UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA 
 AT LOS ANGELES
 
 I
 
 DANIEL WEBSTER
 
 iV ' 
 
 ENGLISH AND 
 AMERICAN 
 LITERATURE 
 
 STUDIES IN LITERARY 
 CRITICISM, INTER- 
 PRETATION AND 
 HI S TO RY 
 
 By C. H. Sylvester 
 
 Formerly Professor of Literature and 
 
 Pedagogy in the State Normal 
 
 School at Stevens 
 
 Point, Wis. 
 
 INCLUDING COMPLETE 
 MASTERPIECES 
 
 IN TEN VOLUMES 
 
 With Numerous Halftone Illustrations 
 VOLUME THREE, ORATIONS 
 
 :S8^o 
 
 
 CHICAGO 
 
 
 BELLOWS 
 
 BROTHERS 
 1906 
 
 COMPANY 
 
 .' \ 
 
 h 1907
 
 * • • • . 
 
 •I ••: •• 
 
 • • « 
 • • • ••• 
 
 • »,* . 
 
 • « < 
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1902 
 By bellows BROTHERS COMPANY 
 
 All rights reserved 
 
 f^S74
 
 
 H 
 
 part ^ivc 
 
 ©rattona
 
 Content0 
 
 Page 
 
 Forms of Prose Composition . . .11 
 Studies ...... 16 
 
 Orations 
 
 Discussion ..... 19 
 
 General Directions for Study . 29 
 Biographical Sketch of Daniel Webster 35 
 Reply to Hayne — Webster . . -43 
 Studies on the Oration . . 138 
 Biographical Sketch of Edmund Burke . 147 
 On Conciliation with America — Burke 161 
 Study of the Oration . . •265 
 Supplementary Readings . . . 275 
 Review Questions 277
 
 1lllU0ttation0 
 
 Pagb 
 
 Portrait of Daniel Webster . . Frontispiece 
 <'The front of Jove himself, 
 An eye like Mars to threaten and 
 command." 
 
 Supreme Court Room in the Capitol at 
 Washington. Formerly the Senate 
 Chamber . . . . • .40 
 It was in this room that Webster de- 
 livered his reply to Hayne. 
 
 Portrait of Robert Young Hayne . . .68 
 "A skilful debater, a master of caustic 
 eloquence." 
 
 The National Capitol at Washington . , 96 
 The east front as it now appears. 
 
 The City of Washington . . . .122 
 "The city of magnificent distances." 
 
 A view down Pennsylvania avenue, 
 
 from a recent photograph. 
 United States Senate Chamber . . . 138 
 
 As it appears at the present day.
 
 HUustrationa 
 
 Page 
 
 Houses of Parliament . . 144 
 
 A stately pile of buildings fronting 
 on the Thames river. Near by are 
 Westminster Abbey and the great 
 Westminster Bridge. 
 
 Interior of the House of Commons . . 190 
 "A rich dark room instinct with a 
 sofemn grandeur, bathed in an at- 
 mosphere of weighty deliberation." 
 
 Westminster Bridge . . . . . 21S 
 The picture shows a portion of the 
 Houses of Parliament and at the 
 left the bridge crossing the Thames. 
 
 Thames Embankment ..... 264 
 "Earth has not anything to show 
 more fair."
 
 Ifotme of iprose Composition
 
 iforms ot prose Composition 
 
 It seems to be generally accepted that four 
 methods of expression are to be found in prose : 
 Narration, description, exposition and argumenta- 
 tion. Narration deals with things in action, de- 
 scription with the appearance of things, exposition 
 explains the relations ideas bear to one another, 
 and argumentation not only does this, but tries at 
 the same time to convince its readers. Theo- 
 retically, this distinction is very easy to make, for 
 action is the life of narration, appearance the 
 theme of description, explanation and exposition 
 are synonymous, and no one argues but with the 
 hope of convincing. What can man do more 
 than to tell what has been done, tell how a thing 
 looks, show how one thing follows from another 
 or is related to it, and endeavor to bring another 
 person to the same state of mind ? 
 
 The accuracy and completeness of the classifi- 
 cation is most evident until one attempts to apply 
 it practically to existing literature, and then he 
 finds that no literary masterpiece belongs entirely 
 to any one of the classes, but that these mingle 
 and unite, one or the other usually predominating. 
 This ruling element, the one which is proportion- 
 ately greater, will govern the classification of a 
 selection. In any story, narration and descrip- 
 
 II
 
 JForms ot iprose Composition 
 
 tion meet at every turn and not infrequently ex- 
 position is found freely intermingled, while novels 
 have been written with the avowed sole purpose 
 of changing the beliefs of a people. Uncle Tonics 
 Cabin is a story of intense dramatic activity, and 
 abounds in vivid descriptions of places and per- 
 sons. It is generally dealing with incidents relating 
 to the characters of the story, yet it really makes 
 an exposition of the evils of slavery, and certainly 
 was no small factor in stirring the American peo- 
 ple into vigorous action against the slave dealers. 
 Yet no one would classify the book otherwise than 
 among the narratives. Although into Burke's 
 Conciliation other elements enter, yet everyone 
 will admit it to be argumentative in the highest 
 degree. So while it is well to classify the selec- 
 tions read, yet fine theoretical distinctions should 
 be abandoned. It is not so necessary to classify 
 and name, as it is to compare and distinguish. 
 
 The selections we have printed illustrate most 
 excellently the four methods of expression. The 
 Great Stone Face, Wee Willie Winkie, and The 
 Ambitious .Guest are narratives, as pure as we 
 can select. Few are finer ideal studies into 
 human character than is the last which deals so 
 delicately with the characteristics of the different 
 types assembled beneath that humble roof. The 
 Cricket on the Hearth and the greater part of 
 Lamb's Dissertation oti Roast Fig may be classed 
 in the same category. The Roger de Coverley 
 
 12
 
 JForms of prose Composftton 
 
 papers are descriptive, Emerson's Self-Reliance is 
 in the main an exposition, while the great speeches 
 of Webster and Burke are argumentative. 
 
 Narratives have been variously classified but a 
 classification of them is not more satisfactory than 
 of other forms of literature. A narrative is true 
 or fictitious, and there appears the first principle 
 of classification. Truthful narratives are personal 
 when they are the simple account of the deeds of 
 some person or thing, biographical when they show 
 a clear and evident purpose to detail the events in 
 the life of the person, historical when they deal 
 with larger and more complicated questions and 
 when the actors are as numerous as the actions 
 are various. Fictitious narratives comprise short 
 stories and novels. Of the latter there are many 
 forms as has been explained elsewhere. One 
 prominent writer notes the following types: (i) 
 The realistic novel that is true to actual life and 
 often enters into the discussion of important ques- 
 tions of record. (2) The novel of life and man- 
 ners which is largely descriptive and in which the 
 exigencies of the plot give way to the study of 
 customs. (3) The novel of incident in which the 
 plot is everything and description and character 
 study are avoided or subordinated to action. (4) 
 The romance which deals with things as they were 
 in days long past and with actions that little con- 
 cern the present. Marvelous and even supernatu- 
 ral incidents crowd its pages. (5) The idealistic 
 
 »3
 
 #orm ot pco^e Compositions 
 
 novel which paints the world as it should be and 
 makes its actors more nearly perfect than the 
 world accepts as typical. (6) The novel with a 
 purpose which seeks to convert its readers by the 
 vividness of its portraits rather than by argument, 
 though by means of many detailed conversations 
 its theories are often freely discussed and fully 
 substantiated. 
 
 Description deals with the individual and not 
 with the class. A fine description is a work of art 
 in its highest sense and is closely allied to painting, 
 than which it is even more delicate and refined; 
 for while the painter lays his color on the canvas 
 and our eyes see the entire picture in all its minut- 
 est detail, the writer can only suggest the idea and 
 stimulate the imagination to create for itself the 
 picture in the mind of the artist. Yet such is the 
 marvelous power of words when handled by a 
 master that one can see by them almost as vividly 
 as by the sense of sight. The reader is transported 
 to far-away lands, strange men and animals surround 
 him, the skies glare above him, silver lakes sparkle 
 in the sun, brooks murmur against their fern- 
 covered sides, and birds move the soul with their 
 sweet music. Evening draws on, and the land- 
 scape glimmering fades away; the stars come out 
 one by one and by and by the moon steals slowly 
 up the sky. Peace and quiet reign over the 
 darkened world. Neither sculpture nor painting can 
 depict these changes; it rests with the magic of 
 
 H
 
 jForms of iprose Compositton 
 
 words. But the reader must do his share. ■ He 
 must give time to his reading, must yield him- 
 self gently to its influence, must not force him- 
 self into the writer's mood but must receive and 
 accept. Then descriptive literature will yield its 
 keenest pleasures. 
 
 Exposition on the other hand deals with the class 
 and is abstract. For this very reason the demands 
 made upon its reader are infinitely greater. It is 
 assumed that the concrete examples and specific 
 instances necessary for the interpretation of the 
 abstract are already in mind and that the barest 
 allusion to them will be sufficient. So exposition 
 naturally follows narrative and description. 
 
 Successful argumentation depends upon proof 
 and persuasion. It is addressed to the reason or 
 to the emotions. Burke and Webster endeavor to 
 establish their respective positions by irrefutable 
 arguments. When Beecher addressed the people 
 on the slavery question he appealed strongly to 
 their emotions and sought to make them act be- 
 cause of their intense feeling. One characteristic 
 of all literary masterpieces is unity, but in none 
 is this of more importance than in the expository 
 and argumentative types. 
 
 IS
 
 StuMes 
 
 1. Find three descriptive passages in The Am- 
 hitious Guest; three in Wee Willie Winkie. 
 Which story contains the greater number of 
 descriptive passages ? 
 
 2. Look for argumentative passages in The 
 Great Stone Face. 
 
 3. Look for expository passages in the narra- 
 tives of the first two Parts. 
 
 4. Can you find narrative in any of the essays 
 of Parts Three and Four ? 
 
 5. Select a passage from Emerson's Self- Reli- 
 ance and set forth in logical order the steps in his 
 exposition. 
 
 16
 
 Stut)^ of an ©ration
 
 ©rations 
 
 With the study of the oration we enter a new 
 department of literature. The essay is written to 
 be read, the oration to be heard ; the essay is to 
 please, to entertain, perhaps to instruct, sometimes 
 to convince ; the oration is to arouse the feelings, 
 to carry conviction, to stir the public to action. 
 It is a formal production, addressed directly to 
 its hearers ; it is in form or meaning in the sec- 
 ond person. Even when descriptive or eulogistic 
 it is a direct address. The orator says, "These 
 are my opinions and here are my reasons for so 
 thinking. Will you not accept my view and think 
 and act accordingly ? " 
 
 The oration naturally divides itself into three 
 sections. There is an introduction in which the 
 speaker clears the way, opens the question and 
 lays down the principles he proposes to advocate, 
 or indicates the course of his argument. The 
 body follows. Here the principles are elucidated, 
 the arguments advanced and properly established, 
 or the descriptions elaborated and finished. The 
 last section is the conclusion which may consist of 
 a brief review or summary of the inferences 
 drawn, or of a plea for belief and for action in 
 accordance with the principles of the speaker. 
 
 19
 
 ©radons 
 
 As a final part of the conclusion there is often a 
 paragraph or so of most eloquent diction, the per- 
 oration. It is intended to appeal particularly to 
 the emotions of the hearers, to carry them out of 
 themselves, to move them in spite of themselves 
 and to leave them feeling intensely the earnestness 
 and sincerity of the speaker. 
 
 Before the art of printing was invented, public 
 opinion was molded almost entirely by public 
 speaking, and for a great many years afterward 
 the orator was the greatest of leaders. By the 
 magic of his eloquence he changed the views of 
 men and inspired them to deeds of greatest valor. 
 The fiery orations of a Demosthenes, of a Cicero; 
 the thrilling words of a Peter the Hermit or a 
 Savonarola; the unanswerable arguments of a 
 Burke or a Webster, have more than once turned 
 the course of history. 
 
 But when the newspaper first found its way into 
 the hands of thinking men the power of the orator 
 felt the influence of its silent opponent and began 
 to wane. To-day it is not often that multitudes 
 are swayed by a single voice. The debates and 
 stump-speeches of a political campaign change 
 but few votes. The preacher no longer depends 
 wholly upon the convincing power of his rhetoric 
 to make his converts. The representatives of a 
 people in a parliament or a congress speak that 
 their words may be heard through the newspapers 
 6y their constituents more than with the expecta- 
 
 20
 
 ©rations 
 
 tion that their speech will carry a measure through 
 the House they are addressing. 
 
 Yet we still listen with pleasure to a fervid speaker 
 whose earnestness of manner carries the convic- 
 tion of his sincerity, and even against our will we 
 are moved by elegant sentences and pleasing 
 tones. The orator will continue to be a power 
 though in a different way. Conditions, have 
 changed and the ponderous periods and elaborate 
 figures that characterized the orators of classic 
 epochs are giving place to the plain, lucid diction 
 and the simple, true-hearted tones of the modem 
 speaker. 
 
 Shakespeare puts into the mouth of Marc 
 Antony his famous oration over the dead body 
 of Csesar, and the course of a convincing argu- 
 ment was never more clearly seen than in the 
 actions of that ignorant body of Roman citizens. 
 Before an audience of nineteenth century laborers, 
 fresh from the perusal of their daily papers in 
 which headlines, skillfully colored reports, and 
 able editorials have shaped or perverted their 
 opinions, the Roman soldier would have produced 
 no such revolution in sentiment, however much 
 the people might have admired the skillful itera- 
 tion of his "honorable men" or the masterly 
 way in which he made prominent the good quali- 
 ties of his martyred chief. 
 
 Everyone admires the oration. "I come to 
 bury Caesar, not to praise him." There is no 
 
 31
 
 ©rations 
 
 hint of iiis r*,ul purpose. How readily he falls in 
 with the opinions of the populace loud in their 
 approbation of the acts of Brutus and his co- 
 conspirators ! With what ready tongue he de- 
 fends their acts and praises the "honorable" 
 intent which led them on ! Then little by little 
 as he has really gained the "ears" for which he 
 asked, with what delicate skill he lets his auditors 
 see his idea of the real character of Caesar, till 
 the gaping wounds become indeed dumb mouths 
 to plead against his murderers. When the time is 
 fully ripe he brings forth the will, but not until 
 the people wrought to the highest pitch of excite- 
 ment and as furious in their resentment as they 
 had been loud in their praise demand and insist 
 and virtually compel him to reveal its contents. 
 Then his conclusion follows with irresistible effect. 
 True, he was no orator as Brutus was, but a plain 
 man who had sounded the depths of the human 
 heart and learned the secrets of its action. After 
 all, that is oratory, and oratory of the most ac- 
 complished kind. 
 
 The true oration leads through the hearing to 
 conviction and to action. So the canons by which 
 one judges it must be different from those of any 
 other form of literature. The greatest speakers 
 have been plain men — many of them were not 
 highly educated, and some of them might be 
 called unlearned even. There are instances in 
 which the most polished oratory, that which 
 
 22
 
 (Orations 
 
 showed most conclusively the trained intellect 
 and which was fashioned with all the art that the 
 schools can give, has lost its power and is re- 
 membered only by the scholars who still point 
 with pride to its literary excellence. But the 
 burning thoughts of some less cultivated man 
 have become the household words of a nation. 
 The heart must go into an oration if it is to reach 
 an audience. 
 
 No great man was simpler in his tastes, plainer 
 in his manner, rougher in his exterior, than Abra- 
 ham Lincoln. Yet as a public speaker he has had 
 few equals. He grew up in the west. He lis- 
 tened to campaign speeches and read whatever he 
 could find. His clear vision pierced to the core 
 of a matter and he saw what was necessary to 
 make a convincing argument. To master these 
 essentials became his task — his pleasure. Sim- 
 plicity, directness, logic, brevity, he sought and 
 obtained. He gathered a wealth of illustration, 
 he mastered the art of vivid presentation, he mar- 
 shaled his facts in logical array, and threw his 
 whole soul into his delivery. With this equip- 
 ment he found his way into politics and entered 
 his memorable series of debates with Stephen A. 
 Douglas. 
 
 His success was known and appreciated in the 
 west and his reputation traveled eastward. With 
 no little trepidation in his own heart and some 
 fear in the minds of his warmest supporters he 
 
 23
 
 ©rations 
 
 finally stood before one of the largest and most 
 cultivated audiences the city of New York could 
 furnish, and again his convincing oratory made 
 its way. The self-trained western lawyer out- 
 shone the most brilliant and studied orators of 
 the great metropolis. 
 
 On the nineteenth day of November, 1863, a 
 great assembly gathered on the battlefield of Get- 
 tysburg. It was a day of solemn dedication. A 
 beautiful monument had been erected to those 
 who but four months before had given up their 
 lives to save the north from further invasion. It 
 was an important occasion, a day of studied cere- 
 mony. Edward Everett was the orator of the 
 day and had prepared himself with unwonted care 
 to do honor to the dead. His oration was long, 
 scholarly, perfect according to all the rules of his 
 art. It was one of his greatest efforts and his 
 hearers knew they had listened to a masterly crea- 
 tion. But it was forgotten when they heard a 
 simple little address delivered by the President of 
 the United States, Abraham Lincoln. Here is 
 what Lincoln said : 
 
 Fourscore and seven years ago, our fathers 
 brought forth on this continent a new nation, 
 conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the prop- 
 osition that all men are created equal. Now we 
 are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether 
 that nation, or any nation so conceived and so 
 
 24
 
 ©cations 
 
 dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a 
 great battlefield of that war. We have come to 
 dedicate a portion of that field as a final resting- 
 place for those who here gave their lives that that 
 nation might live. It is altogether fitting and 
 proper that we should do this. But in a larger 
 sense we cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, 
 we cannot hallow this ground. The brave men, 
 living and dead, who struggled here, have con- 
 secrated it far above our poor power to add or 
 detract. The world will little note, nor long re- 
 member, what we say here, but it can never forget 
 what they did here. It is for us, the living, rather 
 to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which 
 they who fought here have thus far so nobly ad- 
 vanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated 
 to the great task remaining before us, — that from 
 these honored dead we take increased devotion to 
 that cause for which they gave the last full meas- 
 ure of devotion, — that we here highly resolve that 
 these dead shall not have died in vain, — that this 
 nation, under God, shall have a new birth of free- 
 dom, — and that government of the people, by the 
 people, for the people, shall not perish from the 
 earth. 
 
 25
 
 (S>cat(ond 
 
 This little address contains but ten sentences, 
 and about two hundred seventy-five words. But 
 see how perfect it is ! Analyze the thought, sen- 
 tence by sentence, and see what perfect unity 
 characterizes it. It is difficult to make the sen- 
 tences shorter or simpler, but a tabulation may 
 help to the meaning at a single glance. The fig- 
 ures indicate the sentences taken in their natural 
 order. Read the outline carefully and notice that 
 the condensation has caused the omission of many 
 minor thoughts. 
 
 I. Introduction. 
 
 1. Spirit of the nation. 
 
 (a) Conceived in liberty. 
 
 (b) Dedicated to equality. 
 
 2. Shall such a nation endure ? 
 
 The war will determine. 
 
 3. Where we meet. 
 
 A great battlefield. 
 
 4. Why we meet. 
 
 To dedicate. 
 
 5. A fitting meeting. 
 
 II. Body. 
 
 6. Impossible, in a larger sense, to dedicate. 
 
 7. Because the soldiers dedicated more per- 
 
 fectly. 
 
 8. World's opinion of: 
 
 (a) Our words. 
 
 (b) The soldiers' deeds. 
 
 26
 
 ©cations 
 
 III. Conclusion. 
 
 9-10. Our duty: 
 
 (a) To be dedicated. 
 
 (b) To take increased devotion. 
 
 (c) To resolve: 
 
 (x) That their deaths shall not be in 
 vain. 
 
 (2) That this nation shall have 
 
 greater freedom. 
 
 (3) That the people's government 
 
 shall not perish. 
 
 When the thought has been mastered, consider 
 the sentences separately, noticing their form and 
 the words that compose them. Can redundant 
 words be found ? Can different words or phrases 
 be substituted for the ones given here without 
 destroying the euphony or the meaning ? Is 
 there anything in the order of arrangement of 
 words that does not please you ? In the sixth 
 sentence compare in meaning the words dedicate, 
 consecrate and hallow. Which is the strongest? 
 Is the reason given sufficient to account for our in- 
 ability ? The eighth sentence is a noteworthy one 
 in its perfect balance. How many sets of words 
 are placed in opposition ? What is meant by the 
 "last full measure of devotion"? Is the expres- 
 sion an apt and beautiful one ? What is the dis- 
 tinction in meaning among the three phrases, of 
 the people, by the people, and for the people ? 
 
 27
 
 ®tat(on0 
 
 Is the difference in meaning sufficient to account 
 for their use ? Does the similarity in form, the 
 apparent repetition, add to the force ? Which is 
 the best sentence, everything considered? Are 
 the sentences arranged in order of climax, the 
 most important and most sonorous last? How 
 do the various sentences compare in length ? 
 
 When the address has been studied by this out- 
 line, and the questions answered to the satisfaction 
 of the reader, it will begin to be manifest why this 
 is, in spite of its brevity, one of the world's great 
 orations. 
 
 28
 
 General Dtrectfons 
 
 In the study of an oration the student should 
 first read it through from beginning to end. Then 
 he should determine how much of it may be 
 considered as introductory, what part of it is 
 the body, and where the conclusion properly 
 begins. This done he should prepare a careful 
 outline of the thought in each section. In the in- 
 troduction he should consider the purpose of that 
 section and its relation to the body. His analy- 
 sis of the body of the discourse should show the 
 chief line of thought and the secondary or con- 
 tributory lines. He should weigh the arguments 
 advanced and consider for himself whether these 
 are logical and convincing. Then he should take 
 up the conclusion to judge whether it follows 
 naturally and logically from the rest of the ora- 
 tion and whether it is convincingly stated and 
 adds to the force of the argument. If it is a 
 summary of facts, is it a true one and are the 
 facts put in an effective form and arrangement so 
 they assist in making the desired impression? 
 The student here as elsewhere in this course 
 should not hesitate to write the results of his own 
 thinking and to put into his own language the 
 thoughts of the author. Often in this attempt he 
 convicts himself of error or clarifies the meaning 
 of many an obscure statement. To condense into 
 
 29
 
 General Pirectfottd 
 
 as brief space as possible the thoughts of an ora- 
 tion is excellent practice. In doing this, note 
 how much has been put in merely for the sake of 
 sound. All the illustrative facts, all the figures 
 that add merely to the beauty or the convincing 
 force can be ruthlessly set aside and the barest 
 statement of facts alone preserved. It is sometimes 
 almost startling to see how much has been said for 
 effect and how many times the changes have been 
 rung on the same idea. As the speech is primarily 
 to be heard, much care has been given by the 
 author to clothing his thoughts in euphonious 
 words and to arranging them in effective and mel- 
 odious order. 
 
 In an oration repetition, which in other forms 
 of literature is annoying, may become a merit. For 
 once again it must be remembered that the oration 
 is to be caught by ear and the hearer cannot 
 ponder over everything that is said but must 
 hasten on to other ideas as rapidly as the speaker 
 utters them. Skillful repetition with attractive 
 variation is exceedingly effective. 
 
 The personal element is a factor of great im- 
 portance. In fiction, in the essay, and in most 
 forms of poetry, the reader is often left in doubt 
 as to the real feeling, the sincere belief of the 
 writer. But in the oration the student has a 
 right to assume that the speaker is voicing his own 
 sentiments, is advocating the principles he intends 
 to follow. Often the orator brings his own per- 
 
 30
 
 ©eneral SJlrecttons 
 
 sonality into the foreground and here the student 
 will consider the purpose indicated by such a 
 course and whether by so doing the author has 
 made himself more effective, or has lessened the 
 force of his arguments by the very prominence he 
 has given himself. How much of Webster's reply 
 to Hayne is purely personal ? What justification 
 has Webster for making himself the central figure 
 of the early pages of his debate ? Does he obtrude 
 himself into the argument when he has once begun 
 upon the main question ? How much of the per- 
 sonal element appears in the conclusion ? Would 
 the general effect of the speech have been intensi- 
 fied if he had made it much less personal? 
 
 Other questions will occur to the reader. Does 
 the speaker confine himself closely to his argument, 
 or does he at times desist, perhaps introduce 
 something to enliven his remarks, to catch the 
 wavering attention of his hearers ? Does he ever 
 rise above the special instance which he is con- 
 sidering and utter broad and general truths in 
 startling or convincing form? Can you find 
 single sentences which may be taken bodily from 
 the text and be in themselves complete and strik- 
 ing statements beautifully expressed ? 
 
 Are there passages of unusual eloquence, and 
 what relation do they bear to others ? Do they 
 follow or precede the arguments and proofs ? Do 
 they show that the speaker has convinced himself ? 
 Select for frequent reading a number of the pas- 
 
 31
 
 (5eneral Bltectiong 
 
 sages that you admire and try to determine what 
 constitutes their charm. 
 
 In Webster's speech, where does the peroration 
 begin ? If it were taken from the oration would 
 it be considered eloquent and thrilling ? Does 
 it depend directly upon the preceding arguments, 
 or does it seem like a patriotic outburst from a 
 heart full of feeling ? Read it aloud. Is it pleas- 
 ing to the ear, sonorous and rhythmical ? Are all 
 the sentences well balanced ? As you read do 
 the thoughts flow smoothly and join readily as 
 though one followed necessarily from another, 
 and do they increase in intensity to the end ? 
 If so, this peroration is a clwiax in form as it is 
 the climax of the speech. 
 
 As elsewhere in the course, the questions we 
 print can be little more than suggestive. When 
 one studies by himself he must cultivate an inquir- 
 ing frame of mind, he must learn to quiz himself 
 and to answer his questions to the satisfaction of 
 his own reason. In this way he will eventually 
 gain a power that no class instruction could possi- 
 bly give him. He will make mistakes and form 
 erroneous judgments, but the questioning habit 
 will eventually convict him of his errors and he 
 will revise his opinions till in the end he finds 
 himself more firmly established in right views than 
 if his correct ideas had been at first established by 
 the ablest instructors. Besides he will have an 
 independence of mind and clearness of thought 
 that can be acquired in no way but by self-reliant 
 thinking. 
 
 32
 
 Daniel TOebster
 
 Among the eminent men who have influenced 
 legislative assemblies in Great Britain and the 
 United States, during the past hundred and 
 twenty years, it is curious that only two have 
 established themselves as men of the first class in 
 English and American literature. These two men 
 are Edmund Burke and Daniel Webster. — E. P. 
 Whipple.
 
 Daniel Webster 
 
 1^82-1852 
 
 As a patriotic orator Daniel Webster will always 
 stand the foremost American. Of commanding 
 presence, with a courtesy and graciousness of 
 manner that never failed to please, he secured a 
 loyal following wherever he went, and for years 
 was the greatest power in American politics though 
 he was never able to secure the highest office his 
 country had to offer. 
 
 His education was acquired under the most ad- 
 verse conditions. His parents were poor and 
 though ambitious for their son were able to assist 
 him but little. Moreover he was delicate and 
 often feeble and gave little promise of being the 
 large and powerful man he became. By his own 
 exertions and the practice of rigid economy, aided 
 by warm personal friends and the loving care of 
 his parents, he gained his preparatory education 
 and was able to enter Dartmouth College at the 
 age of fifteen. While at Exeter in preparation 
 for college he found his greatest trouble in his 
 public declamations. " Many a piece did I com- 
 mit to memory, and recite and rehearse in my own 
 room, over and over again; yet when the day 
 came, when the school collected to hear declama- 
 tions, when my name was called, and I saw all 
 
 35
 
 Daniel TKflebster 
 
 eyes turned to my seat, I could not raise myself 
 from it. When the occasion was over I went 
 home and wept bitter tears of mortification." 
 
 After leaving Dartmouth he studied law and in 
 1805 was admitted to the bar. He rapidly be- 
 came prominent in his profession and finally set- 
 tled at Boston. He was elected to Congress and 
 for thirty-four years was in public life as repre- 
 sentative, as senator, and twice as Secretary of 
 State. 
 
 His two speeches at the Bunker Hill Monu- 
 ment, his eulogy on Jefferson and Adams, and his 
 speech in the White murder trial, together with 
 his Reply to Hayne, are his greatest efforts and 
 are worthy their reputation among the finest ex- 
 amples of classic eloquence. 
 
 Some knowledge of the circumstances under 
 which his Reply to Hayne was given is necessary 
 to an appreciation of it. 
 
 On the twenty-ninth of December, 1829, Mr. 
 Foote of Connecticut introduced the apparently 
 harmless resolution which precipitated the great 
 debate. It was a simple inquiry into the quantity 
 of public lands unsold and into the expediency of 
 abolishing some of the land offices and of limiting 
 or hastening the sales of such lands. The south- 
 em members claimed to see in this resolution some 
 menace to their rights and the opportunity was 
 seized to make a bitter personal attack upon New 
 England men, and Mr. Webster in particular. 
 
 36
 
 Daniel "Mcbetct 
 
 Webster had nothing to do with the introduc- 
 tion of the resolution and did not know it would 
 be made the occasion for such a debate. It is 
 claimed by some that the whole attack was part of 
 a formal conspiracy to overthrow Webster's power 
 and influence and array the new west against New 
 England and its leaders, while the south was to be 
 considered the sympathetic ally of the west. 
 
 The debate continued with occasional interrup- 
 tions for four months and engaged the greatest 
 men of both parties. Benton and Hayne were 
 most conspicuous in vituperative brilliancy and 
 vehement offensiveness. Others sided with them. 
 President Jackson was openly and consistently op- 
 posed to Webster, and Vice-President John C. 
 Calhoun, the presiding officer of the Senate, Avas 
 an avowed leader, and a frequent aid to Hayne in 
 his last brilliant speech. 
 
 It was on Monday, the i8th of January, that 
 Benton and Hayne made their first violent attack 
 upon New England. Though their bitterness and 
 virulency surprised Mr. Webster he arose to re- 
 ply but yielded to an adjournment as it was then 
 a late hour. The next day he replied but his 
 speech was not conclusive. 
 
 On Thursday the debate was resumed by Mr. 
 Hayne. Webster was engaged in an important 
 case before the Supreme Court and his attendance 
 there seemed necessary, but though a friend 
 asked an adjournment, to enable Webster to be 
 
 37
 
 S>anlcl mebstcc 
 
 present, Hayne would not consent. He said he 
 had something here (placing his hand on his 
 heart) that he wished to get rid of. Webster had 
 discharged his fire in the face of the Speaker 
 and Hayne demanded an opportunity to return 
 the shot. An eye witness says: **Then it was 
 that Mr. Webster's person seemed to become 
 taller and bigger. His chest expanded and his 
 eyeballs dilated. Folding his arms in a composed, 
 firm and most expressive manner, he exclaimed : 
 'Let the discussion proceed. I am ready. I am 
 ready now to receive the gentleman's fire.'" 
 
 In the speech that followed, Hayne confident 
 of success used every art of the skillful debater 
 and showed himself a master of stinging eloquence. 
 What he said, at least many of the most caustic 
 remarks, may be inferred from Webster's reply 
 but the effect of his words can only be imagined. 
 His friends crowded around him and were as con- 
 fident of victory as their arrogant leader. 
 
 This was on Thursday. An adjournment fol- 
 lowed and it was the Tuesday following, January 
 26, 1830, that Webster again appeared upon the 
 floor. In the meantime he had thought much, 
 and hesitated greatly whether it were best to 
 advance freely his views on the constitution, views 
 which came as the result of years of close study 
 and deep meditation. But his friends urged him 
 to withhold nothing, to crush at one blow the 
 doctrine of a state's right to nullify a law of the 
 
 38
 
 Daniel limetjstet 
 
 government, for to this point had the debate now 
 swung. Accordingly when the hour arrived, the 
 great orator was fully prepared to defend himself 
 and his New England friends and then to unfold 
 this most masterly exposition of the relation of 
 the constitution to the states. 
 
 At the capital, interest was never greater. 
 Other public business was at a standstill; the 
 House of Representatives was deserted, its mem- 
 bers crowding into the Senate which was full to 
 its utmost, long before the speech began. The 
 galleries, the floor, the aisles, and the space about 
 the President's desk, were all filled with expectant 
 men. Such an audience has rarely met a speaker 
 and not often has an orator held an audience in 
 such spell-bound attention. Master of his sub- 
 ject and master of his hearers, Webster began. 
 He was in the very perfection of his manhood, 
 strong, imposing, self-reliant. His tremendous 
 personal vigor and his dignified poise, his stal- 
 wart frame and massive head, his fiery eyes glanc- 
 ing beneath their overhanging brows, and his deep 
 and resonant voice, all united to lend force and 
 conviction to his ponderous rhetoric. 
 
 Though much of his speech is argumentation, 
 plain and unadorned, yet those who listened never 
 abated their thrilling interest till the orator had 
 ceased. One who was present says: *'The 
 speech was over, but the tones of the orator still 
 lingered upon the ear, and the audience, uncon- 
 
 39
 
 Daniel TKUcbstcr 
 
 scious of its close, retained their position. The 
 agitated countenance, the heaving breast, the 
 suffused eye, attested the continued influence of 
 the spell upon them. Hands that in the excite- 
 ment of the moment had sought each other, still 
 remained closed in unconscious grasp. Eye still 
 turned to eye, to receive and repay mutual sym- 
 pathy, and everywhere around seemed forgetful- 
 ness of all but the orator's presence and words." 
 
 40
 
 >, 
 
 b 
 
 to 
 C 
 
 C 
 
 c
 
 IRepli^ to Ibai^ne 
 
 DANIEL WEBSTER
 
 IRepli? to Iba^ne 
 
 In the U. S. Senate, January 26, i8jo. 
 
 Mr. President, — When the mariner has 
 been tossed for many days in thick weather 
 and on an unknown sea, he naturally avails 
 himself of the first pause in the storm, the 
 earliest glance of the sun, to take his latitude 
 and ascertain how far the elements have driven 
 him from his true course. Let us imitate this 
 prudence, and, before we float farther on the 
 waves of this debate, refer to the point from 
 which we departed, that we may at least be 
 able to conjecture where we now are. I ask 
 for the reading of the resolution. 
 
 The secretary read the resolution, as 
 follows : 
 
 ''Resolved, That the committee on public 
 lands be instructed to inquire and report the 
 quantity of public lands remaining unsold 
 within each State and Territory, and whether 
 it be expedient to limit for a certain period the 
 sales of the pubhc lands to such lands only as 
 
 Note. — Owing to the great length of this speech some portions have 
 been omitted, but enough of comment is made in their places to preserve 
 the meaning of the context. 
 
 43
 
 IReplB to Ibagnc 
 
 have heretofore been offered for sale, and are 
 now subject to entry at the minimum price. 
 And, also, whether the office of surveyor- 
 general, and some of the land offices, may not 
 be abolished without detriment to the public 
 interest ; or whether it be expedient to adopt 
 measures to hasten the sales and extend more 
 rapidly the surveys of the public lands. ' ' 
 
 We have thus heard, sir, what the resolu- 
 tion is which is actually before us for consid- 
 eration ; and it will readily occur to every one 
 that it is almost the only subject about which 
 something has not been said in the speech, 
 running through two days, by which the senate 
 has been now entertained by the gentleman 
 from South Carolina. Every topic in the 
 wide range of our pubHc affairs, whether past 
 or present — everything, general or local, 
 whether belonging to national politics or party 
 politics — seems to have attracted more or less 
 of the honorable member's attention, save 
 only the resolution before the senate. He 
 has spoken of everything but the public lands ; 
 they have escaped his notice. To that sub- 
 ject, in all his excursions, he has not paid 
 even the cold respect of a passing glance. 
 
 When this debate, sir, was to be resumed, 
 on Thursday morning, it so happened that it 
 
 44
 
 IReplB to Dasne 
 
 would have been convenient for me to be else- 
 v^here.^ The honorable member, however, 
 did not incline to put off the discussion to 
 another day. He had a shot, he said, to 
 return, and he wished to discharge it. That 
 shot, sir, which it was kind thus to inform us 
 was coming, that we might stand out of the 
 way, or prepare ourselves to fall before it and 
 die with decency, has now been received. 
 Under all advantages, and with expectation 
 awakened by the tone which preceded it, it 
 has been discharged, and has spent its force. 
 It may become me to say no more of its 
 effect, than that, if nobody is found, after all, 
 either killed or wounded by it, it is not the 
 first time, in the history of human affairs, that 
 the vigor and success of the war have not 
 quite come up to the lofty and sounding phrase 
 of the manifesto. 
 
 The gentleman, sir, in declining to postpone 
 the debate, told the senate, with the emphasis 
 of his hand upon his heart, that there was 
 something rankling here, which he wished to 
 relieve. 
 
 I. Mr. Webster was one of the attorneys in an important case known 
 as Carriers' Lessees against John Jacob Astor, then on trial before the 
 supreme court. 
 
