
devotion to the political welfare of the country. These twelve or
thirteen years, Gentlemen, have been years of labor, and not without
sacrifices; but both have been more than compensated by the kindness,
the good-will, and the favorable interpretation with which my discharge
of official duties has been received. In this changing world, we can
hardly say that we possess what is present, and the future is all
unknown. But the past is ours. Its acquisitions, and its enjoyments, are
safe. And among these acquisitions, among the treasures of the past most
to be cherished and preserved, I shall ever reckon the proofs of esteem
and confidence which I have received from the citizens of Boston and the
Legislature of Massachusetts.
In one respect, Gentlemen, your present oppresses me. It overcomes me by
its tone of commendation. It assigns to me a character of which I feel I
am not worthy. "The Defender of the Constitution" is a title quite too
high for me. He who shall prove himself the ablest among the able men of
the country, he who shall serve it longest among those who may serve it
long, he on whose labors all the stars of benignant fortune shall shed
their selectest influence, will have praise enough, and reward enough,
if, at the end of his political and earthly career, though that career
may have been as bright as the track of the sun across the sky, the
marble under which he sleeps, and that much better record, the grateful
breasts of his living countrymen, shall pronounce him "the Defender of
the Constitution." It is enough for me, Gentlemen, to be connected, in
the most humble manner, with the defence and maintenance of this great
wonder of modern times, and this certain wonder of all future times. It
is enough for me to stand in the ranks, and only to be counted as one of
its defenders.
The Constitution of the United States, I am confident, will protect the
name and the memory both of its founders and of its friends, even of its
humblest friends. It will impart to both something of its own ever
memorable and enduring distinction; I had almost said, something of its
own everlasting remembrance. Centuries hence, when the vicissitudes of
human affairs shall have broken it, if ever they shall break it, into
fragments, these very fragments, every shattered column, every displaced
foundation-stone, shall yet be sure to bring them all into recollection,
and attract to them the respect and gratitude of mankind.
Gentlemen, it is to pay respect to this Constitution, it is to manifest
your attachment to it, your sense of its value, and your devotion to
its true principles, that you have sought this occasion. It is not to
pay an ostentatious personal compliment. If it were, it would be
unworthy both of you and of me. It is not to manifest attachment to
individuals, independent of all considerations of principles; if it
were, I should feel it my duty to tell you, friends as you are, that you
were doing that which, at this very moment, constitutes one of the most
threatening dangers to the Constitution itself. Your gift would have no
value in my eyes, this occasion would be regarded by me as an idle
pageant, if I did not know that they are both but modes, chosen by you,
to signify your attachment to the true principles of the Constitution;
your fixed purpose, so far as in you lies, to maintain those principles;
and your resolution to support public men, and stand by them, so long as
they shall support and stand by the Constitution of the country, and no
longer.
"The Constitution of the country!" Gentlemen, often as I am called to
contemplate this subject, its importance always rises, and magnifies
itself more and more, before me. I cannot view its preservation as a
concern of narrow extent, or temporary duration. On the contrary, I see
in it a vast interest, which is to run down with the generations of men,
and to spread over a great portion of the earth with a direct, and over
the rest with an indirect, but a most powerful influence. When I speak
of it here, in this thick crowd of fellow-citizens and friends, I yet
behold, thronging about me, a much larger and more imposing crowd. I see
a united rush of the present and the future. I see all the patriotic of
our own land, and our own time. I see also the many millions of their
posterity, and I see, too, the lovers of human liberty from every part
of the earth, from beneath the oppressions of thrones, and hierarchies,
and dynasties, from amidst the darkness of ignorance, degradation, and
despotism, into which any ray of political light has penetrated; I see
all those countless multitudes gather about us, and I hear their united
and earnest voices, conjuring us, in whose charge the treasure now is,
to hold on, and hold on to the last, by that which is our own highest
enjoyment and their best hope.
Filled with these sentiments, Gentlemen, and having through my political
life hitherto always acted under the deepest conviction of their truth
and importance, it is natural that I should have regarded the
preservation of the Constitution as the first great political object to
be secured. But I claim no exclusive merit. I should deem it,
especially, both unbecoming and unjust in me to separate myself, in this
respect, from other public servants of the people of Massachusetts. The
distinguished gentlemen who have preceded and followed me in the
representation of the city, their associates from other districts of the
State, and my late worthy and most highly esteemed colleague, are
entitled, one and all, to a full share in the public approbation. If
accidental circumstances, or a particular position, have sometimes
rendered me more prominent, equal patriotism and equal zeal have yet
made them equally deserving. It were invidious to enumerate these
fellow-laborers, or to discriminate among them. Long may they live! and
I could hardly express a better wish for the interest and honor of the
States, than that the public men who may follow them may be as
disinterested, as patriotic, and as able as they have proved
themselves.
There have been, Gentlemen, it is true, anxious moments. That was an
anxious occasion, to which the gentleman who has addressed me in your
behalf has alluded; I mean the debate in January, 1830. It seemed to me
then that the Constitution was about to be abandoned. Threatened with
most serious dangers, it was not only not defended, but attacked, as I
thought, and weakened and wounded in its vital powers and faculties, by
those to whom the country naturally looks for its defence and
protection. It appeared to me that the Union was about to go to pieces,
before the people were at all aware of the extent of the danger. The
occasion was not sought, but forced upon us; it seemed to me momentous,
and I confess that I felt that even the little that I could do, in such
a crisis, was called for by every motive which could be addressed to a
lover of the Constitution. I took a part in the debate, therefore, with
my whole heart already in the subject, and careless for every thing in
the result, except the judgment which the people of the United States
should form upon the questions involved in the discussion. I believe
that judgment has been definitely pronounced; but nothing is due to me,
beyond the merit of having made an earnest effort to present the true
question to the people, and to invoke for it that attention from them,
which its high importance appeared to me to demand.
