A SPEECH DELIVERED AT A PUBLIC DINNER IN THE CITY OF WASHINGTON ON THE
22D OF FEBRUARY, 1832, THE CENTENNIAL ANNIVERSARY OF WASHINGTON'S
BIRTHDAY.
[On the 22d of February, 1832, being the centennial birthday of GEORGE
WASHINGTON, a number of gentlemen, members of Congress and others, from
different parts of the Union, united in commemorating the occasion by a
public dinner in the city of Washington.
At the request of the Committee of Arrangements, Mr. Webster, then a
Senator from Massachusetts, occupied the chair. After the cloth was
removed, he addressed the company in the following manner.]
I rise, Gentlemen, to propose to you the name of that great man, in
commemoration of whose birth, and in honor of whose character and
services, we are here assembled.
I am sure that I express a sentiment common to every one present, when I
say that there is something more than ordinarily solemn and affecting in
this occasion.
We are met to testify our regard for him whose name is intimately
blended with whatever belongs most essentially to the prosperity, the
liberty, the free institutions, and the renown of our country. That name
was of power to rally a nation, in the hour of thick-thronging public
disasters and calamities; that name shone, amid the storm of war, a
beacon light, to cheer and guide the country's friends; it flamed, too,
like a meteor, to repel her foes. That name, in the days of peace, was a
loadstone, attracting to itself a whole people's confidence, a whole
people's love, and the whole world's respect. That name, descending with
all time, spreading over the whole earth, and uttered in all the
languages belonging to the tribes and races of men, will for ever be
pronounced with affectionate gratitude by every one in whose breast
there shall arise an aspiration for human rights and human liberty.
We perform this grateful duty, Gentlemen, at the expiration of a hundred
years from his birth, near the place, so cherished and beloved by him,
where his dust now reposes, and in the capital which bears his own
immortal name.
All experience evinces that human sentiments are strongly influenced by
associations. The recurrence of anniversaries, or of longer periods of
time, naturally freshens the recollection, and deepens the impression,
of events with which they are historically connected. Renowned places,
also, have a power to awaken feeling, which all acknowledge. No American
can pass by the fields of Bunker Hill, Monmouth, and Camden, as if they
were ordinary spots on the earth's surface. Whoever visits them feels
the sentiment of love of country kindling anew, as if the spirit that
belonged to the transactions which have rendered these places
distinguished still hovered round, with power to move and excite all who
in future time may approach them.
But neither of these sources of emotion equals the power with which
great moral examples affect the mind. When sublime virtues cease to be
abstractions, when they become embodied in human character, and
exemplified in human conduct, we should be false to our own nature, if
we did not indulge in the spontaneous effusions of our gratitude and our
admiration. A true lover of the virtue of patriotism delights to
contemplate its purest models; and that love of country may be well
suspected which affects to soar so high into the regions of sentiment as
to be lost and absorbed in the abstract feeling, and becomes too
elevated or too refined to glow with fervor in the commendation or the
love of individual benefactors. All this is unnatural. It is as if one
should be so enthusiastic a lover of poetry, as to care nothing for
Homer or Milton; so passionately attached to eloquence as to be
indifferent to Tully and Chatham; or such a devotee to the arts, in such
an ecstasy with the elements of beauty, proportion, and expression, as
to regard the masterpieces of Raphael and Michael Angelo with coldness
or contempt. We may be assured, Gentlemen, that he who really loves the
thing itself, loves its finest exhibitions. A true friend of his country
loves her friends and benefactors, and thinks it no degradation to
commend and commemorate them. The voluntary outpouring of the public
feeling, made to-day, from the North to the South, and from the East to
the West, proves this sentiment to be both just and natural. In the
cities and in the villages, in the public temples and in the family
circles, among all ages and sexes, gladdened voices to-day bespeak
grateful hearts and a freshened recollection of the virtues of the
Father of his Country. And it will be so, in all time to come, so long
as public virtue is itself an object of regard. The ingenuous youth of
America will hold up to themselves the bright model of Washington's
example, and study to be what they behold; they will contemplate his
character till all its virtues spread out and display themselves to
their delighted vision; as the earliest astronomers, the shepherds on
the plains of Babylon, gazed at the stars till they saw them form into
clusters and constellations, overpowering at length the eyes of the
beholders with the united blaze of a thousand lights.
