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ORATION 
 
 ■^ 
 
 PKONOCifCED ON 
 
 WEBSTER COMMEMORATION DAY 
 
 JUNE 28, 1882 
 
 DARTMOUTH COLLEGE 
 
 NE'W" hamipshire: 
 
 BY HON. THOMAS F. BAYARD, LL. D. 
 
 CONCORD 
 
 PRINTED By THE REPUBLICAN PRESS ASSOCIATION 
 I 882 
 
 .^± 
 
ADDRESS 
 
 It has been a hundred years since, in an humble 
 farm-house in the town of Salisbury, in Hillsborough 
 county in this state, Daniel Webster was born. It 
 was an American homestead of one hundred and 
 sixty acres, that " quarter-section" so well known to 
 the land laws of the United States. 
 
 There this great typical American first saw light. 
 There first he learned from a pious mother's lips the 
 letters of the language that in later days, by speech 
 and writing, he was destined to adorn. From that 
 mother's teachings he imbibed in tender infancy those 
 vital truths of religion and morality which formed the 
 basis of his character, and to-day give strength and 
 permanence to the immortal part that survives. 
 
 The history of his intellectual and physical growth, 
 amid the hardships and obstructions of poverty, 
 obscurity, and embarrassments, has been given so 
 often heretofore, by the hands of many biographers, 
 that I do not pause to repeat it. Suffice it to say, 
 that the profound principle of growth against difficul- 
 ties and because of difficulties, of the reaction which 
 is instigated by pressure, of the excellence that is 
 developed in battling with the counter-currents of 
 life, was strikingly illustrated in this case ; and that. 
 
cradled in adversity, he learned to cope with and 
 overthrow it; that, spurred by necessity, he was 
 taught to outrun its torments ; and that thus his 
 weakness was educated into strength, moral, mental, 
 and physical. 
 
 Leaving the detailed history of his earlier life, I 
 come with him to the door of Dartmouth college, the 
 nursing mother of his great faculties, for whom, we 
 are told, twice he wept, — once in early childhood, 
 when, riding along with his father, he was informed 
 that he should here receive a collegiate education, 
 and then, laymg his head in silence upon the strong 
 shoulder of his parent, he shed tears of joy in antici- 
 pation of Dartmouth ; and on another day long after; 
 when, standing in the supreme court of the United 
 States, in the prime of his intellectual manhood, to 
 plead the cause, to champion the privileges, to sustain 
 the rights of Dartmouth, after he had shattered the 
 pretensions of her adversaries, had vindicated her 
 claims, and carried her cause in all the triumph of 
 law and logic, of argument and persuasion, before a 
 wondering and captivated court, he paused for a 
 moment, folding the wings of his mighty mind, and 
 listening to the beatings of a loving heart,' he once- 
 again mingled his tears with the name and memories 
 of the "little college," with the words, "But, sir, 
 there are those who love it." 
 
 He was a true son to Dartmouth, from whose 
 portals eighty-one years ago he walked forth, trained 
 and equipped with whatever of skill and learning he 
 had gathered in these halls, to enter the great battle- 
 field of Life. 
 
His active service in the cause of his country, as a 
 soldier of her constitution, her laws, and her general 
 welfare, lasted rather more than half a century. The 
 bugle seldom sounded truce with the enemy, and if 
 he heard, he certainly never heeded, the signal for 
 retreat ; and faithfully and bravely he carried the 
 colors of the Union and the Constitution until the 
 24th of October, 1852, when the Great Captain gave 
 him his honorable discharge. 
 
 You all well know, and it would be idle for me in 
 such an assemblage to repeat, the history of his early 
 professional career as a lawyer, and how he toiled up 
 that rugged ascent, over which there is no royal road, 
 until he reached the high table-lands of thought and 
 action, and enrolled his name as an advocate and 
 jurist among the "singular few" known as great 
 lawyers. 
 
 It was indeed a rugged road, and to many a 
 pitiless storm he opposed his breast. When a mere 
 youth, and before he left these halls, he superintended 
 the edition of the Dartmouth Gazette, and for months 
 after he left here taught school, recorded deeds for a 
 pittance, shared that pittance with his brother Ezekiel, 
 and relieved the burdens of his family. 
 
 In 1805 he opened his law office in Boscawen, and 
 two years later moved to Portsmouth. 
 
 In 1808 he married Grace Fletcher, his loving and 
 faithful consort thereafter, and until her death in 
 1828. 
 
 In 18 1 2 he was first elected to Congress, and again 
 in 18 14. Then, conscious that he needed a more 
 extensive theatre for the exercise of his professional 
 
abilities, he removed to Boston, doubting, we are 
 told, whether that city would give him the scope for 
 professional occupation and a much needed income, 
 or whether Albany would not be the better place for 
 both. By his decision then made, the " Empire 
 State" lost, and the "Old Bay State" gained, the 
 honor of enrolling Webster among her adopted sons. 
 
 From 1816 to 1822 he was, as much as Webster 
 could be, in private life, sedulously devoted to his 
 profession, naturally, and without question stepping 
 into its foremost rank, until he stood confessedly at 
 its very head. 
 
 In 1820 he served as a member of the convention 
 to amend the constitution of Massachusetts, and in 
 other ways his counsel was given to the public 
 service. 
 
 In 1822 he was elected to Congress from Boston ; 
 in 1827 was chosen a Senator of the United States 
 from Massachusetts. And thereafter, as Senator or as 
 Secretary of State, he remained in the service of the 
 whole country until his death. 
 
 Nine years a member of the House of Representa- 
 tives, nineteen years a Senator of the United States, 
 five years in the Cabinet ; — and before the work of 
 these years, so unselfishly and generously dedicated 
 to public service, is examined, let me for a time dwell 
 upon nis career and example as a lawyer. 
 
 The loftier and grander the towering superstruct- 
 ure, the deeper and broader must the foundations be, 
 although out of sight and often out of mind ; and the 
 just renown of Mr. Webster as a jurisconsult and 
 advocate, was based upon a study of history and of 
 
the law as painstaking and thorough as is recorded 
 of any man of high rank in the profession whose 
 distinction is confined solely to excellence in that 
 profession. 
 
 His labor in the preparation of his cases was re- 
 markable, and nothing was left to the chance inspira- 
 tion of a mind of whose great powers he was neces- 
 sarily conscious, and upon which he might naturally 
 have been disposed to rely without the aid of the 
 drudgery of collation and annotation of authorities. 
 
 No one could describe this better than he did 
 himself in 1806 : 
 
 Study is the grand requisite for a lawyer. Men may be 
 born Poets, and leap from their cradles Painters. Nature 
 may have made them Musicians, and called on them only to 
 exercise and not to acquire ability : but Law is artificial. 
 
 It is a human science to be learned, not inspired. Let 
 there be a genius' for whom Nature has done so much as 
 apparently to have left nothing for application, yet to make 
 a lawyer application must do as much as if Nature had done 
 nothing. 
 
 Of his painstaking habits of study he also tells 
 us : 
 
 In addition to books on the common and municipal law, 
 I read Vattel for the third time, Ward's Law of Nations, 
 Lord Bacon's Elements, Puffendorff's Latin History of 
 England ; Gifford's Juvenal, Boswell's Tour to the Hebrides, 
 Moore's Travels, and many other miscellaneous things 
 (Gibbon's Life and Posthumous Works, Paley's Natural 
 Theology). But iny main study was the common law, es- 
 pecially the parts in it which relate to special pleading. 
 Whatever was in Viner, Bacon, or other books then usually 
 studied, I paid my respects to. Among other things, I 
 went through Saunders's Reports, the old folio edition, and 
 abstracted and put into English out of Norman French the 
 pleadings of all his reports. 
 
If "Genius "be " nothing more than a capacity for 
 labor," we have here an illustration. 
 
 From the fact that as a statesman he displayed 
 such thorough and masterly comprehension of the 
 principles of law and government as arranged in the 
 federal constitution, he is most frequently and per- 
 haps justly signalized as a great constitutional law- 
 yer, or, in more sonorous phrase, " Expounder of the 
 constitution," but had he never entered Congress, his 
 eminence as a criminal lawyer, as a pleader, as a 
 common lawyer and master of commercial law, would 
 have made him great among the greatest in the 
 profession. On all sides, alike from professional 
 associates and adversaries, from the bench and bar, 
 contemporaneous with his career, we find expressions 
 of wonder and respect for his powers and capacities 
 in every department in which he was called upon to 
 exert them. 
 
 He encountered the foremost lawyers of his day, — 
 men whose lives had been devoted solely to their 
 profession, and whose footsteps had never strayed 
 from that narrow path and single purpose ; and yet it 
 may justly be said, that, even at the bar and among 
 such, he seldom met his equal and never his superior. 
 
 While his shrewdness and quick wit at times sur- 
 prised even his associates, there was not the slightest 
 trace of the dry, sharp lawyer seeking to gain his 
 case by fine points and "case hunting." His argu- 
 ments were underlaid by a wide knowledge of the 
 history of law, and illuminated and elevated by sound 
 ethics and philosophy. 
 
 Mr. Webster's arguments did not merely decide 
 
cases, they also settled principles. The Dartmouth 
 College case was decided by Chief-Justice Marshall 
 in accordance with the proiDositions advanced in his 
 a^rg-ument, and by it was established the inviolability 
 of the contracts contained in public charters, upon 
 which so vast an amount of invested property has 
 reposed from that day to the present in security from 
 legislative hostility or caprice. 
 
 The control of commerce by the national gov- 
 ernment, uninterrupted by local obstruction or state 
 grants of monopoly, was placed beyond question in 
 the case of Gibbons against Ogden. Fourteen years 
 later, in a speech in the senate, he thus re-stated with 
 great force the result of the denial of uniform laws 
 and regulations of commerce throughout the Union : 
 
 Sir, it will be a fact stamped in deep and dark lines upon 
 our annals, it will be a truth which in all time can never be 
 denied or evaded, that if this constitution shall not, now and 
 hereafter, be so administered as to maintain a uniform sys- 
 tem in all matters of trade, — if it shall not protect and reg- 
 ulate the commerce of the country in all its great interests, 
 in its foreign intercourse, in its domestic intercourse, in its 
 navigation, in its currency, in everything which fairly be- 
 longs to the whole idea of commerce, either as an end, an 
 agent, or instrument, — then that constitution will have 
 failed, utterly failed, to accomplish the precise, distinct, 
 original object in which it had its being. 
 