The Constitution of the United States, Gentlemen, is of a peculiar
structure. Our whole system is peculiar. It is fashioned according to
no existing model, likened to no precedent, and yet founded on
principles which lie at the foundations of all free governments,
wherever such governments exist. It is a complicated system. It is
elaborate, and in some sense artificial, in its composition. We have
twenty-four State sovereignties, all exercising legislative, judicial,
and executive powers. Some of the sovereignties, or States, had long
existed, and, subject only to the restraint of the power of the parent
country, had been accustomed to the forms and to the exercise of the
powers of representative republics. Others of them are new creations,
coming into existence only under the Constitution itself; but all now
standing on an equal footing.
The general government, under which all these States are united, is not,
as has been justly remarked by Mr. Gray, a confederation. It is much
more than a confederation. It is a popular representative government,
with all the departments, and all the functions and organs, of such a
government. But it is still a limited, a restrained, a severely-guarded
government. It exists under a written constitution, and all that human
wisdom could do is done, to define its powers and to prevent their
abuse. It is placed in what was supposed to be the safest medium between
dangerous authority on the one hand, and debility and inefficiency on
the other. I think that happy medium was found, by the exercise of the
greatest political sagacity, and the influence of the highest good
fortune. We cannot move the system either way, without the probability
of hurtful change; and as experience has taught us its safety, and its
usefulness, when left where it is, our duty is a plain one.
It cannot be doubted that a system thus complicated must be accompanied
by more or less of danger, in every stage of its existence. It has not
the simplicity of despotism. It is not a plain column, that stands
self-poised and self-supported. Nor is it a loose, irregular, unfixed,
and undefined system of rule, which admits of constant and violent
changes, without losing its character. But it is a balanced and guarded
system; a system of checks and controls; a system in which powers are
carefully delegated, and as carefully limited; a system in which the
symmetry of the parts is designed to produce an aggregate whole, which
shall be favorable to personal liberty, favorable to public prosperity,
and favorable to national glory. And who can deny, that, by a trial of
fifty years, this American system of government has proved itself
capable of conferring all these blessings? These years have been years
of great agitation throughout the civilized world. In the course of them
the face of Europe has been completely changed. Old and corrupt
governments have been destroyed, and new ones, erected in their places,
have been destroyed too, sometimes in rapid succession. Yet, through all
the extraordinary, the most extraordinary scenes of this half-century,
the free, popular, representative government of the United States has
stood, and has afforded security for liberty, for property, and for
reputation, to all citizens.
That it has been exposed to many dangers, that it has met critical
moments, is certain. That it is now exposed to dangers, and that a
crisis is now before it, is equally clear, in my judgment. But it has
hitherto been preserved, and vigilance and patriotism may rescue it
again.
Our dangers, Gentlemen, are not from _without_. We have nothing to
fear from foreign powers, except those interruptions of the occupations
of life which all wars occasion. The dangers to our system, as a
system, do not spring from that quarter. On the contrary, the pressure
of foreign hostility would be most likely to unite us, and to
strengthen our union, by an augmented sense of its utility and
necessity. But our dangers are from within. I do not now speak of those
dangers which have in all ages beset republican governments, such as
luxury among the rich, the corruption of public officers, and the
general degradation of public morals. I speak only of those peculiar
dangers to which the structure of our government particularly exposes
it, in addition to all other ordinary dangers. These arise among
ourselves; they spring up at home; and the evil which they threaten is
no less than disunion, or the overthrow of the whole system. Local
feelings and local parties, a notion sometimes a sedulously cultivated
of opposite interests in different portions of the Union, evil
prophecies respecting its duration, cool calculations upon the
benefits of separation, a narrow feeling that cannot embrace all the
States as one country, an unsocial, anti-national, and half-belligerent
spirit, which sometimes betrays itself,--all these undoubtedly are
causes which affect, more or less, our prospect of holding together.
All these are unpropitious influences.
The Constitution, again, is founded on compromise, and the most perfect
and absolute good faith, in regard to every stipulation of this kind
contained in it is indispensable to its preservation. Every attempt to
accomplish even the best purpose, every attempt to grasp that which is
regarded as an immediate good, in violation of these stipulations, is
full of danger to the whole Constitution. I need not say, also, that
possible collision between the general and the State governments always
has been, is, and ever must be, a source of danger to be strictly
watched by wise men.
But, Gentlemen, as I have spoken of dangers now, in my judgment actually
existing, I will state at once my opinions on that point, without fear
and without reserve. I reproach no man, I accuse no man; but I speak of
things as they appear to me, and I speak of principles and practices
which I deem most alarming. I think, then, Gentlemen, that a great
practical change is going on in the Constitution, which, if not checked,
must completely alter its whole character. This change consists in the
diminution of the just powers of Congress on the one hand, and in the
vast increase of executive authority on the other. The government of the
United States, in the aggregate, or the legislative power of Congress,
seems fast losing, one after another, its accustomed powers. One by one,
they are practically struck out of the Constitution. What has become of
the power of internal improvement? Does it remain in the Constitution,
or is it erased by the repeated exercise of the President's veto, and
the acquiescence in that exercise of all who call themselves his
friends, whatever their own opinions of the Constitution may be? The
power to create a national bank, a power exercised for forty years,
approved by all Presidents, and by Congress at all times, and sanctioned
by a solemn adjudication of the Supreme Court, is it not true that party
has agreed to strike this power, too, from the Constitution, in
compliance with what has been openly called the interests of party? Nay,
more; that great power, the power of protecting domestic industry, who
can tell me whether that power is now regarded as in the Constitution,
or out of it?