Gentlemen, we are at a point of a century from the birth of Washington;
and what a century it has been! During its course, the human mind has
seemed to proceed with a sort of geometric velocity, accomplishing for
human intelligence and human freedom more than had been done in fives or
tens of centuries preceding. Washington stands at the commencement of a
new era, as well as at the head of the New World. A century from the
birth of Washington has changed the world. The country of Washington has
been the theatre on which a great part of that change has been wrought,
and Washington himself a principal agent by which it has been
accomplished. His age and his country are equally full of wonders; and
of both he is the chief.
If the poetical prediction, uttered a few years before his birth, be
true; if indeed it be designed by Providence that the grandest
exhibition of human character and human affairs shall be made on this
theatre of the Western world; if it be true that,
"The four first acts already past,
A fifth shall close the drama with the day,
Time's noblest offspring is the last";--
how could this imposing, swelling, final scene be appropriately opened,
how could its intense interest be adequately sustained, but by the
introduction of just such a character as our Washington?
Washington had attained his manhood when that spark of liberty was
struck out in his own country, which has since kindled into a flame, and
shot its beams over the earth. In the flow of a century from his birth,
the world has changed in science, in arts, in the extent of commerce, in
the improvement of navigation, and in all that relates to the
civilization of man. But it is the spirit of human freedom, the new
elevation of individual man, in his moral, social, and political
character, leading the whole long train of other improvements, which has
most remarkably distinguished the era. Society, in this century, has
not made its progress, like Chinese skill, by a greater acuteness of
ingenuity in trifles; it has not merely lashed itself to an increased
speed round the old circles of thought and action; but it has assumed a
new character; it has raised itself from _beneath_ governments to a
participation _in_ governments; it has mixed moral and political objects
with the daily pursuits of individual men; and, with a freedom and
strength before altogether unknown, it has applied to these objects the
whole power of the human understanding. It has been the era, in short,
when the social principle has triumphed over the feudal principle; when
society has maintained its rights against military power, and
established, on foundations never hereafter to be shaken, its competency
to govern itself.
It was the extraordinary fortune of Washington, that, having been
intrusted, in revolutionary times, with the supreme military command,
and having fulfilled that trust with equal renown for wisdom and for
valor, he should be placed at the head of the first government in which
an attempt was to be made on a large scale to rear the fabric of social
order on the basis of a written constitution and of a pure
representative principle. A government was to be established, without a
throne, without an aristocracy, without castes, orders, or privileges;
and this government, instead of being a democracy, existing and acting
within the walls of a single city, was to be extended over a vast
country, of different climates, interests, and habits, and of various
communions of our common Christian faith. The experiment certainly was
entirely new. A popular government of this extent, it was evident, could
be framed only by carrying into full effect the principle of
representation or of delegated power; and the world was to see whether
society could, by the strength of this principle, maintain its own peace
and good government, carry forward its own great interests, and conduct
itself to political renown and glory.
By the benignity of Providence, this experiment, so full of interest to
us and to our posterity for ever, so full of interest, indeed, to the
world in its present generation and in all its generations to come, was
suffered to commence under the guidance of Washington. Destined for this
high career, he was fitted for it by wisdom, by virtue, by patriotism,
by discretion, by whatever can inspire confidence in man toward man. In
entering on the untried scenes, early disappointment and the premature
extinction of all hope of success would have been certain, had it not
been that there did exist throughout the country, in a most
extraordinary degree, an unwavering trust in him who stood at the helm.
I remarked, Gentlemen, that the whole world was and is interested in the
result of this experiment. And is it not so? Do we deceive ourselves, or
is it true that at this moment the career which this government is
running is among the most attractive objects to the civilized world? Do
we deceive ourselves, or is it true that at this moment that love of
liberty and that understanding of its true principles which are flying
over the whole earth, as on the wings of all the winds, are really and
truly of American origin?