 In matters of trade we are no longer to be Georgians, 
 Virginians, Pennsylvanians, or Massachusetts men. We 
 were to have but one commerce, and that the commerce of 
 the United States. There were not to be separate flags 
 waving over separate commercial systems. There was to 
 be one flag, the E Plukibus Unum ; and toward that was 
 to be that rally of united interests and affections which our 
 fathers had so earnestly invoked. — [Speech on Sub-Treas- 
 ury, U. S. Senate, Jan. 31, 1838. Vol. 4, pp. 495-96.] 
 
lO 
 
 In the case of United States against McCulloch, 
 the exemption from taxation, by a state, of the instru- 
 mentalities of the federal government was first set- 
 tled upon the basis of the doctrines advanced by him _ 
 as counsel for the bank. 
 
 Although he was never a member of the judicial 
 branch, yet the student of American history will not 
 fail to associate the name and influence of Webster 
 with those of Marshall and Taney, in assisting " to 
 clothe with muscles the skeleton of the federal consti- 
 tution," by means of sound judicial interpretation of 
 the instrument itself. 
 
 The methods of Mr. Webster's practice at the bar, 
 even from his earliest years, proved that he regarded 
 the law as a science and not as a trade ; as a liberal 
 profession, and not a mere money-getting occupation. 
 The New Hampshire blacksmith, whose title to his 
 little farm depended upon the interpretation of a will 
 that left it in doubt whether an executory devise or a 
 contingent remainder had been created by the text, 
 found as ardent, faithful, and skilful a counsellor in 
 the young lawyer who spent many times the amount 
 of his fee in travelling to and from Boston, and in pro- 
 curing from England the necessary authorities — and 
 who at the end of three years' labor was paid "fif- 
 teen dollars " by his successful client — as did the four 
 distinguished lawyers of New York, who, twenty years 
 after, paid him a fee of greater value than the black- 
 smith's little farm, for deciding questions controlling 
 the title to a great estate, upon the basis of the very 
 brief that had settled the New Hampshire will. 
 But I find myself entering upon the interesting 
 
1 1 
 
 but well trodden field of biography, and, however 
 unwillingly, must pass on to the execution of the 
 purpose with which I came here, which, briefly stated, 
 is, to read the lesson to his countrymen conveyed by 
 the teaching and example which have survived what 
 was mortal of Daniel Webster, — and within the walls 
 of this college, whose name is imperishably linked 
 with that of her most distinguished son and graduate, 
 to renew on this centennial anniversary of his birth a 
 sense of the honor and gratitude due from the people 
 of the United States to him who, in the words of 
 Joseph Hopkinson of Philadelphia (his associate in 
 the trial of the famous cause), 
 
 " Refounded Dartmouth College, Anno Domini, i8i8." 
 
 As this is also the season of your Commencement, 
 and from your classes young graduates are passing 
 forth to-day, to join in the active duties and occupa- 
 tions of American citizenship, a suggestion may not 
 be unwelcome to them, nor uninstructive, as to what 
 portion of his life's labor an American citizen should 
 bestow upon the active support of the political system, 
 under whose laws he expects to find security for the 
 protection of the results of his exertions, as well as 
 his personal liberty and safety. 
 
 Under our arrangement of society we have no select 
 class upon whom we cast the responsibilities and 
 invest the privileges of governing the rest. Of 
 hereditary powers we have none, at least so far as 
 individuals are concerned (I say nothing of those 
 "artificial persons" styled corporations), and no 
 privileged individuals or class are charged with those 
 
12 
 
 great and important duties of maintaining law and 
 order, on a basis of civil and religious liberty essential 
 to all civilized communities. 
 
 The interests to be considered are neither less in 
 magnitude, nor less important in every aspect to us 
 as citizens of this great family of republican states, 
 than if their care was entrusted to a class of rulers 
 and officials procured by other methods than those of 
 popular election. In fact, my fellow-countrymen, in 
 proportion as we have embarked upon a system 
 founded on the broadest basis of popular suffrage, we 
 have increased the difficulties, growing out of the need 
 of consulting so extended a body of counsellors ; and 
 for the dignity and freedom of our American citizen- 
 ship, we must pay the price of a diligent and laborious 
 attention to the conduct of our public affairs, which 
 involves a large sub^traction from the time and labor 
 we would otherwise be justified in devoting to our 
 private and personal pursuits. 
 
 If men of intelligence, ability, and character in this 
 country feel there is nothing incumbent upon them 
 in the way of service to the republic, and that the 
 control of the powers, resources, and obligations of 
 the government, may safely be abandoned to those 
 who interest themselves solely because of the personal 
 emolument and powers attendant upon official posi- 
 tion, the future is indeed gloomy, and the .end of 
 such a system cannot be far distant nor doubtful. 
 
 But what answer should the heart of every Amer- 
 ican give to this ? 
 
 Who so cold and base as to contemplate our 
 republican form of government, with all its noble 
 
13 
 
 and generous equities to mankind, — this fair fabric 
 of civil and religious liberty, enshrined in the living 
 words of our charter of union and government, — and 
 not admit, nay, not earnestly proclaim, that for a 
 republican citizen to neglect his public and political 
 duties, to fail to keep his watch faithfully on the 
 ramparts of the Constitution, is a just cause of 
 shame and of reproach ? 
 
 The longer I live, and the more the horizon of my 
 comprehension of the powers and duties of American 
 citizenship is expanded, the greater seem to me its 
 difficulties, but even greater still its value. 
 
 When I hear intelligent men, who by the very aid 
 of free Institutions have expanded their energies In 
 such directions as their own free will and conscious- 
 ness of power, and adaptation dictated, and have 
 gained wealth, and the influence that wealth and 
 success bring ever in their train ; when I hear such 
 men criticise contemptuously political duties and 
 occupations, and affect to sneer at those who zeal- 
 ously, and to the best of their ability, however imper- 
 fectly, are carrying on the duties of legislation, or the 
 adjudication or the execution of laws, I am filled with 
 mingled sorrow and resentment. 
 
 And when an Interest In political contests is 
 indicated, not by a study of the merits of such 
 controversies, not by an attempt carefully to discover 
 on which side lies the balance of right and public 
 interest, but by pecuniary contributions to the 
 " party fund" to strengthen the power of the bribe- 
 giver and office-broker, and to debauch and further 
 degrade the bribe-taker and unfaithful citizen, — and 
 
this, probably, in order to gratify a personal or party 
 prejudice, or to fasten the chains of some unequal 
 and unjust law upon the great tax-paying body of 
 our fellow-countrymen, — all this I denounce as plu- 
 tocracy, and not republicanism. 
 
 And when in such seasons I look around for a 
 counteracting force, for some voice, some counsel, 
 which shall awaken American conscience to the 
 performance of the duties of American citizenship, 
 what name springs in quicker response to our lips 
 than that of Daniel Webster ? For who, more than 
 he, was, and still is, an exemplar of American cit- 
 izenship ? 
 
 He lived the years allotted to man — three score 
 and ten — and gave a full half-century to the public 
 service and the preparation for that service ; — not for 
 a part of his country, not alone for these granite hills, 
 amid which his 
 
 "* * careless boyhood strayed, 
 A stranger yet to pain," 
 
 and which he loved so tenderly and well, nor for the 
 old Bay State, on whose borders his mortal frame 
 sleeps in peace, lulled by the distant voice of the ' 
 great sea, but for the union of all the states — ^the 
 United States. 
 
 Mr. Webster, as we have seen, had assured and 
 abundant success in his profession as a lawyer. A 
 comparatively few years in its uninterrupted pursuit 
 would have given him a competence, perhaps afflu- 
 ence, to protect him from the embarrassment and 
 annoyance to which the neglect of his private 
 
15 
 
 interests subsequently subjected him. As no man 
 stood higher in his profession, so no man was more 
 sought after than he, and the current of pecuniary 
 reward which flowed rapidly in upon him was only 
 checked by his engagements in the public service. 
 
 There is a lesson in his history which should prove 
 to every young man, however vigorous and conscious 
 of ability and sanguine of success, that he cannot 
 safely disregard the inevitable results of living beyond 
 his means. As Gulliver was bound helpless to the 
 earth by the infinitesimal threads of his pigmy adver- 
 saries, so many a mighty man may find himself 
 caught and shackled by the petty conventionalities 
 and needs of the society in which he moves, and the 
 station in which he is placed, and which, considered 
 separately, may be trivial indeed, and yet, combined, 
 prove irresistible in their cruel power. 
 
 Fortune may place him beyond such cares ; and 
 happy for him and the constituency and country he 
 seeks to serve if this be so. But should he heed the 
 call to public service, and be unprovided with the 
 private means to defray the incidental and almost 
 inevitable expenditures of public station, he must 
 move with care and constant watchfulness ; he must 
 cultivate his ideals carefully, and make up his mind 
 to a great deal of plain living, with high thinking. 
 
 Herein lies a lesson which any youth starting on 
 his journey will do well to learn. 
 
 I have always been gready impressed by the great 
 English moralist, who was a graduate in the harshest 
 school of adversity and poverty, and haud inexpertus 
 declared : 
 
i6 
 
 * * Do not accustom yourself to consider debt only 
 as an inconvenience ; you will find it a calamity. Poverty 
 takes away so many means of doing good, and produces so 
 much inability to resist evil, both natural and moral, that it 
 is by all virtuous means to be avoided. Consider a man 
 whose fortune is very narrow: whatever be his rank by 
 birth, or whatever his reputation by intellectual excellence, 
 what can he do, or what evil can he prevent ? That he can- 
 not help the needy is evident ; he has nothing to spare. 
 But perhaps his advice or admonition may be useful. His 
 poverty will destroy his influence : many more can find that 
 he is poor than that he is wise, and few will reverence the 
 understanding that is so little advantage to its owner. I 
 say nothing of the personal wretchedness of a debtor, 
 which, however, has passed into a proverb. Of riches it is 
 not necessary to write the praise. Let it, however, be 
 remembered, that he who has money to spare has it always 
 in his power to benefit others ; and of such power a good 
 man must always be desirous. — [Boswell's Johnson, Croker's 
 edition, vol. 8, p. 137.] 
 
 He who overrates money, and becomes its slave, is 
 well-named miser, for miserable indeed is his servi- 
 tude. He who underrates its value, or has failed to 
 learn it, is greatly to be pitied ; and, conscious of the 
 importance of its lessons, I venture again to cite Dr. 
 Johnson, when he dignifies the discussion in another 
 letter : 
 
 When the thoughts are extended to a future state, the 
 present life seems hardly worthy of all those principles of 
 conduct and maxims of prudence which one generation of 
 men has transmitted to another ; but upon a closer view, 
 when it is perceived how much evil is produced and how much 
 good is impeded by embarrassment and distress, and how 
 little room the expedients of poverty leave for the exercise 
 of virtue, it grows manifest that the boundless import apce 
 of the next life enforces some attention to the interests of 
 this. — [Ibid, p. 140.] 
 