But, if it be true that the diminution of the just powers of Congress,
in these particulars, has been attempted, and attempted with more or
less success, it is still more obvious, I think, that the executive
power of the government has been dangerously increased. It is spread,
in the first place, over all that ground from which the legislative
power of Congress is driven. Congress can no longer establish a bank,
controlled by the laws of the United States, amenable to the authority,
and open, at all times, to the examination and inspection of the
legislature. It is no longer constitutional to make such a bank, for the
safe custody of the public treasure. But of the thousand State
corporations already existing, it is constitutional for the executive
government to select such as it pleases, to intrust the public money to
their keeping, without responsibility to the laws of the United States,
without the duty of exhibiting their concerns, at any time, to the
committees of Congress, and with no other guards or securities than such
as executive discretion on the one hand, and the banks themselves on the
other, may see fit to agree to.
And so of internal improvement. It is not every thing in the nature of
public improvements which is forbidden. It is only that the selection of
objects is not with Congress. Whatever appears to the executive
discretion to be of a proper nature, or such as comes within certain not
very intelligible limits, may be tolerated. And even with respect to the
tariff itself, while as a system it is denounced as unconstitutional, it
is probable some portion of it might find favor.
But it is not the frequent use of the power of the veto, it is not the
readiness with which men yield their own opinions, and see important
powers practically obliterated from the Constitution, in order to
subserve the interest of the party, it is not even all this which
furnishes, at the present moment, the most striking demonstration of the
increase of executive authority. It is the use of the power of
patronage; it is the universal giving and taking away of all place and
office, for reasons no way connected with the public service, or the
faithful execution of the laws; it is this which threatens with
overthrow all the true principles of the government. Patronage is
reduced to a system. It is used as the patrimony, the property of party.
Every office is a largess, a bounty, a favor; and it is expected to be
compensated by service and fealty. A numerous and well-disciplined corps
of office-holders, acting with activity and zeal, and with incredible
union of purpose, is attempting to seize on the strong posts, and to
control, effectually, the expression of the public will. As has been
said of the Turks in Europe, they are not so much mingled with us, as
encamped among us. And it is more lamentable, that the apathy which
prevails in a time of general prosperity produces, among a great
majority of the people, a disregard to the efforts and objects of this
well-trained and effective corps. But, Gentlemen, the principle is
vicious; it is destructive and ruinous; and whether it produces its work
of disunion to-day or to-morrow, it must produce it in the end. It must
destroy the balance of the government, and so destroy the government
itself. The government of the United States controls the army, the navy,
the custom-house, the post-office, the land-offices, and other great
sources of patronage. What have the States to oppose to all this? And if
the States shall see all this patronage, if they shall see every officer
under this government, in all its ramifications, united with every other
officer, and all acting steadily in a design to produce political
effect, even in State governments, is it possible not to perceive that
they will, before long, regard the whole government of the Union with
distrust and jealousy, and finally with fear and hatred?
Among other evils, it is the tendency of this system to push party
feelings and party spirit to their utmost excess. It involves not only
opinions and principles, but the pursuits of life and the means of
living, in the contests of party. The executive himself becomes but the
mere point of concentration of party power; and when executive power is
exercised or is claimed for the supposed benefit of party, party will
approve and justify it. When did heated and exasperated party ever
complain of its leaders for seizing on new degrees of power?
This system of government has been openly avowed. Offices of trust are
declared, from high places, to be the regular spoils of party victory;
and all that is furnished out of the public purse, as a reward for labor
in the public service, becomes thus a boon, offered to personal devotion
and partisan service. The uncontrolled power of removal is the spring
which moves all this machinery; and I verily believe the government is,
and will be, in serious danger, till some check is placed on that power.
To combine and consolidate a great party by the influence of personal
hopes, to govern by the patronage of office, to exercise the power of
removal at pleasure, in order to render that patronage effectual,--this
seems to be the sum and substance of the political systems of the times.
I am sorry to say, that the germ of this system had its first being in
the Senate.
The policy began in the last year of Mr. Adams's administration, when
nominations made by him to fill vacancies occurring by death or
resignation were postponed, by a vote of the majority of the Senate, to
a period beyond the ensuing 4th of March; and this was done with no
other view than that of giving the patronage of these appointments to
the incoming President. The nomination of a judge of the Supreme Court,
among others, was thus disposed of. The regular action of the government
was, in this manner, deranged, and undue and unjustly obtained patronage
came to be received as among the ordinary means of government. Some of
the gentlemen who concurred in this vote have since, probably, seen
occasion to regret it. But they thereby let loose the lion of executive
prerogative, and they have not yet found out how they can drive it back
again to its cage. The debates in the Senate on these questions, in the
session of 1828-29, are not public; but I take this occasion to say,
that the minority of the Senate, as it was then constituted, including,
among others, myself and colleague, contended against this innovation
upon the Constitution, for days and for weeks; but we contended in
vain.