At the period of the birth of Washington, there existed in Europe no
political liberty in large communities, except in the provinces of
Holland, and except that England herself had set a great example, so far
as it went, by her glorious Revolution of 1688. Everywhere else,
despotic power was predominant, and the feudal or military principle
held the mass of mankind in hopeless bondage. One half of Europe was
crushed beneath the Bourbon sceptre, and no conception of political
liberty, no hope even of religious toleration, existed among that nation
which was America's first ally. The king was the state, the king was the
country, the king was all. There was one king, with power not derived
from his people, and too high to be questioned; and the rest were all
subjects, with no political right but obedience. All above was
intangible power, all below quiet subjection. A recent occurrence in the
French Chambers shows us how public opinion on these subjects is
changed. A minister had spoken of the "king's subjects." "There are no
subjects," exclaimed hundreds of voices at once, "in a country where the
people make the king!"
Gentlemen, the spirit of human liberty and of free government, nurtured
and grown into strength and beauty in America, has stretched its course
into the midst of the nations. Like an emanation from Heaven, it has
gone forth, and it will not return void. It must change, it is fast
changing, the face of the earth. Our great, our high duty is to show, in
our own example, that this spirit is a spirit of health as well as a
spirit of power; that its benignity is as great as its strength; that
its efficiency to secure individual rights, social relations, and moral
order, is equal to the irresistible force with which it prostrates
principalities and powers. The world, at this moment, is regarding us
with a willing, but something of a fearful admiration. Its deep and
awful anxiety is to learn whether free states may be stable, as well as
free; whether popular power may be trusted, as well as feared; in short,
whether wise, regular, and virtuous self-government is a vision for the
contemplation of theorists, or a truth established, illustrated, and
brought into practice in the country of Washington.
Gentlemen, for the earth which we inhabit, and the whole circle of the
sun, for all the unborn races of mankind, we seem to hold in our hands,
for their weal or woe, the fate of this experiment. If we fail, who
shall venture the repetition? If our example shall prove to be one, not
of encouragement, but of terror, not fit to be imitated, but fit only to
be shunned, where else shall the world look for free models? If this
great _Western Sun_ be struck out of the firmament, at what other
fountain shall the lamp of liberty hereafter be lighted? What other orb
shall emit a ray to glimmer, even, on the darkness of the world?
There is no danger of our overrating or overstating the important part
which we are now acting in human affairs. It should not flatter our
personal self-respect, but it should reanimate our patriotic virtues,
and inspire us with a deeper and more solemn sense, both of our
privileges and of our duties. We cannot wish better for our country, nor
for the world, than that the same spirit which influenced Washington may
influence all who succeed him; and that the same blessing from above,
which attended his efforts, may also attend theirs.
The principles of Washington's administration are not left doubtful.
They are to be found in the Constitution itself, in the great measures
recommended and approved by him, in his speeches to Congress, and in
that most interesting paper, his Farewell Address to the People of the
United States. The success of the government under his administration is
the highest proof of the soundness of these principles. And, after an
experience of thirty-five years, what is there which an enemy could
condemn? What is there which either his friends, or the friends of the
country, could wish to have been otherwise? I speak, of course, of great
measures and leading principles.
In the first place, all his measures were right in their intent. He
stated the whole basis of his own great character, when he told the
country, in the homely phrase of the proverb, that honesty is the best
policy. One of the most striking things ever said of him is, that "_he
changed mankind's ideas of political greatness_."[1] To commanding
talents, and to success, the common elements of such greatness, he added
a disregard of self, a spotlessness of motive, a steady submission to
every public and private duty, which threw far into the shade the whole
crowd of vulgar great. The object of his regard was the whole country.
No part of it was enough to fill his enlarged patriotism. His love of
glory, so far as that may be supposed to have influenced him at all,
spurned every thing short of general approbation. It would have been
nothing to him, that his partisans or his favorites outnumbered, or
outvoted, or outmanaged, or outclamored, those of other leaders. He had
no favorites; he rejected all partisanship; and, acting honestly for the
universal good, he deserved, what he has so richly enjoyed, the
universal love.