 I would not wish the generation now coming into 
 
17 
 
 public life, and into whose hands its duties and 
 responsibilities must soon be entrusted, to underrate 
 the penalties of public service, and the price often- 
 times paid for the enjoyment of public honors, in 
 which catalague so often may be placed loss and 
 disorder to private fortune, and becoming unfitted 
 for other labors as a means of livelihood. 
 
 After Mr. Webster, responding to the call of his 
 fellow-citizens, entered Congress, and commenced a 
 career so full of usefulness and honor to his country, 
 his attention to his private and professional affairs 
 was necessarily lessened, and became merely Inci- 
 dental to his great and primary duties to the republic. 
 The more sedulously he labored for the public, the 
 more he was compelled to neglect his private Interests. 
 During the period of his congressional service, he 
 never received as much annual pay as is now given by 
 law to the clerks of congressional committees. Little 
 wonder, therefore, that he soon became pecuniarily 
 straitened and painfully embarrassed in the midst of 
 severe and constant labors, — which the records of 
 - debate and legislation attest, — the fame of which has 
 gone all over the civilized world, and the benefits of 
 which remain with us to-day. 
 
 Slanders, cruel, unjust, and ignorant, assailed his 
 reputation ; they stung his generous heart when he 
 was alive, and were uttered in strange and fruitless 
 malignity above his grave. 
 
 Even contemporaneous history records how easily 
 these unworthy mists, rising from the unwholesome 
 low-grounds of party and personal prejudice and 
 envy, were dispelled by the rays of truth ; yet even 
 
 2 
 
now, when we see these shafts of detraction lying in 
 fragments around the base of the statue of his great 
 fame, against which they shattered themselves in 
 vain, it is impossible to read without sorrow, com- 
 mingled with burning indignation, the history of such 
 rank injustice and ingratitude. Ingratitude, I say, 
 for, if Mr. Webster was poor in this world's goods, 
 what made him so ? 
 
 He was in the admitted control of a lucrative 
 practice in his profession, and, if it had been continued 
 for even twenty years, undisturbed and undistracted 
 by public occupation and services, an ample supply 
 would have been accumulated for the generous open- 
 handed measure of his love of literature, his charities, 
 his beneficence and hospitality ; for such were the 
 objects of his expenditure. I have never been able 
 to contemplate without a pang this grand man, so 
 filled with noble aspirations, gifted with such predom- 
 inant faculties, animated with so genuine a love for 
 his whole country, — a love as warm as the ruddy 
 drops that visited his sad heart, — without recalling 
 the pain, mortification, and annoyance to which he was 
 subjected for the lack of money and a little prudence 
 in the management of those expenditures, for which 
 his unselfish and uncalculating devotion to public 
 service had alone prevented the supply. 
 
 It is a lesson, and one the country would do well 
 to consider to-day — the need of pecuniary inde- 
 pendence for public men. It is not confined to this 
 country, for one of the ablest and most brilliant men 
 of the century has felt it, and thus portrayed it in a 
 letter which I will read. 
 
At the age of thirty-three, when a member of 
 parHament, and in the cabinet of Lord Grey, Thomas 
 Babington Macaulay wrote : 
 
 Dear Lord Landsdowne : 
 
 I delayed returning an answer to your kind letter till this 
 day, in order that I might be able to send you definitive 
 intelligence. Yesterday evening the Directors appointed 
 me to a seat in the council of India. The votes were nine- 
 teen for me and three against me. 
 
 I feel that the sacrifice which I am about to make is 
 great, but the motives which urge me to make it are quite 
 irresistible. Every day that I live I become less and less 
 desirous of great wealth. But every day makes me more 
 sensible of the great importance of a competence. With- 
 out a competence it is not very easy for a public man to be 
 honest ; it is almost impossible for him to be thought so. 
 I am so situated that I can subsist only in two ways, — by 
 being in office, and by my pen. Hitherto literature has 
 been merely my relaxation, — the amusement of perhaps a 
 month in the year. I have never considered it as the means 
 of support. I have chosen my own topics, taken my own 
 time, and dictated my own terms. The thought of becom- 
 ing a bookseller's hack ; of writing to relieve not the ful- 
 ness of the mind, but the emptiness of the pocket ; of spur- 
 ring a jaded fancy to reluctant exertion ; of filling sheets 
 with trash merely that the sheets may be filled ; of bearing 
 from publishers and editors what Dryden bore from Tonson, 
 and what, to my own knowledge. Mackintosh bore from 
 Lardner, is horrible to me. Yet thus it must be if I should 
 quit office. Yet to hold office merely for the sake of emol- 
 ument would be more horrible still. The situation in which 
 I have been placed for some time back would have broken 
 the spirit of many men. It has rather tended to make me 
 the most mutinous and unmanageable of the followers of 
 the Government. I tendered my resignation twice during 
 the course of the last session. I certainly should not have 
 done so if I had been a man of fortune. You, whom ma- 
 levolence itself could never accuse of coveting office for the 
 sake of pecuniary gain, and whom your salary very poorly 
 compensates for the sacrifice of ease and your tastes to the 
 public service, cannot estimate rightly the feelings of a man 
 
20 
 
 who knows that his circumstances lay him open to the 
 suspicion of being actuated in his pubHc conduct by the low- 
 est motives. Once or twice, when I have been defending 
 unpopular measures in the House of Commons, that thought 
 has disordered my ideas and deprived me of my presence 
 of mind. 
 
 If this were all, I should feel, for the sake of my own 
 happiness and ray public utility, a few years would be well 
 spent in obtaining an independence. But this is not all. 
 A family which I love most fondly is dependent on me. 
 Unless I would see my father left in "his old age to the 
 charity of less near relations, my youngest -brother unable 
 to obtain a good professional education, my sisters, who are 
 more to me than any sisters ever were to a brother, forced 
 to turn governesses or humble companions, I must do some- 
 thing, I must make some effort. An opportunity has offer- 
 ed itself. It is in my power to make the last days of my 
 father comfortable, to educate my brother, to provide for 
 my sisters, to procure a competence for myself. I may 
 hope by the time I am thirty-nine or forty to return to 
 England with a fortune of thirty thousand pounds. To me 
 that would be affluence. I never wished for more. — [Life and 
 Letters of Lord Macaulay, vol. i, p. 343.] 
 
 Would it not be equally just to censure a soldier, 
 blinded and crippled on the field of battle in defence 
 of his country, for his want of eyesight and activity, 
 as to blame a patriot like Webster for his want of 
 means to meet those obvious, ordinary, and propor- 
 tionate expenses of his high official station, and 
 because he had turned his back upon private gain 
 and pursued only public duty ? 
 
 If Webster was poor in this world's goods, it was 
 for our sakes he remained so ; and if a few consid- 
 ate friends with delicacy and liberality drew from 
 their own means a sum to form an annuity for his 
 support, let us admit ourselves to be their debtors, 
 because they simply did that which it was equally our 
 
21 
 
 duty to have done. Webster's poverty is but a mon- 
 ument to his personal integrity and unselfishness. 
 To his fellow-countrymen I can but feel it savors 
 rather of reproach. 
 
 But it is not Webster, the lawyer, upon whose 
 name and fame I would chiefly dwell ; it is Webster, 
 the counsellor of state, the influence of whose 
 character and public principles I wish to revive and 
 strengthen in the hearts of his countrymen. 
 
 He was born in New Hampshire, and he died in 
 Massachusetts ; but he lived and died with a love for 
 his whole country that never knew state lines, nor 
 paused upon the imaginary boundaries of sections. 
 
 Nature had gifted him with great powers of mind, 
 coupled with warm and generous feelings. His 
 intellect enabled him to comprehend the mighty and 
 manifold interests of humanity contained within the 
 Federal Union, and his heart was large enough to 
 embrace them all. Before, or since Webster, New 
 England has had no such champion or representa- 
 tive, but he gained no victory for her at the cost of 
 other portions of his country ; and in all the loving 
 praise and manly defence of his own home, in no 
 speech or letter, wherever uttered or written, not a 
 thought or expression belittling or derogatory to 
 reputation, or wounding to the self-love of any other 
 portion of his fellow-countrymen, have I found. He 
 had realized the truth and wisdom of the words of 
 "Junius:" 
 
 Injuries may be atoned for and forgotten ; insults, never. 
 They degrade the mind in its own esteem, and force it to 
 recover its level by revenge. 
 
22 
 
 He looked upon his countrymen in every section 
 of the Union as his kindred and never as his rivals, 
 and his mind and heart held them ever in a large 
 and loving embrace. 
 
 He stood upon the high lands of thought and ' 
 feeling, and never could be induced to approach any 
 question from a low point of view. His area of 
 vision was large, and in its scope embraced his entire 
 country ; and high above the passions of party and the 
 prejudice of localities he stood, in calm and delib- 
 erate survey of the vast and varied interests before 
 him, and the fuller his comprehension of their true 
 value and magnitude, the higher grew the patriotic 
 aspiration to guard them faithfully and keep them 
 whole. No mind in America knew better the true 
 value of the Union to the states that composed it and 
 the people who inhabited it ; none recognized more 
 fully its capabilities for the advancement of human 
 happiness. No one saw with clearer and more 
 jealous eye the dangers that threatened it, and no 
 one ever dedicated with less reserve every power and 
 faculty he possessed to its protection, preservation, 
 and perpetuation, than Daniel Webster. 
 
 He saw the infinite diversity of climate, soil, pro- 
 duction, and human occupation. He saw that char- 
 acter is moulded and formed by habit and pursuits, 
 that diversity of production caused an apparent 
 diversity and clash of interest, and therefore he 
 never ceased to invoke and inspire a spirit of comity 
 and amity among his countrymen, as the prime 
 essential in the settlement of their differences and the 
 administration of their combined interests. 
 
23 
 
 Underneath the strife of parties, obscured often by 
 their passions, deep down in the American heart is a 
 love of the whole country. Statutes did not place it 
 there, statutes cannot evoke it, but it is the root, fans 
 et origo, of our strength and safety as a people. 
 
 The man who would lessen it, the man who would 
 weaken it by his derision or distrust, the man who 
 does not respect and value it, is not fit to lead his 
 countrymen, or rule over any portion of them. 
 