The doctrine of patronage thus got a foothold in the government. A
general removal from office followed, exciting, at first, no small share
of public attention; but every exercise of the power rendered its
exercise in the next case still easier, till removal at will has become
the actual system on which the government is administered.
It is hardly a fit occasion, Gentlemen, to go into the history of this
power of removal. It was declared to exist in the days of Washington, by
a very small majority in each house of Congress. It has been considered
as existing to the present time. But no man expected it to be used as a
mere arbitrary power; and those who maintained its existence declared,
nevertheless, that it would justly become matter of impeachment, if it
should be used for purposes such as those to which the most blind among
us must admit they have recently seen it habitually applied. I have the
highest respect for those who originally concurred in this construction
of the Constitution. But, as discreet men of the day were divided on the
question, as Madison and other distinguished names were on one side, and
Gerry and other distinguished names on the other, one may now differ
from either, without incurring the imputation of arrogance, since he
must differ from some of them. I confess my judgment would have been,
that the power of removal did not belong to the President alone; that it
was but a part of the power of appointment, since the power of
appointing one man to office implies the power of vacating that office,
by removing another out of it; and as the whole power of appointment is
granted, not to the President alone, but to the President and Senate,
the true interpretation of the Constitution would have carried the power
of removal into the same hands. I have, however, so recently expressed
my sentiments on this point in another place, that it would be improper
to pursue this line of observation further.
In the course of the last session, Gentlemen, several bills passed the
Senate, intended to correct abuses, to restrain useless expenditure, to
curtail the discretionary authority of public officers, and to control
government patronage. The post-office bill, the custom-house bill, and
the bill respecting the tenure of office, were all of this class. None
of them, however, received the favorable consideration of the other
house. I believe, that in all these respects a reform, a real, honest
reform, is decidedly necessary to the security of the Constitution; and
while I continue in public life, I shall not halt in my endeavors to
produce it. It is time to bring back the government to its true
character as an agency for the people. It is time to declare that
offices, created for the people, are public trusts, not private spoils.
It is time to bring each and every department within its true original
limits. It is time to assent, on one hand, to the just powers of
Congress, in their full extent, and to resist, on the other, the
progress and rapid growth of executive authority.
These, Gentlemen, are my opinions. I have spoken them frankly, and
without reserve. Under present circumstances, I should wish to avoid any
concealment, and to state my political opinions in their full length and
breadth. I desire not to stand before the country as a man of no
opinions, or of such a mixture of opposite opinions that the result has
no character at all. On the contrary, I am desirous of standing as one
who is bound to his own consistency by the frankest avowal of his
sentiments, on all important and interesting subjects. I am not partly
for the Constitution, and partly against it; I am wholly for it, for it
altogether, for it as it is, and for the exercise, when occasion
requires, of all its just powers, as they have heretofore been
exercised by Washington, and the great men who have followed him in its
administration.
I disdain, altogether, the character of an uncommitted man. I am
committed, fully committed; committed to the full extent of all that I
am, and all that I hope, to the Constitution of the country, to its love
and reverence, to its defence and maintenance, to its warm commendation
to every American heart, and to its vindication and just praise, before
all mankind. And I am committed _against_ every thing which, in my
judgment, may weaken, endanger, or destroy it. I am committed against
the encouragement of local parties and local feelings; I am committed
against all fostering of anti-national spirit; I am committed against
the slightest infringement of the original compromise on which the
Constitution was founded; I am committed against any and every
derangement of the powers of the several departments of the government,
against any derogation from the constitutional authority of Congress,
and especially against all extension of executive power; and I am
committed against any attempt to rule the free people of this country by
the power and the patronage of the government itself. I am committed,
fully and entirely committed, against making the government the people's
master.
These, Gentlemen, are my opinions. I have purposely avowed them with the
utmost frankness. They are not the sentiments of the moment, but the
result of much reflection, and of some experience in the affairs of the
country. I believe them to be such sentiments as are alone compatible
with the permanent prosperity of the country, or the long continuance of
its union.
And now, Gentlemen, having thus solemnly avowed these sentiments and
these convictions, if you should find me hereafter to be false to them,
or to falter in their support, I now conjure you, by all the duty you
owe your country, by all your hopes of her prosperity and renown, by all
your love for the general cause of liberty throughout the world,--I
conjure you, that, renouncing me as a recreant, you yourselves go on,
right on, straightforward, in maintaining, with your utmost zeal and
with all your power, the true principles of the best, the happiest, the
most glorious Constitution of a free government, with which it has
pleased Providence, in any age, to bless any of the nations of the
earth.
FOOTNOTES
[104] Speech delivered in the Odeon, at Boston, on Occasion of the
Presentation of a Vase by Citizens of that Place, on the 12th of
October, 1835.
[105] The Senate of the United States.
RECEPTION AT NEW YORK.
INTRODUCTORY NOTE.
At a meeting of the political friends of the Hon. Daniel Webster,
held at Euterpian Hall, in the city of New York, on Tuesday evening,
the 21st of February, 1837, Chancellor Kent was called to the chair,
and Messrs. Hiram Ketchum and Gabriel P. Dissosway were appointed
secretaries.
The object of the meeting having been explained, the following
resolutions were, on motion, duly seconded and unanimously
adopted:--
"_Resolved_, That this meeting has heard with deep concern of the
intention of the Hon. Daniel Webster to resign his seat in the Senate of
the United States at the close of the present session of Congress, or
early in the next session.