His principle it was to act right, and to trust the people for support;
his principle it was not to follow the lead of sinister and selfish
ends, nor to rely on the little arts of party delusion to obtain public
sanction for such a course. Born for his country and for the world, he
did not give up to party what was meant for mankind. The consequence is,
that his fame is as durable as his principles, as lasting as truth and
virtue themselves. While the hundreds whom party excitement, and
temporary circumstances, and casual combinations, have raised into
transient notoriety, sink again, like thin bubbles, bursting and
dissolving into the great ocean, Washington's fame is like the rock
which bounds that ocean, and at whose feet its billows are destined to
break harmlessly for ever.
The maxims upon which Washington conducted our foreign relations were
few and simple. The first was an entire and indisputable impartiality
towards foreign states. He adhered to this rule of public conduct,
against very strong inducements to depart from it, and when the
popularity of the moment seemed to favor such a departure. In the next
place, he maintained true dignity and unsullied honor in all
communications with foreign states. It was among the high duties
devolved upon him, to introduce our new government into the circle of
civilized states and powerful nations. Not arrogant or assuming, with no
unbecoming or supercilious bearing, he yet exacted for it from all
others entire and punctilious respect. He demanded, and he obtained at
once, a standing of perfect equality for his country in the society of
nations; nor was there a prince or potentate of his day, whose personal
character carried with it, into the intercourse of other states, a
greater degree of respect and veneration.
He regarded other nations only as they stood in political relations to
us. With their internal affairs, their political parties and
dissensions, he scrupulously abstained from all interference; and, on
the other hand, he repelled with spirit all such interference by others
with us or our concerns. His sternest rebuke, the most indignant measure
of his whole administration, was aimed against such an attempted
interference. He felt it as an attempt to wound the national honor, and
resented it accordingly.
The reiterated admonitions in his Farewell Address show his deep fears
that foreign influence would insinuate itself into our counsels through
the channels of domestic dissension, and obtain a sympathy with our own
temporary parties. Against all such dangers, he most earnestly entreats
the country to guard itself. He appeals to its patriotism, to its
self-respect, to its own honor, to every consideration connected with
its welfare and happiness, to resist, at the very beginning, all
tendencies towards such connection of foreign interests with our own
affairs. With a tone of earnestness nowhere else found, even in his last
affectionate farewell advice to his countrymen, he says, "Against the
insidious wiles of foreign influence, (I conjure you to believe me,
fellow-citizens,) the jealousy of a free people ought to be _constantly_
awake; since history and experience prove, that foreign influence is one
of the most baneful foes of republican government."
Lastly, on the subject of foreign relations, Washington never forgot
that we had interests peculiar to ourselves. The primary political
concerns of Europe, he saw, did not affect us. We had nothing to do with
her balance of power, her family compacts, or her successions to
thrones. We were placed in a condition favorable to neutrality during
European wars, and to the enjoyment of all the great advantages of that
relation. "Why, then," he asks us, "why forego the advantages of so
peculiar a situation? Why quit our own to stand upon foreign ground?
Why, by interweaving our destiny with that of any part of Europe,
entangle our peace and prosperity in the toils of European ambition,
rivalship, interest, humor, or caprice?"
Indeed, Gentlemen, Washington's Farewell Address is full of truths
important at all times, and particularly deserving consideration at the
present. With a sagacity which brought the future before him, and made
it like the present, he saw and pointed out the dangers that even at
this moment most imminently threaten us. I hardly know how a greater
service of that kind could now be done to the community, than by a
renewed and wide diffusion of that admirable paper, and an earnest
invitation to every man in the country to reperuse and consider it. Its
political maxims are invaluable; its exhortations to love of country and
to brotherly affection among citizens, touching; and the solemnity with
which it urges the observance of moral duties, and impresses the power
of religious obligation, gives to it the highest character of truly
disinterested, sincere, parental advice.
The domestic policy of Washington found its pole-star in the avowed
objects of the Constitution itself. He sought so to administer that
Constitution, as to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure
domestic tranquillity, provide for the common defence, promote the
general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty. These were objects
interesting, in the highest degree, to the whole country, and his policy
embraced the whole country.