 It is because Mr. Webster nev-er failed to cherish 
 it, because he never ceased to love it and proclaim 
 his love in the face of sneers and fanatical sectional- 
 ism, because it ever welled up in his heart and influ- 
 enced his every utterance, that I am here to-day to 
 urge and assist the revival and continuance of the 
 influence of his teachings and example, and point 
 out what I believe to be the true origin of his 
 strength and sweetness, — the real bases of his fame 
 that still 
 
 " smells sweet, and blossoms in the dust." 
 
 Mr. Webster was a statesman living under a writ- 
 ten constitution of government, and his creed may 
 neither be stated in a breath nor condensed into a 
 phrase. It would be as delusive as it is unjust to try 
 such a man by phrases torn from their context, and 
 by chance expressions, without interpreting them by 
 the general meaning which surrounds them. But as 
 to some meanings there is no doubt ; and that Mr. 
 Webster was the soldier of the constitution, because 
 it created and continued the government of " a more 
 
24 
 
 perfect Union" is as fixed as the everlasting hills of 
 his native state. 
 
 With a vision that was prophetic he witnessed the 
 growing alienations of his countrymen, and the dan- 
 gers to the Union which they threatened. These 
 apprehensions clouded his anticipations, and the 
 recorded and reiterated warnings and deprecations 
 against sectional animosities that burst from his lips 
 and were poured from his very heart, are almost 
 countless. They form part of his history, and, read 
 now and hereafter, they will ever attest the sagacity- 
 and accuracy of his mental vision, and the depth and 
 sincerity of his patriotism. 
 
 But my words are poor to express his feelings, and 
 I shall not apologize when I present the familiar por- 
 trait of Daniel Webste'r, drawn by his own hand. 
 
 These crystals of thought and feeling are gathered 
 at random from the quarries of political wisdom con- 
 tained in his recorded speeches, and the key-note to 
 which his utterances are attuned was pitched ever 
 in harmony with the loftiest strains of patriotic devo- 
 tion. 
 
 Mr. President, I am a Northern man. I am attached to 
 one of the states of the North by the ties of birth and par- 
 entage, by the tillage of paternal fields, by education, by the 
 associations of early life, and by sincere gratitude for proofs 
 of public confidence early bestowed. I am bound to another 
 Northern state by adoption, by long residence, by all the 
 chords of social and domestic life, and by an attachment 
 and regard springing from her manifestations of approbation 
 and favor, which grapple me to her with hooks of steel. 
 And yet, sir, with the same sincerity of respect, with the 
 same deep gratitude, the same reverence and hearty good- 
 will with which I would pay a similar tribute to either of 
 these states, do I here acknowledge the commonwealth of 
 
25 
 
 Virginia to be entitled to the honor of commencing the 
 work of establishing this Constitution. The honor is hers : 
 let her enjoy it ; let her forever wear it proudly : there is 
 not a brighter jewel in the coronet that adorns her brow. 
 Let this resolution stand, illustrating her records and bla- 
 zoning her name through all time! — [Speech on the Sub 
 .Treasury, in U. S. Senate, Jan. 31, 1838. Vol. IV, p. 494.] 
 
 And when, in 1837, he advocated the purchase of 
 the Madison papers, he thus painted in language the 
 spirit which created and can alone preserve the Con- 
 stitution of the Union : 
 
 It may throw much light on the early interpretation of 
 the Constitution, and on the nature and structure of our 
 government. But while it produces this effect, it may do. 
 more than all other things to show to the people of the 
 United States through what conciliation, through what a 
 temper of compromise, through what a just yielding of the 
 judgment of one individual to that of another, through what 
 a spirit of manly brotherly love, that assembly of illustrious 
 men were enabled finally to agree upon the form of a consti- 
 tution for their country, and succeeded in conferring so 
 great a good upon the American people. 
 
 And, going back to 1832, let me recall his memo- 
 rable tribute to South Carolina and the men of worth 
 she had contributed to the cause of liberty and inde- 
 pendence : 
 
 I shall not acknowledge that the honorable member 
 [from South Carolina] goes before me in regard for what- 
 ever of distinguished talent or distinguished character 
 South Carolina has produced. I claim part of the honor, 
 I partake in the pride of her great names. I claim them 
 for countrymen, one and all, — the Laurenses, the Rutledges, 
 the Pinckneys, the Sumpters, the Marions, — Americans all, 
 whose fame is no more to be hemmed in by State lines than 
 their talents and patriotism were capable of being circum- 
 scribed within the same narrow limits. In their day and 
 
26 
 
 generation they served and honored the country and the 
 whole country ; and their renown is of the treasures of the 
 whole country. Him whose honored name the gentleman 
 himself bears,— does he esteem me less capable of gratitude 
 for his patriotism, or sympathy for his sufferings, than if his 
 eyes had first opened upon the light of Massachusetts in- 
 stead of South Carolina ? Sir, does he suppose it in his 
 power to exhibit a South Carolina name so bright as to pro- 
 duce envy in my bosom ? No, sir, increased gratification 
 and delight, rather. I thank God that if I am gifted with 
 little of the spirit which is able to raise mortals to the skies, 
 I have yet none, as I trust, of that other spirit which would 
 drag angels down. When I shall be found, sir, in my place 
 here in the Senate, or elsewhere, .to sneer at public merit 
 because it happens to spring up beyond the little limits of 
 my own state or neighborhood ; when I refuse, for any such 
 cause, or for any cause, the homage due to American talent, 
 
 ■ to elevated patriotism, to sincere devotion to liberty and the 
 country; or if I see an uncommon endowment of Heaven, if 
 I see extraordinary capacity and virtue, in any son of the 
 
 'South, and if, moved by local prejudices or gangrened by 
 state jealousy, I get up here to abate the tithe of a hair from 
 his just character and just fame, may my tongue cleave to 
 the roof of my mouth ! 
 
 Sir, let me recur to pleasing reflections ; let me indulge 
 in refreshing remembrances of the past ; let me remind you 
 that, in early times, no states cherished greater harmony, 
 both of principle and feeling, than Massachusetts and South 
 Carolina. Would to God that harmony might again return ! 
 Shoulder to shoulder they went through the Revolution, 
 hand in hand they stood round the administration of Wash- 
 ington, and felt his own great arm lean on them for support. 
 Unkind feeling, if it exist, alienation, and distrust are the 
 growth, unnatural to such soils, of false principles since 
 sown. They are weeds, the seeds of which that same great 
 arm never scattered. 
 
 And how^ can the tribute to South CaroHna and 
 her sons be separated from that he paid in the same 
 great speech to Massachusetts, the state of his adop- 
 tion ? 
 
27 
 
 Mr. President, I shall enter on no encomium upon Massa- 
 ■chusetts : she needs none. There she is : behold her, and 
 judge for yourselves. There is her history : the world 
 knows it by heart. The past, at least, is secure. There is 
 Boston, and Concord, and Lexington, and Bunker Hill ; and 
 there they will remain forever. The bones of her sons, 
 falling in the great struggle for Independence, now lie 
 mingled with the soil of every state from New England to 
 Georgia ; and there they will lie forever. And, sir, where 
 American liberty raised its first voice, and where its youth 
 was nurtured and sustained, there it still lives, in the 
 strength of its manhood, and full of its original spirit. If 
 discord and disunion shall wound it, if party strife and blind 
 ambition shall hawk at and tear it, if folly and madness, if 
 uneasiness under salutary and necessary restraint, shall suc- 
 ceed in separating it from that Union by which alone its 
 existence is rnade sure, it will stand, in the end, by the side 
 of the cradle in which its infancy was rocked ; it will stretch 
 forth its arm with whatever of vigor it may still retain over 
 the friends who gather round it ; and it will fall at last, if 
 fall it must, amidst the proudest monuments of its own 
 glory, and on the very spot of its origin. — [Second speech 
 on Foot's Resolution in U. S. Senate, Jan. 26, 1832. Vol. 3, 
 pp. 316-317] 
 
 Here, again, in a speech in the senate in 1838, he 
 repeats his political creed : 
 
 I came into public life, sir, in the service of the United 
 States. On that broad altar my earliest and all my public 
 vows have been made. I propose to serve no other master. 
 So far as depends on any agency of mine, they shall con- 
 tinue United States — united in interest and in affection — 
 united in everything in regard to which the Constitution 
 has decreed their union ; united in war, for the common de- 
 fence, the common renown, and the common glory; and 
 united, compacted, knit firmly together in peace, for the 
 common prosperity and happiness of ourselves and our 
 children. 
 
 And, again, in the same speech, from the fulness 
 of his heart, he declares, — 
 
28 
 
 Sir, the spirit of union is particularly liable to temptation 
 and seduction in moments of peace and prosperity. In war 
 this spirit is strengthened by a sense of common danger, 
 and by a thousand recollections of ancient efforts and an- 
 cient glory in a common cause. But in the calms of a long 
 peace, and in the absence of all apparent causes of alarm, 
 things near gain an ascendancy over things remote. Local 
 interests and feelings overshadow national sentiments. Our 
 attention, our regard, and our attachment are every moment 
 solicited to what touches us closest, and we feel less, and 
 less the attraction of a distant orb. Such tendencies we are 
 bound by true patriotism, and by our love of union, to re- 
 sist. This is our duty ; and the ver^' moment, in my judg- 
 ment, has arrived when that duty should be performed. We 
 hear, every day, sentiments and arguments which would be- 
 come a meeting of envoys employed by separate govern- 
 ments, more than they become the common legislature of a 
 united country. Constant appeals are made to local inter- 
 ests, to geographical distinctions, and to the policy and 
 the pride of particular states. It would sometimes appear 
 as if it were a settled purpose to convince the people that 
 our Union is nothing but a jumble of different and discord- 
 ant interests, which must, ere long, be all resolved into their 
 original state of separate existence ; as if, therefore, it was 
 of no great value while it should last, and was not likely to 
 last long. The process of disintegration begins by urging 
 as a fact the existence of different interests. 
 