"_Resolved_, That while we regret the resignation of Mr. Webster, it
would be most unreasonable to censure the exercise of his right to seek
repose, after fourteen years of unremitted, zealous, and highly
distinguished labors in the Congress of the United States; but we
indulge the hope that the nation will, at no distant day, again profit
by his ripe experience as a statesman and his extensive knowledge of
public affairs, by his wisdom in council and eloquence in debate.
"_Resolved_, That in the judgment of this meeting there is none among
the living or the dead who has given to the country more just or able
expositions of the Constitution of the United States; none who has
enforced, with more lucid and impassionate eloquence, the necessity and
importance of the preservation of the Union, or exhibited more zeal or
ability in defending the Constitution from the foes without the
government, and foes within it, than Daniel Webster.
"_Resolved_, That there is no part of our widely extended country more
deeply interested in the preservation of the Union than the city of New
York; her motto should be 'Union and Liberty, now and for ever, one and
inseparable,' and her gratitude should be shown to the statesman who
first gave utterance to this sentiment.
"_Resolved_, That David B. Ogden, Peter Stagg, Jonathan Thompson, James
Brown, Philip Hone, Samuel Stevens, Robert Smith, Joseph Tucker, Peter
Sharpe, Egbert Benson, Hugh Maxwell, Peter A. Jay, Aaron Clark, Ira B.
Wheeler, William W. Todd, Seth Grosvenor, Simeon Draper, Jr., Wm.
Aspinwall, Nathaniel Weed, Jonathan Goodhue, Caleb Bartow, Hiram
Ketchum, Gabriel P. Dissosway, Henry K. Bogert, James Kent, Wm. S.
Johnson, and John W. Leavitt, Esqrs., be a committee authorized and
empowered to receive the Hon. Daniel Webster on his return from
Washington, and make known to him, in the form of an address or
otherwise, the sentiments which this meeting, in common with the friends
of the Union and the Constitution in the city, entertain for the
services which he has performed for the country; that the committee
correspond with Mr. Webster, and ascertain the time when his arrival may
be expected, and give public notice of the same, together with the order
of proceedings which may be adopted under these resolutions.
"_Resolved_, That these resolutions, signed by the Chairman and
Secretaries, be published when the committee shall notify the public of
the expected arrival of Mr. Webster.
"JAMES KENT, _Chairman_.
"HIRAM KETCHUM, GABRIEL P. DISSOSWAY, _Secretaries_."
* * * * *
"_New York, March 1, 1837._
"SIR:--It having been currently reported that you have signified your
intention to resign your seat in the Senate of the United States, a
number of the friends of the Union and the Constitution in this city
were convened on the evening of the 21st of last month, to devise
measures whereby they might signify to you the sentiments which they, in
common with all the Whigs in this city, entertain for the eminent
services you have rendered to the country. At this meeting, the Hon.
James Kent was called to the chair, and resolutions, a copy of which I
inclose you, were adopted, not only with entire unanimity, but with a
feeling of warm and hearty concurrence. On behalf of the committee
appointed under one of these resolutions, I now have the honor to
address you. It will be gratifying to the committee to learn from you at
what time you expect to arrive in this city on your return to
Massachusetts. If informed of the time of your arrival, it will afford
the committee pleasure to meet you, and, in behalf of the Whigs of New
York, to welcome you, and to offer you, in a more extended form than the
resolutions present, their views of your public services. I am
instructed by the committee to say, that, whether you shall choose to
appear among us as a public man or a private citizen, you will be warmly
greeted by every sound friend of that Constitution for which you have
been so distinguished a champion. Should your resolution to resign your
seat in the Senate be relinquished, you will, in the opinion of the
committee, impose new obligations upon the friends of the Union and the
Constitution.
"I have the honor to be, very truly, your obedient servant,
"D. B. OGDEN.
"To Hon. DANIEL WEBSTER, Washington."
* * * * *
"_Washington, March 4th, 1837._
"MY DEAR SIR:--I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your
letter of the 1st instant, communicating the resolutions adopted at a
meeting of a number of political friends in New York.
"The character of these resolutions, and the kindness of the sentiments
expressed in your letter, have filled me with unaffected gratitude. I
feel, at the same time, how little deserving are any political services
of mine of such commendation from such a source. To the discharge of the
duties of my public situation, sometimes both anxious and difficult, I
have devoted time and labor without reserve; and have made sacrifices of
personal and private convenience not always unimportant. These, together
with integrity of purpose and fidelity, constitute, I am conscious, my
only claim to the public regard; and for all these I find myself richly
compensated by proofs of approbation such as your communication
affords.
"My desire to relinquish my seat in the Senate for the two years still
remaining of the term for which I was chosen, would have been carried
into execution at the close of the present session of the Senate, had
not circumstances existed which, in the judgment of others, rendered it
expedient to defer the fulfilment of that purpose for the present.
"It is my expectation to be in New York early in the week after next;
and it will give me pleasure to meet the political friends who have
tendered me this kind and respectful attention, in any manner most
agreeable to them.
"I pray you to accept for yourself, and the other gentlemen of the
committee, my highest regard.
"DANIEL WEBSTER.
"To D. B. OGDEN, Esq., New York."
* * * * *
"At a meeting of the committee appointed under the above resolution,
Philip Hone, Robert Smith, John W. Leavitt, Egbert Benson, Ira B.