 45
 
 TRepIs to Ibaisnc 
 
 [Mr. Hayne rose and disclaimed the use of tht 
 word rankiing.'\ 
 
 It would not, sir, be safe for the honorable 
 member to appeal to those around him, upon 
 the question whether he did in fact make use 
 of that word. But he may have been uncon- 
 scious of it. At any rate, it is enough that he 
 disclaims it. But still, with or without the use 
 of that particular word, he had yet something 
 here, he said, of which he wished to rid him- 
 self by an immediate reply. In this respect, 
 sir, I have a great advantage over the honor- 
 able gentleman. There is nothing here, sir, 
 which gives me the slightest uneasiness; neither 
 fear, nor anger, nor that which is sometimes 
 more troublesome than either, the conscious- 
 ness of having been in the wrong. There is 
 nothing either originating here, or now received 
 here, by the gentleman's shot. Nothing origi- 
 nating here, for I had not the slightest feeling 
 of disrespect or unkindness toward the honor- 
 able member. Some passages,^ it is true, had 
 occurred since our acquaintance in this body, 
 which I could have wished might have been 
 
 2. The Panama Congress was called by the Republic of South 
 America in 1826. President Adams, Webster and some others were 
 strongly in favor of the meeting, and delegates were sent by the United 
 States. Webster called on the President for instructions to these ministers. 
 Hayne vigorously opposed the entire movement. 
 
 46
 
 IRcpIis to Iba^ne 
 
 otherwise; but I had used philosophy and for- 
 gotten them. When the honorable member 
 rose in his first speech, I paid him the respect 
 of attentive hstening; and when he sat down, 
 though surprised, and I must say even aston- 
 ished, at some of his opinions, nothing was 
 farther from my intention than to commence 
 any personal warfare. And through the whole 
 of the few remarks I made in answer, I 
 avoided, studiously and carefully, everything 
 which I thought possible to be construed into 
 disrespect. And, sir, while there is thus 
 nothing originating here which I wished at 
 any time, or now wish, to discharge, I must 
 repeat also, that nothing has been received 
 here which rankles, or in any way gives me 
 annoyance. I will not accuse the honorable 
 member of violating the rules of civilized war; 
 I will not say that he poisoned his arrows. 
 But whether his shafts were, or were not, 
 dipped in that which would have caused rank- 
 ling if they had reached, there was not, as it 
 happened, quite strength enough in the bow 
 to bring them to their mark. If he wishes 
 now to gather up those shafts he must look 
 for them elsewhere; they will not be found 
 fixed and quivering in the object at which 
 they were aimed. 
 
 47
 
 IReplB to Ibagne 
 
 The honorable member complained that I 
 had slept on his speech. I must have slept 
 on it, or not slept at all. The moment the 
 honorable member sat down, his friend from 
 Missouri' rose, and, with much honeyed com- 
 mendation of the speech, suggested that the 
 impressions which it had produced were too 
 charming and delightful to be disturbed by 
 other sentiments or other sounds, and pro- 
 posed that the senate should adjourn. Would 
 it have been quite amiable in me, sir, to inter- 
 rupt this excellent good feeling ? Must I not 
 have been absolutely malicious, if I could have 
 thrust myself forward, to destroy sensations 
 thus pleasing ? Was it not much better and 
 kinder, both to sleep upon them myself, and 
 to allow others also the pleasure of sleeping 
 upon them ? But if it be meant, by sleeping 
 upon his speech, that I took time to prepare 
 a reply to it, it is quite a mistake. Owing to 
 other engagements, I could not employ even 
 the interval between the adjournment of the 
 senate and its meeting the next morning, in 
 attention to the subject of this debate. Nev- 
 ertheless, sir, the mere matter of fact is un- 
 doubtedly true. I did sleep on the gentle- 
 
 3. Hon. Thomas H. Benton. 
 
 48
 
 TRepli? to Dasnc 
 
 man's speech, and slept soundly. And I slept 
 equally well on his speech of yesterday, to 
 which I am now replying. It is quite possible 
 that in this respect, also, I possess some 
 advantage over the honorable member, at- 
 tributable, doubtless, to a cooler tempera- 
 ment on my part; for, in truth, I slept upon 
 his speeches remarkably well. 
 
 But the gentleman inquires why he was 
 made the object of such a reply. Why was 
 he singled out } If an attack has been made 
 on the east, he, he assures us, did not begin it; 
 it was made by the gentleman from Missouri. 
 Sir, I answered the gentleman's speech be- 
 cause I happened to hear it; and because, 
 also, I chose to give an answer to that 
 speech, which, if unanswered, I thought most 
 likely to produce injurious impressions. I did 
 not stop to inquire who was the original 
 drawer of the bill. I found a responsible 
 indorser before me, and it was my purpose to 
 hold him Uable, and to bring him to his just 
 responsibihty without delay. But, sir, this 
 mterrogatory of the honorable member was 
 only introductory to another. He proceeded 
 to ask me whether I had turned upon him, in 
 this debate, from the consciousness that 1 
 
 49
 
 IReplB to tbagne 
 
 should find an overmatch, if I ventured on a 
 contest with his friend from Missouri.* If, 
 sir, the honorable member, ex gratia modes- 
 ti(E,^ had chosen thus to defer to his friend, 
 and to pay him a compliment, without inten- 
 tional disparagement to others, it would have 
 been quite according to the friendly courtesies 
 of debate, and not at all ungrateful to my own 
 feelings. I am not one of those, sir, who 
 esteem any tribute of regard, whether light 
 and occasional, or more serious and delib- 
 erate, which may be bestowed on others, as 
 so much unjustly withholden from themselves. 
 But the tone and manner of the gentleman's 
 question forbid me thus to interpret it. I 
 am not at liberty to consider it as nothing 
 more than a civility to his friend. It had an 
 air of taunt and disparagement, something of 
 the loftiness of asserted superiority, which 
 does not allow me to pass it over without 
 notice. It was put as a question for me to 
 answer, and so put as if it were difficult for 
 me to answer, whether I deemed the member 
 from Missouri an overmatch for myself in 
 
 4. During the course of the debate upon Foote's resolutions, Mr. Hayne 
 and Mr. Benton had condemned the policy of the eastern states as being 
 illiberal to the west. Mr. Webster replied in vindication of New Eng- 
 land and the policy of the government. 
 
 5. From modest grace. 
 
 50
 
 IRepls to Iba^nc 
 
 debate here. It seems to me, sir, that this is 
 extraordinary language, and an extraordinary 
 tone for the discussions of this body. 
 
 Matches and overmatches ! Those terms 
 are more appHcable elsewhere than here, and 
 fitter for other assemblies than this. Sir, the 
 gentleman seems to forget where and what 
 we are. This is a senate, a senate of equals, 
 of men of individual honor and personal char- 
 acter, and of absolute independence. We 
 know no masters, we acknowledge no dicta- 
 tors. This is a hall for mutual consultation 
 and discussion; not an arena for the exhibition 
 of champions. I offer myself, sir, as a match 
 for no man ; I throw the challenge of debate 
 at no man's feet. But then, sir, since the 
 honorable member has put the question in a 
 manner that calls for an answer, I will give 
 him an answer ; and I tell him, that, holding 
 myself to be the humblest of the members 
 here, I yet know nothing in the arm of his 
 friend from Missouri, either alone or when 
 aided by the arm of his friend from South 
 Carolina, that need deter even me from 
 espousing whatever opinions I may choose to 
 espouse, from debating whenever I may 
 choose to debate, or from speaking whatever 
 I may see fit to say, on the floor of the senate, 
 
 5»
 
 IRcplg to Ibasne 
 
 But, sir, the coalition ! " The coalition ! 
 Ay, " the murdered coalition ! " The gentle- 
 man asks, if I were led or frighted into this 
 debate by the specter of the coalition. ' ' Was 
 it the ghost of the murdered coalition," he 
 exclaims, "which haunted the member from 
 Massachusetts, and which, hke the ghost of 
 Banquo,'' would never down?" "The mur- 
 dered coalition ! " Sir, this charge of a coa- 
 lition, in reference to the late administration, 
 is not original with the honorable member. 
 It did not spring up in the senate. Whether 
 as a fact, as an argument, or as an embel- 
 lishment, it is all borrowed. He adopts it, 
 indeed, from a very low origin, and a still 
 lower present condition. It is one of the 
 thousand calumnies with which the press 
 teemed during an excited political canvass. 
 It was a charge, of which there was not 
 only no proof or probability, but which was 
 
 6. The coalition. There were four candidates at the presidential 
 election in 1824. As no candidate received a majority of the electoral 
 votes, the election went to the House of Representatives. The friends 
 of John Quincy Adams and Henry Clay united and elected Adams. The 
 Jacksonian party accused Clay of forming a coalition with Adams, and 
 selling out to him, on condition that Clay should be made secretary of 
 state. Clay was appointed to this position, and the belief that such a 
 bargain had been made was quite current for some years. A complete un- 
 derstanding of the situation later, however, entirely disproved the charge. 
 
 7. Banquo, murdered by Macbeth. The allusion is to the ghost that 
 appeared at th« banquet in Shakespeare's play. See Part Twelve, 
 
 52
 
 TRepls to t>n^nc 
 
 in itself wholly impossible to be true. No 
 man of common information ever believed a 
 syllable of it. Yet it was of that class of 
 falsehoods which, by continued repetition, 
 through all the organs of detraction and 
 abuse, are capable of misleading those who 
 are already far misled, and of further fanning 
 passion already kindling into flame. Doubt- 
 less it served in its day, and in greater or less 
 degree the end designed by it. Having done 
 that, it has sunk into the general mass of 
 stale and loathed calumnies. It is the very 
 cast-off slough of a polluted and shameless 
 press. Incapable of further mischief, it lies 
 in the sewer, lifeless and despised. It is not 
 now, sir, in the power of the honorable mem- 
 ber to give it dignity and decency, by attempt- 
 ing to elevate it, and to introduce it into the 
 senate. He can not change it from what it 
 is, an object of general disgust and scorn. 
 On the contrary, the contact, if he choose to 
 touch it, is more likely to drag him down, 
 down, to the place where it lies itself. 
 
 But, sir, the honorable member was not, 
 for other reasons, entirely happy in his allu- 
 sion to the story of Banquo's murder and 
 Banquo's ghost. It was not, I think, the 
 friends, but the enemies of the murdered 
 
 53
 
 IRepls to •©a^ne 
 
 Banquo, at whose bidding his spirit would not 
 down. The honorable gentleman is fresh in 
 his reading of the English classics, and can 
 put me right if I am wrong ; but, according to 
 my poor recollection, it was at those who had 
 begun with caresses and ended with foul and 
 treacherous murder that the gory locks were 
 shaken. The ghost of Banquo, like that of 
 Hamlet,* was an honest ghost. It disturbed 
 no innocent man. It knew where its appear- 
 ance would strike terror, and who would cry 
 out, A ghost ! It made itself visible in the 
 right quarter, and compelled the guilty and 
 the conscience-smitten, and none others, to 
 start, with, 
 
 * ' Prythee, see there ! behold ! — look ; lo ! 
 If I stand here, I saw him ! " 
 
 Their eyeballs were seared (was it not so, 
 sir.^) who had thought to shield themselves 
 by concealing their own hand, and laying the 
 imputation of the crime on a low and hirehng 
 agency in wickedness ; who had vainly at- 
 tempted to stifle the workings of their own 
 coward consciences by ejaculating through 
 
 8. The ghost of the king, Hamlet's father, that came to tell his son 
 how he had been murdered. 
 
 54
 
 TRepls to fbn^ne 
 
 white lips and chattering teeth, "Thou canst 
 not say I did it ! " I have misread the great 
 poet if those who had no way partaken in the 
 deed of the death either found that they were, 
 or feared that they should be, pushed from 
 their stools by the ghost of the slain, or ex- 
 claimed to a specter created by their own 
 fears and their own remorse, * * Avaunt ! and 
 quit our sight ! " 
 
 There is another particular, sir, in which 
 the honorable member's quick perception of 
 resemblances might, I should think, have 
 seen something in the story of Banquo mak- 
 ing it not altogether a subject of the most 
 pleasant contemplation. Those who mur- 
 dered Banquo, what did they win by it ? 
 Substantial good ? Permanent power ? Or 
 disappointment, rather, and sore mortifi- 
 cation ; dust and ashes the common fate of 
 vaulting ambition overleaping itself ? Did not 
 even-handed justice ere long commend the 
 poisoned chalice to their own lips ? Did they 
 not soon find that for another they had 
 "'filed their mind?" that their ambition, 
 though apparently for the moment successful, 
 had but put a barren scepter in their grasp ? 
 Ay, sir, 
 
 55
 
 ■ReplB to Dai5ne 
 
 * * a barren scepter in their gripe 
 
 Thence to be wrenched by an unlineal hand, 
 No son of theirs succeeding. 
 
 »> 9 
 
 Sir, I need pursue the allusion no farther. 
 I leave the honorable gentleman to run it out 
 at his leisure, and to derive from it all the 
 gratification it is calculated to administer. If 
 he finds himself pleased w^ith the associations, 
 and prepared to be quite satisfied, though the 
 parallel should be entirely completed, I had 
 almost said, I am satisfied also ; but that I 
 shall think of. Yes, sir, I will think of 
 that. . . . 
 
 I spoke, sir, of the Ordinance of 1787, 
 v/hich prohibited slavery, in all future times, 
 northwest of the Ohio, as a measure of great 
 vidsdom and foresight, and one which had 
 been attended with highly beneficial and per- 
 manent consequences. I supposed that, on 
 this point, no two gentlemen in the senate 
 could entertain different opinions. But the 
 simple expression of this sentiment has led the 
 gentleman, not only into a labored defense of 
 
 9. This is a sarcastic reference to Calhoun's future prospects. Cal- 
 houn was anxious to secure the next election to the presidency, but his 
 relations to President Jackson were such that it was evident that Van 
 Buren would be the choice of the party. 
 
 56
 
 TReplB to Dasne 
 
 slavery, in the abstract and on principle, but 
 also into a warm accusation against me, as 
 having attacked the system of domestic 
 slavery now existing in the southern states. 
 For all this there was not the slightest founda- 
 tion in anything said or intimated by me. I 
 did not utter a single word which any ingenu- 
 ity could torture into an attack on the slavery 
 of the south. I said, only, that it was highly 
 wise and useful, in legislating for the north- 
 w estern country while it was yet a wilderness, 
 to prohibit the introduction of slaves; and 
 added, that I presumed there was in the 
 neighboring state of Kentucky no reflecting 
 and intelligent gentleman who would doubt 
 that, if the same prohibition had been ex- 
 tended at the same early period, over that 
 commonwealth, her strength and population 
 would, at this day, have been far greater than 
 they are. If these opinions be thought doubt- 
 ful, they are nevertheless, I trust, neither 
 extraordinary nor disrespectful. They attack 
 nobody and menace nobody. And yet, sir, 
 the gentleman's optics have discovered, even 
 in the mere expresssion of this sentiment, what 
 he calls the very spirit of the Missouri ques- 
 tion. He represents me as making an onset 
 on the whole south, and manifesting a spirit 
 
 57
 
 "KeplB to ta^nc 
 
 which would interfere with and disturb their 
 domestic condition ! 
 
 Sir, this injustice no otherwise surprises me, 
 than as it is committed here, and committed 
 without the shghtest pretense of ground for it. 
 I say it only surprises me as being done here; 
 for I know full well, that it is and has been, 
 the settled policy of some persons in the 
 south, for years, to represent the people of 
 the north as disposed to interfere with them 
 in their own exclusive and peculiar concerns. 
 This is a delicate and sensitive point in 
 southern feeling; and of late years it has al- 
 ways been touched, and generally with effect, 
 whenever the object has been to unite the 
 whole south against northern men or northern 
 measures. This feeling, always carefully kept 
 alive, and maintained at too intense a heat to 
 admit discrimination or reflection, is a lever 
 of great power in our political machine. It 
 moves vast bodies, and gives to them one and 
 the same direction. But it is without any 
 adequate cause, and the suspicion which exists 
 is wholly groundless. There is not, and never 
 has been, a disposition in the north to inter- 
 fere with these interests of the south. Such 
 interference has never been supposed to be 
 within the power of government; nor has it 
 
 58 
 
 1
 
 IRcplB to Daisnc 
 
 been in any way attempted. The slavery of 
 the south has always been regarded as a mat- 
 ter of domestic policy, left with the states 
 themselves, and with which the federal govern- 
 ment had nothing to do. Certainly, sir, I am, 
 and ever have been, of that opinion. The 
 gentleman, indeed, argues that slavery, in the 
 abstract, is no evil. Most assuredly I need 
 not say I differ with him, altogether and most 
 widely, on that point. I regard domestic 
 slavery as one of the greatest of evils, both 
 moral and political. But though it be a 
 malady, and whether it be curable, and if so, 
 by what means; or, on the other hand, whether 
 it be the vulnus iutmedicabile^^ of the social 
 system, I leave it to those whose right and 
 duty it is to inquire and to decide. And 
 this I believe, sir, is, and uniformly has 
 been, the sentiment of the north. 
 
 (Several pages are here omitted. In them, 
 Webster looks a little into history. He reviews 
 the relation of slavery to the constitution and 
 shows that congress had passed resolutions deny- 
 ing the right of that body to interfere in the treat- 
 ment of slaves in any of the states, and this by a 
 congress composed largely of northern men. He 
 
 la Incurable wound. 
 
 59
 
 IReplB to Ibaigne 
 
 recognizes the advantages of representation to be 
 with the south, but does not complain. He favors 
 the constitution as it is and the Union as it is, but 
 he resents the imputation that he is seeking to ex- 
 tend the power of the government over the in- 
 ternal laws of the states. He discusses the Ordi- 
 nance of 1787, and shows that it was due to the 
 influence and votes of northern men that slavery 
 was prohibited in the Northwest Territory, and 
 that free schools were secured there.) 
 
 But as to the Hartford convention," sir, allow 
 me to say, that the proceedings of that body 
 seem now to be less read and studied in New 
 England than farther south. They appear to 
 be looked to, not in New England, but else- 
 where, for the purpose of seeing how far they 
 may serve as a precedent. But they will not 
 answer the purpose, they are quite too tame. 
 The latitude in which they originated was too 
 cold. Other conventions, of more recent 
 existence, have gone a whole bar's length 
 beyond it. The learned doctors of Colleton 
 
 It. The Hartford convention met at Hartford, Conn., Dec. 15, 1814. It 
 was composed of delegates from Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Rhode 
 Island, and was the outgrowth of the opposition of the Federalists to the 
 war. Its sessions were behind closed doors, and a report was falsely cir- 
 culated that it proposed measures leading to the secession of the New 
 England states from the Union. The proceedings brought discredit upon 
 the Federalists of New '^.ngland. 
 
 60
 
 IReplB to Ibasne 
 
 and Abbeville ^^ have pushed their commenta- 
 ries on the Hartford collect so far, that the 
 original text-writers are thrown entirely into 
 the shade. I have nothing to do, sir, with the 
 Hartford convention. Its journal, which the 
 gentleman has quoted, I never read. So far 
 as the honorable member may discover in its 
 proceedings a spirit in any degree resembling 
 that which was avowed and justified in those 
 other conventions to which I have alluded, 
 or so far as those proceedings can be shown 
 to be disloyal to the constitution, or tending to 
 disunion, so far I shall be as ready as any one 
 to bestow on them reprehension and censure. 
 Having dwelt long on this convention, and 
 other occurrences of that day, in the hope, 
 probably, (which will not be gratified,) that 
 I should leave the course of this debate to 
 follow him at length in those excursions, the 
 honorable member returned, and attenapted 
 another object. He referred to a speech of 
 mine in the other house, the same which I 
 had 'occasion to allude to myself, the other 
 day; and has quoted a passage or two from it. 
 
 12. Hayne was born in the Colleton district, and Calhoun in the Abbe- 
 ville district of South Carolina. Anti-tariff meetings had been held in 
 bof'> districts in 1828, and the reference is probably to them. 
 
 61
 
 tRcplg to IbaBne 
 
 with a bold, though uneasy and laboring air of 
 confidence, as if he had detected in me an 
 inconsistency. Judging from the gentleman's 
 manner, a stranger to the course of the debate 
 and to the point in discussion would have 
 imagined, from so triumphant a tone, that the 
 honorable member was about to overwhelm 
 me with a manifest contradiction. Any one 
 who heard him, and who had not heard what 
 I had, in fact, previously said, must have 
 thought me routed and discomfited, as the 
 gentleman had promised. Sir, a breath blows 
 all this triumph away. There is not the 
 slightest difference in the sentiments of my 
 remarks on the two occasions. What I said 
 here on Wednesday is in exact accordance 
 with the opinion expressed by me in the other 
 house in 1825. Though the gentleman had 
 the metaphysics of Hudibras,^^ though he 
 were able 
 
 " to sever and divide 
 A hair 'twixt north and northwest side," 
 
 he yet could not insert his metaphysical scis- 
 sors between the fair reading of my remarks in 
 1825 and what I said here last week. There 
 
 13. In Butler's satire a Presbyterian justice of the peace wlio sets out 
 to reform abuses, to suppress games and amusements. 
 
 62
 
 IRcpls to Iba^nc 
 
 is not only no contradiction, no difference, 
 but, in truth, too exact a similarity, both in 
 thought and language, to be entirely in just 
 taste. I had myself quoted the same speech; 
 had recurred to it, and spoke with it open 
 before me; and much of what I said was little 
 more than a repetition from it. 
 
 ***** 
 
 I need not repeat at large the general 
 topics of the honorable gentleman's speech. 
 When he said yesterday that he did not attack 
 the eastern states, he certainly must have 
 forgotten, not only particular remarks, but 
 the whole drift and tenor of his speech; unless 
 he means by not attacking, that he did not 
 commence hostilities, but that another had 
 preceded him in the attack. He, in the first 
 place, disapproved of the whole course of the 
 government, for forty years, in regard to its 
 disposition of the public land; and then, turn- 
 ing northward and eastward, and fancying he 
 had found a cause for alleged narrowness and 
 niggardUness in the "accursed policy " of the 
 tariff, to which he represented the people of 
 New England as wedded, he went on for a 
 full hour with remarks, the whole scope of 
 which was to exhibit the results of this policy, 
 
 ^3
 
 TReplg to Ibagne 
 
 in feelings and in measures unfavorable to the 
 west. I thought his opinions unfounded and 
 erroneous as to the general course of the 
 government, and ventured to reply to them. 
 The gentleman had remarked on the anal- 
 ogy of other cases, and quoted the conduct 
 of European governments toward their own 
 subjects settHng on this continent as in point, 
 to show that we had been harsh and rigid in 
 seUing, when we should have given the public 
 lands to settlers without price. I thought the 
 honorable member had suffered his judgment 
 to be betrayed by a false analogy ; that he was 
 struck with an appearance of resemblance 
 where there was no real simihtude. I think 
 so still. The first settlers of North America 
 were enterprising spirits, engaged in private 
 adventure, or fleeing from tyranny at home. 
 When arrived here, they were forgotten by 
 the mother country, or remembered only to 
 be oppressed. Carried away again by the 
 appearance of analogy, or struck with the elo- 
 quence of the passage, the honorable member 
 yesterday observed that the conduct of gov- 
 ernment toward the western emigrants, or my 
 representation of it, brought to his mind a 
 celebrated speech in the British parhament. 
 It was, sir, the speech of Qobnel Barre. On 
 
 64
 
 IReplg to Ibagne 
 
 the question of the stamp act, or tea tax, I 
 forget which, Colonel Barre had heard a 
 member on the treasury bench argue, that the 
 people of the United States, being British 
 colonists, planted by the maternal care, nour- 
 ished by the indulgence, and protected by the 
 arms of England, would not grudge their mite 
 to relieve the mother country from the heavy 
 burden under which she groaned. The lan- 
 guage of Colonel Barre, in reply to this, was : 
 "They planted by your care? Your oppres- 
 sion planted them in America. They fled 
 from your tyranny, and grew by your neglect 
 of them. So soon as you began to care for 
 them, you showed your care by sending per- 
 sons to spy out their liberties, misrepresent 
 their character, prey upon them, and eat out 
 their substance." 
 
 And how does the honorable gentleman 
 mean to maintain that language like this is 
 applicable to the conduct of the government 
 of the United States toward the western emi- 
 grants, or to any representation given by me 
 of that conduct ? Were the settlers in the 
 west driven thither by our oppression .? Have 
 they flourished only by our neglect of them ? 
 Has the government done nothing but to prey 
 upon them, and eat out their substance .-* Sir, 
 
 65
 
 IRcpls to "Ibasne 
 
 this fervid eloquence of the British speaker, 
 just when and where it was uttered, and fit to 
 remain an exercise for the schools, is not a 
 little out of place when it is brought thence to 
 be applied here, to the conduct of our own 
 country toward her own citizens. From America 
 to England, it may be true ; from Americans 
 to their own government, it would be strange 
 language. Let us leave it to be recited and 
 declaimed by our boys against a foreign 
 nation ; not introduce it here, to recite and 
 declaim ourselves against our own. 
 
 (Webster reiterates his views as to the proper 
 method of handling the public lands and brings 
 his opponent back to the real question. Has the 
 doctrine been advanced at the south or the east 
 that the population of the west should be retarded 
 or at least not be hastened ? Is this doctrine of 
 eastern origin ? New England is guiltless of any 
 such policy.) 
 
 We approach, at length, sir, to a more im- 
 portant part of the honorable gentleman's 
 observation. Since it does not accord with 
 my views of justice and policy to give away 
 the public lands altogether, as mere matter 
 of gratuity, I am asked by the honorable gen- 
 tleman on what ground it is that I consent 
 to vote them away in particular instances. 
 
 66
 
 TRcplg to Ibaisnc 
 
 How, he inquires, do I reconcile with these 
 professed sentiments my support of measures 
 appropriating portions of the lands to particu- 
 lar roads, particular canals, particular rivers, 
 and particular institutions of education in the 
 west ? This leads, sir, to the real and wide 
 difference in political opinion between the 
 honorable gentleman and myself. On my 
 part, I look upon all these objects as con- 
 nected with the common good, fairly em- 
 braced in its object and its terms ; he, on the 
 contrary, deems them all, if good at all, only 
 local good. This is our difference. The in- 
 terrogatory which he proceeded to put, at 
 once explains this difference. "What inter- 
 est," asks he, "has South Carolina in a canal 
 in Ohio.^" Sir, this very question is full of 
 significance. It develops the gentleman's 
 whole political system ; and its answer ex- 
 pounds mine. Here we differ. I look upon 
 a road over the Alleghanies, a canal round 
 the falls of the Ohio, or a canal or railway 
 from the Atlantic to the western waters, as 
 being an object large and extensive enough to 
 be fairly said to be for the common benefit." 
 
 14. The question of internal improvements at public expense was one 
 upon which the older political parties divided. Since 1789, money has 
 been steadily appropriated by congress for the building of lighthouses, 
 and other coast improvements, but the first actual appropriation for a 
 
 67
 
 IReplij to "fca^ne 
 
 The gentleman thinks otherwise, and this is 
 the key to his construction of the powers of 
 the government. He may well ask what in- 
 terest has South Carolina in a canal in Ohio. 
 On his system, it is true, she has no interest. 
 On that system, Ohio and Carolina are differ- 
 ent governments and different countries ; con- 
 nected here, it is true, by some slight and ill- 
 defined bond of union, but in all main respects 
 separate and diverse. On that system Caro- 
 hna has no more interest in a canal in Ohio 
 than in Mexico. The gentleman, therefore, 
 only follows out his own principles ; he does 
 no more than arrive at the natural conclusions 
 of his own doctrines ; he only announces the 
 true results of that creed which he has adopted 
 himself, and would persuade others to adopt, 
 when he thus declares that South Carolina 
 has no interest in a public work in Ohio. 
 
 Sir, we narrow-minded people of New 
 England do not reason thus. Our notion of 
 things is entirely different. We look upon 
 the states, not as separated, but as united. 
 We love to dwell on that union, and on the 
 
 strictly internal improvement was in 1806, when money was granted for 
 the construction of the Cumberland Road from Cumberland on the 
 Potomac to the Ohio. This road was continued as far as Illinois in 1838, 
 John Quincy Adams and his followers advocated such measures and the 
 fact was instrumental in his defeat for a second term. At the time of the 
 great debate the discussion of this policy was becoming somewhat bitter. 
 
 68
 
 ROBERT yOLWG HAYNE
 
 TRcplTS to Iba^ne 
 
 mutual happiness which it has so much pro- 
 moted, and the common renown which it has 
 so greatly contributed to acquire. In our con- 
 templation, Carolina and Ohio are parts of the 
 same country; states united under the same 
 general government, having interests com- 
 mon, associated, intermingled. In whatever 
 is within the proper sphere of the constitu- 
 tional power of this government, we look 
 upon the states as one. We do not impose 
 geographical limits to our patriotic feeling or 
 regard; we do not follow rivers and mountains, 
 and lines of latitude, to find boundaries be- 
 yond which public improvements do not benefit 
 us. We who come here as agents and repre- 
 sentatives of these narrow-minded and selfish 
 men of New England, consider ourselves as 
 bound to regard with an equal eye the good of 
 the whole, in whatever is within our power of 
 legislation. Sir, if a railroad or canal, begin- 
 ning in South Carolina and ending in South 
 Carolina, appeared to me to be of national 
 importance and national magnitude, believing, 
 as I do, that the power of government extends 
 to the encouragement of works of that de- 
 scription, if I were to stand up here and ask, 
 What interest has Massachusetts in a railroad 
 in South Carolina ? I should not be willing to 
 
 69
 
 IReplB to Ibagne 
 
 face my constituents. These same narrow- 
 minded men would tell me, that they had sent 
 me to act for the whole country, and that one 
 who possessed too little comprehension, either 
 of intellect or feeling, one who was not large 
 enough, both in mind and in heart, to em- 
 brace the whole, was not lit to be intrusted 
 with the interest of any part. 
 
 Sir, I do not desire to enlarge the powers of 
 the government by unjustifiable construction 
 nor to exercise any not within a fair inter- 
 pretation. But when it is believed that a 
 power does exist, then it is, in my judgment, 
 to be exercised for the general benefit of the 
 whole. So far as respects the exercise of 
 such a power, the states are one. It was the 
 very object of the constitution to create unity 
 of interests to the extent of the powers of the 
 general government. In war and peace we 
 are one; in commerce, one; because the 
 authority of the general government reaches 
 to war and peace, and to the regulation of 
 commerce. I have never seen any more 
 difficulty in erecting lighthouses on the lakes, 
 than on the ocean; in improving the harbors 
 of inland seas, than if they were within the ebb 
 and flow of the tide; or in removing obstruc- 
 tions in the vast streams of the west, more 
 
 70
 
 IRcpls to IDagnc 
 
 then in any work to facilitate commerce on 
 the Atlantic coast. If there be any power for 
 one, there is power also for the other ; and 
 they are all and equally for the common good 
 of the country. 
 
 (The proceeds of the public lands should be a 
 common fund for the benefit of the new states. 
 This principle northern votes have established. 
 Hayne has asked when, how, and why New Eng- 
 land votes were found going for measures favor- 
 able to the west, and insinuates that it began in 
 1825 and while a presidential election was pend- 
 ing-) 
 
 Sir, to these questions retort would be 
 justified; and it is both cogent and at hand. 
 Nevertheless, I will answer the inquiry, not 
 by retort, but by facts. I will tell the gentle- 
 man when, and how, and why New England 
 has supported measures favorable to the west. 
 I have already referred to the early history of 
 the government, to the first acquisition of the 
 lands, to the original laws for disposing of 
 them, and for governing the territories where 
 they lie ; and have shown the influence of 
 New England men and New England princi- 
 ples in all these leading measures. I should 
 not be pardoned were I to go over that ground 
 again. Coming to more recent times, and to 
 
 71
 
 TRcplg to Dasnc 
 
 measures of a less general character, I have 
 endeavored to prove that everything of this 
 kind, designed for western improvement, has 
 depended on the votes of New England ; all 
 this is true beyond the power of contradic- 
 tion. And now, sir, there are two measures 
 to which I will refer, not so ancient as to be- 
 long to the early history of the public lands, 
 and not so recent as to be on this side of the 
 period when the gentleman charitably imag- 
 ines a new direction may have been given to 
 New England feeling and New England votes. 
 These measures, and the New England votes 
 in support of them, may be taken as samples 
 and specimens of all the rest. 
 
 In 1820 (observe, Mr. President, in 1820), 
 the people of the west besought congress for 
 a reduction in the price of lands. In favor of 
 that reduction. New England, with a delega- 
 tion of forty members in the other house, gave 
 thirty-three votes, and one only against it. 
 The four southern states, with over fifty mem- 
 bers, gave thirty-two votes for it, and seven 
 against it. Again, in 1821 (observe again, sir, 
 the time), the law passed for the relief of the 
 purchasers of the public lands. This was a 
 measure of vital importance to the west, and 
 more especially to the southwest. It author- 
 
 72
 
 IRcplg to "toa^ne 
 
 ized the relinquishment of contracts for lands 
 which had been entered into at high prices, 
 and a reduction in other cases of not less 
 than thirty-seven and a half per cent on the 
 purchase-money. Many millions of dollars, 
 six or seven I believe, at least — probably much 
 more — were relinquished by this law. On 
 this bill, New England, with her forty mem- 
 bers, gave more affirmative votes than the 
 four southern states, with their fifty-two or 
 three members. These two are far the most 
 important general measures respecting the 
 public lands which have been adopted within 
 the last twenty years. They took place in 
 1820 and 1 82 1. That is the time when. 
 
 As to the manner how, the gentleman 
 already sees that it was by voting in solid 
 column for the required relief. And, lastly, 
 as to the cause why, I tell the gentleman it 
 was because the members from New England 
 thought the measures just and salutary; be- 
 cause they entertained toward the west 
 neither envy, hatred, nor malice ; because 
 they deemed it becoming them, as just 
 and enlightened men, to meet the exigency 
 which had arisen in the west with the ap- 
 propriate measure of relief; because they felt 
 it due to their own characters, and the char- 
 
 73
 
 TRepls to tbasne 
 
 acters of their New England predecessors in 
 this government, to act toward the new states 
 in the spirit of a hberal, patronizing, magnani- 
 mous poHcy. So much, sir, for the cause 
 why, and I hope that by this time, sir, the 
 honorable gentleman is satisfied; if not, I do 
 not know when, or how, or why he ever 
 will be. 
 
 This government, Mr. President, from its 
 origin to the peace of 1815, had been too 
 much engrossed with various other important 
 concerns to be able to turn its thoughts in- 
 ward, and look to the development of its vast 
 internal resources. In the early part of Presi- 
 dent Washington's administration, it was fully 
 occupied with completing its own organiza- 
 tion, providing for the public debt, defending 
 the frontiers, and maintaining domestic peace. 
 Before the termination of that administration, 
 the fires of the French revolution blazed forth, 
 as from a new-opened volcano, and the whole 
 breadth of the ocean did not secure us from 
 its effects. The smoke and the cinders reached 
 us, though not the burning lava. Difficult 
 and agitating questions, embarrassing to gov- 
 ernment and dividing public opinion, sprung 
 out of the new state of our foreign relations, 
 and were succeeded by others, and yet again 
 
 74
 
 IRcpIg to Ibacnc 
 
 by others, equally embarrassing and equally 
 exciting division and discord, through the long 
 series of twenty years, till they finally issued 
 in the war with England. Down to the close 
 of that war, no distinct, marked, and de- 
 liberate attention had been given, or could 
 have been given, to the internal condition of 
 the country, its capacities of improvement, or 
 the constitutional power of the government in 
 regard to objects connected with such improve- 
 ment. 
 
 The peace, Mr. President, brought about an 
 entirely new and a most interesting state of 
 things ; it opened to us other prospects and 
 suggested other duties. We ourselves were 
 changed, and the whole world was changed. 
 The pacification of Europe, after June, 1815, 
 assumed a firm and permanent aspect. The 
 nations evidently manifested that they were 
 disposed for peace. Some agitation of the 
 waves might be expected, even after the storm 
 had subsided, but the tendency was, strongly 
 and rapidly, toward settled repose. 
 
 It so happened, sir, that I was at that time 
 a member of congress, and, like others, 
 naturally turned my attention to the con- 
 templation of the newly altered condition of 
 the country and of the world. It appeared 
 
 75
 
 TRcplB to l&asne 
 
 plainly enough to me, as well as to wiser and 
 more experienced men, that the policy of the 
 government would naturally take a start in a 
 new direction; because new directions would 
 necessarily be given to the pursuits and occu- 
 pations of the people. We had pushed our 
 commerce far and fast, under the advantage 
 of a neutral flag. But there were now no 
 longer flags, either neutral or belligerent. 
 The harvest of neutrality had been great, but 
 we had gathered it all. With the peace of 
 Europe, it was obvious there would spring up 
 in her circle of nations a revived and invigor- 
 ating spirit of trade, and a new activity in 
 all the business and objects of civilized life. 
 Hereafter, our commercial gains were to be 
 earned only by success in a close and intense 
 competition. Other nations would produce 
 for themselves, and carry for themselves, and 
 manufacture for themselves, to the full extent 
 of their abilities. The crops of our plains 
 would no longer sustain European armies, nor 
 our ships longer supply those whom war had 
 rendered unable to supply themselves. It was 
 obvious that, under these circumstances, the 
 country would begin to survey itself, and to 
 estimate its own capacity of improvement. 
 And this improvement — how was it to be 
 
 76
 
 IReplB to t)aBnc 
 
 accomplished, and who was to accomplish 
 it ? We were ten or twelve millions of 
 people, spread over almost half a world. 
 We were more than twenty states, some 
 stretching along the same seaboard, some 
 along the same line of inland frontier, and 
 others on opposite banks of the same vast 
 rivers. Two considerations at once presented 
 themselves, in looking at this state of things, 
 with great force. One was, that that great 
 branch of improvement which consisted in 
 furnishing new facilities of intercourse neces- 
 sarily ran into different states in every leading 
 instance, and would benefit the citizens of all 
 such states. No one state, therefore, in such 
 cases, would assume the whole expense, nor 
 was the cooperation of several states to be ex- 
 pected. Take the instance of the Delaware 
 breakwater.^ It will cost several millions of 
 money. Would Pennsylvania alone ever have 
 constructed it .-• Certainly never, while this 
 Union lasts, because it is not for her sole 
 benefit. Would Pennsylvania, New Jersey, 
 and Delaware have united to accomplish it at 
 their joint expense.-* Certainly not, for the 
 
 15. The Delaware breakwater was authorized by congress in 1829, and 
 work was begun at Cape Henlopen. In 1869 the work was compieted, and 
 Delaware Bay was made an excellent harbor. 
 