 Sir, is not the end to which all this leads 44s obvious.? 
 Who does not see, that, if convictions of this kind take pos- 
 session of the public mind, our Union can hereafter be 
 nothing, while it remains, but a connection without har- 
 mony, a bond without affection, a theatre for the angry con- 
 tests of local feelings, local objects, and local jealousies ? 
 Even while it continues to exist in name, it may by these 
 means become nothing but the mere form of a united gov- 
 ernment. My children, and the children of those who sit 
 around me, may meet, perhaps, in this chamber, in the next 
 generation ; but if tendencies now but too obvious be not 
 checked, they will meet as strangers and aliens. They will 
 feel no sense of common interest or common country • they 
 will cherish no common object of patriotic love. If the same 
 Saxon language shall fall from their lips, it may be the chief 
 proof that they belong to the same nation. Its vital prin- 
 
29 
 
 ciple exhausted and gone, its power of doing good terminat- 
 ed, the Union itself, become productive only of strife and 
 contention, must ultimately fall, dishonored and unlamented. 
 — [Speech on the Sub-Treasury, U. S. Senate, Jan. 31, 1838. 
 Vol. 4, pp. 496-7-] 
 
 From amid the many earnest and impressive coun- 
 sels he gave his countrymen, I select also a letter to 
 the citizens of Medford, Mass., written in June, 1850, 
 after his famous speech of March in that year : 
 
 This government is founded on the union of the States, 
 which union is established, defined, and sanctioned by the 
 Constitution of the United States. And, gentlemen, I can 
 conceive no rashness or folly greater than that which would 
 either seek to overturn this Constitution, or, by unprincipled 
 agitation, by heated local controversies, or angry mutual 
 criminations and recriminations between different parts of 
 the country, would effectually weaken the bonds which hold 
 the Union together. It has been, it is, and it will be my 
 great object to preserve and strengthen the Union, to estab- 
 lish, it deeper and stronger in the regard and affection of the 
 people. I wish to see all the powers vested in the govern- 
 ment by the Constitution administered with so much pru- 
 dence, impartiality, and patriotism, that every State, and all 
 the people of every State, should feel profoundly that the 
 union of the States, as now existing, is honorable, useful, and 
 indispensable to the prosperity of every part of the country. 
 And with this purpose always uppermost in my mind and 
 always filling my heart, I studiously avoid useless local con- 
 troversies, useless abstract questions, and everything else 
 which unnecessarily exasperates, embitters, or wounds the 
 feelings of any portion of the United States. 
 
 I have thus freely called upon Mr. Webster to 
 speak for himself upon the great question that lay 
 nearest his heart, and which controlled every faculty 
 he possessed, moral, physical, and intellectual, — the 
 preservation and perpetuation of the union of the 
 
30 
 
 American states. As I believe there never was a 
 cause in the history of man more worthy of human 
 effort to sustain it, so also do I believe that no cause 
 had ever such an advocate ! 
 
 Unless the elevation and true progress of man- 
 kind, on the basis of absolute liberty, civil and re- 
 ligious, has been heretofore sought to be secured' 
 under a written constitution, based upon a recog- 
 nition of the higher and nobler attributes of human 
 nature, I am surely justified ~in claiming the highest 
 place for our Federal Constitution of government^ 
 in the world's history of man's attempts to establish 
 the eternal principles of justice and right in human 
 affairs. 
 
 However copiously I have drawn upon Mr. Web- 
 ster's recorded utterances in advocacy of the Union^ 
 I still feel reluctance in ceasing to do so. The truth, 
 the honesty, the dignity, the wisdom and force trans- 
 parent in them all, all clad in the strong, simple, 
 English garb of speech, constitute, to my mind, the 
 highest type of American eloquence bestowed upon 
 the grandest of American themes. 
 
 The influences of Mr. Webster's counsels, and the 
 moral forces which he set in motion all over the 
 country, are easily to be traced in the history of his- 
 times, and exist to-day. 
 
 It cannot well be doubted that the settlement of 
 many a question as to the extent of the constitutional 
 powers of the government, by which it maintained 
 its peaceful ascendency, was due in a large measure 
 to his arguments in the Senate and the forum. 
 
 His speeches on Foot's resolution, in 1832, 
 
31 
 
 marshalled the opinion of the entire North, and a 
 majority of the people everywhere, against the doc- 
 trine of nullification, and consequent disruption of 
 the Union under that claim of alleged right. 
 
 His counsels of amity, his never-failing opposition 
 to sectional animosity, his constant encouragement 
 to mutual and kindly trust and brotherhood between 
 the distant and diverse populations of his country- 
 men, combined with his warnings of the dangers of 
 dissolution and the impossibility of its peaceful ac- 
 complishment, did, as I believe, and as I claim the 
 sequel has proven, more than any other single force, 
 postpone until nearly a generation after his death 
 the dreadful collision which in 1832 he so earnestly 
 prayed his eyes might never witness ; and when in 
 the providence of God the blow fell, it was to the 
 spirit of union and nationality which he had so stead- 
 ily inculcated, that we owe the reestablishment in 
 peace of the admitted power of our government 
 over these United States and people. 
 
 And was his patriotic and prophetic vision at fault? 
 Have not his warnings all been but too sadly vin- 
 dicated ? Who was right in 1850, Webster when 
 he said, — 
 
 Peaceable secession is an utter impossibility. * * I 
 will not state what might produce the disruption of the 
 Union, but, sir, I see as plainly as I see the sun in Heaven 
 what that disruption must produce; I see that it mi-ist pro- 
 duce war, and such a war I will not describe in its two-fold 
 character ! 
 
 Let us raise our conceptions of the magnitude and the 
 importance of the duties that devolve upon us ; let our com- 
 prehension be as broad as the country for which we act, our 
 aspirations as high as its certain destinies ; let us not be 
 pigmies in a cause that calls for men. 
 
32 
 
 or was it the most eloquent and unrelenting of his 
 detractors and adversaries, who above Webster's 
 grave declared, — 
 
 there wa^ not any danger of a storm, not a single cats- 
 paw in the sky, not a capful of bad weather between Cape 
 Sable and the Lake of the Woods. 
 
 and those who repeated and scattered far and wide 
 such rhapsodies of phrensied injustice and proofs of 
 mental blindness ? 
 
 Read the utterances of Webster, so full of pro- 
 phetic and affectionate warning to his countrymen 
 from the day he entered congress, growing more 
 clear and emphatic with each repetition, until 
 death silenced his eloquent tongue and stilled his 
 noble heart. Read, I say, everything he wrote or 
 spoke, from 1830 to 1852, by the lurid light of the 
 war of secession in 1861, and say who was the seer, 
 the prophet, the true statesman, — Webster, or those 
 who mocked and scoffed at his entreaties and warn- 
 ings ! And when at last the dread collision came, 
 when the curtain did rise and disclose to our eyes 
 
 states dissevered, discordant, belligerent, and a land rent 
 with civil feud, and drenched with fraternal blood, — 
 
 what spirit rose in the land to " conquer but to 
 save r 
 
 Was it the spirit of union, born of a realizing sense 
 of the value and necessity of the Union as a source 
 of peace and strength and safety to us all ? 
 
 Was it the spirit of nationality, and the determina- 
 tion that our free government should not disappear 
 
33 
 
 from among the family of nations, and from off the 
 face of the earth ? 
 
 Were not these the causes which h'ad been so 
 steadily, so faithfully, so eloquently championed and 
 indoctrinated in the minds and hearts of his fellow- 
 countrymen by Webster throughout his life, which 
 saved and restored the Union ? 
 
 And when now we 
 
 behold the gorgeous ensign of the republic, known and 
 honored throughout the earth, still full high advanced, its 
 arms and trophies streaming in their original lustre, not a 
 stripe erased or polluted, nor a single star obscured, bearing 
 for its motto that sentiment dear to every American heart, 
 Liberty and Union, now and forever, one and inseparable, — 
 
 to whom and to whose teachings must we, under 
 God, confess our great debt ? 
 
 Was it love for the Constitution and the Union, or 
 hatred of the Constitution and the Union, that sus- 
 tained the war for the Union, and kept the States 
 under a single government ? 
 
 Let the military history of the conflict answer ; let 
 the memorial tablets in church and graveyard, in 
 halls of education, — let all that records the names 
 and heroism of the dead, and those heroes of the 
 great conflict who still survive, — answer whether the 
 spirit that saved the Union was not the same spirit 
 that breathed through the speeches and writings of 
 the dead patriot whose memory to-day we revere, 
 whose public services we gratefully acknowledge, 
 whose counsels we recall, and whose precepts we 
 propose to follow and obey. 
 
 3 
 
34 
 
 And now disunion and secession are words no 
 longer to be found in the political vocabulary of 
 America. 
 
 We have a reestablished and secure Union, the 
 blessings and advantages of which grow daily more 
 apparent and more essential to the welfare and hap- 
 piness of every citizen. To-day none shrink back 
 more from the picture of an accomplished separa- 
 tion than .those who twenty years ago earnestly 
 sought to effect it ; none admit more freely that it 
 was " a political blunder worse than a crime." 
 
 The great moral question, the causa causans of 
 strife between the sections, of crimination and re- 
 crimination, of those words of insult and imputation 
 whose wounds were worse than poisoned arrows, — 
 the institution of involuntary servitude of human 
 beings, — the claim of legal ownership of man by 
 man, — is settled and blotted out forever. Not a 
 voice is heard lamenting its end, but everywhere in 
 the late regions of negro slavery rises the universal 
 chorus of thanksgiving and praise that it is gone, 
 and forever. 
 
 And with universal freedom has come increased 
 capacity for production ; and great is the development 
 of resources, and infinite the diversification of indus- 
 tries and pursuits. The prizes of such civilization 
 are great, and fierce is the competition for them, and 
 selfish and savage the contests of ambition for wealth 
 and power under the newer manifestations. 
 
 The need for Webster and men of his type exists 
 to-day, and ever will exist. Questions involving a 
 restraint upon the exercise of governmental power 
 
35 
 
 are before us to-day, and many threaten danger to 
 our prosperity, and some the very existence of our 
 form of government. 
 
 " Great Empire and little minds go ill together," 
 said Lord Bacon ; and assuredly we do possess a 
 "Great Empire " which we see too often ruled by 
 "little minds." 
 
 A system has grown up gradually, yet almost 
 imperceptibly, in our government, which has reached 
 a point of growth and power that enables it to over- 
 throw the main objects for which our Constitution 
 and laws were established, and to substitute a system 
 which enables men once vested with ofificial power 
 to use that power as a stepping-stone for its own 
 perpetuation and advancement, regardless of all 
 changes in the condition of popular sentiment. 
 
 This is commonly known as the " spoils system," 
 and rests upon the dogma that the offices of a 
 government are instituted for the emolument and 
 advantage of the official, and the political party to 
 which he belongs, and not for the public use and 
 benefit. 
 
 With the growth of the country and development 
 of its resources the expansion of the official corps 
 has naturally followed, until to-day the civil service 
 roll of the Federal government contains over one 
 hundred thousand names ; and, directly and indirectly 
 connected with and dependent upon them and in 
 the execution of their powers, it may safely be esti- 
 mated there are five times as many more. 
 