Wheeler, Caleb Bartow, Simeon Draper, Jr., and Wm. S. Johnson, Esqrs.,
were appointed a sub-committee to make arrangements for the reception of
Mr. Webster. The committee have corresponded with Mr. Webster, and
ascertained that he will leave Philadelphia on the morning of Wednesday
next. He will be met by the committee, and, on landing at Whitehall, at
about two o'clock on Wednesday afternoon, will thence be conducted by
the committee, accompanied by such other citizens as choose to join
them, to a place hereafter to be designated. In the evening, at half
past six o'clock, he will be addressed by the committee, in a public
meeting of citizens, at Niblo's Saloon.
"D. B. OGDEN, _Chairman_."
On the subsequent day, March 15th, the committee appointed for
that purpose met Mr. Webster at Amboy, and accompanied him to
the city, where he was met, on landing, by a very numerous
assemblage of citizens, who thronged to see the distinguished
Senator, and give him a warm welcome; after landing, he was
attended by the committee and a numerous cavalcade through Broadway,
which was crowded with the most respectable citizens, to lodgings
provided for him at the American Hotel. Here he made a short address
to the assembled citizens, and in the evening was accompanied by
the committee to Niblo's Saloon. One of the largest meetings ever
held in the city of New York assembled in the Saloon, and at half
past six o'clock was called to order by AARON CLARK; DAVID B.
OGDEN was called to the chair as President of the meeting; Robert
C. Cornell, Jonathan Goodhue, Joseph Tucker, and Nathaniel Weed
were nominated Vice-Presidents; and Joseph Hoxie and George S.
Robbins, Secretaries.
After the meeting was organized, PHILIP HONE introduced Mr. Webster
with a few appropriate remarks, and he was received with the most
enthusiastic greetings. Mr. OGDEN then addressed him as follows:--
"On behalf of a committee, appointed at a meeting of a number of your
personal and political friends in this city, I have now the honor of
addressing you.
"It has afforded the committee, and, I may add, all your political
friends, unmingled pleasure to learn that you have, at least for the
present, relinquished the intention which I know you had formed of
resigning your seat in the Senate of the United States. While expressing
their feelings upon this change in your determination, the committee
cannot avoid congratulating the country that your public services are
not yet to be lost to it and that the great champion of the Constitution
and of the Union is still to continue in the field upon which he has
earned so many laurels, and has so nobly asserted and defended the
rights and liberties of the people.
"The effort made by you, and the honorable men with whom you have acted
in the Senate, to resist executive encroachments upon the other
departments of the government, will ever be remembered with gratitude by
the friends of American liberty. That these efforts were not more
successful, we shall long have reason to remember and regret. The
administration of General Jackson is fortunately at an end. Its effects
upon the Constitution and upon the commercial prosperity of the country
are not at an end. Without attempting to review the leading measures of
his administration, every man engaged in business in New York feels,
most sensibly, that his experiment upon the currency has produced the
evils which you foretold it would produce. It has brought distress, to
an extent never before experienced, upon the men of enterprise and of
small capital, and has put all the primary power in the hands of a few
great capitalists.
"Upon the Senate our eyes and our hopes are fixed; we know that you and
your political friends are in a minority in that body, but we know that
in that minority are to be found great talents, great experience, great
patriotism, and we look for great and continued exertions to maintain
the Constitution, the Union, and the liberties of this people. And we
take this opportunity of expressing our entire confidence, that whatever
men can do in a minority will be done in the Senate to relieve the
country from the evils under which she is now laboring, and to save her
from being sacrificed by folly, corruption, or usurpation.
"It gives me, Sir, pleasure to be the organ of the committee to express
to you their great respect for your talents, their deep sense of the
importance of your public services, and their gratification to learn
that you will still continue in the Senate."
To this address Mr. WEBSTER replied in the following speech.
RECEPTION AT NEW YORK.[106]
MR. CHAIRMAN, AND FELLOW-CITIZENS:--It would be idle in me to affect to
be indifferent to the circumstances under which I have now the honor of
addressing you.
I find myself in the commercial metropolis of the continent, in the
midst of a vast assembly of intelligent men, drawn from all the classes,
professions, and pursuits of life.
And you have been pleased, Gentlemen, to meet me, in this imposing
manner, and to offer me a warm and cordial welcome to your city. I thank
you. I feel the full force and importance of this manifestation of your
regard. In the highly-flattering resolutions which invited me here, in
the respectability of this vast multitude of my fellow-citizens, and in
the approbation and hearty good-will which you have here manifested, I
feel cause for profound and grateful acknowledgment.
To every individual of this meeting, therefore, I would now most
respectfully make that acknowledgment; and with every one, as with hands
joined in mutual greeting, I reciprocate friendly salutation, respect,
and good wishes.
But, Gentlemen, although I am well assured of your personal regard, I
cannot fail to know, that the times, the political and commercial
condition of things which exists among us, and an intelligent spirit,
awakened to new activity and a new degree of anxiety, have mainly
contributed to fill these avenues and crowd these halls. At a moment of
difficulty, and of much alarm, you come here as Whigs of New York, to
meet one whom you believe to be bound to you by common principles and
common sentiments, and pursuing, with you, a common object Gentlemen, I
am proud to admit this community of our principles, and this identity of
our objects. You are for the Constitution of the country; so am I. You
are for the Union of the States: so am I. You are for equal laws, for
the equal rights of all men, for constitutional and just restraints on
power, for the substance and not the shadowy image only of popular
institutions, for a government which has liberty for its spirit and
soul, as well as in its forms; and so am I. You feel that if, in warm
party times, the executive power is in hands distinguished for boldness,
for great success, for perseverance, and other qualities which strike
men's minds strongly, there is danger of derangement of the powers of
government, danger of a new division of those powers, in which the
executive is likely to obtain the lion's part; and danger of a state of
things in which the more popular branches of the government, instead of
being guards and sentinels against any encroachments from the executive,
seek, rather, support from its patronage, safety against the complaints
of the people in its ample and all-protecting favor, and refuge in its
power; and so I feel, and so I have felt for eight long and anxious
years.