 77
 
 IReplfi to Iba^ne 
 
 same reason. It could not be done, there- 
 fore, but by the general government. The 
 same may be said of the large inland under- 
 takings, except that, in them, government, 
 instead of bearing the whole expense, co- 
 operates with others who bear a part. The 
 other consideration is, that the United States 
 have the means. They enjoy the revenues 
 derived from commerce, and the states have 
 no abundant and easy sources of public in- 
 come. The custom-houses fill the general 
 treasury, while the states have scanty re- 
 sources, except by resort to heavy direct 
 taxes. 
 
 Under this view of things, I thought it neces- 
 sary to settle, at least for myself, some defi- 
 nite notions with respect to the powers of 
 the government with regard to internal af- 
 fairs. It may not savor too much of self- 
 commendation to remark, that, with this 
 object, I considered the constitution, its 
 judicial construction, its contemporaneous 
 exposition, and the whole history of the 
 legislation of congress under it; and I arrived 
 at the conclusion, that government had power 
 to accomplish sundry objects, or aid in their 
 accomplishment, which are now commonly 
 spoken of as Internal Improvements. 
 
 78
 
 IRcpls to Iba^ne 
 
 That conclusion, sir, may have been right, or 
 it may have been wrong. I am not about to 
 argue the grounds of it at large. I say only, 
 that it was adopted and acted on even so 
 early as in 1816. Yes, Mr. President, I made 
 up my opinion, and determined on my in- 
 tended course of political conduct, on these 
 subjects, in the fourteenth congress, in 18 16. 
 And now, Mr, President, I have further to 
 say, that I made up these opinions, and en- 
 tered on this course of political conduct, 
 Teiicro ducc. '^ Yes, sir, I pursued in all this 
 a South Carolina track. On the doctrines of 
 internal improvement. South Carolina, as she 
 was then represented in the other house, set 
 forth in 1816 under a fresh and leading breeze, 
 and I was among the followers. But if my 
 leader sees new lights and turns a sharp cor- 
 ner, unless I see new lights also, I keep 
 straight on in the same path. I repeat, that 
 leading gentlemen from South Carolina were 
 first and foremost in behalf of the doctrines of 
 internal improvements, when those doctrines 
 came first to be considered and acted upon in 
 congress. The debate on the bank question, 
 
 16. 'leucer being the leader. Teucer was one of the leaders of the 
 Greeks in the Trojan war. Mr. Calhoun was then President of the 
 Senate, being Vice-President of the United States. 
 
 79
 
 TRcpIs to IDa^ne 
 
 on the tariff of i8i6, and on the direct tax, 
 will show who was who, and what was what, 
 at that time. 
 
 The tariff of 1816 (one of the plain cases of 
 oppression and usurpation, from which, if the 
 government does not recede, individual states 
 may justly secede from the government) is, 
 sir, in truth, a South Carolina tariff, supported 
 by South Carolina votes. But for those votes 
 it could not have passed in the form in which 
 it did pass; whereas, if it had depended on 
 Massachusetts votes, it would have been lost. 
 Does not the honorable gentleman well know 
 all this ? There are certainly those who do, 
 full well, know it all. I do not say this to 
 reproach South Carolina. I only state the fact; 
 and I think it will appear to be true, that 
 among the earliest and boldest advocates of 
 the tariff, as a measure of protection, and on 
 the express ground of protection, were lead- 
 ing gentlemen of South Carolina in congress. 
 I did not then, and can not now, understand 
 their language in any other sense. * * * 
 
 Such, Mr. President, were the opinions 
 of important and leading gentlemen from 
 South Carolina, on the subject of internal 
 improvement, in 1816. I went out of con- 
 gress the next year, and, returning again in 
 
 80
 
 TRcplt? to Iba^ne 
 
 1823, thought I found South Carolina where I 
 had left her. I really supposed that all things 
 remained as they were, and that the South 
 Carolina doctrine of internal improvements 
 would be defended by the same eloquent 
 voices, and the same strong arms, as for- 
 merly. In the lapse of these six years, it is 
 true, political associations had assumed a new 
 aspect and new divisions. A strong party 
 had risen in the south hostile to the doctrine 
 of internal improvements, and had vigorously 
 attacked that doctrine. Anticonsolidation 
 was the flag under which this party fought; 
 and its supporters inveighed against internal 
 improvements, much after the manner in 
 which the honorable gentleman has now in- 
 veighed against them, as part and parcel of 
 the system of consolidation. Whether this 
 party arose in South Carolina herself, or in 
 her neighborhood, is more than I knov/. I 
 think the latter. However that may have 
 been, there were those found in South Caro- 
 lina ready to make war upon it, and who 
 did make intrepid war upon it. Names being 
 regarded as things in such controversies, they 
 bestowed on the anti-improvement gentlemen 
 the appellation of radicals. Yes, sir, the 
 appellation of radicals, as a term of distinc- 
 
 Si
 
 TRepIs to Ibagnc 
 
 tion applicable and applied to those who 
 denied the liberal doctrines of internal im- 
 provement, originated, according to the best 
 of my recollection, somev/here between 
 North Carolina and Georgia. Well, sir, 
 these mischievous radicals were to be put 
 down, and the strong arm of South Carolina 
 was stretched out to put them down. About 
 this time, sir, I returned to congress. The 
 battle with the radicals had been fought, and 
 our South Carolina champions of the doc- 
 trines of internal improvement had nobly 
 maintained their ground, and were under- 
 stood to have achieved a victory. We looked 
 upon them as conquerors. They had driven 
 back the enemy with discomfiture — a thing, 
 by the way, sir, which is not always per- 
 formed when it is promised. 
 
 (Mr. Webster quotes from a member from 
 South Carolina who in a printed speech asserted 
 that the system of internal improvements was 
 first advocated by Mr. Calhoun. This opinion 
 was held when Webster took his seat in congress 
 and subsequently a bill authorizing the system in 
 fact was voted for by South Carolina members; 
 he followed that light till 1824. After an inter- 
 ruption by Mr. Calhoun to which he replies 
 neatly, he proceeds: " I have thus * * * shown 
 
 82
 
 Ifeplg to tba^ne 
 
 if I am in error on the subject of internal im- 
 provement, how and in what company I fell into 
 that error. If I am wrong it is apparent who 
 misled me.") 
 
 On yet another point I was still more unac- 
 countably misunderstood. The gentleman 
 had harangued against "consolidation." I 
 told him, in reply, that there was one kind of 
 consolidation to which I was attached, and 
 that was the consoHdation of our Union ; that 
 this was precisely that consolidation to which 
 I feared others were not attached ; that such 
 consolidation was the very end of the consti- 
 tution, the leading object, as they had informed 
 us themselves, which its framers had kept in 
 view. I turned to their communication, and 
 read their very words, "The consoHdation 
 of .the Union, " and expressed my devotion 
 to this sort of consolidation. I said, in terms, 
 that I wished not in the slightest degree 
 to augment the powers of this government ; 
 that my object was to preserve, not to en- 
 large ; and that by consolidating the Union 
 I understood no more than the strengthening 
 of the Union, and perpetuating it. Having 
 been thus explicit, having thus read from 
 the printed book the precise words which I 
 
 83
 
 IRcplg to Iba^ne 
 
 adopted, as expressing my own sentiments, 
 it passes comprehension how any man could 
 understand me as contending for an extension 
 of the powers of the government, or for con- 
 solidation in that odious sense in which it 
 means an accumulation, in the federal gov- 
 ernment, of the powers properly belonging to 
 the states. 
 
 (The orator explains his position, on the tarifE 
 question, which Hayne had claimed to be contra- 
 dictory. He had voted against the. tariff in 1824 
 but in 1S28 he had merely voted to amend an 
 existing law for the benefit of his constituents. 
 He then dismisses the tariff question.) 
 
 Professing to be provoked by what he chose 
 to consider a charge made by me against South 
 Carolina, the honorable member, Mr. Presi- 
 dent, has taken up a new crusade against New 
 England. Leaving altogether the subject of 
 the public lands, in which his success, per- 
 haps, had been neither distinguished nor satis- 
 factory, and letting go, also, of the topic of 
 the tariff, he sallied forth in a general assault 
 on the opinions, politics, and parties of New 
 England, as they have been exhibited in the 
 last thirty years. This is natural. The "nar- 
 row policy" of the public lands had proved a 
 
 84
 
 TRepls to IDaBne 
 
 legal settlement in South Carolina, and was 
 not to be removed. The " accursed policy " 
 of the tariff, also, had established the fact of 
 its birth and parentage in the same state. 
 No wonder, therefore, the gentleman wished 
 to carry the war, as he expressed it, into the 
 enemy's country. Prudently willing to quit 
 these subjects, he was, doubtless, desirous of 
 fastening on others which could not be trans- 
 ferred south of Mason and Dixon's line. The 
 politics of New England became his theme; 
 and it was in this part of his speech, I think, 
 that he menaced me with sore discomfiture. 
 Discomfiture! Why, sir, when he attacks 
 anything which I maintain, and overthrows it, 
 when he turns the right or left of any position 
 which I take up, when he drives me from 
 any ground I choose to occupy, he may 
 then talk of discomfiture, but not till that 
 distant day. What has he done .-' Has he 
 maintained his own charges .•• Has he proved 
 what he alleged? Has he sustained him- 
 self in his attack on the government, and 
 on the history of the north, in the matter of 
 the public lands .-' Has he disproved a fact, 
 refuted a proposition, weakened an argument, 
 maintained by me ? Has he come within beat 
 of drum of any position of mine ? O, no; but 
 
 85
 
 IRcplS to Tbasne 
 
 he has "carried the war into the enemy's 
 country! " Carried the war into the enemy's 
 country! Yes, sir, and what sort of a war has 
 he made of it ? Why, sir, he has stretched a 
 drag-net over the whole surface of perished 
 pamphlets, indiscreet sermons, frothy para- 
 graphs, and fuming popular addresses, over 
 whatever the pulpit in its moments of alarm, 
 the press in its heats, and parties in their 
 extravagances, have severally thrown off in 
 times of general excitement and violence. 
 He has thus swept together a mass of such 
 things as, but that they are now old and cold, 
 the public health would have required him 
 rather to leave in their state of dispersion. 
 For a good long hour or two, we had the 
 unbroken pleasure of listening to the honorable 
 member, while he recited with his usual grace 
 and spirit, and with evident high gusto, 
 speeches, pamphlets, addresses, and all the 
 et ccteras of the political press, such as warm 
 heads produce in warm times, and such as it 
 would be " discomfiture " indeed for anyone 
 whose taste did not delight in that sort of 
 reading to be obliged to peruse. This is his 
 war. This it is to carry war into the enemy's 
 country. It is by an invasion of this sort that 
 he flatters himself with the expectation of gain- 
 ing laurels fit to adorn a senator's brow! 
 
 80
 
 "KeplB to Ibasne 
 
 Mr. President, I shall not — it will not, I 
 trust, be expected that I should — either now 
 or at anytime, separate this farrago into parts, 
 and answer and examine its components. I 
 shall hardly bestow upon it all a general re- 
 mark or two. In the run of forty years, sir, 
 under this constitution, we have experienced 
 sundry successive violent party contests. Party 
 arose, indeed, with the constitution itself, and, 
 in some form or other, has attended it through 
 the greater part of its history. Whether any 
 other constitution than the old articles of con- 
 federation was desirable, was itself a question 
 on which parties formed; if a new constitu- 
 tion were framed, what powers should be given 
 to it was another question; and when it had 
 been formed, what was, in fact, the just extent 
 of the powers actually conferred was a third. 
 Parties, as we know, existed under the first 
 administration, as distinctly marked as those 
 which have manifested themselves at any sub- 
 sequent period. The contest immediately pre- 
 ceding the political change in 1801, and that, 
 again, which existed at the commencement of 
 the late war, are other instances of party ex- 
 citement, of something more than usual strength 
 and intensity. In all these conflicts there was, 
 no doubt, much of violence on both and all 
 sides. It would be impossible, if one had a 
 
 87
 
 IReplB to Iba^ne 
 
 fancy for such employment, to adjust the 
 relative quantiivi of violence between these 
 contending parties. There was enough in 
 each, as must always be expected in popular 
 governments. With a great deal of proper and 
 decorous discussion, there was mingled a great 
 deal, also, of declamation, virulence, crimina- 
 tion, and abuse. In regard to any party, prob- 
 ably, at one of the leading epochs in the history 
 of parties, enough may be found to make out 
 another equally inflamed exhibition, as that 
 with which the honorable member has edified 
 us. For myself, sir, I shall not rake among 
 the rubbish of bygone times, to see what I 
 can find, or whether I cannot find something 
 by which I can fix a blot on the escutcheon of 
 any state, any party, or any part of the coun- 
 try. General Washington's administration 
 was steadily and zealously maintained, as we 
 all know, by New England. It was violently 
 opposed elsewhere. We know in what quarter 
 he had the most earnest, constant, and perse- 
 vering support, in all his great and leading 
 measures. We know where his private and 
 personal character was held in the highest 
 degree of attachment and veneration; and we 
 know, too, where his measures were opposed, 
 his services slighted, and his character vilified. 
 
 88
 
 "Kepis to Ibasne 
 
 We know, or we might know if we turned to 
 the journals, who expressed respect, gratitude 
 and regret when he retired from the chief mag- 
 istracy, and who refused to express either re- 
 spect, gratitude or regret. I shall not open those 
 journals. Publications more abusive or scur- 
 rilous never saw the light, than were sent 
 forth against Washington, and all his leading 
 measures, from presses south of New England. 
 But I shall not look them up. I employ no 
 scavengers; no one is in attendance on me, 
 tendering such means of retaliation; and if 
 there were, with an ass's load of them, with a 
 bulk as huge as that which the gentleman him- 
 self has produced, I would not touch one of 
 them. I see enough of the violence of our 
 own times, to be no way anxious to rescue 
 from forgetfulness the extravagances of times 
 past. 
 
 Mr. President, in carrying his warfare, such 
 as it is, into New England, the honorable 
 gentleman all along professes to be acting on 
 the defensive. He elects to consider me as 
 having assailed South Carolina, and insists 
 that he comes forth only as her champion, 
 and in her defense. Sir, I do not admit that 
 I made any attack whatever on South Caro- 
 lina. Nothing like it. The honorable mem- 
 
 89
 
 IRepl^ to IFDagne 
 
 ber, in his first speech, expressed opinions, in 
 regard to revenue and some other topics, 
 which I heard both with pain and with sur- 
 prise. I told the gentleman I was aware that 
 such sentiments were entertained out of the 
 government, but had not expected to find 
 them advanced in it; that I knew there were 
 persons in the south who speak of our Union 
 with indifference or doubt, taking pains to 
 magnify its evils, and to say nothing of its 
 benefits; that the honorable member himself, 
 I was sure, could never be one of these; 
 and I regretted the expression of such opin- 
 ions as he had avowed, because I thought 
 their obvious tendency was to encourage feel- 
 ings of disrespect to the Union, and to weaken 
 its connection. This, sir, is the sum and 
 substance of all I said on the subject. And 
 this constitutes the attack which called on the 
 chivalry of the gentleman, in his own opinion, 
 to harry us with such a foray among the party 
 pamphlets and party proceedings of Massa- 
 chusetts! If he means that I spoke with 
 dissatisfaction or disrespect of the ebullitions 
 of individuals in South Carolina, it is true. 
 But if he means that I had assailed the char- 
 acter of the state, her honor or patriotism, 
 that I had reflected on her history or her 
 
 90
 
 TReplv to fbnvne 
 
 conduct, he has not the slightest ground for 
 any such assumption. I did not even refer, I 
 think, in my observations, to any collection of 
 individuals. I said nothing of the recent con- 
 ventions. I spoke in the most guarded and 
 careful manner, and only expressed my regret 
 for the publication of opinions which I pre- 
 sumed the honorable member disapproved as 
 much as myself. In this, it seems, I was mis- 
 taken. I do not remember that the gentle- 
 man has disclaimed any sentiment, or any 
 opinion, of a supposed anti-Union tendency, 
 which on all or any of the recent occasions 
 has been expressed. The whole drift of his 
 speech has been rather to prove, that, in 
 divers times and manners, sentiments equally 
 liable to my objection have been avowed in 
 New England. 
 
 (Webster points out an inconsistency in Hayne's 
 argument, and then questions the object of the 
 Hartford convention, and shows the absurdity of 
 charging the government of New England with the 
 misinterpreted acts of an unauthorized conven- 
 tion. ) 
 
 Then, sir, the gentleman has no fault to 
 find with these recently promulgated South 
 Carolina opinions. And certainly he need 
 have none; for his own sentiments, as now 
 
 91
 
 TReplis to IDasne 
 
 advanced, and advanced on reflection, as far 
 as I have been able to comprehend them, go 
 the full length of all these opinions. I pro- 
 pose, sir, to say something on these, and to 
 consider how far they are just and constitu- 
 tional. Before doing that, however, let me 
 observe that the eulogium pronounced on the 
 character of the state of [South Carolina, by 
 the honorable gentleman, for her revolutionary 
 and other merits, meets my hearty concur- 
 rence, I shall not acknowledge that the hon- 
 orable member goes before me in regard for 
 whatever of distinguished talent, or distin- 
 guished character, South Carolina has pro- 
 duced. I claim part of the honor, I partake 
 in the pride, of her great names. I claim 
 them for countrymen, one and all — the Lau- 
 renses, the Rutledges, the Pinckneys, the 
 Sumters, 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 circumscribed within the 
 same narrow limits. In their day and gen- 
 eration, 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 
 
 92
 
 TRcplg to Ibaisne 
 
 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, instead of 
 South Carolina ? Sir, does he suppose it in 
 his power to exhibit a Carolina name so 
 bright, as to produce 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 
 
 17. Isaac Hayne, great-uncle of Robert V. Hayne, who was executed by 
 the joint order of Colonel Balfour and Lord Rawdon. Hayne had taken 
 the oath of allegiance to the British on condition that he should not be 
 obliged to bear arms. He was forced into service; and on account of 
 this broke his parole, and became an American officer. He was captured 
 by the British and hanged. 
 
 93
 
 IRepIs to 1ba\>nc 
 
 by local prejudice or gangrened by state jeal- 
 ousy, 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 recollections; 
 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 Massachu- 
 setts 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 adminis- 
 tration of Washington, and felt his own great 
 arm lean on them for support. Unkind feel- 
 ing, if it exists, 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. 
 
 Mr. President, I shall enter on no encomium 
 upon Massachusetts; 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 for- 
 
 94
 
 TReplg to Iba^ne 
 
 ever. The bones of her sons, fallen 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 succeed in separating it from 
 that Union, by which alone its existence is 
 made sure, it will stand, in the end, by the 
 side of that 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 monu- 
 ments of its own glory, and on the very spot 
 of its origin. 
 
 There yet remains to be performed, Mr. 
 President, by far the most grave and important 
 duty which I feel to be devolved on me by 
 this occasion. It is to state, and to defend, 
 what I conceive to be the true principles of 
 the constitution under which we are here 
 
 95
 
 TReplB to Da^ne 
 
 assembled. I might well have desired that so 
 weighty a task should have fallen into other 
 and abler hands. I could have wished that it 
 should have been executed by those whose 
 character and experience give weight and in- 
 fluence to their opinions, such as cannot 
 possibly belong to mine. But, sir, I have met 
 the occasion, not sought it; and I shall pro- 
 ceed to state my own sentiments, without 
 challenging for them any particular regard, 
 with studied plainness, and as much precision 
 as possible. 
 
 I understand the honorable gentleman from 
 South Carolina to maintain that it is a right 
 of the state legislatures to interfere, whenever, 
 in their judgment, this government transcends 
 its constitutional limits, and to arrest the 
 operation of its laws. 
 
 I understand him to maintain this right as a 
 right existing under the constitution, not as a 
 right to overthrow it on the ground of extreme 
 necessity, such as would justify violent revo- 
 lution. 
 
 I understand him to maintain an authority, 
 on the part of the states, thus to interfere, for 
 the purpose of correcting the exercise of power 
 by the general government, of checking it, and 
 of compeUing it to conforrn tP their opinion of 
 the extent of its powers, 
 
 9«5
 
 a: 
 ft) 
 
 1-1 
 o 
 
 l-H 
 
 o 
 
 ? 
 
 a: 
 ■-. 
 
 O
 
 IRepl^ to Iba^ne 
 
 I understand him to maintain that the ulti- 
 mate power of judging of the constitutional 
 extent of its own authority is not lodged ex- 
 clusively in the general government, or any 
 branch of it; but that, on the contrary, the 
 states may lawfully decide for themselves, and 
 each state for itself, whether, in a given case, 
 the act of the general government transcends 
 its power. 
 
 I understand him to insist that, if the exi- 
 gency of the case, in the opinion of any state 
 government, require it, such state government 
 may, by its own sovereign authority, annul 
 an act of the general government which it 
 deems plainly and palpably unconstitutional. 
 
 This is the sum of what I understand from 
 him to be the South Carolina doctrine, and 
 the doctrine which he maintains. I propose 
 to consider it, and compare it with the consti- 
 tution. Allow me to say, as a preliminary 
 remark, that I call this the South Carolina 
 doctrine only because the gentleman himself 
 has so denominated it. I do not feel at liberty 
 to say that South Carolina, as a state, has 
 ever advanced these sentiments. I hope she 
 has not, and never may. That a great ma- 
 jority of her people are opposed to the tariff 
 laws, is doubtless true. That a majority, 
 somewhat less than that just mentioned, con- 
 
 97
 
 IReplB to IbaBnc 
 
 scientiously believe these laws unconstitutional, 
 may probably also be true. But that any 
 majority holds to the right of direct state 
 interference at state discretion, the right of 
 nullifying acts of congress by acts of state 
 legislation, is more than I know, and what I 
 shall be slow to believe. 
 
 That there are individuals besides the hon- 
 orable gentleman who do maintain these 
 opinions, is quite certain. I recollect the 
 recent expression of a sentiment which cir- 
 cumstances attending its utterance and publi- 
 cation justify us in supposing was not unpre- 
 meditated: "The sovereignty of the state — 
 never to be controlled, construed, or decided 
 on, but by her own feelings of honorable 
 justice. " 
 
 (Here occur two interruptions by Mr. Hayne, 
 one in which he reads the resolution on which he 
 relies for his authority. Webster contends that 
 Hayne's interpretation of the resolution is incor- 
 rect. The latter explains that he contends for 
 constitutional resistance. Webster is glad he 
 does not misunderstand, and he does not admit 
 the truth of the proposition; asserts that it can- 
 not be maintained; admits an ultimate, violent 
 remedy, that is, revolution; and denies that there 
 is any mode in which a state, " as a member of 
 
 98
 
 IReplig to Ibasne 
 
 the Union, can interfere and stop the progress of 
 the general government by force of her own laws 
 under any circumstances whatever.") 
 
 The inherent right in the people to reform 
 their government I do not deny; and they 
 have another right, and that is, to resist 
 unconstitutional laws, without overturning the 
 government. It is no doctrine of mine that 
 unconstitutional laws bind the people. The 
 great question is, Whose prerogative is it 
 to decide on the constitutionality or unconsti- 
 tutionality of the laws ? On that, the main 
 debate hinges. 
 
 This leads us to inquire into the origin of 
 this government and the source of its power. 
 Whose agent is it ? Is it the creature of the 
 state legislatures, or the creature of the peo- 
 ple .'' If the government of the United States 
 be the agent of the state governments, then 
 they may control it, provided they can agree 
 'n the manner of controlling it; if it be the 
 agent of the people, then the people alone 
 can control it, restrain it, modify or reform it. 
 It is observable enough, that the doctrine for 
 which the honorable gentleman contends 
 leads him to the necessity of maintaining, not 
 only that this general government is the 
 
 99
 
 IReplg to Ibagnc 
 
 creature of the states, but that it is the 
 creature of each of the states severally, so 
 that each may assert the power for itself of 
 determining whether it acts within the limits 
 of its authority. It is the servant of four- 
 and-twenty masters, of different wills and 
 different purposes, and yet bound to obey 
 all. This absurdity (for it seems no less) 
 arises from a misconception as to the origin 
 of this government and its true character. It 
 is, sir, the people's constitution, the people's 
 government, made for the people, made by 
 the people, and answerable to the people.^* 
 The people of the United States have declared 
 that this constitution shall be the supreme 
 law. We must either admit the proposition, 
 or dispute the authority. The states are, 
 unquestionably, sovereign, so far as their 
 sovereignty is not affected by this supreme 
 law. But the state legislatures, as political 
 bodies, however sovereign, are yet not 
 sovereign over the people. So far as the 
 people have given power to the general gov- 
 ernment, so far the grant is unquestionably 
 good, and the government holds of the peo- 
 
 i8. Compare with the sentence in Lincoln's Gettsysburg address. 
 Theodore Parker uses the expression, "A government of all the people, 
 by all the people, for all the people." 
 
 lOO
 
 TRepls to Ibasne 
 
 pie, and not of the state governments. We 
 are all agents of the same supreme power, the 
 people. The general government and the 
 state governments derive their authority from 
 the same source. Neither can, in relation to 
 the other, be called primary, though one is 
 definite and restricted, and the other general 
 and residuary. The national government 
 possesses those powers which it can be shown 
 the people have conferred on it, and no more. 
 All the rest belongs to the state governments, 
 or to the people themselves. So far as the 
 people have restrained state sovereignty, by 
 the expression of their will, in the constitu- 
 tion of the United States, so far, it must be 
 admitted, state sovereignty is effectually con- 
 trolled. I do not contend that it is, or ought 
 to be, controlled farther. The sentiment to 
 which I have referred propounds that state 
 sovereignty is only to be controlled by its own 
 "feeling of justice;" that is to say, it is not to 
 be controlled at all, for one who is to follow 
 his own feelings is under no legal control. 
 Now, however men may think this ought to 
 be, the fact is, that the people of the United 
 States have chosen to impose control on state 
 sovereignties. There are those, doubtless, 
 who wish they had been left without restraint; 
 
 lOI
 
 TRcpls to Iba^ne 
 
 but the constitution has ordered the matter 
 differently. To make war, for instance, is an 
 exercise of sovereignty; but the constitution 
 declares that no state shall make war. To 
 coin money is another exercise of sovereign 
 power; but no state is at liberty to coin 
 money. Again, the constitution says that no 
 sovereign state shall be so sovereign as to 
 make a treaty. These prohibitions, it must 
 be confessed, are a control on the state sov- 
 ereignty of South Carolina, as well as of the 
 other states, which does not arise "from 
 her own feelings of honorable justice." Such 
 an opinion, therefore, is in defiance of the 
 plainest provisions of the constitution. 
 
 (The speaker contends that under the resolutions 
 and constructions placed upon them by his oppo- 
 nents, the tariff laws are all such palpable usurpa- 
 tion as would justify the states in exercising their 
 rights of nullification; supposes South Carolina so 
 resolves but other states resolve differently; asks 
 what power shall decide. He then ppints out the 
 absurdity of the claim that South Carolina had 
 no coUision with the King's ministers in 1775, 
 and asks contemptuously what now separates 
 the state from Old England instead of from New 
 England. ) 
 
 102
 
 IRcpls to "fcasne 
 
 Resolutions, sir, have been recently passed 
 by the legislature of South Carolina. I need 
 not refer to them; they go no farther than the 
 honorable gentleman himself has gone, and I 
 hope not so far. I content myself, therefore, 
 with debating the matter with him. 
 
 And now, sir, what I have first to say on 
 this subject is, that at no time, and under no 
 circumstances, has New England, or any state 
 in New England, or any respectable body of 
 persons in New England, or any public man of 
 standing in New England, put forth such a 
 doctrine as this Carolina doctrine. 
 
 The gentleman has found no case, he can 
 find none, to support his own opinions by New 
 England authority. New England has studied 
 the constitution in other schools, and under' 
 other teachers. She looks upon it with other 
 regards, and deems more highly and reverently 
 both of its just authority and its utility and 
 excellence. The history of her legislative 
 proceedings may be traced. The ephemeral 
 effusions of temporary bodies, called together 
 by the excitement of the occasion, may be 
 hunted up; they have been hunted up. The 
 opinions and votes of her public men, in and 
 out of congress, may be explored. It will all 
 be in vain. The Carolina doctrine can derive 
 
 103
 
 IRcplB to Ibagnc 
 
 from her neither countenance nor support. 
 She rejects it now; she always did reject it; 
 and till she loses her senses, she always will 
 reject it. The honorable member has re- 
 ferred to expressions on the subject of the 
 embargo law, made in this place, by an honor- 
 able and venerable gentleman, now favoring 
 us with his presence." He quotes that dis- 
 tinguished senator with saying, that, in his 
 judgment, the embargo law was unconsti- 
 tutional, and that, therefore, in his opinion, 
 the people were not bound to obey it. That, 
 sir, is perfectly constitutional language. An 
 unconstitutional law is not binding; hut then it 
 does not rest with a resolutiojt or a law of a 
 state legislature to decide whether an act of 
 congress be or be not constitutional. An un- 
 constitutional act of congress would not bind 
 the people of this district, although they have 
 no legislature to interfere in their behalf; and, 
 on the other hand, a constitutional law of 
 congress does bind the citizens of every state, 
 although all their legislatures should under- 
 take to annul it by act or resolution. The 
 venerable Connecticut senator is a constitu- 
 tional lawyer, of sound principles and enlarged 
 knowledge: a statesman practiced and experi- 
 
 19. Mr. Hillhouse, of Connecticut. 
 
 104
 
 TReplg to Ibasne 
 
 enced, bred in the company of Washington, 
 and holding just views upon the nature of our 
 governments. He beheved the embargo un- 
 constitutional, and so did others; but what 
 then ? Who did he suppose was to decide 
 that question ? The state legislatures ? Cer- 
 tainly not. No such sentiment ever escaped 
 his lips. 
 
 Let us follow up, sir, this New England 
 opposition to the embargo laws; let us trace 
 it, till we discern the principle which con- 
 trolled and governed New England throughout 
 the whole course of that opposition. We 
 shall then see what similarity there is between 
 the New England school of constitutional 
 opinions and this modern Carolina school. 
 The gentleman, I think, read a petition from 
 some single individual, addressed to the legis- 
 lature of Massachusetts, asserting the Carolina 
 doctrine; that is, the right of state interference 
 to arrest the laws of the Union. The fate of 
 that petition shows the sentiment of the legis- 
 lature. It met no favor. The opinions of 
 Massachusetts were otherwise. They had 
 been expressed in 1798,^" in answer to the 
 
 io. The Virginia resolutions were passed by the legislature of that 
 state in 1798, in antagonism to the loose construction views of the 
 Federalists. The resolutions declared the Union to be a compact, each 
 party to which had a right to " interpose," in order to protect and defend 
 itself against any infringements of the compact. 
 
 lOS
 
 IReplB to Iba^ne 
 
 resolutions of Virginia, and she did not depart 
 from them, nor bend them to the times. 
 Misgoverned, wronged, oppressed, as she felt 
 herself to be, she still held fast her integrity 
 to the Union. The gentleman may find in 
 her proceedings much evidence of dissatisfac- 
 tion with the measures of government, and 
 great and deep dislike to the embargo; all this 
 makes the case so much the stronger for her; 
 for, notwithstanding all this dissatisfaction 
 and dislike, she claimed no right, still, to sever 
 asunder the bonds of the Union. There was 
 heat and there was anger in her political feel- 
 ing. Be it so; her heat or her anger did not, 
 nevertheless, betray her into infidelity to the 
 government. The gentleman labors to prove 
 that she disliked the embargo as much as 
 South Carolina dislikes the tariff, and ex- 
 pressed her dislike as strongly. Be it so; 
 but did she propose the Carolina remedy.? did 
 she threaten to interfere, by state authority, 
 to annul the laws of the Union ? That is the 
 question for the gentleman's consideration. 
 
 No doubt, sir, a great majority of the people 
 of New England conscientiously believed the 
 embargo law of 1807 unconstitutional; as con- 
 scientiously, certainly, as the people of South 
 Carolina hold that opinion of the tariff. They 
 
 106
 
 IRepls to Ibaisne 
 
 reasoned thus: Congress has power to regu- 
 late commerce; but here is a law, they said, 
 stopping all commerce and stopping it in- 
 definitely. The law is perpetual; that is, it is 
 not limited in point of time, and must of 
 course continue until it shall be repealed by 
 some other law. It is as perpetual, there- 
 fore, as the law against treason or murder. 
 Now is this regulating commerce, or destroy- 
 ing it ? Is it guiding, controlling, giving the 
 rule to commerce, as a subsisting thing, or is 
 it putting an end to it altogether ? Nothing 
 is more certain, than that a majority in New 
 England deemed this law a violation of the 
 constitution. The very case required by the 
 gentleman to justify state interference had 
 then arisen. Massachusetts believed this law 
 to be "a deliberate, palpable, and dangerous 
 exercise of a power not granted by the con- 
 stitution." Deliberate it was, for it was long 
 continued; palpable she thought it, as no 
 words in the constitution gave the power, 
 and only a construction, in her opinion most 
 violent, raised it; dangerous it was, since it 
 threatened utter ruin to her most important 
 interests. Here, then, was a Carolina case. 
 How did Massachusetts deal with it ? It was, 
 as she thought, a plain, manifest, palpable 
 
 107
 
 "RcplB to Ibagne 
 
 violation of the constitution, and it brought 
 ruin to her doors. Thousands of famiHes, 
 and hundreds of thousands of individuals, were 
 beggared by it. While she saw and felt all 
 this, she saw and felt also, that, as a measure 
 of national policy, it was perfectly futile; that 
 the country was no way benefited by that 
 which caused so much individual distress; that 
 it was efficient only for the production of evil, 
 and all that evil inflicted on ourselves. In 
 such a case, under such circumstances, how 
 did Massachusetts demean herself ? Sir, she 
 remonstrated, she memorialized, she addressed 
 herself to the general government, not ex- 
 actly * * with the concentrated energy of pas- 
 sion," but with her own strong sense and the 
 energy of sober conviction. But she did not 
 interpose the arm of her own power to arrest 
 the law and break the embargo. Far from 
 it. Her principles bound her to two things; 
 and she followed her principles, lead where 
 they might. First, to submit to every con- 
 stitutional law of congress, and secondly, if 
 the constitutional validity of the law be 
 doubted, to refer that question to the de- 
 cision of the proper tribunals. The first 
 principle is vain and ineffectual without the 
 second. A majority of us in New England be- 
 
 io5 •
 
 IRcplB to Ibasne 
 
 lieved the embargo law unconstitutional ; but 
 the great question was, and always will be in 
 such cases, Who is to decide this ? Who is to 
 judge between the people and the government ? 
 And, sir, it is quite plain that the constitution 
 of the United States confers on the government 
 itself, to be exercised by its appropriate de- 
 partment, and under its own responsibility to 
 the people, this power of deciding ultimately 
 and conclusively upon the just extent of its 
 own authority. If this had not been done, we 
 should not have advanced a single step beyond 
 the old confederation. 
 
 Being fully of opinion that the embargo 
 law was unconstitutional, the people of New 
 England were yet equally clear in the opinion 
 — it was a matter they did not doubt upon — 
 that the question, after all, must be decided 
 by the judicial tribunals of the United States. 
 Before these tribunals, therefore, they brought 
 the question. Under the provisions of the 
 law, they had given bonds to millions in 
 amount, and which were alleged to be for- 
 feited. They suffered the bonds to be sued, 
 and thus raised the question. In the old- 
 fashioned way of settling disputes, they went 
 to law. The case came to hearing and solemn 
 argument ; and he who espoused their causQ, 
 
 J09
 
 TRcplg to Ibasne 
 
 and stood up for them against the vaHdity of 
 the embargo act, was none other than that 
 great man, of whom the gentleman has made 
 honorable mention, Samuel Dexter. ^^ He 
 was then, sir, in the fullness of his knowledge, 
 and the maturity of his strength. He had 
 retired from long and distinguished public ser- 
 vice here, to the renewed pursuit of profes- 
 sional duties, carrying with him all that en- 
 largement and expansion, all the new strength 
 and force, which an acquaintance with the 
 more general subjects discussed in the national 
 councils is capable of adding to professional 
 attainment, in a mind of true greatness and 
 comprehension. He was a lawyer, and he 
 was also a statesman. He had studied the 
 constitution, when he filled public station, 
 that he might defend it. He had examined 
 its principles that he might maintain them. 
 More than all men, or at least as much as 
 any man, he was attached to the general gov- 
 ernment and to the union of the states. His 
 feelings and opinions all ran in that direction. 
 A question of constitutional law, too, was, of 
 all subjects, that one which was best suited to 
 
 21. Samuel Dexter was a noted Massachusetts lawyer. He was suc- 
 cessively, for short periods, secretary of war and secretary of the treasury 
 in the cabinet of President John Adams. 
 
 no
 
 TRepIg to Iba^ne 
 
 his talents and learning. Aloof from techni- 
 cality, and unfettered by artificial rule, such a 
 question gave opportunity for that deep and 
 clear analysis, that mighty grasp of principle, 
 which so much distinguished his higher efforts. 
 His very statement was argument; his infer- 
 ence seemed demonstration. The earnestness 
 of his own conviction wrought conviction in 
 others. One was convinced, and believed, 
 and assented, because it was gratifying, de- 
 lightful, to think, and feel, and believe, in 
 unison with an intellect of such evident supe- 
 riority. 
 