Among his earliest and most important duties was the organization of the
government itself, the choice of his confidential advisers, and the
various appointments to office. This duty, so important and delicate,
when a whole government was to be organized, and all its offices for the
first time filled, was yet not difficult to him; for he had no sinister
ends to accomplish, no clamorous partisans to gratify, no pledges to
redeem, no object to be regarded but simply the public good. It was a
plain, straightforward matter, a mere honest choice of men for the
public service.
His own singleness of purpose, his disinterested patriotism, were
evinced by the selection of his first Cabinet, and by the manner in
which he filled the seats of justice, and other places of high trust. He
sought for men fit for offices; not for offices which might suit men.
Above personal considerations, above local considerations, above party
considerations, he felt that he could only discharge the sacred trust
which the country had placed in his hands, by a diligent inquiry after
real merit, and a conscientious preference of virtue and talent. The
whole country was the field of his selection. He explored that whole
field, looking only for whatever it contained most worthy and
distinguished. He was, indeed, most successful, and he deserved success
for the purity of his motives, the liberality of his sentiments, and his
enlarged and manly policy.
Washington's administration established the national credit, made
provision for the public debt, and for that patriotic army whose
interests and welfare were always so dear to him; and, by laws wisely
framed, and of admirable effect, raised the commerce and navigation of
the country, almost at once, from depression and ruin to a state of
prosperity. Nor were his eyes open to these interests alone. He viewed
with equal concern its agriculture and manufactures, and, so far as they
came within the regular exercise of the powers of this government, they
experienced regard and favor.
It should not be omitted, even in this slight reference to the general
measures and general principles of the first President, that he saw and
felt the full value and importance of the judicial department of the
government. An upright and able administration of the laws he held to be
alike indispensable to private happiness and public liberty. The temple
of justice, in his opinion, was a sacred place, and he would profane and
pollute it who should call any to minister in it, not spotless in
character, not incorruptible in integrity, not competent by talent and
learning, not a fit object of unhesitating trust.
Among other admonitions, Washington has left us, in his last
communication to his country, an exhortation against the excesses of
party spirit. A fire not to be quenched, he yet conjures us not to fan
and feed the flame. Undoubtedly, Gentlemen, it is the greatest danger of
our system and of our time. Undoubtedly, if that system should be
overthrown, it will be the work of excessive party spirit, acting on the
government, which is dangerous enough, or acting _in_ the government,
which is a thousand times more dangerous; for government then becomes
nothing but organized party, and, in the strange vicissitudes of human
affairs, it may come at last, perhaps, to exhibit the singular paradox
of government itself being in opposition to its own powers, at war with
the very elements of its own existence. Such cases are hopeless. As men
may be protected against murder, but cannot be guarded against suicide,
so government may be shielded from the assaults of external foes, but
nothing can save it when it chooses to lay violent hands on itself.
Finally, Gentlemen, there was in the breast of Washington one sentiment
so deeply felt, so constantly uppermost, that no proper occasion escaped
without its utterance. From the letter which he signed in behalf of the
Convention when the Constitution was sent out to the people, to the
moment when he put his hand to that last paper in which he addressed his
countrymen, the Union,--the Union was the great object of his thoughts.
In that first letter he tells them that, to him and his brethren of the
Convention, union appears to be the greatest interest of every true
American; and in that last paper he conjures them to regard that unity
of government which constitutes them one people as the very palladium of
their prosperity and safety, and the security of liberty itself. He
regarded the union of these States less as one of our blessings, than as
the great treasure-house which contained them all. Here, in his
judgment, was the great magazine of all our means of prosperity; here,
as he thought, and as every true American still thinks, are deposited
all our animating prospects, all our solid hopes for future greatness.
He has taught us to maintain this union, not by seeking to enlarge the
powers of the government, on the one hand, nor by surrendering them, on
the other; but by an administration of them at once firm and moderate,
pursuing objects truly national, and carried on in a spirit of justice
and equity.