 Under a system which disregards the fact that 
 public service is the great end of office-holding, and 
 
36 
 
 which substitutes the personal interest of the incum- 
 bent for that of the public, individual interests have 
 organized under the name and forms of political 
 parties, and a compact and drilled machine has been 
 brought into existence, which, under the rules of 
 party discipline, has become a " power behind the 
 throne greater than the throne itself," and, unknown 
 to our Constitution or any law, is actually more 
 powerful in controlling our forms of elections than 
 any power known to and defined by law itself. 
 
 Like everything else founded upon a false prin- 
 ciple, its evil effects grow steadily, and gather 
 strength from the very abuses which they create and 
 perpetuate. The consequences are not simply a loss 
 to tne public from the presence of inefficient servants, 
 but the utter destruction of those personal virtues of 
 self-respect, integrity, and conscientiousness, which 
 places every public interest in jeopardy. 
 
 Original appointment to office no longer depends 
 on character, capability, or presumed or proven fit- 
 ness ; nor does the tenure depend upon fidelity and 
 capacity, but unhesitating service as a political and 
 personal partisan, to whom scruples of any kind will 
 be only an encumbrance, has become the most 
 reliable groundwork for success in procuring or 
 retaining public office. 
 
 Thus gradually an army of mercenaries has been 
 organized, who are strong enough to control conven- 
 tions and nominating assemblies, set at defiance 
 public opinion, and laugh to scorn public conscience. 
 
 The effect of such a system upon our elections is 
 demoralizing and degrading in the extreme, as it 
 
37 
 
 proceeds upon the doctrine that the official positions 
 of the government are the spoils of party conquest. 
 
 The incumbents find the means of support for 
 themselves and their families placed in jeopardy on 
 the recurrence of each election, — 
 
 "you take my life, 
 When you do take the means whereby I live," — 
 
 and, so believing, they fight as for their lives, and go 
 through periodical seasons of anxiety and distress, 
 demoralizing, disastrous, and distracting in the effects 
 upon them and their performance of duty. Time 
 and energy, which should be devoted to the public, 
 are given to party ends, and the public money paid 
 to them for public service is extorted from them by 
 the party tax-gatherer, who spares neither age nor 
 sex nor station, but bleeds all, from the cabinet- 
 minister to the errand-boy and the woman who 
 scrubs the steps. Opposed to this array we see a 
 far more numerous, but less disciplined and organ- 
 ized, body of hungry, seekers for office, savage with 
 delay and disappointment, and furious for success. 
 
 In such a contest the natural excitements of polit- 
 ical passions and clash of opinions are heated almost 
 to frenzy, and all restraints of morality, honor, and 
 legality are consumed and destroyed in the political 
 furnace. From such scenes and controversies men 
 of dignity, refinement, and self-respect naturally 
 shrink, and a measurable excuse is thus furnished 
 for the non-performance of political duties, of which 
 we see so many of those whose criticisms are so 
 fluent and unsparing are quick to avail themselves. 
 
38 
 
 And places that should be filled by men possessing 
 qualities that win and deserve private and public 
 confidence are filled by adroit, scheming, unblushing 
 manipulators, who scoff at personal dignity and self- 
 respect, and avow themselves " practical politicians." 
 These men deride the idea of conscience in politics, 
 and scout every suggestion of purification and 
 reform. 
 
 The impressive admonitions of Washington, re- 
 peated and renewed by Webster, fall upon unheeding 
 ears ; — for what are the character and lives of such 
 men as Washington and Webster but a standing 
 rebuke to the class of men elevated to control by the 
 system of official spoils ? 
 
 By the law of its being each member of the 
 " political machine" is also its slave, whether he be 
 its so-called "boss" and leader, or one of the 
 humbler members. Personal independence, individ- 
 ual conscience, fidelity to honest conviction, weigh 
 nothing and can avail nothing to the man enlisted 
 in the spoils system of politics. 
 
 The evils are progressing, and each day public 
 comprehension of the system and its results is 
 increasing, as its dangers are unfolded. 
 
 One of these evils is the exclusion of men of self- 
 respeqt and independence of character from the 
 public counsels and from public service, by which 
 the prime object of our system of free choice of their 
 Representatives by the people is substantially defeat- 
 ed. The power that defeats is unknown to law, and 
 therefore is uncontrolled by law. 
 
 These dangers are fortunately beginning to attract 
 
39 
 
 public attention, and are well calculated to excite 
 public alarm. In a less degree they existed in Mr. 
 Webster's day, and in 1832 he called public attention 
 to them in a speech before the convention at Wor- 
 cester : 
 
 Mr. President, as far as I know, there is no civilized 
 country on earth in which, on a change of rulers, there is 
 such an inqjiisition for spoil as we have witnessed in this 
 free republic. The inaugural address of 1829 spoke of a 
 searching operation of government. The most searching 
 operation, sir, of the present administration has been its 
 search for office and place. When, sir, did any English 
 minister. Whig or Tory, ever make such an inquest .? When 
 did he ever go down to low-water mark to make an ousting 
 of tide-waiters .'' When did he ever take away the daily 
 bread of weighers and gaugers and measurerb .? When did 
 he ever go into the villages to disturb the little post-offices, 
 the mail contracts, and everything else in the remotest 
 degree connected with government .' Sir. a British minister 
 who should do this, and should afterwards show his head 
 in a Britis,h House of Commons, would be received by a 
 universal hiss. 
 
 I have but little to say of the selections made to fill 
 vacancies thus created. It is true, however, and it is a 
 natural consequence of the system which has been acted 
 on, that, within the last three years, more nominations have 
 been rejected on the ground of unfitness than in all the pre- 
 ceding forty years of the government. And these nomina- 
 tions, you know, sir, could not have been rejected but by 
 votes of the President's own friends. The cases were too 
 strong to be resisted. Even party attachment could not 
 stand them. In some not a third of the Senate, in others 
 not ten votes, and in others not a single vote, could be ob- 
 tained ; and this for no particular reason known only to the 
 Senate, but on general grounds of the want of character 
 and qualifications, — on grounds known to everybody else, 
 as well as to the Senate. All this, sir, is perfectly natural 
 and consistent. The same p»rty selfishness which drives 
 good men out of office, will push bad men in. Political pro- 
 scription leads necessarily to the filling of offices with 
 
40 
 
 incompetent persons, and to a consequent mal-execution of 
 official duties. And in my opinion, sir, this principle of 
 claiming a monopoly of office by the right of conquest, unless 
 the public shall effectually rebuke and restrain it, will en- 
 tirely change the character of our government. It elevates 
 party above country ; it forgets the common weal in the 
 pursuit of personal emolument ; it tends to form, it does 
 form, .we see that it has formed, a political combination, 
 united by no common principles or opinions among its 
 members, either upon the powers of the government or the 
 true policy of the country, but held together simply as an 
 association, under the charm of a popular head, seeking to 
 maintain possession of the government by a vigorous exer- 
 cise of its patronage ; and for this purpose agitating and 
 alarming and distressing social life by the exercise of a 
 tyrannical party proscription. Sir, if this course of things 
 cannot be checked, good men will grow tired of the exercise 
 of political privileges. They will have nothing to do with 
 popular elections. They will see that such elections are 
 but a mere selfish contest for office, and they will abandon 
 the government to the scramble of the bold, the daring, and 
 the desperate. 
 
 Three years subsequently he denounced the spoils 
 system in the Senate, and, in discussing the appoint- 
 ing and removing power of the President, said, — 
 
 The unlimited power to grant office, and to take it away, 
 gives a command over the hopes and fears of a vast multi- 
 tude of men. It is generally true that he who controls 
 another man's means of living, controls his will. Where 
 there are favors to be granted, there are usually enough to 
 solicit for them ; and, when favors once granted may be 
 withdrawn at pleasure, there is ordinarily little security for 
 personal independence of character. The power of giving 
 office thus affects the fears of all who are in, and the hopes 
 of all who are out. Those who are out endeavor to distin- 
 guish themselves by active political friendship, by warm 
 personal devotion, by clamorous support of men in whose 
 hands is the power of reward* while those who are in or- 
 dinarily take care that others shall not surpass them in such 
 qualities or such conduct as are most likely to secure favor. 
 
41 
 
 They resolve not to be outdone in any of the works of 
 partisanship. The consequence of all this is obvious. A 
 competition ensues, not of patriotic labors, not of rough 
 and severe toils for the public good, not of manliness, inde- 
 pendence, and public spirit, but of complaisance, of indis- 
 criminate support of executive measures, of pliant subservi- 
 ency and gross adulation. All throng and rush together to 
 the altar of man-worship, and there they offer sacrifices, 
 and pour out libations, till the thick fumes of their incense 
 turn their own heads, and turn, also, the head of him who is 
 the object of their idolatry. 
 
 And in the course of the same speech he placed 
 the question of civil service on its true grounds, 
 when he affirmed that the civil offices of the govern- 
 ment should not be the mere instrumentalities of 
 the Administration, or converted into mere rew^ards 
 for party services, any more than the offices of the 
 military and naval branches. 
 
 This proposition should of course be stated with 
 important qualifications, so as to permit a change in 
 the governmental policy, to be executed by officials 
 whose sentiments were in accord with the reforms 
 proposed, not as rewards or punishments for indi- 
 vidual opinions, but as agencies to execute well- 
 settled pubhc opinion. 
 
 The underlying theory of our government, that 
 the will of the majority, legally expressed, shall be 
 represented and shall control in the administration 
 of public affairs, should not suffer obstruction from 
 the opinions of any set of office-holders. 
 
 The incident must follow the principal, and ob- 
 struction to the expressed will of the majority would 
 be just cause for the substitution of other agents to 
 secure its execution. 
 
42 
 
 Said Mr. Webster, in February, 1835, — 
 
 It is necessary to bring back public officers to the con- 
 viction that they belong to the country, and not to any 
 administration, nor to any one man. The army is the army 
 of the country ; the navy is the navy of the country ; neither 
 of them is either the mere instrument of the administration 
 for the time being, nor of him who is at the head of it. The 
 post-office, the land-office, the custom-house, are in like 
 manner institutions of the country established for the good 
 of the people ; and it may well alarm , the lovers of free 
 institutions, when all the offices in these several depart- 
 ments are spoken of in high places as being but " spoils of 
 victory," to be enjoyed by those who are successful in a 
 contest in which they profess this grasping of the spoils to 
 have been the object of their efforts. 
 