 Mr. Dexter, sir, such as I have described 
 him, argued the New England cause. He 
 put into his effort his whole heart, as well as 
 all the powers of his understanding; for he 
 had avowed, in the most public manner, his 
 entire concurrence with his neighbors on the 
 point in dispute. He argued the cause; it 
 was lost, and New England submitted. The 
 established tribunals pronounced the law con- 
 stitutional, and New England acquiesced. 
 Now, sir, is not this the exact opposite of the 
 doctrine of the gentleman from South Caro- 
 lina .-* According to him, instead of referring 
 to the judicial tribunals, we should have 
 broken up the embargo by laws of our own ; 
 
 III
 
 IRcpls to Dai^nc 
 
 we should have repealed it, quoad^^ New 
 England ; for we had a strong, palpable, and 
 oppressive case. Sir, we believed the em- 
 bargo unconstitutional; but still that was mat- 
 ter of opinion, and who was to decide it ? 
 We thought it a clear case; but, nevertheless, 
 we did not take the law into our own hands, 
 because we did not wish to bring about a rev- 
 olution, nor to break up the Union; for I 
 maintain, that between submission to the de- 
 cision of the constituted tribunals, and revolu- 
 tion, or disunion, there is no middle ground; 
 there is no ambiguous condition, half allegi- 
 ance and half rebellion. And, sir, how futile, 
 how very futile it is, to admit the right of state 
 interference, and then attempt to save it from 
 the character of unlawful resistance by adding 
 terms of qualification to the causes and occa- 
 sions, leaving all these qualifications, like the 
 case itself, in the discretion of the state gov- 
 ernments! It must be a clear case, it is said, 
 a deliberate case, a palpable case, a danger- 
 ous case. But then the state is still left at 
 liberty to decide for herself what is clear, 
 what is deliberate, what is palpable, what is 
 dangerous. Do adjectives and epithets avail 
 anything } 
 
 22. To the extent of New England. 
 
 112
 
 IReplB to Ibasne 
 
 Sir, the human mind is so constituted, that 
 the merits of both sides of a controversy ap- 
 pear very clear, and very palpable, to those 
 who respectively espouse them; and both 
 sides usually grow clearer as the controversy 
 advances. South Carolina sees unconstitu- 
 tionality in the tariff; she sees oppression 
 there, also, and she sees danger. Pennsyl- 
 vania, with a vision not less sharp, looks at 
 the same tariff, and sees no such thing in it; 
 she sees it all constitutional, all useful, all 
 safe. The faith of South Carolina is strength- 
 ened by opposition, and she now not only 
 sees, but resolves, that the tariff is palpably 
 unconstitutional, oppressive, and dangerous; 
 but Pennsylvania, not to be behind her neigh- 
 bors, and equally willing to strengthen her 
 own faith by a confident asservation, resolves, 
 also, and gives to every warm affirmative of 
 South Carolina a plain, downright, Pennsyl- 
 vania negative. South Carolina, to show the 
 strength and unity of her opinion, brings her 
 assembly to a unanimity, within seven voices; 
 Pennsylvania, not to be outdone in this re- 
 spect any more than in others, reduces her 
 dissentient fraction to a single vote. Now, 
 sir, again, I ask the gentleman. What is to be 
 done.'* Are these states both right.'' Is he 
 
 113
 
 IRepls to Iba^ne 
 
 bound to consider them both right? If not, 
 which is in the wrong? or rather, which has 
 the best right to decide? And if he, and if I, 
 are not to know what the constitution means, 
 and what it is, till those two state legislatures, 
 and the twenty-two others, shall agree in its 
 construction, what have we sworn to, when 
 we have sworn to maintain it! I was forcibly 
 struck, sir, with one reflection, as the gentle- 
 man went on in his speech. He quoted Mr. 
 Madison's resolutions, to prove that a state 
 may interfere, in a case of deliberate, pal- 
 pable, and dangerous exercise of a power not 
 granted. The honorable member supposes 
 the tariff law to be such an exercise of power; 
 and that consequently a case has arisen in 
 which the state may, if it see fit, interfere by 
 its own law. Now it so happens, neverthe- 
 less, that Mr. Madison deems this same tariff 
 law quite constitutional. Instead of a clear 
 and palpable violation, it is, in his judgment, 
 no violation at all. So that, while they use 
 his authority for a hypothetical case, they re- 
 ject it in the very case before them. All this, 
 sir, shows the inherent futility, I had almost 
 said a stronger word, of conceding this power 
 of interference to the states, and then at- 
 tempting to secure it from abuse by imposing 
 
 114
 
 TReplB to IbaBne 
 
 qualifications of which the states themselves 
 are to judge. One of two things is true; 
 either the laws of the Union are beyond the 
 discretion and beyond the control of the 
 states, or else we have no constitution of 
 general government, and are thrust back 
 again to the days of the confederation. 
 
 Let me here say, sir, that if the gentle- 
 man's doctrine had been received and acted 
 upon in New England, in the times of the 
 embargo and non-intercourse, we should prob- 
 ably not now have been here. The govern- 
 ment would very likely have gone to pieces, 
 and crumbled into dust. No stronger case 
 can ever arise than existed under those laws; 
 no states can ever entertain a clearer convic- 
 tion than the New England states then enter- 
 tained; and if they had been under the 
 influence of that heresy of opinion, as I must 
 call it, which the honorable member espouses, 
 this Union would, in all probability, have 
 been scattered to the four winds. I ask the 
 gentleman, therefore, to apply his principles 
 to that case; I ask him to come forth and de- 
 clare, whether, in his opinion, the New 
 England states would have been justified in 
 interfering to break up the embargo system 
 under the conscientious opinions which they 
 
 "5
 
 IReplg to Ibasne 
 
 tield upon it. Had they a right to annul 
 that law, does he admit or deny? If what is 
 thought palpably unconstitutional in South 
 Carolina justifies that state in arresting the 
 progress of the law, tell me whether that 
 which was thought palpably unconstitutional 
 also in Massachusetts would have justified her 
 in doing the same thing. Sir, I deny the 
 whole doctrine. It has not a foot of ground 
 in the constitution to stand on. No public 
 man of reputation ever advanced it in Massa- 
 chusetts in the warmest times, or could main- 
 tain himself upon it there at any time. * * * 
 I must now beg to ask, sir, Whence is this 
 supposed right of the states derived ? Where 
 do they find the power to interfere with the 
 laws of the Union ? Sir, the opinion which 
 the honorable gentleman maintains is a notion 
 founded in a total misapprehension, in my 
 judgment, of the origin of this government, 
 and of the foundation on which it stands. I 
 hold it to be a popular government, erected 
 by the people; those who administer it, 
 responsible to the people; and itself capable 
 of being amended and modified, just as the 
 people may choose it should be. It is as pop- 
 ular, just as truly emanating from the people, 
 as the state governments. It is created for one 
 
 ii6
 
 ■Rcpls to "toaignc 
 
 purpose; the state governments for another. 
 It has its own powers; they have theirs. 
 There is no more authority with them to 
 arrest the operation of a law of congress, than 
 with congress to arrest the operation of their 
 laws. We are here to administer a constitu- 
 tion emanating immediately from the people, 
 and trusted by them to our administration. 
 It is not the creature of the state govern- 
 ments. It is of no moment to the argument 
 that certain acts of the state legislatures are 
 necessary to fill our seats in this body. That 
 is not one of theix- original state powers, a part 
 of the sovereignty of the state. It is a duty 
 which the people, by the constitution itself, 
 have imposed on the state legislatures, and 
 which they might have left to be performed 
 elsewhere, if they had seen fit. So they have 
 left the choice of president with electors; but 
 all this does not affect the proposition that 
 this whole government — president, senate, 
 and house of representatives — is a popular 
 government. It leaves it still all its popular 
 character. The governor of the state (in 
 some of the states) is chosen, not directly by 
 the people, but by those who are chosen by 
 the people for the purpose of performing, 
 among other duties, that of electing a gov- 
 
 117
 
 IRepls to Ibagne 
 
 ernor. Is the government of the state, on 
 that account, not a popular government? 
 This government, sir, is the independent off- 
 spring of the popular will. It is not the 
 creature of state legislatures; nay, more, if 
 the whole truth must be told, the people 
 brought it into existence, established it, and 
 have hitherto supported it, for the very pur- 
 pose, amongst others, of imposing certain sal- 
 utary restraints on state sovereignties. The 
 states cannot now make war; they cannot 
 contract alliances; they cannot make, each 
 for itself, separate regulations of commerce; 
 they cannot lay imposts; they cannot coin 
 money. If this constitution, sir, be the 
 creature of state legislatures, it must be ad- 
 mitted that it has obtained a strange control 
 over the volition of its creators. 
 
 The people, then, sir, erected this govern- 
 ment. They gave it a constitution, and in 
 that constitution they have enumerated the 
 powers which they bestow on it. They have 
 made it a limited government. They have 
 defined its authority. They have restrained 
 it to the exercise of such powers as are 
 granted; and all others, they declare, are re- 
 served to the states or the people. But, sir, 
 they have not stopped here. If they had, 
 they would have accomplished but half their 
 
 ii8
 
 •Rcpis to Dasnc 
 
 work. No definition can be so clear, as to 
 avoid possibility of doubt; no limitation so 
 precise, as to exclude all uncertainty. Who, 
 then, shall construe this grant of the people .'' 
 Who shall interpret their will, where it may 
 be supposed they have left it doubtful .'' With 
 whom do they repose this ultimate right of 
 deciding on the powers of the government .-' 
 Sir, they have settled all this in the fullest 
 manner. They have left it with the govern- 
 ment itself, in its appropriate branches. Sir, 
 the very chief end, the main design, for 
 which the whole constitution was framed and 
 adopted, was to establish a government that 
 should not be obliged to act through state 
 agency, or depend on state opinion and state 
 discretion. The people had had quite enough 
 of that kind of government under the confed- 
 eracy. Under that system, the legal action, the 
 application of law to individuals, belonged ex- 
 clusively to the states. Congress could only 
 recommend; their acts were not of binding 
 force till the states had adopted and sanc- 
 tioned them. Are we in that condition still ? 
 Are we yet at the mercy of state discretion 
 and state construction ? Sir, if we are, then 
 vain will be our attempt to maintain the con- 
 stitution under which we sit. 
 
 But, sir, the people have wisely provided, 
 
 "9
 
 IReplB to Iba^ne 
 
 in the constitution itself, a proper, suitable 
 mode and tribunal for settling questions of 
 constitutional law. There are in the consti- 
 tution grants of powers to congress, and 
 restrictions on those powers. There are, also, 
 prohibitions on the states. Some authority 
 must, therefore, necessarily exist, having the 
 ultimate jurisdiction to fix and ascertain the 
 interpretation of these grants, restrictions, and 
 prohibitions. The constitution has itself 
 pointed out, ordained, and estabhshed that 
 authority. How has it accomplished this 
 great and essential end.'' By declaring, sir, 
 that ^Hhe constitution, and the laws of the 
 United States made in pursuance thereof, 
 shall be the supreme law of the land, any- 
 tiling in the constitution or laws of a7iy state 
 to the contrary notwithstanding.^^ ^^ 
 
 This, sir, was the first great step. By this 
 the supremacy of the constitution and laws of 
 the United States is declared. The people so 
 will it. No state law is to be valid which 
 comes in conflict with the constitution, or any 
 law of the United States passed in pursuance 
 of it. But who shall decide this question of 
 interference } To whom lies the last appeal 1 
 This, sir, the constitution itself decides also, 
 
 S3. Constitution of the United States, Art YI, Clause 2. 
 
 120
 
 IRcplB to Ibagne 
 
 by declaring ' ' that the judicial power shall 
 extend to all cases arising under the cotistitu- 
 tion and laws of the United States.'' ^^ These 
 two provisions, sir, cover the whole ground. 
 They are, in truth, the keystone of the arch ! 
 With these it is a government; without them 
 it is a confederacy. In pursuance of these 
 clear and express provisions, congress estab- 
 lished, at its very first session, in the judicial 
 act, a mode for carrying them into full effect, 
 and for bringing all questions of constitutional 
 power to the final decision of the supreme 
 court. It then, sir, became a government. 
 It then had the means of self -protection; and 
 but for this, it would, in all probability, have 
 been now among the things which are past. 
 Having constituted the government, and de- 
 clared its powers, the people have furtker 
 said, that, since somebody must decide on the 
 extent of these powers, the government shall 
 itself decide; subject, always, like other popu- 
 lar governments, to its responsibility to the 
 people. And now, sir, I repeat, how is it that 
 a state legislature acquires any power to inter- 
 fere ? Who, or what, gives them the right to 
 say to the people, " We, who are your agents 
 and servants, for one purpose, will undertake 
 
 24. Constitution of the United States, Art. Ill, Sec. II, Clause i. 
 
 121
 
 IRcplg to Dagne 
 
 to decide that your other agents and servants, 
 appointed by you for another purpose, have 
 transcended the authority you gave them " ? 
 The reply would be, I think, not impertinent, 
 — "Who made you a judge over another's 
 servants ? To their own masters they stand 
 or fall." 
 
 Sir, I deny this power of state legislatures 
 altogether. It cannot stand the test of 
 examination. Gentlemen may say, that, in 
 an extreme case, a state government might 
 protect the people from intolerable oppression. 
 Sir, in such a case, the people might protect 
 themselves, without the aid of the state gov- 
 ernments. Such a case warrants revolution. 
 It must make, when it comes, a law for itself. 
 A nullifying act of a state legislature cannot 
 alter the case, nor make resistance any more 
 lawful. In maintaining these sentiments, sir, 
 I am but asserting the rights of the people. 
 I state what they have declared, and insist on 
 their right to declare it. They have chosen 
 to repose this power in the general government, 
 and I think it my duty to support it, like other 
 constitutional powers. 
 
 For myself, sir, I do not admit the juris- 
 diction of South Carolina, or any other state, 
 to prescribe my constitutional duty, or to 
 
 122
 
 o 
 
 to 
 
 ^5 
 
 ■-1 
 
 o
 
 "Kepis to Iba^ne 
 
 settle, between me and the people, the validity 
 of laws of congress for which I have voted. 
 I decline her umpirage. I have not sworn to 
 support the constitution according to her con- 
 struction of its clauses. I have not stipulated, 
 by my oath of office or otherwise, to come 
 under any responsibility, except to the people, 
 and those whom they have appointed to pass 
 upon the question, whether laws supported by 
 my votes conform to the constitution of the 
 country. And, sir, if we look to the general 
 nature of the case, could anything have been 
 more preposterous, than to make a govern- 
 ment for the whole Union, and yet leave its 
 powers subject, not to one interpretation, but 
 to thirteen or twenty-four interpretations ? 
 Instead of one tribunal, established by all, 
 responsible to all, with power to decide for all, 
 shall constitutional questions be left to four- 
 and-twenty popular bodies, each at liberty to 
 decide for itself, and none bound to respect 
 the decisions of others; and each at liberty, 
 too, to give a new construction on every new 
 election of its own members .-' Would any- 
 thing with such a principle in it, or rather with 
 such a destitution of all principle, be fit to be 
 called a government ? No, sir. It should not 
 be denominated a constitution. It should be 
 
 123
 
 IReplg to Iba^ne 
 
 called, rather, a collection of topics for ever- 
 lasting controversy; heads of debate for a dis- 
 putatious people. It would not be a gov- 
 ernment. It would not be adequate to any 
 practical good, or fit for any country to live 
 under. 
 
 To avoid all possibility of being misunder- 
 stood, allow me to repeat again, in the fullest 
 manner, that I claim no powers for the gov- 
 ernment by forced or unfair construction. I 
 admit that it is a government of strictly limited 
 powers; of enumerated, specified, and particu- 
 larized powers; and that whatsoever is not 
 granted, is withheld. But notwithstanding all 
 this, and however the grant of powers may be 
 expressed, its limit and extent may yet, in 
 some cases, admit of doubt; and the general 
 government would be good for nothing, it 
 would be incapable of long existing, if some 
 mode had not been provided in which those 
 doubts, as they should arise, might be peace- 
 ably but authoritatively solved. 
 
 And now, Mr. President, let me run the 
 honorable gentleman's doctrine a little into its 
 practical application. Let us look at his 
 probable modus operatuii.''^ If a thing can be 
 done, an ingenious man can tell how it is to 
 
 05 Mode of operation. 
 
 124
 
 TRepls to Ibn^ne 
 
 be done. Now I wish to be informed /low 
 this state interference is to be put in practice, 
 without violence, bloodshed, and rebellion. 
 We will take the existing case of the tariff 
 law. South Carolina is said to have made up 
 her opinion upon it. If we do not repeal it, (as 
 we probably shall not,) she will then apply to 
 the case the remedy of her doctrine. She 
 will, we must suppose, pass a law of her legis- 
 lature, declaring the several acts of congress, 
 usually called the tariff laws, null and void, so 
 far as they respect South Carolina, or the 
 citizens thereof. So far, all is a paper trans- 
 action, and easy enough. But the collector 
 at Charleston is collecting the duties imposed 
 by these tariff laws. He, therefore, must be 
 stopped. The collector will seize the goods if 
 the tariff duties are not paid. The state 
 authorities will undertake their rescue; the 
 marshal, with his posse, will come to the 
 collector's aid, and here the contest begins. 
 The militia of the state will be called out to 
 sustain the nullifying act. The}'' will march, 
 sir, under a very gallant leader; for I believe 
 the honorable member himself commands the 
 militia of that part of the state. He will 
 raise the nullifying act on his standard, 
 and spread it out as his banner ! It will have 
 
 125
 
 IRepIs to "Iba^ne 
 
 a preamble, bearing that the tariff laws are 
 palpable, deliberate, and dangerous violations 
 of the constitution ! He will proceed, with 
 his banner flying, to the custom-house in 
 Charleston, 
 
 "All the while. 
 Sonorous metal blowing martial sounds." 
 
 Arrived at the custom-house, he will tell the 
 collector that he must collect no more duties 
 under any of the tariff laws. This he will be 
 somewhat puzzled to say, by the way, with a 
 grave countenance, considering what hand 
 South Carolina herself had in that of 1816. 
 But, sir, the collector would not, probably, 
 desist at his bidding. He would show him 
 the law of congress, the treasury instruction, 
 and his own oath of office. He would say, he 
 should perform his duty, come what might. 
 
 Here would come a pause; for they say 
 that a certain stillness precedes the tempest. 
 The trumpeter would hold his breath awhile, 
 and before all this military array should fall on 
 the custom-house, collector, clerks, and all, it 
 is very probable some of those composing it 
 would request of their gallant commander-in- 
 chief to be informed a little upon the point of 
 law; for they have, doubtless, a just respect 
 
 126
 
 IReplB to Ibasnc 
 
 for his opinions as a lawyer, as well as for his 
 bravery as a soldier. They know he has read 
 Blackstone^® and the constitution, as well as 
 Turenne" and Vauban.^* They would ask 
 him, therefore, something concerning their 
 rights in this matter. They would inquire, 
 whether it was not somewhat dangerous to 
 resist a law of the United States. What 
 would be the nature of their offense, they 
 would wish to learn, if they, by military force 
 and array, resisted the execution in Carolina 
 of a law of the United States, and it should 
 turn out, after all, that the law ivas constitu- 
 tional? He would answer, of course, treason. 
 No lawyer could give any other answer. 
 John Fries, ^^ he would tell them, had learned 
 that, some years ago. How, then, they would 
 ask, do you propose to defend us .'' We are 
 not afraid of bullets, but treason has a way of 
 taking people off that we do not much relish. 
 How do you propose to defend us .'' " Look 
 at my floating banner," he would reply; *' see 
 there the nullifying law ! " Is it your opinion, 
 gallant commander, they would then say, that, 
 
 26. Eminent English law commentator — 1723. 
 
 27. Writer and soldier. Marshal of France in 1644. 
 
 28. Famous French military engineer — 1633-1707. 
 
 29. A German of Eastern Pennsylvania who opposed the collection of 
 taxes levied upon his house, incited riot and was tried for treason, 1799. 
 
 127
 
 TRepIg to Dagne 
 
 if we should be indicted for treason, that 
 same floating banner of yours would make a 
 good plea in bar ? * * South Carolina is a 
 sovereign state," he would reply. That is 
 true; but would the judge admit our plea? 
 ' ' These tariff laws, " he would repeat, ' ' are un- 
 constitutional, palpably, deliberately, danger- 
 ously." That may all be so; but if the tribunal 
 should not happen to be of that opinion, shall 
 we swing for it .'' We are ready to die for our 
 country, but it is rather an awkward business, 
 this dying without touching the ground ! After 
 all, that is a sort of hemp tax worse than any 
 part of the tariff. 
 
 Mr. President, the honorable gentleman 
 would be in a dilemma, like that of another 
 great general. He would have a knot ^" before 
 him which he could not untie. He must cut 
 it with his sword. He must say to his fol- 
 lowers, ' ' Defend yourselves with your bay- 
 onets; " and this is war — civil war. 
 
 Direct collision, therefore, between force 
 and force, is the unavoidable result of that 
 remedy for the revision of unconstitutional 
 
 30. Gordius was a peasant who became king of Phrygia. An oracle 
 declared that whoever untied the knot by which the yoke was tied to his 
 wagon would be made ruler of the world. Ale;<ander tried and not suc» 
 ceedin^ cut %he knot with his sword, 
 
 12^
 
 IReplB to Dasne 
 
 laws which the gentleman contends for. It 
 must happen in the very first case to which it 
 is appHcd. Is not this the plain result ? To 
 resist by force the execution of a law, gener- 
 ally, is treason. Can the courts of the United 
 States take notice of the indulgence of a state 
 to commit treason .-* The common saying that 
 a state cannot commit treason herself, is 
 nothing to the purpose. Can she authorize 
 others to do it .'* If John Fries had produced 
 an act of Pennsylvania, annulling the law of 
 congress, would it have helped his case .■* 
 Talk about it as we will, these doctrines go 
 the length of revolution. They are incom- 
 patible with any peaceable administration of the 
 government. They lead directly to disunion 
 and civil commotion ; and therefore it is, that 
 at their commencement, when they are first 
 found to be maintained by respectable men, 
 and in a tangible form, I enter my public 
 protest against them all. 
 
 The honorable gentleman argues, that if 
 this government be the sole judge of the 
 extent of its own powers, whether that right 
 of judging be in congress or the supreme 
 court, it equally subverts state sovereignty. 
 This the gentleman sees, or thinks he sees, 
 although he cannot perceive how the right 
 
 129
 
 IReplB to Ibasnc 
 
 of judging, in this matter, if left to the 
 exercise of state legislatures, has any tend- 
 ency to subvert the government of the 
 Union. The gentleman's opinion may be, 
 that the right ought not to have been lodged 
 with the general government; he may like 
 better such a constitution as we should have 
 under the right of state interference; but I 
 ask him to meet me on the plain matter of 
 fact. I ask him to meet me on the consti- 
 tution itself. I ask him if the power is not 
 found there, clearly and visibly found there "i 
 
 But, sir, what is this danger, and what 
 are the grounds of it } Let it be remembered 
 that the constitution of the United States 
 is not unalterable. It is to continue in its 
 present form no longer than the people who 
 established it shall choose to continue it. If 
 they shall become convinced that they have 
 made an injudicious or inexpedient partition 
 and distribution of power between the state 
 governments and the general government, 
 they can alter that distribution at will. 
 
 If anything be found in the national consti- 
 tution, either by original provision or subse- 
 quent interpretation, which ought not to be 
 in it, the people know how to get rid of it. 
 If any construction be established unaccept- 
 
 130
 
 IRepls to "Ibasne 
 
 able to them, so as to become practically a 
 part of the constitution, they will amend it, 
 at their own sovereign pleasure. But while 
 the people choose to maintain it as it is, while 
 they are satisfied with it, and refuse to 
 change it, who has given, or who can give, 
 to the state legislatures a right to alter it, 
 either by interference, construction, or other- 
 wise ? Gentlemen do not seem to recollect 
 that the people have any power to do any- 
 thing for themselves. They imagine there 
 is no safety for them, any longer than they 
 are under the close guardianship of the state 
 legislatures. Sir, the people have not trusted 
 their safety, in regard to the general consti- 
 tution, to these hands. They have required 
 other security, and taken other bonds. They 
 have chosen to trust themselves, first, to the 
 plain words of the instrument, and to such 
 construction as the government itself, in 
 doubtful cases, should put on its own powers, 
 and under their oaths of office, and subject to 
 their responsibility to them; just as the people 
 of a state trust their own state government 
 with a similar power. Secondly, they have 
 reposed their trust in the efficacy of frequent 
 elections, and in their own power to remove 
 their own servants and agents whenever they 
 
 i3»
 
 IRepis to Iba^ne 
 
 see cause. Thirdly, they have reposed trust 
 in the judicial power, which, in order that it 
 might be trustworthy, they have made as re- 
 spectable, as disinterested, and as independ- 
 ent as was practicable. Fourthly, they have 
 seen fit to rely, in case of necessity, or high 
 expediency, on their known and admitted power 
 to alter or amend the constitution, peace- 
 ably and quietly, whenever experience shall 
 point out defects or imperfections. And, 
 finally, the people of the United States have 
 at no time, in no way, directly or indirectly, 
 authorized any state legislature to construe 
 or interpret tJieir high instrument of govern- 
 ment; much less, to interfere, by their own 
 power, to arrest its course and operation. 
 
 If, sir, the people in these respects had 
 done otherwise than they have done, their 
 constitution could neither have been pre- 
 served, nor would it have been worth preserv- 
 ing. And if its plain provisions shall now 
 be disregarded, and these new doctrines in- 
 terpolated in it, it will become as feeble and 
 helpless a being as its enemies, whether early 
 or more recent, could possibly desire. It will 
 exist in every state, but as a poor dependent 
 on state permission. It must borrow leave 
 to be, and will be no longer than state pleas- 
 
 132
 
 ■Replg to "fcaBtic 
 
 ure, or state discretion, sees fit to grant the 
 indulgence, and prolong its poor existence. 
 
 But, sir, although there are fears, there are 
 hopes also. The people have preserved this, 
 their own chosen constitution, for forty years, 
 and have seen their happiness, prosperity, 
 and renown grow with its growth, and 
 strengthen with its strength. They are now, 
 generally, strongly attached to it. Over- 
 thrown by direct assault, it cannot be; 
 evaded, undermined, nullified, it will not 
 be, if w^e, and those who shall succeed us 
 here, as agents and representatives of the peo- 
 ple, shall conscientiously and vigilantly dis- 
 charge the two great branches of our public 
 trust — faithfully to preserve, and wisely to 
 administer it. 
 
 Mr. President, I have thus stated the 
 reasons of my dissent to the doctrines which 
 have been advanced and maintained. I am 
 conscious of having detained you and the senate 
 much too long. I was drawn into the debate 
 with no previous deliberation, such as is suited 
 to the discussion of so grave and important 
 a subject. But it is a subject of which my 
 heart is full, and I have not been willing to 
 suppress the utterance of its spontaneous 
 sentiments. I can not, even now, persuade 
 
 133
 
 IReplB to "fcagne 
 
 myself to relinquish it, without expressing 
 once more my deep conviction, that, since it 
 respects nothing less than the Union of the 
 states, it is of most vital and essential impor- 
 tance to the public happiness. I profess, sir, 
 in my career hitherto, to have kept steadily 
 in view the prosperity and honor of the whole 
 country, and the preservation of our federal 
 Union. It is to that Union we owe our safety 
 at home, and our consideration and dignity 
 abroad. It is to that Union that we are 
 chiefly indebted for whatever makes us most 
 proud of our country. That Union we 
 reached only by the discipline of our virtues 
 in the severe school of adversity. It had its 
 origin in the necessities of disordered finance, 
 prostrate commerce, and ruined credit. 
 Under its benign influences, these great 
 interests immediately awoke, as from the 
 dead, and sprang forth with newness of life. 
 Every year of its duration has teemed with 
 fresh proofs of its utihty and its blessings; and 
 although our territory has stretched out wider 
 and wider, and our population spread farther 
 and farther, they have not outrun its protection 
 or its benefits. It has been to us all a copious 
 fountain of national, social, and personal hap- 
 piness. 
 
 134
 
 TRepls to Iba^ne 
 
 I have not allowed myself, sir, to look 
 beyond the Union, to see what might lie 
 hidden in the dark recess behind. I have not 
 coolly weighed the chances of preserving lib- 
 erty when the bonds that unite us together 
 shall be broken asunder. I have not accus- 
 tomed myself to hang over the precipice of 
 disunion, to see whether, with my short sighf, 
 I can fathom the depth of the abyss below; 
 nor could I regard him as a safe counselor in 
 the affairs of this government, whose thoughts 
 should be mainly bent on considering, not how 
 the Union should be best preserved, but how 
 tolerable might be the condition of the people 
 when it shall be broken up and destroyed. 
 While the Union lasts, we have high, excit- 
 ing, gratifying prospects spread out before us, 
 for us and our children. Beyond that I seek 
 not to penetrate the veil. God grant that 
 in my day, at least, that curtain may not rise! 
 God grant that on my vision never may be 
 opened what lies behind! When my eyes shall 
 be turned to behold for the last time the sun 
 in heaven, may I not see him shining on the 
 broken and dishonored fragments of a once 
 glorious Union; on states dissevered, dis- 
 cordant, belligerent; on a land rent with 
 civil feuds, or drenched, it may be, in fra- 
 
 135
 
 IReplB to Tbagnc 
 
 ternal blood! Let their last feeble and linger- 
 ing glance rather behold the gorgeous ensign 
 of the republic, now known and honored 
 throughout the earth, still full high advanced, 
 its arms and trophies streaming in their original 
 luster, not a stripe erased or polluted, not a 
 single star obscured, bearing for its motto no 
 such miserable interrogatory as ' * "What is all 
 this worth?" nor those other words of delu- 
 sion and folly, "Liberty first and Union 
 afterwards; " but everywhere, spread all over 
 in characters of living light, blazing on all its 
 ample folds, as they float over the sea and 
 over the land, and in every wind under the 
 whole heavens, that other sentiment, dear to 
 every true American heart — Liberty and 
 Union, now and forever, one and inseparable! 
 
 After Webster had completed his speech Hayne 
 rose for a rejoinder and argued the constitutional 
 question. His chief contention was that the con- 
 stitution is a compact between the states, that a 
 contract between two with one only possessing the 
 power of interpretation would mean the practical 
 surrender to that one of all the power, therefore 
 the general government does not possess the 
 authority to construe its own powers — at least 
 such is Webster's statement of the case. In reply 
 Mr. Webster showed the absurdity of making the 
 
 136
 
 •RcplB to IbaTgne 
 
 thing created, that is, the government, a party to 
 the compact that created it. Then granting for 
 purposes of argument that the government is in 
 the nature of a compact he proceeds to show that 
 the only way to determine the powers of the com- 
 pact is by a study and construction of its terms. 
 Then he finds in the constitution that the laws 
 passed by Congress in pursuance of the consti- 
 tution shall be the supreme law of the land and 
 that the judicial power of the United States shall 
 extend to every case arising under the laws of 
 congress. This is conclusive and forever settles 
 the unconstitutionality of the doctrine of state 
 rights. 
 
 137
 
 studies 
 
 Structure 
 
 The great length of the Reply will prevent your 
 making so close an outline as was presented for 
 Lincoln's Gettysburg Address, but you should 
 make the outline full for the direct argument by 
 which Webster disposes of the dogma of State 
 Rights. Note the personal matters of the intro- 
 duction and the various secondary questions he 
 reviews and then omitting these from further 
 consideration reduce to writing the argument of 
 his plea. It will not be the easiest task but you 
 will succeed. You may find yourself making 
 several copies before one satisfies you perfectly 
 but that is no more than every person must do 
 who studies under even the best personal tuition. 
 
 When you have prepared the outline and are 
 sure you have all the points of the argument, 
 reduce them to the fewest possible words and then 
 make a final copy in form like the one of the 
 Gettysburg Address on page 26. This will enable 
 you to see the whole argument at a glance and 
 will show you something of the way in which the 
 thoughts lay in the mind of Webster before he 
 clothed them in words. 
 
 You will arrange the matter of your outline 
 under the three great headings : Ifitroduction, Dis- 
 
 138
 
 hi 
 tri 
 
 a; 
 
 to 
 hi
 
 StuOte0 
 
 cusston, and Conclusion. The introduction in the 
 speech ends just before the paragraph beginning 
 " I spoke, sir, of the ordinance of 1787." Where 
 does the conclusion begin ? How many distinct 
 lines of argument do you find Webster pursuing 
 in the body of the speech ? Is the transition from 
 one to another of these logical and natural ? 
 Could any of them be omitted as irrelevant ? 
 Are you impressed with the unity, the oneness of 
 the oration? How many readings are required for 
 you to get in mind the full course of the argument ? 
 
 Thought 
 
 As an oration that ranks among the most power- 
 ful ever delivered, the Reply to Hayne deserves 
 close and particular study. The profound princi- 
 ples discussed can be appreciated only through 
 thorough understanding of the details and minor 
 phases of the thought. To get in all cases 
 Webster's full and exact meaning, first look up in 
 a good dictionary every unfamiliar word. Per- 
 haps the term farrago (page 87, line 3) is new to 
 you. You must understand that it means a con- 
 fused mixture, a jumble, in order to feel fully 
 Webster's contempt for the mass of printed matter 
 brought to light by his opponent. Again, con- 
 sider the words vilified (page 88, last line) and 
 scurrilous (page 89, \ i). How much is added 
 to the context if one knows, not, in a vague way, 
 that these terms indicate baseness, but definitely, 
 
 139
 
 studies 
 
 that tJi'/i^ means fo make base in the sight of others, 
 usually as an unjustifiable gratification of low and 
 bitter feeling, and that scurrilous could be applied 
 only to "publications" which are unfair and 
 which express ill-feeling. Likewise, it is not 
 enough to guess or know vaguely that the word 
 encomium (page 94, ^ 3) means praise; it indi- 
 cates strong commendation and the reader must 
 realize this if he is to share the orator's feeling. 
 An attempt to find not only the general definition 
 but the finer shades of meaning of every other 
 word not well understood will be amply repaid. 
 
 Webster in several cases adds zest to his oration 
 by the use of vigorous figures of speech. He 
 begins, indeed, with likening the course of the 
 discussion in the senate to that of the mariner 
 who, driven out of his way on a stormy sea, 
 seizes his first opportunity to take his bearings. 
 Can you think of a more effective means of im- 
 pressing the need of returning to the original point 
 of the discussion that the exact position in the 
 debate might be realized? Notice the amusing 
 metaphor which runs through pages 45, 46 and 
 47. What effect do you suppose it had upon the 
 audience ? Trace carefully the application of all 
 other figures that you find. Read aloud slowly 
 and carefully the last paragraph of the oration, 
 since it is filled with powerful and vivid figures. 
 
 The speech abounds in allusions. Many of 
 these references are explained in the notes. 
 
 140
 
 studies 
 
 Satisfy yourself of the meaning of all others 
 before you leave your study of the speech. Get 
 clearly in mind the meaning of State Sovereignty 
 and Nullification and the attitude of both South 
 Carolina and New England toward the public 
 lands discussion and the interpretation of the 
 Constitution. 
 
 Sometimes single sentences demand particular 
 notice because of peculiar meaning and force. For 
 example, on page 76, the meaning of the sentence, 
 "The harvest of neutrality was great but we have 
 gathered it all," may not be at once evident. It 
 may require particular consideration to bring out 
 the idea that while the nations of Europe were at 
 war, American ships sailing under a neutral flag 
 reaped great advantages from trade, but such a 
 condition is now past. Again on page 80, line 4, 
 the sentence, ''The tariff of 181 6 — South Caro- 
 lina votes," calls for especial attention. Note 
 the effect of the use of one of the enemy's own 
 weapone. Sentences like these cannot be slighted 
 if a clear understanding of the essay in its entirety 
 is to be gained. 
 
 Read the paragraph on page 68, which begins, 
 " Sir, we narrow-minded people" and the follow- 
 ing paragraph, "Sir, I do not desire" with suffi- 
 cient care to get the thought completely. Then 
 reproduce these paragraphs, explaining fully 
 Webster's attitude and the allusions he makes. 
 In similar manner treat the third paragraph on 
 
 141
 
 StuOles 
 
 page 99, beginning "This leads us," and other 
 paragraphs that seem of marked importance. 
 