The extreme solicitude for the preservation of the Union, at all times
manifested by him, shows not only the opinion he entertained of its
importance, but his clear perception of those causes which were likely
to spring up to endanger it, and which, if once they should overthrow
the present system, would leave little hope of any future beneficial
reunion. Of all the presumptions indulged by presumptuous man, that is
one of the rashest which looks for repeated and favorable opportunities
for the deliberate establishment of a united government over distinct
and widely extended communities. Such a thing has happened once in human
affairs, and but once; the event stands out as a prominent exception to
all ordinary history; and unless we suppose ourselves running into an
age of miracles, we may not expect its repetition.
Washington, therefore, could regard, and did regard, nothing as of
paramount political interest, but the integrity of the Union itself.
With a united government, well administered, he saw that we had nothing
to fear; and without it, nothing to hope. The sentiment is just, and its
momentous truth should solemnly impress the whole country. If we might
regard our country as personated in the spirit of Washington, if we
might consider him as representing her, in her past renown, her present
prosperity, and her future career, and as in that character demanding of
us all to account for our conduct, as political men or as private
citizens, how should he answer him who has ventured to talk of disunion
and dismemberment? Or how should he answer him who dwells perpetually on
local interests, and fans every kindling flame of local prejudice? How
should he answer him who would array State against State, interest
against interest, and party against party, careless of the continuance
of that _unity of government which constitutes us one people_?
The political prosperity which this country has attained, and which it
now enjoys, has been acquired mainly through the instrumentality of the
present government. While this agent continues, the capacity of
attaining to still higher degrees of prosperity exists also. We have,
while this lasts, a political life capable of beneficial exertion, with
power to resist or overcome misfortunes, to sustain us against the
ordinary accidents of human affairs, and to promote, by active efforts,
every public interest. But dismemberment strikes at the very being which
preserves these faculties. It would lay its rude and ruthless hand on
this great agent itself. It would sweep away, not only what we possess,
but all power of regaining lost, or acquiring new possessions. It would
leave the country, not only bereft of its prosperity and happiness, but
without limbs, or organs, or faculties, by which to exert itself
hereafter in the pursuit of that prosperity and happiness.
Other misfortunes may be borne, or their effects overcome. If disastrous
war should sweep our commerce from the ocean, another generation may
renew it; if it exhaust our treasury, future industry may replenish it;
if it desolate and lay waste our fields, still, under a new cultivation,
they will grow green again, and ripen to future harvests. It were but a
trifle even if the walls of yonder Capitol were to crumble, if its lofty
pillars should fall, and its gorgeous decorations be all covered by the
dust of the valley. All these might be rebuilt. But who shall
reconstruct the fabric of demolished government? Who shall rear again
the well-proportioned columns of constitutional liberty? Who shall frame
together the skilful architecture which unites national sovereignty with
State rights, individual security, and public prosperity? No, if these
columns fall, they will be raised not again. Like the Coliseum and the
Parthenon, they will be destined to a mournful, a melancholy
immortality. Bitterer tears, however, will flow over them, than were
ever shed over the monuments of Roman or Grecian art; for they will be
the remnants of a more glorious edifice than Greece or Rome ever saw,
the edifice of constitutional American liberty.
But let us hope for better things. Let us trust in that gracious Being
who has hitherto held our country as in the hollow of his hand. Let us
trust to the virtue and the intelligence of the people, and to the
efficacy of religious obligation. Let us trust to the influence of
Washington's example. Let us hope that that fear of Heaven which expels
all other fear, and that regard to duty which transcends all other
regard, may influence public men and private citizens, and lead our
country still onward in her happy career. Full of these gratifying
anticipations and hopes, let us look forward to the end of that century
which is now commenced. A hundred years hence, other disciples of
Washington will celebrate his birth, with no less of sincere admiration
than we now commemorate it. When they shall meet, as we now meet, to do
themselves and him that honor, so surely as they shall see the blue
summits of his native mountains rise in the horizon, so surely as they
shall behold the river on whose banks he lived, and on whose banks he
rests, still flowing on toward the sea, so surely may they see, as we
now see, the flag of the Union floating on the top of the Capitol; and
then, as now, may the sun in his course visit no land more free, more
happy, more lovely, than this our own country!