 The great mass of official duties under our system 
 are simply ministerial, the performance of which is 
 no more affected by a man's political opinion than by 
 his religious tenets. 1 
 
 The judicial powers of the Constitution are ex- 
 pressly vested during the good behavior of the 
 judges, whose pecuniary independence of popular 
 will is additionally secured. This would leave there- 
 fore a comparatively small number of those leading 
 and controlling officers in which the political opinions 
 of the incumbent should accord with the policy of the 
 Executive, in favor of which public opinion had been 
 expressed, and whose removal could justly take place 
 on such grounds. 
 
 In 1 84 1, when Mr. Webster first filled the office of 
 Secretary of State, he had occasion to appoint a 
 commission to inquire into the condition of certain 
 public buildings then in the course of erection ; and 
 he issued instructions showing that he proposed to 
 
43 
 
 carry into practice the methods he had recommended 
 to an opposing Administration. Said he, — 
 
 You will inquire into no man's political opinions or pref- 
 erences ; but if it be alleged that any person having power 
 either in employing or dimissing laborers, with any reference 
 to the political opinions of those who may have been em- 
 ployed or 'dismissed, or for any political or party object 
 whatever, or in any other way, has violated his duty for 
 party or electioneering purposes, you will inquire into the 
 truth of such accusation, and make report to me. 
 
 To such principles of administration must the 
 American people return, if they hope to see such 
 men as Webster in the public service. Such a 
 character as his, and a man holding such views, 
 would create consternation nowadays in a conven- 
 tion composed pf the spoilsmen of politics. 
 
 The evil is deeply seated and difficult of extirpa- 
 tion. Its fatal consequences I do not believe are 
 overestimated or overstated ; and, speaking not 
 without practical knowledge of the effect upon the 
 whole framework of our government in all of its 
 three great departments, I aver my belief that unless 
 an end shall soon be put to the system under which 
 at every election the offices of the country are, to 
 use the words of Webster, "claimed by the right of 
 party conquest," and have that claim allowed, we 
 shall lose even our form of government, of which, 
 long before, the substance will have disappeared. 
 
 Statesmanship is impossible with men whose only 
 thought and occupation is official brokage, and who 
 administer the powers of official patronage not by 
 the measure of the applicant's character, ability, or 
 
44 
 
 fitness to perform the duties of the place, but by his 
 servility and unscrupulous devotion to the objects of 
 the political conspiracy into which he has been ad- 
 mitted. 
 
 "Never forget [wrote Macaulay to his constit- 
 uents, when leaving for India] that the worst and 
 most degrading species of corruption is the corrup- 
 tion which operates not by hopes but by fears." 
 
 And once in office under the spoils system, the 
 trembling possessor is induced to commit any act of 
 unmanly servility in the fear that he will be dismiss- 
 ed. And for the same reasons he does not venture 
 to disclose abuses going on around him, when to do 
 so would subject him to certain and instant dismissal 
 " for the good of the party." 
 
 The operation of such exciting hopes and fears 
 upon an unprincipled and morbid mind has had late- 
 ly a fearful illustration, at which the nation still 
 shudders ; — but who shall say that the utter demor- 
 alization and destruction of the better nature of men, 
 by politics under the spoils system, did not find a 
 natural outcome in the murder, — under a confusion 
 of hope and revenge concerning office, — of a blame- 
 less and patriotic President ? 
 
 Sentences to beggary and distress, to which death 
 would be almost a relief, have been not infrequent, 
 under the form of dismissal from minor offices, for 
 no other cause than to carry out the system that con- 
 verts public trusts of power into the spoils of party 
 conquest. 
 
 Mr. Webster was remarkable not only for the 
 eloquence and power of his speeches, but for the 
 
45 
 
 candor and honorable frankness with which he 
 expressed himself. The intent is transparent in all 
 he ever said or wrote, that he always felt himself 
 bound to give his real opinions, and these well 
 considered, to his countrymen. 
 
 The fidelity and earnestness of his character are 
 made the more apparent by a study of his works ; 
 and there is scarcely a public question of his day in 
 regard to which he did not express opinions. To 
 them it will be well for his countrymen to recur. 
 
 The subject of banking and the still more impor- 
 tant question- of the currency, and the principles .that 
 should control Congress in dealing with both, form a 
 valuable feature in his speeches and writings. 
 
 I cannot omit his true and manly words to the 
 laboring masses of his countrymen, — those upon 
 whom the burdens of an unsound or vicious cur- 
 rency so hardly and inevitably fall, and whose daily 
 wants must be procured and paid for by their daily 
 toil, — whose want of knowledge causes them so 
 easily to be misled by plausible demagogues, against 
 whom he uttered his warning in 1834 : 
 
 Sir, the very man, of all others, who has the deepest in- 
 terest in a sound currency, and who suffers most by mis- 
 chievous legislation in money matters, is the man who earns 
 his daily bread by his daily toil. A depreciated currency, 
 sudden changes of prices, paper money, falHng between 
 morning and noon, and falling still lower between noon and 
 night, — these things constitute the very harvest-time of 
 speculators, and of the whole race of those who are at once 
 idle and crafty ; and of that other race, too, the Catilines 
 of all times, marked, so as to be known forever by one 
 stroke of the historian's pen, those greedy of other mens 
 property and prodigal of their own. Capitalists, too, may 
 
46 
 
 outlive such times. They may either prey on the earnings 
 of labor by their cent, per cent., or they may hoard. But 
 the laboring man, what can he hoard 1 Preying on nobody, 
 he becomes the prey of all. His property is in his hands. 
 His reliance, his fund, his productive freehold, his all, is his 
 labor. Whether he work on his own small capital or an- 
 other's, his living is still earned by his industry ; and when 
 the money of the country becomes depreciated and debased, 
 whether it be adulterated coin, or paper without credit, that 
 industry is robbed of its reward. He then labors for a 
 country whose laws cheat him out of his bread. I would 
 say to every owner of every quarter-section of land in the 
 West, I would say to every man in the East who follows 
 his own plow, and to ever^ mechanic, artisan, and laborer 
 in every city in the country, — I would say to every man, 
 everywhere, who wishes by honest means to gain an honest 
 living, " Beware of wolves in sheep's clothing." Whoever 
 attempts under whatever popular cry to shake the stability 
 of the public currency, bring on distress in money matters, 
 and drive the country into the use of paper money, stabs 
 your interest and your happiness to the heart. 
 
 Of the value of public credit, and its uses and 
 necessities, no one was more fully aware than Mr. 
 Webster ; and he comprehended the jealousy with 
 which every suggestion of dishonor, every tampering 
 with the strict terms of public obligation, should be 
 regarded. 
 
 When he wrote to the house of Baring in 1839 
 conveying his opinion upon the responsibility of the 
 States of the Union for the loans they might severally 
 contract, and their freedom from Federal compulsion 
 to pay such debts, he concluded with some observa- 
 tions which it would be well if they were better 
 heeded in certain quarters in our day, when not only 
 ,do States seem unconscious of the fatal conse- 
 quences to the material prosperity and moral tone of 
 
47 
 
 their people, of a disregard of plighted faith, and a 
 public repudiation of just debts, but restless and 
 demagogical leaders are encouraged from without by 
 official patronage and schemes for political power, to 
 debauch public opinion and plant the foul ulcer of 
 popular faithlessness and repudiation in the bosom 
 of the commonwealth. 
 
 I believe that the citizens of the United States, like all 
 honest men, regard debts, whether public or private, and 
 whether existing at home or abroad, to be of moral as well 
 as legal obligation, and I trust I may appeal to their histo- 
 ries, from the moment when these States took their rank 
 among the nations of the earth, to the present time, for 
 proof that this belief is well founded. 
 
 If it were possible that any one of the States should at 
 any time so entirely lose her self-respect and forget her duty 
 as to violate the faith solemnly pledged for her previous 
 engagements, I believe there is no country upon earth, not 
 even that of the injured creditor, in which such a proceed- 
 ing would meet with less countenance or indulgence than 
 it would receive from the great mass of the American 
 people. 
 
 Of all the attributes of political sovereignty, that 
 of imposing taxation is perhaps the most compre- 
 hensive of any vested in human government ; and 
 as the exigencies of a government cannot be pre- 
 scribed, no limits can be ordained except those which 
 wisdom, discretion, and conscience shall dictate. 
 
 The " power to tax," said Chief-Justice Marshall," 
 is a power to destroy ; " and another distinguished 
 judge (Cooley) writes, — 
 
 At no point does the power of government more con- 
 stantly and intimately affect all the relations of life than 
 through this power. 
 
48 
 
 It touches property in all its forms, and humanity 
 in all its conditions, and levies upon the hoards of the 
 miser and the scant earnings of the laborer. As to 
 the knock of Pale Death himself, the palace of the 
 richest and the cabin of the poorest must open at 
 the summons of the tax-gatherer. "Taxes," said a 
 distinguished jurist of Maine, "are levied to secure 
 the public duties and relieve public necessities." 
 
 The exercise of this great and all-pervading pre- 
 rogative tests the capacity of man's mental and moral 
 povirer to its utmost. It discloses how far the spirit 
 of justice can prevail in human affairs. 
 
 In all forms of government this power is essen- 
 tial — and in all essentially the same ; — in an absolute 
 or limited monarchy, in the hereditary empire, in the 
 free elective republic, somewhere, under each, must 
 this vast power be deposited, and under some forms 
 must be exercised. 
 
 The unequal and inequitable exercise of this chief 
 power has been the cause of nearly every popular 
 revolt in the history of the world. 
 
 The problem of its adjustment will confront every 
 generation of men ; and in the wonderful develop- 
 ment and creation and eager pursuit of material 
 wealth in this favored land, the demand for states- 
 manship, moral courage, unselfishness,, and wisdom, 
 in dealing with this great subject, was never so loud 
 and clear as it is to-day. As the prize grows in 
 value, the contest to obtain it grows in vigor ; and 
 the restraining forces of laws, founded in absolute 
 and even-handed justice between man and man, are 
 needed now as never before. 
 
49 
 
 The tariff system of levying import duties upon 
 foreign merchandise is to-day before the people of the 
 United States for consideration, and I regard it, all 
 in all, as the most profoundly important question of 
 the day, to the peace, progress, and welfare of our 
 people. 
 
 In our National Legislature, in which the power 
 of taxation is vested, we find the Representatives of 
 over fifty millions of people living within an area of 
 territory more diversified in its climate, soils, pro- 
 ductions, and capacities, more variant in the habits, 
 tastes, traditions, occupations, and characteristics of 
 its population, than are, or ever were, embraced un- 
 der any conterminous and unified government known 
 in history. Over such a country, for such vast and 
 varied interests, for such a people, active, intelligent, 
 energetic, and free, is the mighty and sovereign 
 power of taxation to be exercised. 
 