 Was the subject of the public lands the really 
 important issue in Webster's speech ? If not, 
 what was the vital matter of controversy ? Does 
 the orator, in general, keep closely to his subject ? 
 Has Webster a well-developed sense of humor? 
 How does the spirit shown by him compare with 
 that of his opponents ? How far do Webster's 
 earnest personal conviction and enthusiasm make 
 themselves felt ? 
 
 Style 
 
 Simplicity, vigor and directness characterize 
 the Gettysburg address. Do you find the same 
 qualities in the Reply to Hayne ? If not, how 
 does the oratory of Lincoln differ from that of Web- 
 ster? What would you say are the distinguishing 
 characteristics of Webster's style ? Do you think 
 that it is peculiarly adapted to his subject ? In 
 your opinion, is the critic justified who says that 
 "Seldom, in the world of letters, do we find such 
 another heaven-scaling crag, with its feet in the 
 deep sea, as Webster"? 
 
 142
 
 part Six 
 
 Orations 
 
 (ContfnucO)
 
 a; 
 o 
 
 o
 
 Je^mun^ Burftc
 
 £^mun^ JSurfie 
 
 1729-1797 
 
 The time when America was waging her war for 
 independence was a stirring time in the history of 
 the world. Great Britain had through her ofificials 
 devastated India, Ireland was in a state of up- 
 heaval, and the French were on the eve of their 
 bloodiest revolution. It was a time when the 
 world needed great men and a time when the 
 stimulus of events was certain to produce greatness 
 in men. Edmund Burke was one of the leaders 
 of the time, a man as fearless as he was eloquent 
 in debate, and as wise and far-sighted in his policy 
 as he was startling and effective in his defense of 
 it. The colonies had no wiser nor more faithful 
 friend and no friend who was more earnestly their 
 champion. From the time when Burke made his 
 first ringing speech on the Stamp Act till the last 
 days of his life he was consistently the advocate 
 of justice and freedom. 
 
 He was born in Dublin, and was one of the fif- 
 teen children of an Irish lawyer who desired this 
 son to follow the same profession. Accordingly 
 he was carefully educated in preparation for col- 
 lege and finally graduated from Trinity, Dublin, 
 in 1748. Here he distinguished himself in no 
 special way except for his erratic and somewhat 
 tempestuous nature and for the enthusiasm with 
 
 147
 
 BOmunD JSurfte 
 
 which he read, — absorbed at one time in one study 
 and then entering with equal ardor in some other 
 branch, but never permanently excellent in any- 
 thing unless it was in Latin. 
 
 Upon graduation he was sent by his father to Lon- 
 don to study law but at the end of four years Ed- 
 mund, then about twenty-five years of age, aban- 
 doned the profession and resolved to devote himself 
 to literature. This act so exasperated his father that 
 he withdrew his support and the young man was 
 left dependent entirely upon his own resources. 
 The keenness of his intellect and the brilliancy of 
 his powers of expression should have made him fa- 
 mous and wealthy but he was never successful in the 
 conduct of his own affairs. While his prominence 
 brought him a good income his extravagance and 
 poor management left him heavily in debt in spite 
 of the fact that admiring friends came fre- 
 quently to his rescue, advancing large sums of 
 money and cancelling heavy obligations to them- 
 selves. He purchased a large estate hoping to 
 found an enduring house but the death of his son 
 destroyed his hope of the peerage and the increas- 
 ing burden of his debts finally drove him from 
 public life. For the three years preceding his 
 death he devoted himself faithfully to literary 
 labors in the vain hope of retrieving his fallen 
 fortunes. Lord Buckingham in his will finally 
 freed Burke's estate and ordered the destruction of 
 all evidences of the latter's indebtedness. 
 
 148
 
 £DmunD :iBuc1te 
 
 Burke was for several years an assistant to the 
 secretary for Ireland but it was as member of 
 parliament from Wendover that he achieved his 
 greatest forensic triumphs. Morley says:** Burke 
 is entitled to our lasting reverence as the first 
 apostle and great upholder of integrity, mercy, 
 and honor in the relation between his countrymen 
 and their humble dependents." And it is in this 
 capacity that we see him acting. His activity 
 and powerful speech in the impeachment trial of 
 Warren Hastings, February, 1788, carried Great 
 Britain by storm. India and her wrongs were 
 made the subject of the most soul-stirring appeals, 
 and the ruthless tyranny by which she had been 
 crushed was exposed with so furious a zeal and 
 such impassioned invective that the listening mul- 
 titude, spectators, advocates, judges, and even the 
 great criminal himself, were spellbound in anxiety 
 and terror. It was the greatest triumph of classic 
 oratory known to modern times. Burke failed to 
 secure the conviction of Hastings but he obtained 
 justice for India and established mercy and mod- 
 eration for the colonists. 
 
 He was a man of wonderful resources and deep 
 learning. " I have learned more from him," said 
 Fox, "than from all the books I ever read." 
 "Take up whatever topic you please he is ready 
 to meet you," was Dr. Johnson's testimony to his 
 wide culture. 
 
 To the electors of Bristol he once gave this 
 
 149
 
 jEDmunD JSurhe 
 
 manly account of his action in Parliament. Ob- 
 jections had been made to his conduct and after 
 meeting and answering them he continued: ** I do 
 not stand before you accused of venality or neg- 
 lect of duty. It is not said that in the long period 
 of my service I have in a single instance sacrificed 
 the slightest of interests to my ambition or to my 
 future. It is not alleged that to gratify any anger 
 or revenge of my own or of my party I have had a 
 share in wronging or oppressing any description 
 of men. No! The charges against me are all of 
 one kind: that I have pushed the principles of 
 general justice and benevolence too far — further 
 than a cautious policy would warrant and further 
 than the opinions of many would go along with 
 me. In every accident which may happen through 
 life, in pain, in sorrow, in depression and distress 
 I will call to mind this accusation and be com- 
 forted." 
 
 I think it was on going home from the club one 
 night that Edmund Burke, his soul full of great 
 thoughts, be sure, for they never left him, his 
 heart full of gentleness, was accosted by a poor, 
 wandering woman to whom he spoke words of 
 kindness; and, moved by her tears, perhaps having 
 caused them by his own words, he took her home 
 to the house of his wife and children, and never 
 left her until he had found the means of restoring 
 
 150
 
 jEDmunO JSutRe 
 
 Tier to honesty and labor. O you fine gentlemen, 
 you Marches and Selwyns and Chesterfields, how 
 small you look by the side of this great man! 
 
 — Thackeray. 
 
 Burke will always be read with delight and edi- 
 fication, because in the midst of discussions on the 
 local and the accidental, he scatters apothegms 
 that take us into the regions of lasting wisdom. 
 In the midst of the torrent of his most strenuous 
 and passionate deliverances, he suddenly rises 
 aloof from his immediate subject, and in all tran- 
 quillity reminds us of some permanent relation of 
 things, some enduring truth of human life or 
 society. We do not hear the organ tones of Mil- 
 ton, for faith and freedom had other notes in the 
 seventeenth century. There is none of the com- 
 placent and wise-browed sagacity of Bacon, for 
 Burke's were days of eager personal strife and 
 party fire and civil division. We are not exhil- 
 arated by the cheerfulness, the polish, the fine 
 manners of Bolingbroke, for Burke had an anx- 
 ious conscience and was earnest and intent that 
 the good should triumph. And yet Burke is 
 among the greatest of those who have wrought 
 marvels in the prose of our English tongue. 
 
 — Morley. 
 
 Unlike Hume, whose politics were elaborated 
 in the study, Burke wrote his political tracts and 
 speeches face to face with events, and upon them.
 
 £dmunD JBuriie 
 
 Philosophical reasoning and poetic passion were 
 wedded together in them on the side of conserva- 
 tism, and every art of eloquence was used with 
 the mastery that imagination gives. — Rev. Stop- 
 ford Brooke. 
 
 There are two of Burke's speeches that are in- 
 timately related — the one on American Taxation 
 and the one On Conciliation with A?nerica. 
 Add to these the Letter to the Sheriffs of Bristol, 
 and to quote Mr, John Morley, '* It is no exaggera- 
 tion to say that they compose the most perfect 
 manual in our literature, or in any literature, for 
 one who approaches the study of public affairs, 
 whether for knowledge or for practice. They are 
 an example without fault of all the qualities which 
 the critic, whether a theorist or an actor, of great 
 political situations should strive by night and by 
 day to possess. ... If ever, in the fullness of 
 time, — and surely the fates of men and literature 
 cannot have it otherwise, — Burke becomes one of 
 the half-dozen names of established and universal 
 currency in education and in common books, ris- 
 ing above the waywardness of literary caprice or 
 intellectual fashions, as Shakespeare and Milton 
 and Bacon rise above it, it will be the mastery, 
 the elevation, the wisdom of these far-shining dis- 
 courses, in which the world will, in an especial 
 degree, recognize the combination of sovereign 
 gifts with benificent uses." 
 
 152
 
 BOmunD JSutfte 
 
 The importance of the occasion and the far- 
 reaching consequences of the debates in which the 
 two speeches had their origin cannot be over-esti- 
 mated. The writer quoted above says in another 
 place, "The defeat and subjugation of the colo- 
 nists would have been followed by the final anni- 
 hilation of the Opposition in the mother country. 
 The War of Independence was virtually a second 
 English Civil War. The ruin of the American 
 cause would have been also the ruin of the consti- 
 tutional cause in England; and a patriotic Eng- 
 lishman may revere the memory of Patrick Henry 
 and George Washington as justly as the patriotic 
 American. Burke's attitude in this great contest 
 is that part of his history about the majestic and 
 noble wisdom of which there can be least dispute." 
 
 If the great orator did not succeed in averting 
 the war, if a headstrong and violent ministry had 
 so far forced their oppressive measures upon the 
 colonists as to make war inevitable, yet the elo- 
 quence of Burke and his noble allies made the 
 war unpopular with great numbers of the loyal 
 people of Great Britain, paved the way for the 
 final success of American arms, and made possi- 
 ble the ultimate conciliation of the independent 
 nation with Great Britain. 
 
 In the first speech Burke endeavored to bring 
 the policy of the government back to its original 
 method of dealing with the colonies, that of leav- 
 ing them free and independent in the control of 
 
 153
 
 B^mun5 asurfte 
 
 their local affairs and merely regulating their com- 
 merce. He spoke from the English standpoint 
 and criticised vehemently the vacillating and fool- 
 ish policy of the ministry. The speech was keen 
 and sarcastic and its prime purpose was to over- 
 throw Lord North and his cabinet. This speech 
 was delivered in 1774. 
 
 A little less than a year later, on the twenty- 
 second of March, 1775, the second speech was 
 made. Here his attitude was entirely different. 
 No longer attacking the ministry, he attempted, 
 by showing the condition and future possibilities 
 of the American colonies, to placate their enemies 
 and secure for them such substantial justice as 
 would please and satisfy them and at the same 
 time bring valuable and willing friends to the sup- 
 port of the mother country. Professor Goodrich, 
 of Yale, considers it ''the most finished of Burke's 
 speeches," and Fox, twenty years after the speech 
 was delivered, gave it this encomium : 
 
 "Let gentlemen read this speech by day, and 
 meditate on it by night; let them peruse it again 
 and again, study it, imprint it on their minds, im- 
 press it on their hearts; they will then learn that 
 representation is the sovereign remedy for every 
 evil." 
 
 "Yet Erskine, who was in the House when this 
 was delivered, said that it drove everybody away, 
 including people who, when they came to read it, 
 read it over and over again, and could hardly 
 
 154
 
 jeomunD asutfte 
 
 think of anything else. Burke's gestures were 
 clumsy; he had sonorous but harsh tones; he 
 never lost a strong Irish accent; and his utterance 
 was often hurried and eager. Apart from these 
 disadvantages of accident, which have been over- 
 come by men infinitely inferior to Burke, it is easy 
 to perceive, from the matter and texture of the 
 speeches that have become English classics, that 
 the very qualities which are excellencies in litera- 
 ture were drawbacks to the spoken discourses." 
 
 — Morley. 
 
 George III became king in 1760. By nature 
 he was obstinate and self-willed and throughout 
 his boyhood and early life he listened to the 
 teachings of his mother, whose one idea was to 
 establish an absolute monarchy, with him as its 
 ruler. These teachings produced their natural 
 effect and no sooner had George ascended the 
 throne, than he began a struggle with Parliament, 
 in which his persistent and unscrupulous char- 
 acter enabled him to win. 
 
 The first step in the king's policy was to form 
 for himself a supporting party among the Tory 
 nobles, who had been the followers of the Stuarts. 
 He took advantage also of the dissensions which 
 were dividing the Whig party, many of whom had 
 been under the leadership of Walpole, favoring 
 peace abroad and at home, and others of the 
 younger branch wishing to assist in the conti- 
 
 155
 
 £Dmund :iBurfie 
 
 nental struggles which were then under way. The 
 history of the years immediately preceding the 
 American Pvcvolution, is the history of the strug- 
 gle between the king, these factions among the 
 ruling classes, and the growing discontent among 
 the English people, who for almost the first time 
 in their history, looked with contempt upon Par- 
 liament. And for this contempt there was good 
 reason. Never was there a more corrupt group 
 of men than those who formed the House of 
 Commons. They obtained their seats by pur- 
 chase and sold their votes to the highest bidder. 
 This was usually the king. He purchased the 
 votes not only of the members of Parliament, 
 but sent his agents into the country and actually 
 bought the election of his favorites in the different 
 boroughs. By these means he obtained a control 
 which was almost absolute and when Lord North 
 was chosen Prime Minister he was but a cloak 
 for George IH who formulated his policy and 
 directed his actions. All this had not taken place 
 without the notice of the great body of the Eng- 
 lish people, whose outraged dignity found vent in 
 constant turmoil and opposition. In some locali- 
 ties members were repeatedly returned against the 
 wishes of the king, but they were so few in num- 
 ber that their votes counted as nothing, against 
 those owned by the king. 
 
 It was at this time that public journalism came 
 first to be an important factor in English politics. 
 
 156
 
 £Dmund JSurfte 
 
 The proceedings of Parliament had not been pub- 
 lished previously, but after violent opposition ex- 
 tending over several years, the recently established 
 newspapers, aided by the growing public senti- 
 ment, succeeded in obtaining full reports of the 
 proceedings. This opened the way for that pub- 
 licity which eventually brought the House of 
 Commons back to its original position as the 
 direct representative of the people and cleansed it 
 from its taint of bribery. But when Burke spoke 
 the power of the king was at its height and it was 
 inevitable that the plan for conciliation should 
 fail. 
 
 The condition of things in the colonies is famil- 
 iar to us. The repeal of the Stamp Act might 
 have proved a pacificatory measure, had not its 
 significance been entirely destroyed by a declara- 
 tion that Great Britain still had a right to tax the 
 colonies. In 1767, a new tax levied caused so 
 much agitation that Parliament decided to remove 
 all impositions except that upon tea, this being 
 retained in order to reserve the right. The colo- 
 nists received this law in derision; in Boston the 
 tea was thrown into the harbor by patriots dis- 
 guised as Indians and elsewhere it was not per- 
 mitted to land or was stored in damp cellars and 
 left to rot in disuse. 
 
 This roused the animosity of the king and at 
 his instigation a bill was passed closing the port 
 of Boston, and General Gage was sent to Massa- 
 
 157
 
 £Dmund 3!3urfte 
 
 chusetts to enforce submission. In addition to 
 this a law was passed requiring all persons under 
 indictment for criminal offenses to be sent to 
 England for trial, the quartering of troops on 
 citizens of Boston was authorized, and laws 
 were passed tending to restrict the extension of 
 colonial territory. 
 
 Meanwhile the colonies were far from idle. 
 Oppression had brought unity of feeling among 
 them and in September, 1774, a general congress 
 convened at Philadelphia. War seemed certain 
 and the colonists prepared to meet the move- 
 ments of the troops sent against them. Franklin, 
 who had been in England for some time as am- 
 bassador, recognized the impossibility of accom- 
 plishing anything and, sailed for America on the 
 very day that Burke made his plea for peace. 
 War was on and in less than a month British sol- 
 diers had fallen at Concord Bridge. 
 
 158
 
 on Conciliation witb Hmerica 
 
 EDMUND BURKE
 
 ©n Conciliation witb Smerica 
 
 HOUSE OF COMMONS, MARCH 22, I775. 
 
 I HOPE, Sir, that notwithstanding the auster- 
 ity of the Chair, your good nature will incline 
 you to some degree of indulgence towards 
 human frailty. You will not think it unnatural 
 that those who have an object depending, 
 which strongly engages their hopes and fears, 
 should be somewhat inclined to superstition. 
 As I came into the House full of anxiety 
 about the event of my motion, I found, to my 
 infinite surprise, that the grand penal bill, by 
 which we had passed sentence on the trade 
 and sustenance of America, is to be returned 
 to us from the other House. ^ I do confess I 
 could not help looking on this event as a for- 
 tunate omen. I look upon it as a sort of 
 providential favor, by which we are put once 
 more in possession of our deliberative capacity 
 upon a business so very questionable in its 
 nature, so very uncertain in its issue. By the 
 
 I. This was the bill which proposed to restrict the commerce of the 
 colonies and to prohibit fishing on the banks of Newfoundland under 
 certain conditions. Its enforcement would mean beggary to thousands, 
 
 161
 
 ®n Conciliation witb amerfca 
 
 return of this bill, which seemed to have 
 taken its flight forever, we are at this very 
 instant nearly as free to choose a plan for our 
 American Government as we were on the first 
 day of the session. If, Sir, we incline to the 
 side of conciliation, we are not at all embar- 
 rassed (unless we please to make ourselves so) 
 by any incongruous mixture of coercion and 
 restraint. We are therefore called upon, as 
 it were by a superior warning voice, again to 
 attend to America; to attend to the whole of 
 it together; and to review the subject with 
 an unusual degree of care and calmness. 
 
 Surely it is an awful subject, or there is 
 none so on this side of the grave. When I 
 first had the honor of a seat in this House, the 
 affairs of that continent pressed themselves 
 upon us as the most important and most deli- 
 cate object of Parliamentary attention. My 
 little share in this great deliberation oppressed 
 me.^ I found myself a partaker in a very high 
 trust; and, having no sort of reason to rely 
 on the strength of my natural abilities for the 
 proper execution of that trust, I was obliged 
 to take more than common pains to instruct 
 myself in everything which relates to our 
 
 2. In 1765, Burke represented Wendover, and bis maiden speech was 
 fgr the repeal of the Stamp Act. 
 
 l6z
 
 ®n Concflfation witb Bmecica 
 
 Colonies. I was not less under the necessity 
 of forming some fixed ideas concerning the 
 general policy of the British Empire. Some- 
 thing of this sort seemed to be indispensable, 
 in order, amidst so vast a fluctuation of pas- 
 sions and opinions, to concenter my thoughts, 
 to ballast my conduct, to preserve me frofn 
 being blown about by every wind of fashion- 
 able doctrine. I really did not think it safe or 
 manly to have fresh principles to seek upon 
 every fresh mail which should arrive from 
 America. 
 
 At that period I had the fortune to find 
 myiself in perfect concurrence with a large 
 majority in this House. ^ Bowing under that 
 high authority, and penetrated with the sharp- 
 ness and strength of that early impression, I 
 have continued ever since, without the least 
 deviation, in my original sentiments. Whether 
 this be owing to an obstinate perseverance in 
 error, or to a religious adherence to what ap- 
 pears to me truth and reason, it is in your 
 equity to judge. 
 
 Sir, Parliament, having an enlarged view of 
 objects, made, during this interval,* more fre- 
 quent changes in their sentiments and their 
 
 3. The repeal of the Stamp Act. 
 
 4. December, 1765, to March, 1775. 
 
 163
 
 ©n Conciliation wltb Bmerlca 
 
 conduct than could be justified in a particular 
 person upon the contracted scale of private 
 information. But though I do not hazard 
 anything approaching to a censure on the 
 motives of former Parliaments to all those 
 alterations, one fact is undoubted — that under 
 them the state of America has been kept in 
 continual agitation. Everything adminis- 
 tered as remedy to the public complaint, if it 
 did not produce, was at least followed by, an 
 heightening of the distemper; until, by a 
 variety of experiments, that important country 
 has been brought into her present situation — 
 a situation I will not miscall, which I dare not 
 name, which I scarcely know how to compre- 
 hend in the terms of any description. 
 
 In this posture. Sir, things stood at the 
 beginning of the session. About that time, a 
 worthy member of great Parliamentary ex- 
 perience,^ who, in the year 1766, filled the 
 chair of the American committee with much 
 ability, took me aside; and, lamenting the 
 present aspect of our politics, told me things 
 were come to such a pass that our former 
 methods of proceeding in the House would be 
 no longer tolerated: that the public tribunal 
 (never too indulgent to a long and unsuccess- 
 
 5. Mr. Rose Fuller. 
 
 164
 
 ®n ConciUatlon wftb Bmcrfca 
 
 ful opposition) would now scrutinize our 
 conduct with unusual severity: that the very 
 vicissitudes and shiftings of ministerial meas- 
 ures, instead of convicting their authors of 
 inconstancy and want of system, would be 
 taken as an occasion of charging us with 
 a predetermined discontent, which nothing 
 could satisfy; whilst we accused every measure 
 of vigor as cruel, and every proposal of lenity 
 as weak and irresolute. The public, he said, 
 would not have patience to see us play the 
 game out with our adversaries; we must pro- 
 duce our hand. It would be expected that 
 those who for many years had been active in 
 such affairs should show that they had formed 
 some clear and decided idea of the principles 
 of Colony government; and were capable of 
 drawing out something like a platform of the 
 ground which might be laid for future and 
 permanent tranquillity. 
 
 I felt the truth of what my honorable friend 
 represented; but I felt my situation too. His 
 application might have been made with far 
 greater propriety to many other gentlemen. 
 No man was indeed ever better disposed, or 
 worse qualified, for such an undertaking than 
 myself. Though I gave so far in to his opinion 
 that I immediately threw my thoughts into 
 
 165
 
 ©n Conciliation witb Bmetica 
 
 a sort of Parliamentary form, I was by no 
 means equally ready to produce them. It gen- 
 erally argues some degree of natural impotence 
 of mind, or some want of knowledge of the 
 world, to hazard plans of government except 
 from a seat of authority. Propositions are 
 made, not only ineffectually, but somewhat 
 disreputably, when the minds of men are not 
 properly disposed for their reception; and, for 
 my part, I am not ambitious of ridicule — not 
 absolutely a candidate for disgrace. 
 
 Besides, Sir, to speak the plain truth, I 
 have in general no very exalted opinion of 
 the virtue of paper government; nor of any 
 politics in which the plan is to be wholly sep- 
 arated from the execution. But when I saw 
 that anger and violence prevailed every day 
 more and more, and that things were hasten- 
 ing towards an incurable alienation of our 
 Colonies, I confess my caution gave way. I 
 felt this as one of those few moments in 
 which decorum yields to a higher duty. Pub- 
 lic calamity is a mighty leveler; and there are 
 occasions when any, even the slightest, chance 
 of doing good must be laid hold on, even by 
 the most inconsiderable person. 
 
 To restore order and repose to an empire 
 so great and so distracted as ours, is, merely 
 
 i66
 
 ©n Conciliation wltb Bmcdca 
 
 in the attempt, an undertaking that would 
 ennoble the flights of the highest genius, and 
 obtain pardon for the efforts of the meanest 
 understanding. Struggling a good while with 
 these thoughts, by degrees I felt myself more 
 firm. I derived, at length, some confidence 
 from what in other circumstances usually pro- 
 duces timidity. I grew less anxious, even 
 from the idea of my own insignificance. For, 
 judging of what you are by what you ought 
 to be, I persuaded myself that you would not 
 reject a reasonable proposition because it had 
 nothing but its reason to recommend it. On 
 the other hand, being totally destitute of all 
 shadow of influence, natural or adventitious, 
 I was very sure that, if my proposition were 
 futile or dangerous — if it were weakly con- 
 ceived, or improperly timed — there was 
 nothing exterior to it of power to awe, dazzle, 
 or delude you. You will see it just as it is; 
 and you will treat it just as it deserves. 
 
 The proposition is peace. Not peace 
 through the medium of war; not peace to be 
 hunted through the labyrinth of intricate and 
 endless negotiations; not peace to arise out 
 of universal discord fomented, from principle, 
 in all parts of the Empire; not peace to de- 
 pend on the juridical determination of per- 
 
 167
 
 ©n ConclUatton wftb Bmerfca 
 
 plexing questions, or the precise marking the 
 shadowy boundaries of a complex government. 
 It is simple peace; sought in its natural course, 
 and in its ordinary haunts. It is peace sought 
 in the spirit of peace, and laid in principles 
 purely specific. I propose, by removing the 
 ground of the difference, and by restoring the 
 former unsuspecting confidence of the Colonies 
 in the Mother Country, to give permanent 
 satisfaction to your people; and (far from a 
 scheme of ruling by discord) to reconcile them 
 to each other in the same act and by the bond 
 of the very same interest which reconciles 
 them to British government. 
 
 My idea is nothing more. Refined policy 
 ever has been the parent of confusion; and 
 ever will be so, as long as the world endures. 
 Plain good intention, which is as easily dis- 
 covered at the first view as fraud is surely 
 detected at last, is, let me say, of no mean 
 force in the government of mankind. Genuine 
 simplicity of heart is an healing and cement- 
 ing principle. My plan, therefore, being 
 formed upon the most simple grounds imag- 
 inable, may disappoint some people when they 
 hear it. It has nothing to recommend it to 
 the pruriency of curious ears. There is noth- 
 ing at all new and captivating in it. It has 
 
 1 68
 
 ©n Concdtatton wltb Bmerfca 
 
 nothing of the splendor of the project which 
 has been lately laid upon your table by the 
 noble lord in the blue ribbon.^ It does not pro- 
 pose to fill your lobby with squabbling Colony 
 agents, who will require the interposition of 
 your mace, at every instant, to keep the peace 
 amongst them. It does not institute a magnifi- 
 cent auction of finance, where captivated 
 provinces come to general ransom by bidding 
 against each other, until you knock down the 
 hammer, and determine a proportion of pay- 
 ment beyond all the powers of algebra to 
 equalize and settle. 
 
 The plan which I shall presume to suggest 
 derives, however, one great advantage from 
 the proposition and registry of that noble 
 lord's project. The idea of conciliation is 
 admissible. First, the House, in accepting 
 the resolution moved by the noble lord, has 
 admitted, notwithstanding the menacing front 
 of our address, 7 notwithstanding our heavy 
 bills of pains and penalties — that we do not 
 think ourselves precluded from all ideas of 
 free grace and bounty. 
 
 6. Lord North, tlie Prime Minister, wore the badge of a Knight of 
 the Garter. His measure passed Febiuary 27, 1775, was the one which 
 agreed to forbear to lax any Colony which should propose to contribute 
 its proportion to the common defense. 
 
 7. An address to the king which declared that Massachusetts was In 
 rebellion urged his majesty to act at once. 
 
 169
 
 ©n Conctllation wftb amecica 
 
 The House has gone farther; it has declared 
 conciliation admissible, previous to any sub- 
 mission on the part of America. It has even 
 shot a good deal beyond that mark, and has 
 admitted that the complaints of our former 
 mode of exerting the right of taxation were 
 not wholly unfounded. That right thus ex- 
 erted is allowed to have something reprehen- 
 sible in it, something unwise, or something 
 grievous; since, in the midst of our heat and 
 resentment, we, of ourselves, have proposed 
 a capital alteration; and in order to get rid of 
 what seemed so very exceptionable, have in- 
 stituted a mode that is altogether new; one 
 that is, indeed, wholly alien from all the 
 ancient methods and forms of Parliament. 
 
 The principle of this proceeding is large 
 enough for my purpose. The means proposed 
 by the noble lord for carrying his ideas into 
 execution, I think, indeed, are very indiffer- 
 ently suited to the end; and this I shall en- 
 deavor to show you before I sit down. But, 
 for the present, I take my ground on the 
 admitted principle. I mean to give peace. 
 Peace implies reconciliation; and where there 
 has been a material dispute, reconciliation 
 does in a manner always imply concession on 
 the one part or on the other. In this state of 
 
 170
 
 ®n Conciliation witb Bmecica 
 
 things I make no difficulty in affirming that the 
 proposal ought to originate from us. Great 
 and acknowledged force is not impaired, either 
 in effect or in opinion, by an unwillingness 
 to exert itself. The superior power may offer 
 peace with honor and with safety. Such an 
 offer from such a power will be attributed to 
 magnanimity. But the concessions of the 
 weak are the concessions of fear. When such 
 a one is disarmed, he is wholly at the mercy 
 of his superior; and he loses forever that time 
 and those chances, which, as they happen to 
 all men, are the strength and resources of all 
 inferior power. 
 
 The capital leading questions on which you 
 must this day decide are these two: First, 
 whether you ought to concede; and secondly, 
 what your concession ought to be. On the 
 first of these questions we have gained, as I 
 have just taken the liberty of observing to you, 
 some ground. But I am sensible that a good 
 deal more is still to be done. Indeed, Sir, to 
 enable us to determine both on the one and 
 the other of these great questions with a firm 
 and precise judgment, I think it may be nec- 
 essary to consider distinctly the true nature 
 and the peculiar circumstances of the object 
 which we have before us; because after all our 
 
 171
 
 ®n Conciliation witb Bmerica 
 
 struggle, whether we will or not, we must gov- 
 ern America according to that nature and to 
 those circumstances, and not according to our 
 own imaginations, nor according to abstract 
 ideas of right — by no means according to 
 mere general theories of government, the re- 
 sort to which appears to me, in our present 
 situation, no better than arrant trifling. I 
 shall therefore endeavor, with your leave, to 
 lay before you some of the, most material of 
 these circumstances in as full and as clear a 
 manner as I am able to state them. 
 
 The first thing that we have to consider with 
 regard to the nature of the object is — the 
 number of people in the Colonies. I have 
 taken for some years a good deal of pains on 
 that point. I can by no calculation justify 
 myself in placing the number below two mil- 
 lions of inhabitants of our own European blood 
 and color, besides at least five hundred thou- 
 sand others, who form no inconsiderable part 
 of the strength and opulence of the whole. 
 This, Sir, is, I believe, about the true number. 
 There is no occasion to exaggerate where plain 
 truth is of so much weight and importance. 
 But whether I put the present numbers too 
 high or too low is a matter of little moment. 
 Such is the strength with which population 
 
 172
 
 ®n Conciliation witb america 
 
 shoots in that part of the world, that, state the 
 numbers as high as we will, whilst the dispute 
 continues, the exaggeration ends. Whilst we 
 are discussing any given magnitude, they are 
 grown to it. Whilst we spend our time in 
 deliberating on the mode of governing two 
 millions, we shall find we have millions more 
 to manage. Your children do not grow faster 
 from infancy to manhood than they spread 
 from families to communities, and from vil- 
 lages to nations. 
 
 I put this consideration of the present and 
 the growing numbers in the front of our delib- 
 eration, because, Sir, this consideration will 
 make it evident to a blunter discernment than 
 yours, that no partial, narrow, contracted, 
 pinched, occasional system will be at all suit- 
 able to such an object. It will show you that 
 it is not to be considered as one of those 
 minima* which are out of the eye and con- 
 sideration of the law; not a paltry excrescence 
 of the state; not a mean dependent, who may 
 be neglected with little damage and provoked 
 with little danger. It will prove that some 
 degree of care and caution is required in the 
 handling of such an object ; it will show that you 
 
 %. Minima— tittle things. It is a maxim that the law does not con- 
 cern itself with little things. 
 
 173
 
 ®n Conciliation wltb Bmerica 
 
 ought not, in reason, to trifle with so large a 
 mass of the interests and feelings of the hu- 
 man race. You could at no time do so with- 
 out guilt; and be assured you will not be able 
 to do it long with impunity. 
 
 But the population of this country, the 
 great and growing population, though a very 
 important consideration, will lose much of its 
 weight if not combined with other circum- 
 stances. The commerce of your Colonies is 
 out of all proportion beyond the numbers of 
 the people. This ground of their commerce 
 indeed has been trod some days ago, and with 
 great ability, by a distinguished person at 
 your bar.® This] gentleman, after thirty-five 
 years — it is so long since he first appeared at 
 the same place to plead for the commerce of 
 Great Britain — has come again before you 
 to plead the same cause, without any other 
 effect of time, than that to the fire of imagina- 
 tion and extent of erudition which even then 
 marked him as one of the first literary char- 
 acters of his age, he has added a consummate 
 knowledge in the commercial interest of his 
 country, formed by a long course of enlight- 
 ened and discriminating experience. 
 
 9. Mr. Glover presented a petition from West Indian planters, 
 askinc; for peace as their commerce was suffering.
 
 ©n Conciltatfon witb Bmerica 
 
 Sir, I should be inexcusable in coming after 
 such a person with any detail, if a great part 
 of the members who now iiU the House had 
 not the misfortune to be absent when he ap- 
 peared at your bar. Besides, Sir, I propose to 
 take the matter at periods of time somewhat 
 different from his. There is, if I mistake not, 
 a point of view from whence, if you will look 
 at the subject, it is impossible that it should 
 not make an impression upon you. 
 
 [The speaker here presents statistics showing 
 how the commerce of the Colonists has grown 
 and in what lines. His summing up follows.] 
 
 The trade with America alone is now within 
 less than ;^50o,ooo of being equal to what this 
 great commercial nation, England, carried on 
 at the beginning of this century with the 
 whole world ! If I had taken the largest year 
 of those on your table, it would rather have 
 exceeded. But, it will be said, is not this 
 American trade an unnatural protuberance, that 
 has drawn the juices from the rest of the body ? 
 The reverse. It is the very food that has 
 nourished every other part into its present 
 magnitude. Our general trade has been greatly 
 augmented, and augmented more or less in 
 almost every part to which it ever extend'^d; 
 
 175
 
 ©n Conciliation wftb Bmerlca 
 
 but with this material difference, that of the 
 six milHons which in the beginning of the 
 century constituted the whole mass of our ex- 
 port commerce, the Colony trade was but one- 
 twelfth part; it is now (as a part of sixteen 
 millions) considerably more than a third of 
 the whole. This is the relative proportion of 
 the importance of the Colonies at these two 
 periods; and all reasoning concerning our 
 mode of treating them must have this pro- 
 portion as its basis; or it is a reasoning weak, 
 rotten, and sophistical. 
 
 Mr. Speaker, I cannot prevail on myself to 
 hurry over this great consideration. It is 
 good for us to be here. We stand where 
 we have an immense view of what is, and 
 what is past. Clouds, indeed, and dark- 
 ness, rest upon the future. Let us, how- 
 ever, before we descend from this noble 
 eminence, reflect that this growth of our 
 national prosperity has happened within the 
 short period of the life of man. It has hap- 
 pened within sixty-eight years. There are 
 those alive whose memory might touch the 
 two extremities. For instance, my Lord 
 Bathurst"* might remember all the stages of 
 the progress. He was in 1704 of an age at 
 
 7.3, Then about ninety-one years of age. 
 
 176
 
 ©n Conciliation wltb Bmecica 
 
 least to be made to comprehend such things. 
 He was then old enough acta parentiim jam 
 legere, et qnce sit potuit cognoscere virtus}^ 
 Suppose, Sir, that the angel of this auspicious 
 youth, foreseeing the many virtues which 
 make him one of the most amiable, as he is 
 one of the most fortunate, men of his age, had 
 opened to him in vision that when, in the 
 fourth generation, the third Prince of the 
 House of Brunswick had sat twelve years on 
 the throne of that nation which, by the happy 
 issue of moderate and healing counsels, was 
 to be made Great Britain, he should see his 
 son. Lord Chancellor of England, turn back 
 the current of hereditary dignity to its foun- 
 tain, and raise him to a higher rank of peerage, 
 whilst he enriched the family with a new 
 one — if, amidst these bright and happy scenes 
 of domestic honor and prosperity, that angel 
 should have drawn up the curtain, and un- 
 folded the rising glories of his country, and, 
 whilst he was gazing with admiration on the 
 then commercial grandeur of England, the 
 genius should point out to him a little speck, 
 scarcely visible in the mass of the national 
 interest, a small seminal principle, rather than 
 
 II. Xow he was able to understand the deeds of his parents and to 
 know what virtue is. — Virgil. 
 
 177
 
 ®n Conciliation wltb Bmerica 
 
 a formed body, and should tell him: " Young 
 man, there is America — which at this day 
 serves for little more than to amuse you with 
 stories of savage men, and uncouth manners; 
 yet shall, before you taste of death, show 
 itself equal to the whole of that commerce 
 which now attracts the envy of the world. 
 Whatever England has been growing to by a 
 progressive increase of improvement, brought 
 in by varieties of people, by succession of 
 civilizing conquests and civilizing settlements 
 in a series of seventeen hundred years, you 
 shall see as much added to her by America 
 in the course of a single life ! " If this state 
 of his country had been foretold to him, 
 would it not require all the sanguine credulity 
 of youth, and all the fervid glow of enthusiasm, 
 to make him believe it ? Fortunate man, he 
 has lived to see it ! Fortunate, indeed, if he 
 lives to see nothing that shall vary the pros- 
 pect, and cloud the setting of his day ! 
 