You believe that a very efficient and powerful cause in the production
of the evils which now fall on the industrious and commercial classes of
the community, is the derangement of the currency, the destruction of
the exchanges, and the unnatural and unnecessary _misplacement_ of the
specie of the country, by unauthorized and illegal treasury orders. So
do I believe. I predicted all this from the beginning, and from before
the beginning. I predicted it all, last spring, when that was attempted
to be done by law which was afterwards done by executive authority; and
from the moment of the exercise of that executive authority to the
present time, I have both foreseen and seen the regular progress of
things under it, from inconvenience and embarrassment, to pressure, loss
of confidence, disorder, and bankruptcies.
Gentlemen, I mean, on this occasion, to speak my sentiments freely on
the great topics of the day. I have nothing to conceal, and shall
therefore conceal nothing. In regard to political sentiments,
purposes, or objects, there is nothing in my heart which I am ashamed
of; I shall throw it all open, therefore, to you, and to all men.
[That is right, said some one in the crowd; let us have it, with no
non-committal.] Yes, my friend, without non-committal or evasion,
without barren generalities or empty phrase, without _if_ or _but_,
without a single touch, in all I say, bearing the oracular character of
an Inaugural, I shall, on this occasion, speak my mind plainly,
freely, and independently, to men who are just as free to concur or not
to concur in my sentiments, as I am to utter them. I think you are
entitled to hear my opinions freely and frankly spoken; but I freely
acknowledge that you are still more clearly entitled to retain, and
maintain, your own opinions, however they may differ or agree with
mine.
It is true, Gentlemen, that I have contemplated the relinquishment of my
seat in the Senate for the residue of the term, now two years, for
which I was chosen. This resolution was not taken from disgust or
discouragement, although some things have certainly happened which
might excite both those feelings. But in popular governments, men
must not suffer themselves to be permanently disgusted by occasional
exhibitions of political harlequinism, or deeply discouraged, although
their efforts to awaken the people to what they deem the dangerous
tendency of public measures be not crowned with immediate success. It
was altogether from other causes, and other considerations, that, after
an uninterrupted service of fourteen or fifteen years, I naturally
desired a respite. But those whose opinions I am bound to respect
saw objections to a present withdrawal from Congress; and I have yielded
my own strong desire to their convictions of what the public good
requires.
Gentlemen, in speaking here on the subjects which now so much interest
the community, I wish in the outset to disclaim all personal disrespect
towards individuals. He whose character and fortune have exercised such
a decisive influence on our politics for eight years, has now retired
from public station. I pursue him with no personal reflections, no
reproaches. Between him and myself, there has always existed a
respectful personal intercourse. Moments have existed, indeed, critical
and decisive upon the general success of his administration, in which he
has been pleased to regard my aid as not altogether unimportant I now
speak of him respectfully, as a distinguished soldier, as one who, in
that character, has done the state much service; as a man, too, of
strong and decided character, of unsubdued resolution and perseverance
in whatever he undertakes. In speaking of his civil administration, I
speak without censoriousness or harsh imputation of motives; I wish him
health and happiness in his retirement; but I must still speak as I
think of his public measures, and of their general bearing and tendency,
not only on the present interests of the country, but also on the
well-being and security of the government itself.
There are, however, some topics of a less urgent present application and
importance, upon which I wish to say a few words, before I advert to
those which are more immediately connected with the present distressed
state of things.
My learned and highly-valued friend (Mr. Ogden) who has addressed me in
your behalf, has been kindly pleased to speak of my political career as
being marked by a freedom from local interests and prejudices, and a
devotion to liberal and comprehensive views of public policy.
I will not say that this compliment is deserved. I will only say, that I
have earnestly endeavored to deserve it. Gentlemen, the general
government, to the extent of its power, is national. It is not
consolidated, it does not embrace all powers of government. On the
contrary, it is delegated, restrained, strictly limited.
But what powers it does possess, it possesses for the general, not
for any partial or local good. It extends over a vast territory,
embracing now six-and-twenty States, with interests various, but not
irreconcilable, infinitely diversified, but capable of being all blended
into political harmony.