 Discontents in our past history and the sharp 
 antagonisms of local interests instruct us in the great 
 difficulty of the task that to-day calls for moral cour- 
 age and intellectual power, for lofty and unselfish 
 qualities of mind and heart, and beckons statesmen 
 and patriots to come to the front, and points huck- 
 sters and jobbing politicians to the rear. 
 
 Fellow-countrymen, as Mr. Webster said in his 
 first address at Bunker Hill, — 
 
 Let our conceptions be enlarged to the circle of our du- 
 ties. Let us extend our ideas over the whole of the vast 
 field in which we are to act. 
 
 This reference to the powers of taxation and the 
 4 
 
5° 
 
 tariff system leads me to refer to Mr. Webster's 
 views on the subject. 
 
 I shall make no attempt to mould the variant 
 expressions of his views on this subject into a con- 
 sistent form. 
 
 I am unable, however, to see how any one can 
 doubt that Mr. Webster gave to, and never withdrew 
 the assent of his great mind from, the doctrines of 
 trade enunciated by Adam Smith, and sustained by 
 the school of English economists of whom Mr. Hus- 
 kisson was one of the earliest, ablest, and most 
 distinguished. No one who reads the speeches of 
 Mr. Webster, delivered in the House of Represent- 
 atives in 1816 and 1824, and his speech in Faneuil 
 hall on October 2d, 1820, can doubt that he believed 
 and maintained that no objection ought ever to be 
 made to taxes equally apportioned and imposed for 
 the purpose of raising revenue necessary for the 
 support of the government, but that taxes imposed 
 on the people for the benefit of any one class of 
 men are equally inconsistent with the principles of 
 our Constitution, and with sound policy ; and that 
 he did not believe that Congress possessed the 
 power of turning the incident into the principal, and, 
 instead of leaving manufacturers to the protection 
 of such laws as should be passed with a primary 
 view to revenue, of enacting laws with the avowed 
 object of giving preference to particular manufac- 
 turers with an entire disregard to all considerations 
 of revenue. 
 
 That with the progress of investments in manufac- 
 tures in New England, and their consequent growth 
 
51 
 
 and development, Mr. Webster was induced by the 
 most natural local influences to modify his views and 
 expressions, is undoubtedly true, and I know no 
 franker or juster defence against the charge of 
 inconsistency than is contained in his second speech 
 in the Senate on Foot's resolution, in 1832 : 
 
 I said then [1816, 1820, and 1824], and I say now, that 
 as an original question the authority of Congress to exer- 
 cise the revenue power, with direct reference to the protec- 
 tion of manufacturers, is of questionable authority, more 
 questionable, in my judgment, than the power of internal 
 improvements. 
 
 No adjustment of the tariff laws, which overlooks 
 the system of taxation under which capital for sev- 
 eral generations has been invested and labor in- 
 structed and induced to apply its powers in special 
 pursuits, will be either wise or just ; and, in the 
 reorganization of our tax systems, excise and impost, 
 to meet the new and modern conditions of com- 
 merce, navigation, manufacture, and agriculture, with 
 all the innovations and sweeping changes wrought 
 by the discoveries and applications of steam, elec- 
 tricity, and mechanical' inventions, let us hope that 
 great minds, capable of comprehending the vast and 
 varied interests of this broad land, and its busy 
 millions of people, will be employed and sustained 
 by popular sentiment in the great task of settling, 
 without fear or favor, the revenues and taxation of 
 the Union upon the immutable basis of justice and 
 equity to all sections and classes of our fellow-coun- 
 trymen. 
 
 In all its forms the production of wealth goes on, 
 
52 
 
 and the contest for the enjoyment of the results and 
 profits grows apace in eagerness and intensity. The 
 twin workers, Capital and Labor, stand in the field of 
 their joint triumphs surrounded by proofs of their 
 joint success, but with opposing fronts, each guard- 
 ing its separate interests with jealous, and, alas ! too 
 often with angry eyes. 
 
 The fruits of their joint operations are abundant, 
 and, distributed with reasonable equity, would yield 
 ample compensation to all. Why, then, shall not 
 equity be applied, and the real and true unity of 
 their interests be admitted, and its laws heeded and 
 obeyed by both ? In a land where all men are equal 
 before the law, and thought and action so free, may 
 we not hope that intelligence and good feeling will 
 be the arbiters, and solve the problem in which pas- 
 sion, greed, and ignorance are playing so sad and 
 influential a part. 
 
 Sure am 1, that, sooner or later, men must fall back 
 upon the great moral laws of their being and origin, 
 and find in a heaven-born sense of human brother- 
 hood the true solution and a common ground upon 
 which the rich and the poor, the capitalist and the 
 laborer, can meet and compose their differences. 
 
 It is when such questions are to be solved and 
 such difficulties are presented that the American 
 people involuntarily turn to the name and fame and 
 teachings of such a patriot as Webster, in the belief 
 that in the spirit of truth, philosophy, and justice, 
 which were his guides, lie our best hopes for wisdom 
 and prudent counsel. 
 
 Although I am painfully conscious of the incom- 
 
53 
 
 pleteness of this attempt to revive and review the 
 pubHc career of such a man as Webster, and greatly 
 as I regret the interference of other duties and occu- 
 pations with my efforts to obtain the time needful 
 for a just performance of the work, yet I cannot end 
 this address, already so prolonged, without reference 
 to the religious basis of Mr. Webster's character, and 
 which throughout his life disclosed itself with such 
 impressiveness. 
 
 It is well to recall some utterances of his on this 
 subject, at a time when Infidelity boastfully chal- 
 lenges public attention ; when the flippant scoffs of 
 impiety are so often heard amid applause and laugh- 
 ter in crowded lecture-rooms ; when blasphemy, thin- 
 ly disguised in the robes of slangy wit and irrev- 
 erent humor, finds large and remunerative audiences ; 
 when the hope and trust of the disconsolate and the 
 weary are sought to be undermined by shallow soph- 
 istries ; and belief in a blessed immortality illumined 
 by the rays of a divinely revealed religion is laughed 
 at as a monkish fiction by those who assume to speak 
 above the grave, and yet deny the life beyond it ; — 
 in such a season it is refreshing and invigorating 
 to read the declaration of a simple, sincere, and cath- 
 olic creed, made from time to time by this true coun- 
 sellor of his countrymen. 
 
 In his argument in the Girard will case he de- 
 clared, — 
 
 The ground taken is, that religion "is not necessary to 
 morality ; that benevolence may be insuredby habit ; and 
 that all the virtues may flourish, and be safely left to flour- 
 ish, without touching the waters of the living spring of 
 religious responsibility. 
 
54 
 
 Why, sir, it is vain to talk about the tendency of such a 
 system: to argue upon it is to insult the understanding of 
 any man : it is mere low, ribald, vulgar deism and infidelity. 
 It opposes all that is in Heaven, and all on earth that is 
 worth being on earth. It destroys the connecting link 
 between the creature and the Creator : it opposes that 
 great system of universal benevolence that binds man to 
 his neighbor. 
 
 And in the course of the same speech he again 
 burst forth : 
 
 There is nothing that we look for with more certainty 
 than this general principle, that Christianity is part of the 
 law of the land. This was the case among the Puritans of 
 New England, the Episcopalians of the Southern States, 
 the Pennsylvania Quakers, the Baptists, the mass of the 
 followers of Whitefield and Wesley, and the Presbyterians. 
 All brought and all adopted this great truth, and all have 
 sustained it. And where there is any religious sentiment 
 amongst men at all, this sentiment incorporates itself with 
 the law. Everything declares it. The massive cathedral of 
 the Catholic ; the Episcopalian church, with its lofty spire 
 pointing heavenward ; the plain temple of the Quaker ; the 
 log church of the hardy pioneer of the wilderness ; the me- 
 mentoes and memorials around and about us ; the conse- 
 crated graveyards, their tombstones and epitaphs, their silent 
 vaults, their mouldering contents, all attest it. The dead prove 
 it as well as the living. The generation that are gone 
 speak to it, and pronounce it from the tomb. We feel it. 
 All, all proclaim that Christianity, general, tolerant Christi- 
 anity, Christianity independent of sects and parties, that 
 Christianity to which the sword and fagot are unknown, 
 general, tolerant Christianity, is the law of the land. 
 
 Finis coronal opus. I have touched now the 
 highest topic of his life. The rehgious faith he thus 
 proclaimed in the fulness of his vitality and powers 
 continued with him through life, and sustained him 
 in the hour of death. 
 
55 
 
 His last memorable words were uttered in a tone 
 of soliloquy — a response of his fading senses to his 
 self-inquiry — " I still live." 
 
 Well will it be for his country if these words shall 
 be preserved in the hearts of its people, and their 
 part shall be done, to see that Webster and his life, 
 the greatness of his mind and heart, shall " still 
 live," and be handed down from generation to 
 generation, for admiration, gratitude, and imitation. 
 
 A close inquisition into Mr. Webster's weaknesses 
 or faults is happily not for me; nor to dispel the 
 shadows which defamation and detraction cast upon 
 his pathway. 
 
 He had ambition, but it was ambition to serve his 
 country, and in her highest seat of power. For this 
 he sought power, and knew, as Bacon did, that 
 
 Power to do good is the true and lawful end of aspiring ; 
 for good thoughts, though God accept them, yet, toward 
 men, are little better than good dreams, except they be put 
 in act, and that cannot be done without power and place as 
 the vantage and commanding ground. 
 
 He was a marvellous production, the very fruit and 
 flower of our republican institutions, and he trod 
 with majestic step the avenues so freely open to all, 
 which lead in this free land from poverty and obscu- 
 rity to the topmost heights of power and distinction. 
 
 A kingly intellect throbbed beneath his republi- 
 can brow, and proclaimed its strength and dignity 
 throughout his life, and now. 
 
 He is gathered to the kings of thought, 
 
 Who waged contention with their times' decay, 
 
 And of the past are all that cannot pass away. 
 
56 
 
 The veil which hides from our eyes the future, no 
 doubt conceals in mercy many an assault upon the 
 peace, law, and liberty of the land we love ; and in 
 the misty foreground of the future I fear there are 
 dimly to be discerned forms and shapes of evil. But 
 we must stand, as the father of Webster stood, " a 
 minute man," ready for our country's defence, for- 
 tified, enlarged, and refreshed by the memories and 
 counsel of our great countryman, in whose honor I 
 have spoken to-day. 
 
 Tho' world on world in myriad myriads roll 
 Round us with different powers. 
 And other forms of life than ours. 
 What know we greater than the soul ? 
 On God and God-like men we build our trust. 
 
2-f - 
 
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