 Excuse me, Sir, if turning from such 
 thoughts I resume this comparative view once 
 more. You have seen it on a large scale; 
 look at it on a small one. I will point out 
 to your attention a particular instance of it in 
 the single province of Pennsylvania. In the 
 year 1704 that province called for ;^ 11,459 in 
 
 178
 
 ©n ConclUatfon wftb Bmcrfca 
 
 value of your commodities, native and foreign. 
 This was the whole. What did it demand in 
 1772.^ Why, nearly fifty times as much ; for 
 in that year the export to Pennsylvania was 
 £SC>7,909, nearly equal to the export to all 
 the Colonies together in the first period. 
 
 I choose. Sir, to enter into these minute and 
 particular details, because generalities, which 
 in all other cases are apt to heighten and raise 
 the subject, have here a tendency to sink it. 
 When we speak of the commerce with our 
 Colonies, fiction lags after truth, invention is 
 unfruitful, and imagination cold and barren. 
 
 So far, Sir, as to the importance of the 
 object, in view of its commerce, as concerned 
 in the exports from England. If I were to 
 detail the imports, I could show how many 
 enjoyments they procure which deceive the 
 burthen of life ; how many materials which in- 
 vigorate the springs of national industry, and 
 extend and animate every part of our foreign 
 and domestic commerce. This would be a 
 curious subject indeed ; but I must prescribe 
 bounds to myself in a matter so vast and 
 various. 
 
 I pass, therefore, to the Colonies in another 
 point of view, their agriculture. This they 
 have prosecuted with such a spirit, that, 
 
 179
 
 ®n Conciliation witb Bmerica 
 
 besides feeding plentifully their own growing 
 multitude, their annual export of grain, com- 
 prehending rice, has some years ago exceeded 
 a million in value. Of their last harvest I am 
 persuaded they will export much more. At 
 the beginning of the century some of these 
 Colonies imported corn from the Mother 
 Country. For some time past the Old World 
 has been fed from the New. The scarcity 
 which you have felt would have been a deso- 
 lating famine, if this child of your old age, 
 ^S^ with a true filial piety, with a Roman charity, 
 
 had not put the full breast of its youthful 
 exuberance to the mouth of its exhausted 
 parent. ^^ 
 
 As to the wealth which the Colonies have 
 drawn from the sea by their fisheries, you had 
 all that matter fully opened at your bar. You 
 surely thought those acquisitions of value, for 
 they seemed even to excite your envy; and 
 yet the spirit by which that enterprising em- 
 ployment has been exercised ought rather, in 
 my opinion, to have raised your esteem and 
 admiration. And pray. Sir, what in the world 
 is equal to it .'* Pass by the other parts, and 
 look at the manner in which the people of 
 
 12. There is a Roman legend of a daiichter nourishing from her own 
 breasts her aged father imprisoned in his cell. 
 
 l8o
 
 ©n Conciliation wltb Bmerlca 
 
 New England have of late carried on the whale 
 fishery. Whilst we follow them among the 
 tumbling mountains of ice, and behold them 
 penetrating into the deepest frozen recesses of 
 Hudson's Bay and Davis's Straits, whilst we 
 are looking for them beneath the Arctic circle, 
 we hear that they have pierced into the oppo- 
 site region of polar cold, that they are at the 
 antipodes, and engaged under the frozen Ser- 
 pent of the south. ^^ Falkland Island, which 
 seemed too remote and romantic an object for 
 the grasp of national ambition, is but a stage 
 and resting-place in the progress of their 
 victorious industry. Nor is the equinoctial 
 heat more discouraging to them than the 
 accumulated winter of both the poles. We 
 know that whilst some of them draw the line 
 and strike the harpoon on the coast of Africa, 
 others run the longitude and pursue their 
 gigantic game along the coast of Brazil. No 
 sea but what is vexed by their fisheries ; no 
 climate that is not witness to their toils. 
 Neither the perseverance of Holland, nor the 
 activity of France, nor the dexterous and firm 
 sagacity of English enterprise ever carried this 
 most perilous mode of hardy industry to the 
 extent to which it has been pushed by this 
 
 13. A constellation in the far southern heavens. 
 
 181
 
 On Conciliation witb America 
 
 recent people; a people who are still, as it 
 were, but in the gristle, and not yet hardened 
 into the bone of manhood. 
 
 When I contemplate these things; when I 
 know that the Colonies in general owe little or 
 nothing to any care of ours, and that they are 
 not squeezed into this happy form by the con- 
 straints of watchful and suspicious govern- 
 ment, but that, through a wise and salutary 
 neglect, a generous nature has been suffered 
 to take her own way to perfection; when I 
 reflect upon these effects, when I see how 
 profitable they have been to us, I feel all the 
 pride of power sink, and all presumption in the 
 wisdom of human contrivances melt and die 
 away within me. My rigor relents. I par- 
 don something to the spirit of liberty. 
 
 I am sensible. Sir, that all which I have 
 asserted in my detail is admitted in the gross; 
 but that quite a different conclusion is drawn 
 from it. America, gentlemen say, is a noble 
 object. It is an object well worth fighting 
 for. Certainly it is, if fighting a people be the 
 best way of gaining them. Gentlemen in this 
 respect will be led to their choice of means by 
 their complexions and their habits. Those 
 who understand the military art will of course 
 have some predilection for it. Those who 
 
 182
 
 ®n Conciliation witb Bmetica 
 
 wield the thunder of the state may have more 
 confidence in the efficacy of arms. But I con- 
 fess, possibly for want of this knowledge, my 
 opinion is much more in favor of prudent 
 management than of force; considering force 
 not as an odious, but a feeble, instrument for 
 preserving a people so numerous, so active, 
 so growing, so spirited as this, in a profit- 
 able and subordinate connection with us. 
 
 First, Sir, permit me to observe that the 
 use of force alone is but temporary. It may 
 subdue for a moment, but it does not remove 
 the necessity of subduing again; and a nation 
 is not governed which is perpetually to be 
 conquered. 
 
 My next objection is its uncertainty. Terror 
 is not always the effect of force, and an arma- 
 ment is not a victory. If you do not succeed, 
 you are without resource; for, conciliation 
 failing, force remains; but, force failing, no 
 further hope of reconciliation is left. Power 
 and authority are sometimes bought by kind- 
 ness; but they can never be begged as alms by 
 an impoverished and defeated violence. 
 
 A further objection to force is, that you im- 
 pair the object by your very endeavors to pre- 
 serve it. The thing you fought for is not the 
 thing which you recover; but depreciated, sunk, 
 
 183
 
 ®n ConctUatlon vvitb Bmcttca 
 
 wasted, and consumed in the contest. Noth- 
 ing less will content me than whole America. 
 I do not choose to consume its strength along 
 with our own, because in all parts it is the Brit- 
 ish strength that I consume. I do not choose to 
 be caught by a foreign enemy at the end of 
 this exhausting conflict; and still less in the 
 midst of it. I may escape; but I can make no 
 insurance against such an event. Let me 
 add, that I do not choose wholly to break the 
 American spirit; because it is the spirit that 
 has made the country. 
 
 Lastly, we have no sort of experience in 
 favor of force as an instrument in the rule of 
 our Colonies. Their growth and their utility 
 have been owing to methods altogether dif- 
 ferent. Our ancient indulgence has been said 
 to be pursued to a fault. It may be so. But 
 we know, if feeling is evidence, that our fault 
 was more tolerable than our attempt to mend 
 it ; and our sin far more salutary than our 
 penitence. 
 
 These, Sir, [are my reasons for not enter- 
 taining that high opinion of untried force by 
 which many gentlemen, for whose sentiments 
 in other particulars I have great respect, seem 
 to be so greatly captivated. But there is still 
 behind a third consideration concerning this 
 
 184
 
 ®n ConcUlatfon witb Bmerica 
 
 object which serves to determine my opinion 
 on the sort of policy which ought to be pur- 
 sued in the management of America, even 
 more than its population and its commerce — 
 I mean its temper and character. 
 
 In this character of the Americans, a love 
 of freedom is the predominating feature which 
 marks and distinguishes the whole; and as an 
 ardent is always a jealous affection, your 
 Colonies become suspicious, restive, and un- 
 tractable whenever they see the least attempt 
 to wrest from them by force, or shuffle from 
 them by chicane, what they think the only 
 advantage worth living for. This fierce spirit 
 of liberty is stronger in the English Colonies 
 probably than in any other people of the 
 earth, and this from a great variety of power- 
 ful causes; which, to understand the true 
 temper of their minds and the direction which 
 this spirit -takes, it will not be amiss to lay 
 open somewhat more largely. 
 
 First, the people of the Colonies are de- 
 scendants of Englishmen. England, Sir, is a 
 nation which still, I hope, respects, and for- 
 merly adored, her freedom. The Colonists 
 emigrated from you when this part of your 
 character was most predominant; and they 
 took this bias and direction the moment they 
 
 185
 
 ®n Concflfatfon witb Bmcdca 
 
 parted from your hands. They are therefore 
 not only devoted to hberty, but to Hberty 
 according to EngHsh ideas, and on EngHsh 
 principles. Abstract liberty, like other mere 
 abstractions, is not to be found. Liberty 
 inheres in some sensible object; and every 
 nation has formed to itself some favorite 
 point, which by way of eminence becomes the 
 criterion of their happiness. It happened, you 
 know, Sir, that the great contests for freedom 
 in this country were from the earliest times 
 chiefly upon the question of taxing. Most of 
 the contests in the ancient commonwealths 
 turned primarily on the right of election of 
 magistrates; or on the balance among the 
 several orders of the state. The question of 
 money was not with them so immediate. But 
 in England it was otherwise. On this point 
 of taxes the ablest pens, and most eloquent 
 tongues, have been exercised ; the greatest 
 spirits have acted and suffered. 
 
 In order to give the fullest satisfaction con- 
 cerning the importance of this point, it was 
 not only necessary for those who in argument 
 defended the excellence of the English Con- 
 stitution to insist on this privilege of granting 
 money as a dry point of fact, and to prove 
 that the right had been acknowledged in 
 
 i86
 
 ®n ConciUatfon witb ametica 
 
 ancient parchments and blind usages to reside 
 in a certain body called a House of Commons. 
 They went much farther; they attempted to 
 prove, and they succeeded, that in theory it 
 ought to be so, from the particular nature of a 
 House of Commons as an immediate repre- 
 sentative of the people, whether the old 
 records had delivered this oracle or not. They 
 took infinite pains to inculcate, as a funda- 
 mental principle, that in all monarchies the 
 people must in effect themselves, mediately or 
 immediately, possess the power of granting 
 their own money, or no shadow of liberty can 
 subsist. The Colonies draw from you, as with 
 their life-blood, these ideas and principles. 
 Their love of liberty, as with you, fixed and 
 attached on this specific point of taxing. 
 Liberty might be safe, or might be endangered, 
 in twenty other particulars, without their being 
 much pleased or alarmed. Here they felt its 
 pulse ; and as they found that beat, they 
 thought themselves sick or sound. I do not 
 say whether they were right or wrong in 
 applying your general arguments to their own 
 case. It is not easy, indeed, to make a 
 monopoly of theorems and corollaries. The 
 fact is, that they did thus apply those general 
 arguments; and your mode of governing them, 
 
 187
 
 ®n Conciliation witb Bmeclca 
 
 whether through lenity or indolence, through 
 wisdom or mistake, confirmed them in the 
 imagination that they, as well as you, had an 
 interest in these common principles. 
 
 They were further confirmed in this pleas- 
 ing error by the form of their provincial 
 legislative assemblies. Their governments 
 are popular in an high degree; some are 
 merely popular; in all, the popular representa- 
 tive is the most weighty; and this share of 
 the people in their ordinary government never 
 fails to inspire them with lofty sentiments, 
 and with a strong aversion from whatever 
 tends to deprive them of their chief im- 
 portance. 
 
 If anything were wanting to this necessary 
 operation of the form of government, religion 
 would have given it a complete effect. Reli- 
 gion, always a principle of energy, in this new 
 people is no way worn out or impaired; and 
 their mode of professing it is also one main 
 cause of this free spirit. The people are 
 Protestants; and of that kind which is the 
 most adverse to all implicit submission of 
 mind and opinion. This is a persuasion not 
 only favorable to liberty, but built upon it. 
 I do not think. Sir, that the reason of this 
 averseness in the dissenting churches from all 
 
 i88
 
 Qn Conciliation wltb Hmetlca 
 
 that looks like absolute government is so 
 much to be sought in their religious tenets, as 
 in their history. 
 
 Every one knows that the Roman Catholic 
 religion is at least coeval with most of the 
 governments where it prevails; that it has 
 generally gone hand in hand with them, and 
 received great favor and every kind of support 
 from authority. The Church of England too 
 was formed from her cradle under the nursing 
 care of regular government. But the dissent- 
 ing interests have sprung up in direct opposi- 
 tion to all the ordinary powers of the world, 
 and could justify that opposition only on a 
 strong claim to natural liberty. Their very 
 existence depended on the powerful and un- 
 remitted assertion of that claim. All Protes- 
 tantism, even the most cold and passive, is a 
 sort of dissent. 
 
 But the religion most prevalent in our 
 Northern Colonies is a refinement on the 
 principle of resistance; it is the dissidence of 
 dissent, and the protestantism of the Protes- 
 tant religion. This religion, under a variety 
 of denominations agreeing in nothing but in 
 the communion of the spirit of liberty, is pre- 
 dominant in most of the Northern Provinces, 
 where the Church of England, notwithstanding 
 
 189
 
 ©n Conciliation wltb America 
 
 its legal rights, is in reality no more than a 
 sort of private sect, not composing most prob- 
 ably the tenth of the people. The Colonists 
 left England when this spirit was high, and in 
 the emigrants was the highest of all; and even 
 that stream of foreigners which has been con- 
 stantly flowing into these Colonies has, for 
 the greatest part, been composed of dissenters 
 from the establishments of their several coun- 
 tries, who have brought with them a temper 
 and character far from alien to that of the 
 people with whom they mixed. 
 
 Sir, I can perceive by their manner that 
 some gentlemen object to the latitude of this 
 description, because in the Southern Colonies 
 the Church of England forms a large body, 
 and has a regular establishment. It is cer- 
 tainly true. There is, however, a circumstance 
 attending these Colonies which, in my opin- 
 ion, fully counterbalances this difference, and 
 makes the spirit of liberty still more high 
 and haughty than in those to the northward. 
 It is that in Virginia and the Carolinas they 
 have a vast multitude of slaves. Where this 
 is the case in any part of the world, those 
 who are free are by far the most proud and 
 jealous of their freedom. Freedom is to them 
 not only an enjoyment, but a kind of rank 
 
 iqo
 
 
 '-^'-s • "V '-=^ -f*T:' " -. ^ 1 
 
 
 
 - i 
 
 -1 p: , 
 
 
 
 O 
 
 o 
 
 iiip 
 
 1 % ■ 
 
 < 
 
 » ■ , >* i 
 
 3^ y=ii 
 
 if, — ■ - 
 
 ft lgp». <^ .^ 
 ■ i, .■■■— ■ •;■■., 
 
 a: 
 
 
 O 
 
 1 
 
 mr- 
 
 
 
 o 
 
 . %-^ : 
 
 
 
 0^ 
 
 
 
 '1 «*^€* 
 
 |.r$:~=r 
 
 
 ' ^ \inMiinBn* 
 
 
 1 '^•l- 
 
 hit "■'?• 
 
 M^i 
 
 — 
 
 
 
 ■Ill ■ .$. :S':v~r 
 
 -^ -'*v^|-:% "ippi 
 
 

 
 ©n Conciliation witb am erica 
 
 and privilege. Not seeing there, that free- 
 dom, as in countries where it is a common 
 blessing and as broad and general as the air, 
 may be united with much abject toil, with 
 great misery, with all the exterior of servi- 
 tude, — liberty looks, amongst them, like 
 something that is more noble and liberal. I 
 do not mean. Sir, to commend the superior 
 morality of this sentiment, which has at least 
 as much pride as virtue in it; but I cannot 
 alter the nature of man. The fact is so; and 
 these people of the Southern Colonies are 
 much more strongly, and with an higher and 
 more stubborn spirit, attached to liberty than 
 those to the northward. Such were all the 
 ancient commonwealths; such were our Gothic 
 ancestors; such were the Poles; such will be 
 all masters of slaves, who are not slaves them- 
 selves. In such a people the haughtiness of 
 domination combines with the spirit of free- 
 dom, fortifies it, and renders it invincible. 
 Permit me, Sir, to add another circumstance 
 in our colonies which contributes no mean 
 part towards the growth and effect of this 
 untractable spirit. I mean their education. 
 In no country perhaps in the world is the law 
 so general a study. The profession itself is 
 numerous and powerful; and in niost provinces 
 
 191
 
 ®n Conciliation wltb amcclca 
 
 it takes the lead. The greater number of the 
 deputies sent to the Congress were lawyers. 
 But all who read, and most do read, endeavor 
 to obtain some smattering in that science. I 
 have been told by an eminent bookseller, that 
 in no branch of his business, after tracts of 
 popular devotion, were so many books as those 
 on the law exported to the Plantations. The 
 Colonists have now fallen into the way of 
 printing them for their own use. I hear that 
 they have sold nearly as many of Blackstone's 
 Commentaries in America as in England. 
 
 General Gage marks out this disposition 
 very particularly in a letter on your table. 
 He states that all the people in his govern- 
 ment are lawyers, or smatterers in law; and 
 that in Boston they have been enabled, by 
 successful chicane," wholly to evade many 
 parts of one of your capital penal constitu- 
 tions. The smartness of debate will say that 
 this knowledge ought to teach them more 
 clearly the rights of legislature, their obliga- 
 tions to obedience, and the penalties of rebel- 
 lion. All this is mighty well. But my honor- 
 able and learned friend on the floor, ^^ who 
 condescends to mark what I say for animad- 
 
 14. They held town meetings, though contrary to law. 
 
 15. The attorney general. 
 
 192
 
 ®n ConciUatfon wltb Bmerica 
 
 version, will disdain that ground. He has 
 heard, as well as I, that when great honors 
 and great emoluments do not win over this 
 knowledge to the service of the state, it is a 
 formidable adversary to government. If the 
 spirit be not tamed and broken by these happy 
 methods, it is stubborn and litigious. Abeunt 
 studia in mores. ^^ This study renders men 
 acute, inquisitive, dexterous, prompt in attack, 
 ready in defense, full of resources. In other 
 countries, the people, more simple, and of a 
 less mercurial cast, judge of an ill principle in 
 government only by an actual grievance; here 
 they anticipate the evil, and judge of the pres- 
 sure of the grievance by the badness of the 
 principle. They augur misgovernment at a 
 distance, and snuff the approach of tyranny in 
 every tainted breeze. 
 
 The last cause of this disobedient spirit in 
 the Colonies is hardly less powerful than the 
 rest, as it is not merely moral, but laid deep 
 in the natural constitution of things. Three 
 thousand miles of ocean lie between you and 
 them. No contrivance can prevent the effect 
 of this distance in weakening government. 
 Seas roll, and months pass, between the order 
 and the execution; and the want of a speedy 
 
 t6. Character is influenced by studies.— Ovid. 
 
 193
 
 ©n Conciliation wltb Bmcrlca 
 
 explanation of a single point is enough to 
 defeat a whole system. You have, indeed, 
 winged ministers of vengeance, who carry 
 your bolts in their pounces to the remotest 
 verge of the sea. But there a power steps in 
 that limits the arrogance of raging passions 
 and furious elements, and says. So far shall 
 thou go, and no farther. Who are you, that 
 you should fret and rage, and bite the chains 
 of nature .'' Nothing worse happens to you 
 than does to all nations who have extensive 
 empire; and it happens in all the forms into 
 which empire can be thrown. In large bodies 
 the circulation of power must be less vigorous 
 at the extremities. Nature has said it. The 
 Turk cannot govern Egypt and Arabia and 
 Kurdistan as he governs Thrace; nor has he 
 the same dominion in Crimea and Algiers 
 which he has at Brusa and Smyrna. Despo- 
 tism itself is obliged to truck and huckster. 
 The Sultan gets such obedience as he can. 
 He governs with a loose rein, that he may 
 govern at all; and the whole of the force and 
 vigor of his authority in his center is derived 
 from a prudent relaxation in all his borders. 
 Spain, in her provinces, is, perhaps, not so 
 well obeyed as you are in yours. She com- 
 plies, too; she submits; she watches times. 
 
 J94
 
 ©n Conctliatlon witb Bmerlca 
 
 This is the immutable condition, the eternal 
 law of extensive and detached empire. 
 
 Then, Sir, from these six capital sources — 
 of descent, of form of government, of religion 
 in the Northern Provinces, of manners in the 
 Southern, of education, of the remoteness of 
 situation from the first mover of government 
 — from all these causes a fierce spirit of liberty 
 has grown up. It has grown with the growth 
 of the people in your Colonies, and increased 
 with the increase of their wealth; a spirit that 
 unhappily meeting with an exercise of power 
 in England which, however lawful, is not 
 reconcilable to any ideas of liberty, much less 
 with theirs, has kindled this flame that is ready 
 to consume us. 
 
 I do not mean to commend either the spirit 
 in this excess, or the moral causes which pro- 
 duce it. Perhaps a more smooth and accom- 
 modating spirit of freedom in them would be 
 more acceptable to us. Perhaps ideas of 
 liberty might be desired more reconcilable 
 with an arbitrary and boundless authority. 
 Perhaps we might wish the Colonists to be 
 persuaded that their liberty is more secure 
 when held in trust for them by us, as their 
 guardians during a perpetual minority, than 
 with any part of it in their own hands. The 
 
 195
 
 ©n Conciliation witb Bmerica 
 
 question is, not whether their spirit deserves 
 praise or blame, but — what, in the name of 
 God, shall we do with it ? You have before 
 you the object, such as it is, with all its 
 glories, with all its imperfections on its head. 
 You see the magnitude, the importance, the 
 temper, the habits, the disorders. By all these 
 considerations we are strongly urged to de- 
 termine something concerning it. We are 
 called upon to fix some rule and line for our 
 future conduct which may give a little stability 
 to our politics, and prevent the return of such 
 unhappy deliberations as the present. Every 
 such return will bring the matter before us in 
 a still more untractable form. For, what 
 astonishing and incredible things have we not 
 seen already! What monsters have not been 
 generated from this unnatural contention ! 
 Whilst every principle of authority and re- 
 sistance has been pushed, upon both sides, as 
 far as it would go, there is nothing so solid 
 and certain, either in reasoning or in practice, 
 that has not been shaken. Until very lately 
 all authority in America seemed to be nothing 
 but an emanation from yours. Even the 
 popular part of the Colony Constitution de- 
 rived all its activity and its first vital move- 
 ment from the pleasure of the Crown. We 
 
 196
 
 ®n Conciliation witb Bmcrtc 
 
 thought, Sir, that the utmost which the dis- 
 contented Colonists could do was to disturb 
 authority; we never dreamt they could of 
 themselves supply it — knowing in general 
 what an operose business it is to establish a 
 government absolutely new. But having, for 
 our purposes in this contention, resolved that 
 none but an obedient Assembly should sit, the 
 humors of the people there, finding all passage 
 through the legal channel stopped, with great 
 violence broke out another way. Some prov- 
 inces have tried their experiment, as we have 
 tried ours; and theirs has succeeded. They 
 have formed a government sufficient for its 
 purposes, without the bustle of a revolution or 
 the troublesome formality of an election. 
 Evident necessity and tacit consent have done 
 the business in an instant. So well they have 
 done it, that Lord Dunmore " — the account 
 is among the fragments on your table — tells 
 you that the new institution is infinitely better 
 obeyed than the ancient government ever was 
 in its most fortunate periods. Obedience is 
 what makes government, and not the names 
 by which it is called; not the name of Gover- 
 nor, as formerly, or Committee, as at present. 
 This new government has originated directly 
 
 17. One of the governors of Virginia. 
 
 197
 
 ®n Conciliation with america 
 
 from the people, and was not transmitted 
 through any of the ordinary artificial media 
 of a positive constitution. It was not a manu- 
 facture ready formed, and transmitted to them 
 in that condition from England. The evil 
 arising from hence is this: the Colonists hav- 
 ing found the possibility of enjoying the ad- 
 vantages of order in the midst of a struggle for 
 liberty, such struggles will not henceforward 
 seem so terrible to the settled and sober part 
 of mankind as they had appeared before. 
 
 Pursuing the same plan of punishing by 
 the denial of the exercise of government to 
 still greater lengths, we wholly abrogated the 
 ancient government of Massachusetts. We 
 were confident that the first feeling, if not 
 the very prospect, of anarchy would instantly 
 enforce a complete submission. The experi- 
 ment was tried. A new, strange, unexpected 
 face of things appeared. Anarchy is found 
 tolerable. A vast province has now subsisted, 
 and subsisted in a considerable degree of health 
 and vigor for near a twelvemonth, without 
 Governor, without public Council, without 
 judges, without executive magistrates. How 
 long it will continue in this state, or what may 
 arise out of this unheard-of situation, how can 
 the wisest of us conjecture ? 
 
 198
 
 ®n Conctliatfon witb amcrica 
 
 Our late experience has taught us that many 
 of those fundamental principles, formeriy be- 
 lieved infallible, are either not of the impor- 
 tance they were imagined to be, or that we 
 have not at all adverted to some other far more 
 important and far more powerful principles, 
 which entirely overrule those we had con- 
 sidered as omnipotent. I am much against 
 any further experiments which tend to put 
 to the proof any more of these allowed 
 opinions which contribute so much to the 
 public tranquillity. In effect, we suffer as 
 much at home by this loosening of all ties, 
 and this concussion of all established opin- 
 ions, as we do abroad; for in order to prove 
 that the Americans have no right to their 
 liberties, we are every day endeavoring to 
 subvert the maxims which preserve the whole 
 spirit of our own. To prove that the Ameri- 
 cans ought not to be free, we are obliged to 
 depreciate the value of freedom itself; and we 
 never seem to gain a paltry advantage over 
 them in debate without attacking some of those 
 principles, or deriding some of those feelings, 
 for which our ancestors have shed their blood. 
 
 But, Sir, in wishing to put an end to per- 
 nicious experiments, I do not mean to preclude 
 the fullest inquiry. Far from it. Far from 
 
 199
 
 ©n ConcUiation wltb Bmetica 
 
 deciding on a sudden or partial view, I would 
 patiently go round and round the subject, and 
 survey it minutely in every possible aspect. 
 Sir, if I were capable of engaging you to an 
 equal attention, I would state that, as far as I 
 am capable of discerning, there are but three 
 ways of proceeding relative to this stubborn 
 spirit which prevails in your Colonies, and 
 disturbs your government. These are — to 
 change that spirit, as inconvenient, by remov- 
 ing the causes; to prosecute it as criminal; or 
 to comply with it as necessary. I would not 
 be guilty of an imperfect enumeration; I can 
 think of but these three. Another has in- 
 deed been started, — that of giving up the 
 Colonies; but it met so slight a reception that 
 I do not think myself obliged to dwell a great 
 while upon it. It is nothing but a little sally 
 of anger, like the frowardness of peevish 
 children, who, when they cannot get all they 
 would have, are resolved to take nothing. 
 
 The first of these plans — to change the 
 spirit, as inconvenient, by removing the causes 
 — I think is the most like a systematic pro- 
 ceeding. It is radical in its principle; but 
 it is attended with great difficulties, some of 
 them little short, as I conceive, of impossibili- 
 ties. This will appear by examining into the 
 plans which have been proposed. 
 
 200
 
 ®n ConcUfatfon wltb Bmcrfca 
 
 As the growing population in the Colonies 
 is evidently one cause of their resistance, it 
 was last session mentioned in both Houses, 
 by men of weight, and received not without 
 applause, that in order to check this evil it 
 would be proper for the Crown to make no 
 further grants of land. But to this scheme 
 there are two objections. The first, that there 
 is already so much unsettled land in private 
 hands as to afford room for an immense future 
 population, although the Crown not only with- 
 held its grants, but annihilated its soil. If 
 this be the case, then the only effect of this 
 avarice of desolation, this hoarding of a royal 
 wilderness, would be to raise the value of the 
 possessions in the hands of the great private 
 monopolists, without any adequate check to 
 the growing and alarming mischief of popu- 
 lation. 
 
 But if you stopped your grants, what would 
 be the consequence ? The people would oc- 
 cupy without grants. They have already so 
 occupied in many places. You cannot statiqn 
 garrisons in every part of these deserts. If 
 you drive the people from one place, they will 
 carry on their annual tillage, and remove with 
 their flocks and herds to another. Many of 
 the people in the back settlements are already 
 little attached to particular situations. Already 
 
 20I
 
 ®n (Tonciliation wltb america 
 
 they have topped the Appalachian Mountains. 
 From thence they behold before them an 
 immense plain, one vast, rich, level meadow; 
 a square of five hundred miles. Over this 
 they would wander without a possibility of 
 restraint; they would change their manners 
 with the habits of their life; would soon forget 
 a government by which they were disowned; 
 would become hordes of English Tartars; and, 
 pouring down upon your unfortified frontiers a 
 fierce and irresistible cavalry, become masters 
 of your governors and your counsellors, your 
 collectors and comptrollers, and of all the 
 slaves that adhered to them. Such would, 
 and in no long time must be, the effect of 
 attempting to forbid as a crime and to sup- 
 press as an evil the command and • blessing 
 of providence, hicrease and multiply. Such 
 would be the happy result of the endeavor to 
 keep as a lair of wild beasts that earth which 
 God, by an express charter, has given to the 
 children of men. 
 
 Far different, and surely much wiser, has 
 been our policy hitherto. Hitherto we have 
 invited our people, by every kind of bounty, 
 to fixed establishments. We have invited the 
 husbandman to look to authority for his title. 
 We have taught him piously to believe in the 
 
 202
 
 (S>n Conciliation witb Bmecica 
 
 mysterious virtue of wax and parchment. We 
 have thrown each tract of land, as it was 
 peopled, into districts, that the ruling power 
 should never be wholly out of sight ; and we 
 have carefully attended every settlement with 
 government. 
 
 Adhering, Sir, as I do, to this policy, as 
 well as for the reasons I have just given, I 
 think this new project of hedging-in popula- 
 tion to be neither prudent nor practicable. 
 
 To impoverish the Colonies in general, and 
 in particular to arrest the noble course of 
 their maritime enterprises, would be a more 
 easy task. I freely confess it. We have 
 shown .a disposition to a system of this kind, 
 a disposition even to continue the restraint 
 after the offense, looking on ourselves as 
 rivals to our Colonies, and persuaded that of 
 course we must gain all that they shall lose. 
 Much mischief we may certainly do. The 
 power inadequate to all other things is often 
 more than sufficient for this. I do not look on 
 the direct and immediate power of the Col- 
 onies to resist our violence as very formidable. 
 In this, however, I may be mistaken. But 
 when I consider that we have Colonies for no 
 purpose but to be serviceable to us, it seems 
 to my poor understanding a little preposterous 
 
 203
 
 ®n Conclliatton wltb Bmertca 
 
 to make them unserviceable in order to keep 
 them obedient. It is, in truth, nothing more 
 than the old and, as I thought, exploded prob- 
 lem of tyranny, which proposes to beggar its 
 subjects into submission. But remember, 
 when you have completed your system of 
 impoverishment, that nature still proceeds 
 in her ordinary course; that discontent will 
 increase with misery; and that there are criti- 
 cal moments in the fortune of all states when 
 they who are too weak to contribute to your 
 prosperity may be strong enough to complete 
 your ruin. Spoliatis arma super sunt, ^^ 
 
 The temper and character which prevail in 
 our Colonies are, I am afraid, unalterable 
 by any human art. We cannot, I fear, falsify 
 the pedigree of this fierce people, and per- 
 suade them that they are not sprung from a 
 nation in whose veins the blood of freedom 
 circulates. The language in which they 
 would hear you tell them this tale would de- 
 tect the imposition; your speech would betray 
 you. An Englishman is the unfittest person 
 on earth to argue another Englishman into 
 slavery. 
 
 I think it is nearly as little in our power to 
 change their republican religion as their free 
 
 i8. Arms remain to those who have been robbed. 
 
 204
 
 ®n Concflfation witb Bmecica 
 
 descent; or to substitute tne Roman Catholic 
 as a penalty, or the Church of England as an 
 improvement. The mode of inquisition and 
 dragooning is going out of fashion in the 
 Old World, and I should not confide much to 
 their efficacy in the New. The education of 
 the Americans is also on the same unalterable 
 bottom with their religion. You cannot per- 
 suade them to burn their books of curious 
 science; to banish their lawyers from their 
 courts of laws; or to quench the lights of 
 their assemblies by refusing to choose those 
 persons who are best read in their privileges. 
 It would be no less impracticable to think of 
 wholly annihilating the popular assemblies 
 in which these lawyers sit. The army, by 
 which we must govern in their place, would 
 be far more chargeable to us, not quite so 
 effectual, and perhaps in the end full as diffi- 
 cult to be kept in obedience. 
 
 With regard to the high aristocratic spirit 
 of Virginia and the Southern Colonies, it has 
 been proposed, I know, to reduce it by de- 
 claring a general enfranchisement of their 
 slaves. This object has had its advocates 
 and panegyrists; yet I never could argue my- 
 self into any opinion of it. Slaves are often 
 much attached to their masters. A general 
 
 ?o5
 
 ®n Conciliatton witb Bmcrlca 
 
 wild offer of liberty would not always be 
 accepted. History furnishes few instances of 
 it. It is sometimes as hard to persuade 
 slaves to be free, as it is to compel freemen 
 to be slaves; and in this auspicious scheme we 
 should have both these pleasing tasks on our 
 hands at once. But when we talk of enfran- 
 chisement, do we not perceive that the Amer- 
 ican master may enfranchise too, and arm 
 servile hands in defense of freedom .-' — a 
 measure to which other people have had re- 
 course more than once, and not without suc- 
 cess, in a desperate situation of their affairs. 
 Slaves as these unfortunate black people 
 are, and dull as all men are from slavery, 
 must they not a little suspect the offer of 
 freedom from that very nation which has sold 
 them to their present masters .'' — from that 
 nation, one of whose causes of quarrel with 
 those masters is their refusal to deal any more 
 in that inhuman traffic .'' An offer of free- 
 dom from England would come rather oddly, 
 shipped to them in an African vessel which 
 is refused an entry into the ports of Virginia 
 or Carolina with a cargo of three hundred 
 Angola negroes. It would be curious to see 
 the Guinea captain attempting at the same 
 instant to publish his proclamation of liberty, 
 and to advertise his sale of slaves, 
 
 2o6
 
 ®n Conciliation wltb Bmerlch 
 
 But let us suppose all these moral difficul- 
 ties got over. The ocean remains. You can- 
 not pump this dry; and as long as it continues 
 in its present bed, so long all the causes 
 which weaken authority by distance will con- 
 tinue. 
 
 ' ' Ye gods, annihilate but space and time, 
 And make two lovers happy! " 
 was a pious and passionate prayer; but just 
 as reasonable as many of the serious wishes 
 of grave and solemn poHticians. 
 
 If then. Sir, it seems almost desperate to 
 think of any alternative course for changing 
 the moral causes, and not quite easy to 
 remove the natural, which produce preju- 
 dices irreconcilable to the late exercise of our 
 authority — but that the spirit infallibly will 
 continue, and, continuing, will produce such 
 effects as now embarrass us — the second 
 mode under consideration is to prosecute that 
 spirit in its overt acts as criminal. 
 
 At this proposition I must pause a moment. 
 The thing seems a great deal too big for my 
 ideas of jurisprudence. It should seem to my 
 way of conceiving such matters that there 
 is a very wide difference, in reason and policy, 
 between the mode of proceeding on the irreg- 
 ular conduct of scattered individuals, or even 
 of bands of men who disturb order within the 
 
 207
 
 ©n Conciliation wltb Bmcrlca 
 
 state, and the civil dissensions which may, 
 from time to time, on great questions, agitate 
 the several communities which compose a 
 great empire. It looks to me to be narrow 
 and pedantic to apply the ordinary ideas of 
 criminal justice to this great public contest. 
 I do not know the method of drawing up an 
 indictment against a whole people. I can- 
 not insult and ridicule the feehngs of mil- 
 lions of my fellow-creatures as Sir Edward 
 Coke^^ insulted one excellent individual (Sir 
 Walter Raleigh) at the bar.^" I hope I am 
 not ripe to pass sentence on the gravest public 
 bodies, intrusted with magistracies of great 
 authority and dignity, and charged with the 
 safety of their fellow-citizens, upon the very 
 same title that I am. I really think that, for 
 wise men, this is not judicious; for sober men, 
 not decent; for minds tinctured with humanity, 
 not mild and merciful. 
 
 Perhaps, Sir, I am mistaken in my idea of 
 an empire, as distinguished from a single state 
 or kingdom. But my idea of it is this, that 
 
 19. Attorney general in 1603. 
 
 20. "Coke: I will prove you the most notorious traitor that ever 
 came to the bar. 
 
 Raleigh: Your words cannot condemn me. My innocency is my 
 defense. 
 
 Coke : Thou art a monster. Thou hast an English face but a Spanish 
 heart." Professor Goodrich from Howell's State Trials. 
 