He, however, who would produce this harmony must survey the whole field,
as if all parts were as interesting to himself as they are to others,
and with that generous, patriotic feeling, prompter and better than the
mere dictates of cool reason, which leads him to embrace the whole with
affectionate regard, as constituting, altogether, that object which he
is so much bound to respect, to defend, and to love,--his country. We
have around us, and more or less within the influence and protection of
the general government, all the great interests of agriculture,
navigation, commerce, manufactures, the fisheries, and the mechanic
arts. The duties of the government, then, certainly extend over all this
territory, and embrace all these vast interests. We have a maritime
frontier, a sea-coast, of many thousand miles; and while no one doubts
that it is the duty of government to defend this coast by suitable
military preparations, there are those who yet suppose that the powers
of government stop at this point; and that as to works of peace and
works of improvement, they are beyond our constitutional limits. I have
ever thought otherwise. Congress has a right, no doubt, to declare war,
and to provide armies and navies; and it has necessarily the right to
build fortifications and batteries, to protect the coast from the
effects of war. But Congress has authority also, and it is its duty, to
regulate commerce, and it has the whole power of collecting duties on
imports and tonnage. It must have ports and harbors, and dock-yards
also, for its navies. Very early in the history of the government, it
was decided by Congress, on the report of a highly respectable
committee, that the transfer by the States to Congress of the power of
collecting tonnage and other duties, and the grant of the authority to
regulate commerce, charged Congress, necessarily, with the duty of
maintaining such piers and wharves and light-houses, and of making such
improvements, as might have been expected to be done by the States, if
they had retained the usual means, by retaining the power of collecting
duties on imports. The States, it was admitted, had parted with this
power; and the duty of protecting and facilitating commerce by these
means had passed, along with this power, into other hands. I have never
hesitated, therefore, when the state of the treasury would admit, to
vote for reasonable appropriations, for breakwaters, light-houses,
piers, harbors, and similar public works, on any part of the whole
Atlantic coast or the Gulf of Mexico, from Maine to Louisiana.
But how stands the inland frontier? How is it along the vast lakes and
the mighty rivers of the North and West? Do our constitutional rights
and duties terminate where the water ceases to be salt? or do they
exist, in full vigor, on the shores of these inland seas? I never could
doubt about this; and yet, Gentlemen, I remember even to have
participated in a warm debate, in the Senate, some years ago, upon the
constitutional right of Congress to make an appropriation for a pier in
the harbor of Buffalo. What! make a harbor at Buffalo, where Nature
never made any, and where therefore it was never intended any ever
should be made! Take money from the people to run out piers from the
sandy shores of Lake Erie, or deepen the channels of her shallow
rivers! Where was the constitutional authority for this? Where would
such strides of power stop? How long would the States have any powers at
all left, if their territory might be ruthlessly invaded for such
unhallowed purposes, or how long would the people have any money in
their pockets, if the government of the United States might tax them, at
pleasure, for such extravagant project as these? Piers, wharves,
harbors, and breakwaters in the Lakes! These arguments, Gentlemen,
however earnestly put forth heretofore, do not strike us with great
power, at the present day, if we stand on the shores of Lake Erie, and
see hundreds of vessels, with valuable cargoes and thousands of valuable
lives, moving on its waters, with few shelters from the storm, except
what is furnished by the havens created, or made useful, by the aid of
government. These great lakes, stretching away many thousands of miles,
not in a straight line, but with turns and deflections, as if designed
to reach, by water communication, the greatest possible number of
important points through a region of vast extent, cannot but arrest the
attention of any one who looks upon the map. They lie connected, but
variously placed; and interspersed, as if with studied variety of form
and direction, over that part of the country. They were made for man,
and admirably adapted for his use and convenience. Looking, Gentlemen,
over our whole country, comprehending in our survey the Atlantic coast,
with its thick population, its advanced agriculture, its extended
commerce, its manufactures and mechanic arts, its varieties of
communication, its wealth, and its general improvements; and looking,
then, to the interior, to the immense tracts of fresh, fertile, and
cheap lands, bounded by so many lakes, and watered by so many
magnificent rivers, let me ask if such a MAP was ever before presented
to the eye of any statesman, as the theatre for the exercise of his
wisdom and patriotism? And let me ask, too, if any man is fit to act a
part, on such a theatre, who does not comprehend the whole of it within
the scope of his policy, and embrace it all as his country?
Again, Gentlemen, we are one in respect to the glorious Constitution
under which we live. We are all united in the great brotherhood of
American liberty. Descending from the same ancestors, bred in the same
school, taught in infancy to imbibe the same general political
sentiments, Americans all, by birth, education, and principle, what but
a narrow mind, or woful ignorance, or besotted selfishness, or prejudice
ten times blinded, can lead any of us to regard the citizens of any part
of the country as strangers and aliens?
The solemn truth, moreover, is before us, that a common political fate
attends us all.
Under the present Constitution, wisely and conscientiously administered,
all are safe, happy, and renowned. The measure of our country's fame may
fill all our breasts. It is fame enough for us all to partake in _her_
glory, if we will carry her character onward to its true destiny. But if
the system is broken, its fragments must fall alike on all. Not only the
cause of American liberty, but the grand cause of liberty throughout the
whole earth, depends, in a great measure, on upholding the Constitution
and Union of these States. If shattered and destroyed, no matter by what
cause, the peculiar and cherished idea of United American Liberty will
be no more for ever. There may be free states, it is possible, when
there shall be separate states. There may be many loose, and feeble, and
hostile confederacies, where there is now one great and united
confederacy. But the noble idea of United American Liberty, of _our_
liberty, such as our fathers established it, will be extinguished for
ever. Fragments and shattered columns of the edifice may be found
remaining; and melancholy and mournful ruins will they be. The august
temple itself will be prostrate in the dust. Gentlemen, the citizens of
this republic cannot sever their fortunes. A common fate awaits us. In
the honor of upholding, or in the disgrace of undermining the
Constitution, we shall all necessarily partake. Let us then stand by the
Constitution as it is, and by our country as it is, one, united, and
entire; let it be a truth engraven on our hearts, let it be borne on the
flag under which we rally, in every exigency, that we have ONE COUNTRY,
ONE CONSTITUTION, ONE DESTINY.
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