 208
 
 ®n Conciliation witb America 
 
 an empire is the aggregate of many states 
 under one common head, whether this head 
 be a monarch or a presiding republic. It 
 does, in such constitutions, frequently happen 
 — and nothing but the dismal, cold, dead uni- 
 formity of servitude can prevent its happen- 
 ing — that the subordinate parts have many 
 local privileges and immunities. Between 
 these privileges and the supreme common 
 authority the hne may be extremely nice. 
 Of course disputes, often, too, very bitter 
 disputes, and much ill blood, will arise. But 
 though every privilege is an exemption, in 
 the case, from the ordinary exercise of the 
 supreme authority, it is no denial of it. The 
 claim of a privilege seems rather, ex vi ter- 
 mini, '^^ to imply a superior power; for to talk 
 of the privileges of a state or of a person 
 who has no superior is hardly any better than 
 speaking nonsense. 
 
 Now, in such unfortunate quarrels among 
 the component parts of a great poHtical 
 union of communities, I can scarcely con- 
 ceive anything more completely imprudent 
 than for the head of the empire to insist that, 
 if any privilege is pleaded against his will or 
 his acts, his whole authority is denied; in- 
 
 21. By force of the term. 
 
 209
 
 ®n Conciliation wltb Bmerica 
 
 stantly to proclaim rebellion, to beat to arms, 
 and to put the offending provinces under the 
 ban. Will not this, Sir, very soon teach the 
 provinces to make no distinctions on their 
 part ? Will it not teach them that the gov- 
 ernment, against which a claim of liberty is 
 tantamount to high treason, is a government 
 to which submission is equivalent to slavery ? 
 It may not always be quite convenient to 
 impress dependent communities with such 
 an idea. 
 
 We are, indeed, in all disputes with the 
 Colonies, by the necessity of things, the judge. 
 It is true, Sir. But I confess that the charac- 
 ter of judge in my own cause is a thing that 
 frightens me. Instead of filling me with 
 pride, I am exceedingly humbled by it. I 
 cannot proceed with a stern, assured, judicial 
 conference until I find myself in something 
 more like a judicial character. I must have 
 these hesitations as long as I am compelled to 
 recollect that, in my little reading upon such 
 contests as these, the sense of mankind has 
 at least as often decided against the superior 
 as the subordinate power. Sir, let me add, 
 too, that the opinion of my having some ab- 
 stract right in my favor would not put me 
 much at my ease in passing sentence, unless I 
 
 2IO
 
 ©n Conciliation wltb Bmerica 
 
 could be sure that there were no rights which, 
 in their exercise under certain circumstances, 
 were not the most odious of all wrongs and 
 the most vexatious of all injustice. Sir, these 
 considerations have great weight with me 
 when I find things so circumstanced, that I 
 see the same party at once a civil litigant 
 against me in point of right and a culprit 
 before me, while I sit as a criminal judge on 
 acts of his whose moral quality is to be de- 
 cided upon the merits of that very litigation. 
 Men are every now and then put, by the 
 complexity of human affairs, into strange situ- 
 ations; but justice is the same, let the judge 
 be in what situation he will. 
 
 There is. Sir, also a circumstance which 
 convinces me that this mode of criminal pro- 
 ceeding is not, at least in the present stage of 
 our contest, altogether expedient; which is 
 nothing less than the conduct of those very 
 persons who have seemed to adopt that mode 
 by lately declaring a rebellion in Massachu- 
 setts Bay, as they had formerly addressed to 
 have traitors brought hither, under an Act of 
 Henry the Eighth, for trial. For though re- 
 bellion is declared, it is not proceeded against 
 as such, nor have any steps been taken 
 towards the apprehension or conviction of any 
 
 211
 
 ®n (Toncflfatlon wltb Bmcrica 
 
 individual offender, either on our late or our 
 former Address; but modes of public coercion 
 have been adopted, and such as have much 
 more resemblance to a sort of qualified hostil- 
 ity toward an independent power than the 
 punishment of rebellious subjects. All this 
 seems rather inconsistent; but it shows how 
 difficult it is to apply these juridical ideas to 
 out present case. 
 
 In this situation, let us seriously and coolly 
 ponder. What is it we have got by all our 
 menaces, which have been many and fero- 
 cious.? What advantage have we derived 
 from the penal laws we have passed, and 
 which, for the time, have been severe and 
 numerous ? What advances have we made 
 towards our object by the sending of a force 
 which, by land and sea, is no contemptible 
 strength ? Has the disorder abated .? Noth- 
 ing less. When I see things in this situation 
 after such confident hopes, bold promises, 
 and active exertions, I cannot, for my life, 
 avoid a suspicion that the plan itself is not 
 correctly right. 
 
 If, then, the removal of the causes of this 
 spirit of American liberty be for the greater 
 part, or rather entirely, impracticable; if the 
 ideas of criminal process be inapplicable — or, 
 
 212
 
 On Conciliation wltb Bmerlca 
 
 if applicable, are in the highest degree inex- 
 pedient ; what way yet remains ? No way is 
 open but the third and last, — to comply with 
 the American spirit as necessary; or, if you 
 please, to submit to it as a necessary evil. 
 
 If we adopt this mode, — if we mean to 
 conciliate and concede, — let us see of what 
 nature the concession ought to be. To ascer- 
 tain the nature of our concession, we must 
 look at their complaint. The Colonies com- 
 plain that they have not the characteristic 
 mark and seal of British freedom. They com- 
 plain that they are taxed in a Parliament in 
 which they are not represented. If you mean 
 to satisfy them at all, you must satisfy them 
 with regard to this complaint. If you mean 
 to please any people, you must give them the 
 boon which they ask; not what you may 
 think better for them, but of a kind totally 
 different. Such an act may be a wise regula- 
 tion, but it is no concession; whereas our 
 present theme is the mode of giving satisfac- 
 tion. 
 
 Sir, I think you must perceive that I am 
 resolved this day to have nothing at all to do 
 with the question of the right of taxation. 
 Some gentlemen startle — but it is true; I put 
 it totally out of the question. It is less than 
 
 213
 
 ©n Conctllatfon witb Bmcrlca 
 
 nothing in my consideration. I do not indeed 
 wonder, nor will you, Sir, that gentlemen of 
 profound learning are fond of displaying it on 
 this profound subject. But my consideration 
 is narrow, confined, and wholly limited to the 
 policy of the question. I do not examine 
 whether the giving away a man's money be a 
 power excepted and reserved out of the gen- 
 eral trust of government, and how far all man- 
 kind, in all forms of polity, are entitled to an 
 exercise of that right by the charter of nature; 
 or whether, on the contrary, a right of taxa- 
 tion is necessarily involved in the general prin- 
 ciple of legislation, and inseparable from the 
 ordinary supreme power. These are deep 
 questions, where great names militate against 
 each other, where reason is perplexed, and 
 an appeal to authorities only thickens the con- 
 fusion; for high and reverend authorities lift 
 up their heads on both sides, and there is no 
 sure footing in the middle. This point is the 
 great 
 
 "Serbonian bog, 
 Betwixt Damiata and Mount Casius old, 
 Where armies whole have sunk."^^ 
 
 I do not intend to be overwhelmed in that 
 bog, though in such respectable company. 
 
 22. From Paradise Lost. 
 
 214
 
 ®n Conciliation vvltb amcrica 
 
 The question with me is, not whether you 
 have a right to render your people miserable, 
 but whether it is not your interest to make 
 them happy. It is not what a lawyer tells 
 me I may do, but what humanity, reason, and 
 justice tell me I ought to do. Is a politic act 
 the worse for being a generous one } Is no 
 concession proper but that which is made from 
 your want of right to keep what you grant } 
 Or does it lessen the grace or dignity of relax- 
 ing in the exercise of an odious claim because 
 you have your evidence-room full of titles, and 
 your magazine stuffed with arms to enforce 
 them ? What signify all those titles, and all 
 those arms ? Of what avail are they when the 
 reason of the thing tells me that the assertion 
 of my title is the loss of my suit, and that I 
 could do nothing but wound myself by the use 
 of my own weapons ? 
 
 Such is steadfastly my opinion of the abso- 
 lute necessity of keeping up the concord of 
 this Empire by a unity of spirit, though in a 
 diversity of operations, that, if I were sure the 
 Colonists had, at their leaving this country, 
 sealed a regular compact of servitude; that 
 they had solemnly abjured all the rights of 
 citizens; that they had made a vow to re- 
 nounce all ideas of liberty for them and their 
 posterity to all generations; yet I should hold 
 
 215
 
 On ConcfUatfon witb Bmerica 
 
 myself obliged to conform to the temper I 
 found universally prevalent in my own day, 
 and to govern tw^o million of men, impatient 
 of servitude, on the principles of freedom. I 
 am not determining a point of law, I am re- 
 storing tranquillity ; and the general character 
 and situation of a people must determine what 
 sort of government is fitted for them. That 
 point nothing else can or ought to determine. 
 
 My idea, therefore, without considering 
 whether we yield as matter of right, or grant 
 as matter of favor, is to admit the people of 
 our Colonies into an interest in the Constitu- 
 tion; and, by recording that admission in the 
 journals of Parliament, to give them as strong 
 an assurance as the nature of the thing will 
 admit, that we mean forever to adhere to that 
 solemn declaration of systematic indulgence. 
 
 Some years ago the repeal of a revenue act 
 might have served to show that we intended 
 an unconditional abatement of the exercise of 
 a taxing power. Such a measure was then 
 sufficient to remove all suspicion, and to give 
 perfect content. But unfortunate events since 
 that time may make something further neces- 
 sary; and not more necessary for the satisfac- 
 tion of the Colonies than for the dignity and 
 consistency of our own future proceedings. 
 
 216
 
 ©n ConcfUatfon witb Bmcrfca 
 
 I have taken a very incorrect measure of 
 the disposition of the House if this proposal in 
 itself would be received with dislike. I think, 
 Sir, we have few American financiers. Bat 
 our misfortune is, we are too acute, we are 
 too exquisite in our conjectures of the future, 
 for men oppressed with such great and pres- 
 ent evils. The more moderate among the 
 opposers of Parliamentary concession freely 
 confess that they hope no good from taxation, 
 but they apprehend the Colonists have further 
 views; and if this point were conceded, they 
 would instantly attack the trade laws. These 
 gentlemen are convinced that this was the in- 
 tention from the beginning, and the quarrel of 
 the Americans with taxation was no more than 
 a cloak and cover to this design. Such has 
 been the language even of a gentleman of real 
 moderation, and of a natural temper well ad- 
 justed to fair and equal government. ^^ I am, 
 however, Sir, not a little surprised at this 
 kind of discourse, whenever I hear it; and I 
 am the more surprised on account of the ar- 
 guments which I constantly find in company 
 with it, and which are often urged from the 
 same mouths and on the same day. 
 
 For instance, when we allege that it is 
 
 23. Mr. Rice. 
 
 217
 
 ®n Conciliation wltb Bmerlca 
 
 against reason to tax a people under so many 
 restraints in trade as the Americans, the noble 
 lord in the blue ribbon shall tell you that the 
 restraints on trade are futile and useless — of 
 no advantage to us, and of no burthen to those 
 on whom they are imposed; that the trade to 
 America is not secured by the Acts of Naviga- 
 tion, but by the natural and irresistible advan- 
 tage of a commercial preference. 
 
 Such is the merit of the trade laws in this 
 posture of the debate. But when strong 
 internal circumstances are urged against the 
 taxes; when the scheme is dissected; when 
 experience and the nature of things are 
 brought to prove, and do prove, the utter im- 
 possibility of obtaining an effective revenue 
 from the Colonies; when these things are 
 pressed, or rather press themselves, so as to 
 drive the advocates of Colony taxes to a clear 
 admission of the futility of the scheme; then, 
 Sir, the sleeping trade laws revive from their 
 trance, and this useless taxation is to be kept 
 sacred, not for its own sake, but as a counter- 
 guard and security of the laws of trade. 
 
 Then, Sir, you keep up revenue laws which 
 are mischievous, in order to preserve trade 
 laws that are useless. Such is the wisdom of 
 our plan in both its members. They are sep- 
 
 218
 
 til 
 
 Co 
 
 ?^ 
 to 
 
 to
 
 ©n Conciliation witb America 
 
 arately given up as of no value, and yet one 
 is always to be defended for the sake of the 
 other; but I cannot agree with the noble lord, 
 nor with the pamphlet from whence he seems 
 to have borrowed these ideas concerning the 
 inutility of the trade laws. For, without 
 idolizing them, I am sure they are still, in 
 many ways, of great use to us; and in former 
 times they have been of the greatest. They do 
 confine, and they do greatly narrow, the mar- 
 ket for the Americans; but my perfect convic- 
 tion of this does not help me in the least to 
 discern how the revenue laws form any secu- 
 rity whatsoever to the commercial regulations, 
 or that these commercial regulations are the 
 true ground of the quarrel, or that the giving 
 way, in any one instance of authority, is to 
 lose all that may remain unconceded. 
 
 One fact is clear and undisputable. The 
 public and avowed origin of this quarrel was 
 on taxation. This quarrel has indeed brought 
 on new disputes on new questions; but cer- 
 tainly the least bitter, and the fewest of all, 
 on the trade laws. To judge which of the 
 two be the real radical cause of quarrel, we 
 have to see whether the commercial dispute 
 did, in order of time, precede the dispute on 
 taxation. There is not a shadow of evidence 
 
 219
 
 ©n Conciliation witb Bmerica 
 
 for it. Next, to enable us to judge whether 
 at this moment a dislike to the trade laws be 
 the real cause of quarrel, it is absolutely nec- 
 essary to put the taxes out of the question by 
 a repeal. See how the Americans act in this 
 position, and then you will be able to discern 
 correctly what is the true object of the con- 
 troversy, or whether any controversy at all 
 will remain. Unless you consent to remove 
 this cause of difference, it is impossible, with 
 decency, to assert that the dispute is not upon 
 what it is avowed to be. And I would. Sir, 
 recommend to your serious consideration 
 whether it be prudent to form a rule for 
 punishing people, not on their own acts, but 
 on your conjectures .-• Surely it is prepos- 
 terous at the very best. It is not justifying 
 your anger by their misconduct, but it is con- 
 verting your ill-will into their delinquency. 
 
 But the Colonies will go further. Alas! 
 alas! when will this speculation against fact 
 and reason end ? What will quiet these panic 
 fears v/hich we entertain of the hostile effect 
 of a conciliatory conduct ? Is it true that no 
 case can exist in which it is proper for the 
 sovereign to accede to the desires of his dis- 
 contented subjects.? Is there anything pecul- 
 iar in this case to make a rule for itself ? Is 
 
 220
 
 ©n ConctUatlon wltb Bmcrtca 
 
 all authority of course lost when it is not 
 pushed to the extreme ? Is it a certain maxim 
 that the fewer causes of dissatisfaction are left 
 by government, the more the subject will be 
 inclined to resist and rebel ? 
 
 All these objections being in fact no more 
 than suspicions, conjectures, divinations, 
 formed in defiance of fact and experience, 
 they did not. Sir, discourage me from enter- 
 taining the idea of a conciliatory concession 
 founded on the principles which I have just 
 stated. 
 
 In forming a plan for this purpose, I en- 
 deavored to put myself in that frame of mind 
 which was the most natural and the most 
 reasonable, and which was certainly the most 
 probable means of securing me from all error. 
 I set out with a perfect distrust of my own 
 abilities, a total renunciation of every specula- 
 tion of my own, and with a profound reverence 
 for the wisdom of our ancestors who have left 
 us the inheritance of so happy a Constitution 
 and so flourishing an empire, and, what is a 
 thousand times more valuable, the treasury of 
 the maxims and principles which formed the 
 one and obtained the other. 
 
 During the reigns of the kings of Spain of 
 the Austrian family, whenever they were at a 
 
 22 1
 
 ©n Conclltation wltb Bmerica 
 
 loss in the Spanish councils, it was conimOn 
 for their statesmen to say that they ought to 
 consult the genius of Phihp the Second. The 
 genius of Philip the Second might mislead 
 them, and the issue of their affairs showed 
 that they had not chosen the most perfect 
 standard; but, Sir, I am sure that I shall not 
 be misled when, in a case of constitutional 
 difficulty, I consult the genius of the English 
 Constitution. Consulting at that oracle — it 
 was with all due humihty and piety — I found 
 four capital examples in a similar case before 
 me; those of Ireland, Wales, Chester, and 
 Durham. 
 
 Ireland, before the English conquest, though 
 never governed by a despotic power, had no 
 Parliament. How far the English Parliament 
 itself was at that time modeled according to 
 the present form is disputed among antiquaries; 
 but we have all the reason in the world to be 
 assured that a form of Parhament such as 
 England then enjoyed she instantly com- 
 municated to Ireland, and we are equally sure 
 that almost every successive improvement in 
 constitutional liberty, as fast as it was made 
 here, was transmitted thither. The feudal 
 baronage and the feudal knighthood, the roots 
 of our primitive Constitution, were early trans- 
 
 222
 
 ©n Conciliation witb america 
 
 planted into that soil, and grew and flourished 
 there. Magna Charta, if it did not give us 
 originally the House of Commons, gave us at 
 least a House of Commons of weight and con- 
 sequence. But your ancestors did not churl- 
 ishly sit down alone to the feast of Magna 
 Charta. Ireland was made immediately a par- 
 taker. This benefit of Enghsh laws and 
 liberties, I confess, was not at first extended 
 to all Ireland. Mark the consequence. Eng- 
 lish authority and English liberties had exactly 
 the same boundaries. Your standard could 
 never be advanced an inch before your priv- 
 ileges.^* Sir John Davis shows beyond a doubt 
 that the refusal of a general communication 
 of these rights was the true cause why Ireland 
 was five hundred years in subduing; and after 
 the vain projects of a mihtary government, 
 attempted in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, it 
 was soon discovered that nothing could make 
 that country English, in civility and allegiance, 
 but your laws and your forms of legislature. 
 It was not English arms, but the English Con- 
 stitution, that conquered Ireland. From that 
 time Ireland has ever had a general Parlia- 
 
 24. English settlers in Ireland after the invasion of Strongbow kept 
 riiemselves, within certain limits, distinct from the natives, called the 
 " Pale." They enjoyed English law while the natives were denied it 
 ^^rqfissor Goodrich. 
 
 223
 
 ®n ConclUatton wftb Bmedca 
 
 ment, as she had before a partial Parliament. 
 You changed the people; you altered the re- 
 ligion; but you never touched the form or the 
 vital substance of free government in that 
 Kingdom. You deposed kings; you restored 
 them; you altered the succession to theirs, as 
 well as to your own Crown; but you never 
 altered their Constitution, the principle of 
 which was respected by usurpation, restored 
 with the restoration of monarchy, and estab- 
 lished, I trust, forever, by the glorious Revolu- 
 tion. This has made Ireland the great and 
 flourishing kingdom that it is,^^ and, from a 
 disgrace and a burthen intolerable to this na- 
 tion, has rendered her a principal part of our 
 strength and ornament. This country cannot 
 be said to have ever formally taxed her. The 
 irregular things done in the confusion of mighty 
 troubles and on the hinge of great revolutions, 
 even if all were done that is said to have been 
 done, form no example. If they have any 
 effect in argument, they make an exception 
 to prove the rule. None of your own liberties 
 could stand a moment, if the casual deviations 
 from them at such times were suffered to be 
 used as proofs of their nullity. By the lucra- 
 tive amount of such casual breaches in the 
 
 aj. A spmewhat exaggerated statmeent. 
 
 ?24
 
 ©n Conciliation vvitb Bmerica 
 
 constitution, judge what the stated and fixed 
 rule of supply has been in that kingdom. Your 
 Irish pensioners would starve, if they had no 
 other fund to live on than taxes granted by 
 English authority. Turn your eyes to those 
 popular grants from whence all your great 
 supplies are come, and learn to respect that 
 only source of public wealth in the British 
 Empire. 
 
 My next example is Wales. This country 
 is said to be reduced by Henry the Third. It 
 was said more truly to be so by Edward 
 the First. But though then conquered, it was 
 not looked upon as any part of the realm of 
 England. Its old Constitution, whatever that 
 might have been, was destroyed, and no good 
 one was substituted in its place. The care of 
 that tract was put into the hands of Lords 
 Marchers — a form of government of a very 
 singular kind; a strange heterogeneous mon- 
 ster, something between hostility and govern- 
 ment; perhaps it has a sort of resemblance, 
 according to the modes of those terms, to that 
 of Commander-in-chief at present, to whom 
 all civil power is granted as secondary. The 
 manners of the Welsh nation followed the 
 genius of the government. The people were 
 ferocious, restive, savage, and uncultivated; 
 
 225
 
 ©n Concllfatfon wftb Bmccfca 
 
 sometimes composed, never pacified. Wales, 
 within itself, was in perpetual disorder, and it 
 kept the frontier of England in perpetual alarm. 
 Benefits from it to the state there were none. 
 Wales was only known to England by incur- 
 sion and invasion. 
 
 Sir, during that state of things, Parliament 
 was not idle. They attempted to subdue the 
 fierce spirit of the Welsh by all sorts of 
 rigorous laws. They prohibited by statute 
 the sending of all sorts of arms into Wales, as 
 you prohibit by proclamation (with something 
 more of doubt on the legality) the sending of 
 arms to America. They disarmed the Welsh 
 by statute, as you attempted (but still with 
 more question on the legality) to disarm New 
 England by an instruction. They made an 
 Act to drag offenders from Wales into England 
 for trial, as you have done (but with more 
 hardship) with regard to America. By an- 
 other Act, where one of the parties was an 
 Englishman, they ordained that his trial should 
 be always by English. They made Acts to 
 restrain trade, as you do; and they prevented 
 the Welsh from the use of fairs and markets, 
 as you do the Americans from fisheries and 
 foreign ports. In short, when the Statute 
 Book was not quite so much swelled as it is 
 
 ^26
 
 ©n ConciUatton witb Bmertca 
 
 now, you find no less than fifteen acts of penal 
 regulation on the subject of Wales. 
 
 Here we rub our hands. — A fine body of 
 precedents for the authority of Parliament and 
 the use of it! — I admit it fully; and pray add 
 likewise to these precedents that all the while 
 Wales rid this Kingdom like an incubus, that 
 it was an unprofitable and oppressive burthen, 
 and that an Englishman traveling in that 
 country could not go six yards from the high 
 road without being murdered. 
 
 The march of the human mind is slow. 
 Sir, it was not until after two hundred years 
 discovered that, by an eternal law, Providence 
 had decreed vexation to violence, and poverty 
 to rapine. Your ancestors did however at 
 length open their eyes to the ill-husbandry 
 of injustice. They found that the tyranny 
 of a free people could of all tyrannies the 
 least be endured, and that laws made against 
 a whole nation were not the most effectual 
 methods of securing its obedience. Accord- 
 ingly, in the twenty-seventh year of Henry 
 the Eighth the course was entirely altered. 
 With a preamble stating the entire and per- 
 fect rights of the Crown of England, it gave 
 to the Welsh all the rights and privileges of 
 English subjects. A political order was estab- 
 
 227
 
 ©n ConcUtation witb Bmerfca 
 
 Wished; the military power gave way to the 
 civil; the Marches were turned into Counties. 
 But that a nation should have a right to Eng- 
 lish liberties, and yet no share at all in the 
 fundamental security of these liberties — the 
 grant of their own property — seemed a thing 
 so incongruous, that, eight years after, that is, 
 in the thirty-fifth of that reign, a complete and 
 not ill-proportioned representation by counties 
 and boroughs was bestowed upon Wales by 
 Act of Parliament. From that moment, as 
 by a charm, the tumults subsided; obedience 
 was restored; peace, order, and civilization 
 followed in the train of liberty. When the 
 day-star of the English Constitution had 
 arisen in their hearts, all was harmony within 
 and without — 
 
 " — simul alba nautis 
 Stella refulsit, 
 Defluit saxis agitatus humor; 
 Concidunt venti, fugiuntque nubes, 
 Et minax (quod sic voluere) ponto 
 Unda recumbit."^* 
 
 The very same year the County Palatine of 
 Chester received the same relief from its op- 
 
 26. The troubled surge falls from the rocks, the winds cease, the clouds 
 vanish and the threatening waves subside in the seas as the clear constel- 
 lation shines forth. 
 
 228
 
 ®n Conciliation witb America 
 
 pressions and the same remedy to its dis- 
 orders. Before this time Chester was little 
 less distempered than Wales. The inhabit- 
 ants, without rights themselves, were the 
 fittest to destroy the rights of others; and 
 from thence Richard the Second drew the 
 standing army of archers with which for a 
 time he oppressed England. The people of 
 Chester applied to Parliament in a petition 
 penned as I shall read to you: — 
 
 "To the King, our Sovereign Lord, in most 
 humble wise shewen unto your excellent 
 Majesty the inhabitants of your Grace's 
 County Palatine or Chester: (i) That where 
 the said County Palatine of Chester is and 
 hath been always hitherto exempt, excluded, 
 and separated out and from your High Court 
 of Parliament, to have any Knights and 
 Burgesses within the said Court; by reason 
 whereof the said inhabitants have hitherto 
 sustained manifold disherisons, losses, and 
 damages, as well in their lands, goods, and 
 bodies, as in the good, civil, and politic gov- 
 ernance and maintenance of the commonwealth 
 of their said county; (2) And forasmuch as 
 the said inhabitants have always hitherto been 
 bound by the Acts and Statutes made and 
 ordained by your said Highness and your most 
 
 22Q
 
 On Conciliation wttb Bmetica 
 
 noble progenitors, by authority of the said 
 Court, as far forth as other counties, cities, 
 and boroughs have been, that have had their 
 Knights and Burgesses within your said Court 
 of Parliament, and yet have had neither 
 Knight ne Burgess there for the said County 
 Palatine ; the said inhabitants for lack thereof, 
 have been oftentimes touched and grieved 
 with Acts and Statutes made within the said 
 Court, as well derogatory unto the most 
 ancient jurisdictions, liberties, and privileges 
 of your said County Palatine, as prejudicial 
 unto the commonwealth, quietness, rest, and 
 peace of your Grace's most bounden subjects 
 inhabiting within the same." 
 
 "What did Parliament with this audacious 
 address ? — Reject it as a libel ? Treat it as 
 an affront to Government? Spurn it as a 
 derogation from the rights of legislature ? Did 
 they toss it over the table ? Did they burn it 
 by the hands of the common hangman ? They 
 took the petition of grievance, all rugged as 
 it was, without softening or temperament, 
 unpurged of the original bitterness and indig- 
 nation of complaint — they made it the very 
 preamble to their Act of Redress, and conse- 
 crated its principle to all ages in the sanctuary 
 of legislation. 
 
 230
 
 ©n Conciliation wltb Bmerlca 
 
 Here is my third example. It was attended 
 with the success of the two former. Chester, 
 civilized as well as Wales, has demonstrated 
 that freedom, and not servitude, is the cure of 
 anarchy ; as religion, and not atheism, is the 
 true remedy for superstition. Sir, this pattern 
 of Chester was followed in the reign of Charles 
 the Second with regard to the County Palatine 
 of Durham, which is my fourth example. This 
 county had long lain out of the pale of free 
 legislation. So scrupulously was the example 
 of Chester followed that the style of the pre- 
 amble is nearly the same with that of the 
 Chester Act ; and, without affecting the ab- 
 stract extent of the authority of Parliament, 
 it recognizes the equity of not suffering any 
 considerable district in which the British sub- 
 jects may act as a body, to be taxed without 
 their own voice in the grant. 
 
 Now if the doctrines of policy contained in 
 these preambles, and the force of these 
 examples in the Acts of Parliaments, avail 
 anything, what can be said against applying 
 them with regard to America ? Are not the 
 people of America as much Englishmen as the 
 Welsh ? The preamble of the Act of Henry 
 the Eighth says the Welsh speak a language 
 no way resembhng that of his Majesty's
 
 ©n Conciliation witb Bmerica 
 
 English subjects. Are the Americans not as 
 numerous ? If we may trust the learned and 
 accurate Judge Barrington's account of North 
 Wales, and take that as a standard to measure 
 the rest, there is no comparison. The people 
 cannot amount to above 200,000; not a tenth 
 part of the number in the Colonies. Is America 
 in rebellion .-* Wales was hardly ever free from 
 it. Have you attempted to govern America 
 by penal statutes .-* You made fifteen for 
 Wales. But your legislative authority is 
 perfect with regard to America. Was it less 
 perfect in Wales, Chester, and Durham .'' But 
 America is virtually represented. What ! does 
 the electric force of virtual representation 
 more easily pass over the Atlantic than per- 
 vade Wales, which lies in your neighborhood 
 — or than Chester and Durham, surrounded 
 by abundance of representation that is actual 
 and palpable? But, Sir, your ancestors 
 thought this sort of virtual representation, 
 however ample, to be totally insufficient for 
 the freedom of the inhabitants of territories 
 that are so near, and comparatively so incon- 
 siderable. How then can I think it sufficient 
 for those which are infinitely greater, and 
 infinitely more remote. 
 
 You will now, Sir, perhaps imagine that I 
 
 232
 
 ®n Concllfation vvltb amerfca 
 
 am on the point of proposing to you a scheme 
 for a representation of the Colonies in Parlia- 
 ment. Perhaps I might be inclined to enter- 
 tain some such thought; but a great flood stops 
 me in my course. Opposiiit natiiva. " — I 
 cannot remove the eternal barriers of the 
 creation. The thing, in that mode, I do not 
 know to be possible. As I meddle with no 
 theory, I do not absolutely assert the imprac- 
 ticability of such a representation; but I do 
 not see my way to it, and those who have 
 been more confident have not been more suc- 
 cessful. However, the arm of public benevo- 
 lence is not shortened, and there are often 
 several means to the same end. What nature 
 has disjoined in one way, wisdom may unite 
 in another. When we cannot give the benefit 
 as we would wish, let us not refuse it alto- 
 gether. If we cannot give the principal, let 
 us find a substitute. But how t Where t What 
 substitute 1 
 
 Fortunately I am not obliged, for the ways 
 and means of this substitute, to tax my own 
 unproductive invention. I am not even obliged 
 to go to the rich treasury of the fertile fram- 
 ers of imaginary commonwealths — not to 
 the Republic of Plato, not to the Utopia of 
 
 27. Nature opposes it.
 
 On Conciliation witb Bmerica 
 
 More, not to the Oceana of Harrington. It 
 is before me — it is at my feet, 
 
 " And the rude swain 
 Treads daily on it with his clouted shoon." 
 
 I only wish you to recognize, for the theory, 
 the ancient constitutional policy of this king- 
 dom with regard to representation, as that 
 policy has been declared in Acts of Parlia- 
 ment; and as to the practice, to return to that 
 mode which a uniform experience has marked 
 out to you as best, and in which you walked 
 with security, advantage-, and honor, until the 
 year 1763. 
 
 My resolutions therefore mean to establish 
 the equity and justice of a taxation of Amer- 
 ica by grant, and not by imposition ; to mark 
 the legal competency of the Colony Assemblies 
 for the support of their government in peace, 
 and for public aids in time of war; to acknowl- 
 edge that this legal competency has had a 
 dutiful and bejieficial exercise ; and that ex- 
 perience has shown the benefit of their grants y 
 diXi^ihe futility of Parliamentary taxation as 
 a method of supply. 
 
 These solid truths compose six fundamental 
 propositions. There are three more resolu- 
 tions corollary to these. If you admit the first 
 
 234
 
 ©n Concflfatfon wltb Bmcrfca 
 
 set, you can hardly reject the others. But if 
 you admit the first, I shall be far from solicit- 
 ous whether you accept or refuse the last. 
 I think these six massive pillars will be of 
 strength sufficient to support the temple of 
 British concord. I have no more doubt than 
 I entertain of my existence that, if you ad- 
 mitted these, you would command an imme- 
 diate peace, and, with but tolerable future 
 management, a lasting obedience in America. 
 I am not arrogant in this confident assurance. 
 The propositions are all mere matters of fact, 
 and if they are such facts as draw irresistible 
 conclusions even in the stating, this is the power 
 of truth, and not any management of mine. 
 
 Sir, I shall open the whole plan to you, 
 together with such observations on the 
 motions as may tend to illustrate them where 
 they may want explanation. The first is a 
 resolution — 
 
 "That the Colonies and Plantations of 
 Great Britain in North America, consisting of 
 fourteen separate Governments, and contain- 
 ing two millions and upwards of free inhabit- 
 ants, have not had the liberty and privilege 
 of electing and sending any Knights and 
 Burgesses, or others, to represent them in 
 the High Court of Parliament." 
 
 235
 
 ©n Cnncdiatlon wftb Bmerica 
 
 This is a plain matter of fact, necessary to 
 be laid down, and, excepting the description, 
 it is laid down in the language of the Consti- 
 tution; it is taken nearly verbatim from acts 
 of Parliament. 
 
 The second is like unto the first — 
 
 "That the said Colonies and Plantations 
 have been liable to, and bounden by, several 
 subsidies, payments, rates, and taxes given 
 and granted by Parliament, though the said 
 Colonies and Plantations have not their 
 Knights and Burgesses in the said High Court 
 of Parliament, of their own election, to repre- 
 sent the condition of their country; by lack 
 whereof they have been oftentimes touched 
 and grieved by subsidies given, granted, and 
 assented to, in the said Court, in a manner 
 prejudicial to the commonwealth, quietness, 
 rest, and peace of the subjects inhabiting 
 within the same." 
 
 Is this description too hot, or too cold; too 
 strong, or too weak ? Does it arrogate too 
 much to the supreme legislature ? Does it 
 lean too much to the claims of the people ? 
 If it runs into any of these errors, the fault is 
 not mine. It is the language of your own 
 ancient Acts of Parliament. 
 
 236
 
 ©n Conciliation wltb amerlca 
 
 * ' Non meus hie sermo, sed quae prsecepit Of ellus, 
 
 Rusticus, abnormis sapiens. "^^ 
 
 It is the genuine product of the ancient, 
 rustic, manly, homebred sense of this country. 
 — I did not dare to rub off a particle of the 
 venerable rust that rather adorns and preserves, 
 than destroys, the metal. It would be a 
 profanation to touch with a tool the stones 
 which construct this sacred altar of peace. I 
 would not violate with modern polish the in- 
 genuous and noble roughness of these truly 
 constitutional materials. Above all things, I 
 was resolved not to be guilty of tampering, 
 the odious vice of restless and unstable minds. 
 I put my foot in the tracks of our forefathers, 
 where I can neither wander nor stumble. 
 Determining to fix articles of peace, I was 
 resolved not to be wise beyond what was 
 written; I was resolved to use nothing else 
 than the form of sound words, to let others 
 abound in their own sense, and carefully to 
 abstain from all expressions of my own. 
 What the law has said, I say. In all things 
 else I am silent. I have no organ but for 
 her words. This, if it be not ingenious, I am 
 sure is safe. 
 
 28. This is no creed of mine, but what Ofellus the peasant philoso* 
 pher taught me.
 
 ©n (Toncillation wltb Bmerica 
 
 There are indeed words expressive of griev- 
 ance in this second resolution, which those 
 who are resolved always to be in the right 
 will deny to contain matter of fact, as applied 
 to the present case, although Parliament 
 thought them true with regard to the counties 
 of Chester and Durham. They will deny that 
 the Americans were ever "touched and 
 grieved" with the taxes. If they consider 
 nothing in taxes but their weight as pecuniary 
 impositions, there might be some pretense for 
 this denial; but men may be sorely touched 
 and deeply grieved in their privileges, as well 
 as in their purses. Men may lose little in 
 property by the act which takes away all 
 their freedom. When a man is robbed of a 
 trifle on the highway, it is not the two-pence 
 lost that constitutes the capital outrage. This 
 is not confined to privileges. Even ancient 
 indulgences, withdrawn without offense on the 
 part of those who enjoyed such favors, operate 
 as grievances. But were the Americans then 
 not touched and grieved by the taxes, in some 
 measure, merely as taxes .-' If so, why were 
 they almost all either wholly repealed, or ex- 
 ceedingly reduced.'' Were they not touched 
 and grieved even by the regulating duties of 
 the sixth of George the Second .'' Else, why 
 
 238
 
 ©n GonctKation wltb Hmerlca 
 
 were the duties first reduced to one-third in 
 1764, and afterwards to a third of that third 
 in the year 1766? Were they not touched 
 and grieved by the Stamp Act ? I shall say 
 they were, until that tax is revived. Were 
 they not touched and grieved by the duties of 
 1767, which were likewise repealed, and which 
 Lord Hillsborough tells you, for the Ministry, 
 were laid contrary to the true principle of 
 commerce ? Is not the assurance given by 
 that noble person to the Colonies of a resolu- 
 tion to lay no more taxes on them an admis- 
 sion that taxes would touch and grieve them ? 
 Is not the resolution of the noble lord in the 
 blue ribbon, now standing on your Journals, 
 the strongest of all proofs that Parliamentary 
 subsidies really touched and grieved them ? 
 Else why all these changes, modifications, 
 repeals, assurances, and resolutions ? 
 
 The next proposition is — 
 
 "That, from the distance of the said Colo- 
 nies, and from other circumstances, no method 
 had hitherto been devised for procuring a 
 representation in Parliament for the said 
 Colonies." 
 
 This is an assertion of a fact. I go no 
 further on the paper, though, in my private 
 judgment, a useful representation is impossi- 
 
 239
 
 ©n ConciKatlon wltb Bmerica 
 
 ble — I am sure it is not desired by them, nor 
 ought it perhaps by us — but I abstain from 
 opinions. 
 
 The fourth resolution is — 
 
 "That each of the said Colonies hath 
 within itself a body, chosen in part, or in the 
 whole, by the freemen, freeholders, or other 
 free inhabitants thereof, commonly called che 
 General Assembly, or General Court, with 
 powers legally to raise, levy, and assess, ac- 
 cording to the several usage of such Colonies, 
 duties and taxes towards defraying all sorts of 
 public services." 
 
 This competence in the Colony Assemblies 
 is certain. It is proved by the whole tenor of 
 their Acts of Supply in all the Assemblies, in 
 which the constant style of granting is, "an 
 aid to his Majesty;" and Acts granting to the 
 Crown have regularly for nearly a century 
 passed the public offices without dispute. 
 Those who have been pleased paradoxically to 
 deny this right, holding that none but the 
 British Parliament can grant to the Crown, 
 are wished to look to what is done, not only 
 in the Colonies, but in Ireland, in one uni- 
 form unbroken tenor every session. Sir, I 
 am surprised that this doctrine should come 
 from some of the law servants of the Crown. 
 
 240
 
 ®n Conciliation witb Bmetica 
 
 I say that if the Crown could be responsible, 
 his Majesty, — but certainly the Ministers, — 
 and even these law officers themselves through 
 whose hands the Acts passed, biennially in 
 Ireland, or annually in the Colonies — are in 
 an habitual course of committing impeachable 
 offenses. What habitual offenders have been 
 all Presidents of the Council, all Secretaries 
 of State, all First Lords of Trade, all Attor- 
 neys and all Solicitors-General ! However, 
 they are safe, as no one impeaches them; and 
 there is no ground of charge against them 
 except in their own unfounded theories. 
 
 The fifth resolution is also a resolution of 
 fact — 
 
 "That the said General Assemblies, Gen- 
 eral Courts, or other bodies legally qualified 
 as aforesaid, have at sundry times freely 
 granted several large subsidies and public aids 
 for his Majesty's service, according to their 
 abilities, when required thereto by letter from 
 one of his Majesty's principal Secretaries of 
 State; and that their right to grant the same, 
 and their cheerfulness and sufficiency in the 
 said grants, have been at sundry times ac- 
 knowledged by Parliament." 
 
 To say nothing of their great expenses in 
 the Indian wars, and not to take their exer- 
 
 241
 
 On ConcUlatton vvltb Bmcrica 
 
 tion in foreign ones so high as the supplies in 
 the year 1695 — not to go back to their 
 pubhc contributions in the year 17 10 — I shall 
 begin to travel only where the journals give 
 me light, resolving to deal in nothing but 
 fact, authenticated by Parliamentary record, 
 and to build myself wholly on that solid 
 basis. 
 
 On the 4th of April, 1748, a committee of 
 this House came to the following resolution: 
 
 "Resolved: That it is the opinion of this 
 Committee that it is just and reasonable that 
 the several Provinces and Colonies of Massa- 
 chusetts Bay, New Hampshire, Connecticut, 
 and Rhode Island be reimbursed the expenses 
 they have been at in taking and securing to 
 the Crown of Great Britain the Island of 
 Cape Breton and its dependencies." 
 
 The expenses were immense for such Col- 
 onies. They were above ;^200,ooo sterling; 
 money first raised and advanced on their pub- 
 lic credit. 
 
 On the 28th of January, 1756, a message 
 from the King came to us, to this effect: 
 
 "His Majesty, being sensible of the zeal 
 and vigor with which his faithful subjects of 
 certain Colonies in North America have ex- 
 erted themselves in defense of his Majesty's 
 
 242
 
 ©n Concfllatfon wltb America 
 
 just rights and possessions, recommends it 
 to this House to take the same into their 
 consideration, and to enable his Majesty to 
 give them such assistance as may be a proper 
 reward and encouragement." 
 
 On the 3d of February, 1756, the House 
 came to a suitable resolution, expressed in 
 words nearly the same as those of the mes- 
 sage, but with the further addition, that the 
 money then voted was as an encouragement 
 to the Colonies to exert themselves with vigor. 
 It will not be necessary to go through all the 
 testimonies which your own records have given 
 to the truth of my resolutions. I will only 
 refer you to the places in the Journals : 
 
 Vol. xxvii, — 1 6th and 19th May, 1757. 
 Vol. xxviii. — June ist, 1758; April 26th 
 
 and 30th, 1759; March 26th and 
 
 31st, and April 28th, 1760; Jan. 
 
 9th and 20th, 1 76 1. 
 Vol. xxix. — Jan. 22d and 26th, 1762; 
 
 March 14th and 17th, 1763. 
 
 Sir, here is the repeated acknowledgment 
 of Parliament that the colonies not only gave, 
 but gave to satiety. This nation has formally 
 acknowledged two things: first, that the Colo- 
 nies had gone beyond their abilities, Parlia- 
 
 243
 
 ®n Conciliation wltb Bmcrlca 
 
 merit having thought it necessary to reimburse 
 them; secondly, that they had acted legally 
 and laudably in their grants of money, and 
 their maintenance of troops, since the com- 
 pensation is expressly given as reward and en- 
 couragement. Reward is not bestowed for 
 acts that are unlawful; and encouragement is 
 not held out to things that deserve reprehen- 
 sion. My resolution therefore does nothing 
 more than collect into one proposition what is 
 scattered through your Journals. I give you 
 nothing but your own; and you cannot refuse 
 in the gross what you have so often acknowl- 
 edged in detail. The admission of this, 
 which will be so honorable to them and to 
 you, will, indeed, be mortal to all the mis- 
 erable stories by which the passions of the 
 misguided people have been engaged in an 
 unhappy system. The people heard, indeed, 
 from the beginning of these disputes, one 
 thing continually dinned in their ears, that 
 reason and justice demanded that the Ameri- 
 cans, who paid no taxes, should be compelled 
 to contribute. How did that fact of their 
 paying nothing stand when the taxing system 
 began.? When Mr. Grenville began to form 
 his system of American revenue, he stated in 
 this house that the Colonies were then in debt 
 
 244
 
 ®n GonclUatfon wltb America 
 
 two millions six hundred thousand pounds 
 sterling money, and was of opinion they woul(? 
 discharge that debt in four years. On this 
 statement, those untaxed people were actually 
 subject to the payment of taxes to the amount 
 of six hundred and fifty thousand a year. In 
 fact, however, Mr. Grenville was mistaken. 
 The funds given for sinking the debt did not 
 prove quite so ample as both the Colonies and 
 he expected. The calculation was too san- 
 guine; the reduction was not completed till 
 some years after, and at different times in dif- 
 ferent Colonies. However, the taxes after the 
 war continued too great to bear any addition, 
 with prudence or propriety; and when the 
 burthens imposed in consequence of former 
 requisitions were discharged, our tone became 
 too high to resort again to requisition. No 
 Colony, since that time, ever has had any 
 requisition whatsoever made to it. 
 
 We see the sense of the Crown, and the 
 sense of Parliament, on the productive nature 
 of a revenue by grant. Now search the same 
 Journals for the produce of the revenue by im- 
 position. Where is it ? Let us know the vol- 
 ume and the page. What is the gross, what 
 is the net produce ? To what service is it ap- 
 plied? How have you appropriated its sur- 
 
 245
 
 ®n Conciliation wltb Bmerica 
 
 plus ? What ! Can none of the many skillful 
 index-makers that we are now employing find 
 any trace of it? — Well, let them and that rest 
 together. But are the Journals, which say 
 nothing of the revenue, as silent on the dis- 
 content ? Oh no ! a child may find it. It is 
 the melancholy burthen and blot of every page. 
 
 I think, then, I am, from those Journals, 
 justified in the sixth and last resolution, which 
 is — 
 
 ' ' That it hath been found by experience 
 that the manner of granting the said supplies 
 and aids, by the said General Assemblies, hath 
 been more agreeable to the said Colonies, and 
 more beneficial and conducive to the public 
 service, than the mode of giving and granting 
 aids in Parliament, to be raised and paid in 
 the said Colonies." 
 
 This makes the whole of the fundamental 
 part of the plan. The conclusion is irresistible. 
 You cannot say that you were driven by any 
 necessity to an exercise of the utmost rights 
 of legislature. You cannot assert that you 
 took on yourself the task of imposing Colony 
 taxes from the want of another legal body 
 that is competent to the purpose of supplying 
 the exigencies of the state without wounding 
 the prejudices of the people. Neither is it 
 
 246
 
 ©n ConciUatfon wltb Bmedca 
 
 true that the body so quaUfied, and having 
 that competence, had neglected the duty. 
 
 The question now, on all this accumulated 
 matter, is : whether you will choose to abide 
 by a profitable experience, or a mischievous 
 theory; whether you choose to build on im- 
 agination, or fact; whether you prefer enjoy- 
 ment, or hope; satisfaction in your subjects, 
 or discontent ? 
 
 If these propositions are accepted, every- 
 thing which has been made to enforce a con- 
 trary system must, I take it for granted, fall 
 along with it. On that ground, I have drawn 
 the following resolution, which, when it comes 
 to be moved, will naturally be divided in a 
 proper manner : 
 
 '*Thatitmay be proper to repeal an Act 
 made in the seventh year of the reign of his 
 present Majesty, entitled, An Act for granting 
 certain duties in the British Colonies and 
 Plantations in America; for allowing a draw- 
 back of the duties of customs upon the ex- 
 portation from this Kingdom of coffee and 
 cocoa-nuts of the produce of the said Colonies 
 or Plantations; for discontinuing the draw- 
 backs payable on china earthenware exported 
 to America; and for more effectually prevent- 
 ing the clandestine running of goods in the 
 
 247
 
 ©n Conciliation wltb America 
 
 said Colonies and Plantations. And that it 
 may be proper to repeal an Act made in the 
 fourteenth year of the reign of his present 
 Majesty, entitled, An Act to discontinue, in 
 such manner and for such time as are therein 
 mentioned, the landing and discharging, lad- 
 ing or shipping of goods, wares, and merchan- 
 dise at the town and within the harbor of 
 Boston, in the Province of Massachusetts Bay, 
 in North America. And that it may be proper 
 to repeal an Act made in the fourteenth year 
 of the reign of his present Majesty, entitled. 
 An Act for the impartial administration of 
 justice in the cases of persons questioned for 
 any acts done by them in the execution of the 
 law, or for the suppression of riots and tumults, 
 in the Province of Massachusetts Bay, in New 
 England. And that it may be proper to re- 
 peal an Act made in the fourteenth year of 
 the reign of his present Majesty, entitled, An 
 Act for the better regulating of the Govern- 
 ment of the Province of the Massachusetts 
 Bay, in New England. And also that it may 
 be proper to explain and amend an Act made 
 in the thirty-fifth year of the reign of King 
 Henry the Eighth, entitled, An Act for the 
 Trial of Treasons committed out of the King's 
 Dominions." 
 
 248
 
 ©n Concdlatfon wltb Bmcrlca 
 
 I wish, Sir, to repeal the Boston Port Bill, 
 because — independently of the dangerous 
 precedent of suspending the rights of the sub- 
 ject during the King's pleasure — it was passed, 
 as I apprehend, with less regularity and on 
 more partial principles than it ought. The 
 corporation of Boston was not heard before it 
 was condemned. Other towns, full as guilty 
 as she was, have not had their ports blocked 
 up. Even the Restraining Bill of the present 
 session does not go to the length of the Boston 
 Port Act. The same ideas of prudence which 
 induced you not to extend equal punishment 
 to equal guilt, even when you were punishing, 
 induced me, who mean not to chastise, but to 
 reconcile, to be satisfied with the punishment 
 already partially inflicted. 
 
 Ideas of prudence and accommodation to 
 circumstances prevent you from taking away 
 the charters of Connecticut and Rhode Island, 
 as you have taken away that of Massachusetts 
 Bay, though the Crown has far less power in 
 the two former provinces than it enjoyed in 
 the latter, and though the abuses have been 
 full as great, and as flagrant, in the exempted 
 as in the punished. The same reasons of 
 prudence and accommodation have weight 
 with me in restoring the charter of Massachu- 
 
 249
 
 ©n Conctllation witb Bmcrlca 
 
 setts Bay. Besides, Sir, the Act which 
 changes the charter of Massachusetts is in 
 many particulars so exceptionable that if I did 
 not wish absolutely to repeal, I would by all 
 means desire to alter it, as several of its pro- 
 visions tend to the subversion of all public and 
 private justice. Such, among others, is the 
 power in the Governor to change the sheriff 
 at his pleasure, and to make a new returning 
 officer for every special cause. It is shameful 
 to behold such a regulation standing among 
 English laws. 
 
 The Act for bringing persons accused of 
 committing murder, under the orders of Govern- 
 ment to England for trial, is but temporary. 
 That Act has calculated the probable duration 
 of our quarrel with the Colonies, and is ac- 
 commodated to that supposed duration. I 
 would hasten the happy moment of reconcilia- 
 tion, and therefore must, on my principle, get 
 rid of that most justly obnoxious Act. 
 
 The Act of Henry the Eighth, for the Trial 
 of Treasons, I do not mean to take away, but 
 to confine it to its proper bounds and original 
 intention; to make it expressly for trial of 
 treasons — and the greatest treasons may be 
 committed — in places where the jurisdiction 
 of the Crown does not extend. 
 
 250
 
 ®n Concdiatlon witb Bmeclca 
 
 Having guarded the privileges of local legis- 
 lature, I would next secure to the Colonies a 
 fair and unbiased judicature, for which purpose, 
 Sir, I propose the following resolution: 
 
 "That, from the time when the General 
 Assembly or General Court of any Colony or 
 Plantation in North America shall have ap- 
 pointed by Act of Assembly, duly confirmed, 
 a settled salary to the offices of the Chief 
 Justice and other Judges of the Superior 
 Court, it may be proper that the said Chief 
 Justice and other Judges of the Superior 
 Courts of such Colony shall hold his and their 
 office and offices during their good behavior, 
 and shall not be removed therefrom but 
 when the said removal shall be adjudged by 
 his Majesty in Council, upon a hearing on 
 complaint from the General Assembly, or a 
 complaint from the Governor, or Council, or 
 the House of Representatives severally, or of 
 the Colony in which the said Chief Justice and 
 other Judges have exercised the said offices." 
 The next resolution relates to the Courts of 
 Admiralty. It is this: 
 
 ' ' That it may be proper to regulate the 
 Courts of Admiralty or Vice-Admiralty author- 
 ized by the Fifteenth Chapter of the Fourth of 
 George the Third, in such a manner as to 
 
 251
 
 On Conciliation witb Bmecica 
 
 make the same more commodious to those 
 who sue, or are sued, in the said Courts, and 
 to provide for the more decent maintenance 
 of the Judges in the same." 
 
 These courts I do not wish to take away; 
 they are in themselves proper estabHshments. 
 This court is one of the capital securities of 
 the Act of Navigation. The extent of its 
 jurisdiction, indeed, has been increased, but 
 this is altogether as proper, and is indeed 
 on many accounts more eligible, where new 
 powers were wanted, than a court absolutely 
 new. But courts incommodiously situated, 
 in effect, deny justice; and a court partaking 
 in the fruits of its own condemnation is a 
 robber. The Congress complain, and com- 
 plain justly, of this grievance. 
 
 These are the three consequential proposi- 
 tions. I have thought of two or three more, 
 but they come rather too near detail, and to 
 the province of executive government, which 
 I wish Parliament always to superintend, 
 never to assume. If the first six are granted, 
 congruity will carry the latter three. If not, 
 the things that remain unrepealed will be, I 
 hope, rather unseemly incumbrances on the 
 building, than very materially detrimental to 
 its strength and stabihty. 
 
 252
 
 ®n Conciliation wltb Bmerica 
 
 Here, Sir, I should close; but I plainly per- 
 ceive some objections remain which I ought, 
 if possible, to remove. 
 
 [Here Burke answers the objection that the 
 colonies will abuse the privileges given them and 
 throw off their allegiance. His central idea is in 
 the words: " In every arduous enterprise we con- 
 sider what we are to lose, as well as what we are 
 to gain; and the more and better stake of liberty 
 every people possess, the less they will hazard in 
 a vain attempt to make it more. These are the 
 cords of man. Man acts from adequate motives 
 relative to his interest, and not on metaphysical 
 speculations." 
 
 He then proceeds to criticise and to overthrow 
 by a series of arguments a proposition that had 
 recently been brought forward by Lord North. 
 This discussion would extend over several printed 
 pages and is the only considerable omission we 
 make. In the end he compares his plan with 
 Lord North's in these words: 
 
 "This I offer to give you is plain and simple; 
 the other full of perplexed and intricate mazes. 
 This is mild; that is harsh. This is found by 
 experience effectual for its purposes; the other is 
 a new project. This is universal; the other calcu- 
 lated for certain Colonies only. This is imme- 
 
 253
 
 ®n Conciliation wltb America 
 
 diate in its conciliatory operation; the other 
 remote, contingent, full of hazard. Mine is what 
 becomes the dignity of a feeling people — gratui- 
 tous, unconditional, and not held out as a matter 
 of bargain and sale."] 
 
 But what, says the financier, is peace to us 
 without money .-* Your plan gives us no reve- 
 nue. No! but it does; for it secures to the 
 subject the power of refusal, the first of all 
 revenues. Experience is a cheat, and fact a 
 liar, if this power in the subject of proportion- 
 ing his grant, or of not granting at all, has not 
 been found the richest mine of revenue ever 
 discovered by the skill or by the fortune of man. 
 It does not indeed vote you 152,750/. iij-. 
 2'i/^d.y nor any other paltry limited sum; but it 
 gives the strongbox itself, the fund, the bank — 
 from whence only revenues can arise amongst 
 a people sensible of freedom. Posita luditur 
 arca.^^ Cannot you, in England — cannot you, 
 at this time of day — cannot you, a House of 
 Commons, trust to the principle which has raised 
 so mighty a revenue, and accumulated a debt 
 of near 140,000,000/. in this country .-* Is this 
 principle to be true in England, and false 
 
 29. With one's whole cash-box at stake — an allusion to excesses In 
 gambling.
 
 ©n Conciliation witb Bmerfca 
 
 everywhere else ? Is it not true in Ireland ? 
 Has it not hitherto been true in the Colonies ? 
 "Why should you presume that, in any country, 
 a body duly constituted for any function will 
 neglect to perform its duty and abdicate its 
 trust ? Such a presumption would go against 
 all governments in all modes. But, in truth, 
 this dread of penury of supply from a free 
 assembly has no foundation in nature; for 
 first, observe that, besides the desire which all 
 men have naturally of supporting the honor of 
 their own government, that sense of dignity 
 and that security to property which ever at- 
 tends freedom has a tendency to increase the 
 stock of the free community. Most may be 
 taken where most is accumulated. And what 
 is the soil or climate where experience has not 
 uniformly proved that the voluntary flow of 
 heaped-up plenty, bursting from the weight of 
 its own rich luxuriance, has ever run with a 
 more copious stream of revenue than could be 
 squeezed from the dry husks of oppressed 
 Indigence by the straining of all the politic 
 machinery in the world .'' 
 
 Next, we know that parties must ever exist 
 in a free country. We know, too, that the 
 emulations of such parties — their contradic- 
 tions, their reciprocal necessities, their hopes, 
 
 255
 
 ®n Conclliatfon witb Smcrtca 
 
 and their fears — must send them all in their 
 turns to him that holds the balance of the 
 State. The parties are the gamesters: but 
 Government keeps the table, and is sure to be 
 the winner in the end. When the game is 
 played, I really think it is more to be feared 
 that the people will be exhausted, than that 
 government will not be supplied; whereas, 
 whatever is got by acts of absolute power ill 
 obeyed, because odious, or by contracts ill 
 kept, because constrained, will be narrow, 
 feeble, uncertain, and precarious. 
 
 * ' Ease would retract 
 Vows made in pain, as violent and void. " 
 
 I, for one, protest against compounding our 
 demands. I declare against compounding, 
 for a poor limited sum, the immense, ever- 
 growing, eternal debt which is due to generous 
 government from protected freedom. And so 
 may I speed in the great object I propose to 
 you, as I think it would not only be an act of 
 injustice, but would be the worst economy in 
 the world, to compel the Colonies to a sum 
 certain, either in the way of ransom or in the 
 way of compulsory compact. 
 
 But to clear up my ideas on this subject: a 
 revenue from America transmitted hither — do 
 
 ?5^
 
 ®n ConcUlatfon wftb Bmerfca 
 
 not delude yourselves — you never can receive 
 it; no, not a shilling. We have experience 
 that from remote countries it is not to be ex- 
 pected. If, when you attempted to extract 
 revenue from Bengal, you were obliged to 
 return in loan what you had taken in im- 
 position, what can you expect from North 
 America .'' For certainly, if ever there was a 
 country qualified to produce wealth, it is India; 
 or an institution fit for the transmission, it is 
 the East India Company. America has none 
 of these aptitudes. If America gives you 
 taxable objects on which you lay your duties 
 here, and gives you, at the same time, a sur- 
 plus by a foreign sale of her commodities to 
 pay the duties on these objects which you tax 
 at home, she has performed her part to the 
 British revenue. But with regard to her own 
 internal establishments, she may, I doubt not 
 she will, contribute in moderation. I say in 
 moderation, for she ought not to be permitted 
 to exhaust herself. She ought to be reserved 
 to a war, the weight of which, with the enemies 
 that we are most likely to have, must be con- 
 siderable in her quarter of the globe. There 
 she may serve you, and serve you essentially. 
 For that service — for all service, whether 
 of revenue, trade, or empire — my trust is in 
 
 ?57
 
 ®n ConctUation wttb amertca 
 
 her interest in the British Constitution. My 
 hold of the Colonies is in the close affection 
 which grows from common names, from 
 kindred blood, from similar privileges, and 
 equal protection. These are ties which, though 
 light as air, are as strong as links of iron. 
 Let the colonists always keep the idea of their 
 civil rights associated with your government, 
 — they will cling and grapple to you, and no 
 force under heaven will be of power to tear them 
 from their allegiance. But let it be once un- 
 derstood that your government may be one 
 thing, and their privileges another, that these 
 two things may exist without any mutual 
 relation, the cement is gone — the cohesion is 
 loosened — and everything hastens to decay 
 and dissolution. As long as you have the 
 wisdom to keep the sovereign authority of 
 this country as the sanctuary of liberty, the 
 sacred temple consecrated to our common 
 faith, wherever the chosen race and sons of 
 England worship freedom, they will turn their 
 faces towards you. The more they multiply, 
 the more friends you will have; the more 
 ardently they love liberty, the more perfect 
 will be their obedience. Slavery they can 
 have anywhere — it is a weed that grows in 
 every soil. They may have it from Spain; 
 
 358
 
 ©n Conctllation witb Hmerlca 
 
 they may have it from Prussia. But, until 
 you become lost to all feeling of your true 
 interest and your natural dignity, freedom they 
 can have from none but you. This is the 
 commodity of price of which you have the 
 monopoly. This is the true Act of Navigation 
 which binds to you the commerce of the 
 Colonies, and through them secures to you 
 the wealth of the world. Deny them this 
 participation of freedom, and you break that 
 sole bond which originally made, and must 
 still preserve, the unity of the empire. Do not 
 entertain so weak an imagination as that your 
 registers and your bonds, your affidavits and 
 your sufferances, your cockets ^** and your 
 clearances, are what form the great secu- 
 rities of your commerce. Do not dream that 
 your letters of office, and your instructions, 
 and your suspending clauses are the things 
 that hold together the great contexture of the 
 mysterious whole. These things do not make 
 your government. Dead instruments, passive 
 tools as they are, it is the spirit of the English 
 communion that gives all their life and efficacy 
 to them. It is the spirit of the English Con- 
 stitution which, infused through the mighty 
 mass, pervades, feeds, unites, invigorates, vivi- 
 
 30. A document bearing the seal of the custom-house.
 
 ®n CondUatton wltb Bmerica 
 
 fies, every part of the empire, even down to 
 the minutest member. 
 
 Is it not the same virtue which does every- 
 thing for us here in England ? Do you 
 imagine, then, that it is the Land Tax Act 
 which raises your revenue ? that it is the 
 annual vote in the committee of supply which 
 gives you your army ? or that it is the mutiny 
 bill which inspires it with bravery and dis- 
 cipline ? No ! surely no ! It is the love 
 of the people; it is their attachment to their 
 government, from the sense of the deep stake 
 they have in such a glorious institution, which 
 gives you your army and your navy, and 
 infuses into both that liberal obedience with- 
 out which your army would be a base rabble, 
 and your navy nothing but rotten timber. 
 
 All this, I know well enough, will sound 
 wild and chimerical to the profane herd of 
 those vulgar and mechanical politicians who 
 have no place among us; a sort of people who 
 think that nothing exists but what is gross and 
 material, and who, therefore, far from being 
 qualified to be directors of the great movement 
 of empire, are not fit to turn a wheel in the 
 machine. But to men truly initiated and 
 rightly taught, these rulings and master prin- 
 ciples which, in the opinion of such men as I 
 
 260
 
 ®n Couctl(at(on wltb Bmcrica 
 
 have mentioned, have no substantial exist- 
 ence, are in truth everything, and all in all. 
 Magnanimity in politics is not seldom the 
 truest wisdom; and a great empire and little 
 minds go ill together. If we are conscious 
 of our station, and glow with zeal to fill our 
 places as becomes our situation and ourselves, 
 we ought to auspicate all our public proceed- 
 ings on America with the old warning of the 
 church, Sursuni corda! ^^ We ought to elevate 
 our minds to the greatness of that trust to 
 which the order of Providence has called us. 
 By adverting to the dignity of this high calling 
 our ancestors have turned a savage wilderness 
 into a glorious empire, and have made the most 
 extensive and the only honorable conquests — 
 not by destroying, but by promoting the wealth, 
 the number, the happiness, of the human 
 race. Let us get an American revenue as we 
 have got an American empire. English privi- 
 leges have made it all that it is; English privi- 
 leges alone will make it all it can be. 
 
 In full confidence of this unalterable truth, 
 I now, quod felix faustumqiie sit,'^^ lay the 
 first stone of the Temple of Peace; and I 
 move you — 
 
 31. Lift up your hearts — the Roman Catholic call to prayer. 
 
 32. May it be happy and of good omen. 
 
 261
 
 On Conciliation witb Hmccica 
 
 "That the Colonies and Plantations of 
 Great Britain in North America, consisting of 
 fourteen separate governments, and contain- 
 ing two millions and upwards of free inhabit- 
 ants, have not had the liberty and privilege of 
 electing and sending any Knights and Bur- 
 gesses, or others, to represent them in the 
 High Court of Parliament." 
 
 262
 
 Stu^^ of Qn Conciliation witb 
 america
 
 a: 
 
 ft!
 
 StuMcs 
 
 This oration is one of the finest examples of 
 close and sustained logical argument that the 
 English language offers us and it should be care- 
 fully studied. First with the idea of mastering 
 its thought: Read it through from beginning to 
 end rapidly, and with the idea of gaining a com- 
 prehensive knowledge of it in its entirety. Then 
 go over it again more carefully, satisfying 
 yourself that you have mastered the meaning of 
 each sentence and that the chief points of the 
 argument are fixed in your mind. Examine care- 
 fully the notes whenever you need their assistance, 
 remembering that the dictionary is an indispen- 
 sable adjunct to your work in literature. The 
 notes are meant to assist you in finding what is 
 not readily accessible to the ordinary reader. 
 
 To assist in the second reading, or in a third if 
 it is necessary to read again, consult frequently 
 the following outline, which will help to clarify the 
 trend of thought. 
 
 Jniroduction. Opens the subject and clears the 
 way by stating the two leading questions 
 which the orator thinks should be decided : 
 
 265
 
 StuWcs 
 
 1. Ought concessions to be made ? 
 
 2. What should the concessions be ? 
 Argument. This presents 
 
 I. The condition of the colonists. 
 
 1. The number of the colonists. 
 
 (a) Present, very large. 
 
 (b) Growing rapidly. 
 
 2. Their commerce. 
 
 (a) Extensive. 
 
 (b) Phenomenal growth. 
 
 3. Their agriculture — The New World feeds 
 
 the Old. 
 
 4. Fisheries — Their vessels are everywhere. 
 
 (Possibly more closely connected with a suc- 
 ceeding portion of the argument is the next sec- 
 tion which offers to the use of force the objections 
 that it is but temporary in its action, it is uncer- 
 tain in its effect, it impairs the object sought, and 
 experience has not justified it.) 
 
 II. The character of the colonists: A love of 
 
 freedom is the predominating feature 
 which marks and distinguishes them. 
 Causes : 
 
 1. Birth — descendants of Englishmen and so 
 
 especially sensitive to taxation. 
 
 2. Form of government — in a certain sense 
 
 representative. 
 
 3. Religion in northern colonies — Protes- 
 
 tant. 
 
 266
 
 I 
 
 Stuoies 
 
 4. Customs in the southern colonies — where 
 
 slaves are held those who are free are 
 especially proud and jealous of their 
 freedom. 
 
 5. Education — Particularly the study of 
 
 law. 
 
 6. Distance from the mother country — In 
 
 large bodies the circulation must be 
 less vigorous in the extremities. 
 III. Question : What shall be done ? 
 
 (Here follows further explanation with allusions 
 to pernicious experiments that have been made.) 
 
 There are three ways of proceeding: 
 I. To change the spirit by removing the 
 cause. Plans that have been proposed 
 and their difficulties: 
 
 (a) Make no further grants of land. 
 
 This is neither prudent nor practi- 
 cable because 
 (i) There are plenty of unsettled 
 
 lands in private hands. 
 (2) People would occupy lands with- 
 out grants. 
 
 (b) Impoverish the colonies — especially 
 
 arrest their marine enterprises. 
 But 
 (i) Discontent will increase with 
 
 misery. 
 (2) They cannot falsify their pedi- 
 gree. 
 
 267
 
 StuDtes 
 
 (c) Change tlieir religion, education, and 
 
 form of government. To accom- 
 plish this 
 (i) The army would be ineffectual 
 and chargeable to us. 
 
 (d) Enfranchise the slaves. But 
 
 (i) Americans may arm servile 
 hands. 
 
 (2) May be suspicious of a nation 
 
 that sanctions the slave traf- 
 fic. 
 
 (3) The ocean remains a barrier. 
 
 2. To prosecute the spirit as criminal. But 
 
 (a) To prosecute an empire is impos- 
 
 sible. Subordinate parts must 
 have local privileges and immu- 
 nities — imprudent to insist that 
 if a single privilege is pleaded, 
 authority is denied. 
 
 (b) The judge cannot act impartially 
 
 in a case when he is one of the 
 parties. 
 
 (c) Menaces cannot abate disorder. 
 
 3. To comply with the American spirit as 
 
 necessary. This means 
 
 (a) Grant them the boon they ask, 
 
 representation in the Parliament 
 
 that taxes them. 
 
 (The right of taxation is not in- 
 volved in this argument.) 
 
 ?63
 
 StuMes 
 
 (b) Admit the people of our colonies into 
 an interest in the constitution. 
 Reasons : 
 
 (i) No danger of extension of de- 
 mands. 
 (2) Favorable precedents. 
 
 (a) Ireland responded cheer- 
 fully in grants, but would 
 not submit to taxation. 
 (^) Wales was pacified by 
 grants of constitutional 
 liberties. 
 (<:) Chester demonstrated that 
 freedom is the cure for 
 anarchy. 
 (dT) Dover, a fourth example. 
 (c) Mark the legal competency of the 
 colonial assemblies. 
 
 (Then follow in detail the six resolutions and 
 their corollaries by which Burke hopes to bring 
 about conciliation with the colonies. These res- 
 olutions having been discussed each by itself, 
 he proceeds to dispose of some objections that 
 had been raised to his plan, he examines and re- 
 futes the plan proposed by Lord North, compares 
 it with his own plan. ) 
 Conclusion. A strong plea for magnanimity. 
 
 The difficult thing is to follow a course of 
 reasoning and to determine whether it 15 wholly 
 
 269
 
 StuOfeg 
 
 logical; accordingly, after the argument in this 
 oration has been carefully studied you should test 
 each step to see if it meets your unprejudiced ap- 
 proval. If you had been a member of Parliament 
 at the time would you have decided to vote with 
 Burke for conciliation with America? If so, 
 would you have done it because you were moved 
 by his argument or because you were impressed 
 by his own earnestness and sympathy with the 
 colonists? 
 
 When the thought is fully your own, the whole 
 oration should be read again and the parts com- 
 pared in order to ascertain their relative merits. 
 In so doing consider the following points : 
 
 I. Is the language clear so that you are not 
 troubled by involved sentences and expressions of 
 doubtful meaning? Do you find some passages 
 more lucid than others? 
 
 II. Would his ideas make an impression upon 
 the minds of his hearers ? Are they forcibly ex- 
 pressed? Has he given them greater force by 
 repetition and by varied expression? Does his 
 oratory ever rise to a point where you would think 
 his own feelings were involved ? Can you imagine 
 that he was ever deeply stirred by his interest in 
 his subject ? Did he ever make any direct appeal 
 to the sympathies of his hearers ? 
 
 III. Do you find any evidences of artistic fin- 
 ish ? Has he tried to make his sentences sonorous 
 and charming to the ear ? Does he draw on his 
 
 270
 
 StuMes 
 
 previous study for figures to beautify his sen- 
 tences ? Which characteristic prevails, clearness, 
 force, or beauty ? 
 
 Neither of the great orations you have just 
 studied has been mastered until you are able to 
 see the course of argument from beginning to end, 
 until you have carefully weighed the proofs by 
 which each step in the argument is established. 
 You must not be caught by the fervid eloquence, 
 the beauty of diction or the apparent logical se- 
 quence of ideas. You must be on guard to detect • 
 fallacies in argument, conclusions that do not fol- 
 low from the premises laid down, generalizations 
 that should not be made from facts cited. When 
 Burke cites the cases of Ireland, Wales, Chester, 
 and Durham, does he prove his point? Could 
 the revulsion in the condition of these provinces 
 have been attributed to any other cause ? 
 
 When Burke is speaking of the commerce of 
 the colonies he refers to the fact that "this ground 
 * * * has been trod * * * by a distinguished person 
 at your bar," a gentleman whom he ranks as ** one 
 of the first literary characters of his age." This 
 man was Richard Glover, a poet (17 12-1785), who 
 in 1761 was a member of Parliament and highly 
 regarded for his scholarship, especially in Greek. 
 But his was the age of Goldsmith, of Gibbon, of 
 Adam Smith, of Dr. Johnson, and Boswell. To 
 rank Glover as one of the first literary men of 
 the time is grave exaggeration, for he possessed no 
 
 271
 
 StuOfes 
 
 power to make himself remembered. Find the 
 passage and determine why Burke should so rate 
 him. Was it because he really esteemed him so 
 highly, was it to give increased value to any state- 
 ments he might quote from Glover, or was he 
 speaking ironically ? Might such exaggerations 
 tend to give too much weight to argument and 
 carry conviction where it was not justified? 
 
 Comparing his speech with that of Webster in re- 
 ply to Hayne, which do you think excels in logic ? 
 Which in clearness, in force, in beauty ? Do you 
 find in Burke such a fervid climax as that with 
 which Webster closed his reply to Hayne ? Do 
 you find in either oration bright aphorisms, wise 
 conclusions or moral reflections of a general na- 
 ture which might be taken from their context and 
 still be forcible and beautiful ? From which ora- 
 tion can you select the more ? As you look back 
 over the two, which seems to you the better one, 
 which would you prefer to have heard ? If you 
 had heard both, which would have pleased you 
 the more, which would have been more stirring to 
 your feelings, which the more convincing to your 
 intellect ? 
 
 272
 
 flDi0cellaneou0
 
 Supplementary 1Rea&inQS 
 
 The two orations given are political in their na- 
 ture and there are many others that are interesting 
 reading. G. P. Putnam's Sons of New York pub- 
 lish a series of four small volumes called American 
 Orations in which the speeches are arranged in 
 chronological order so that a student may follow 
 the history of his country in the orations its fa- 
 mous men have delivered. The first volume gives 
 those of the colonial period and during the rise of 
 the national spirit, the second and third relate to 
 the antislavery struggle and secession, the fourth 
 to the Civil war, reconstruction, free trade, and 
 civil service reform. 
 
 The orations of Wendell Phillips are published 
 in two rather larger volumes by Lee & Shepard of 
 Boston. In the First Series are his antislavery 
 speeches and among others in the Second Series 
 are The Lost Arts and The Scholar in a Republic, 
 two of the more famous. 
 
 A very fine collection is that of the orations of 
 George William Curtis, edited by Charles Eliot 
 Norton and published in three large volumes by 
 Harper & Brothers of New York. 
 
 As a companion to A?nerican Orations, G. P. 
 Putnam's Sons publish British Orations, a collec- 
 
 275
 
 Supplemcntari2 TRcaWngs 
 
 tion of the most famous political speeches of 
 English orators. In an introduction to this set, 
 Charles Kendall Adams says of the men whose 
 speeches are given, "Eliot and Pym formulated 
 the grievances against absolutism, a contemplation 
 of which led to the revolution that established 
 Anglican liberty on its present basis. Chatham, 
 Mansfield, and Burke elaborated the principles 
 which on the one hand drove the American colo- 
 nies into independence and on the other enabled 
 their independence to be won and secured." 
 
 276
 
 IReview diuestions 
 
 1. Compare Webster and Burke in regard to 
 their political positions and influence. 
 
 2. Which of the two speaks in the more figura- 
 tive language ? Which is the easier to follow in 
 his line of argument ? Which the more entertain- 
 ing to read ? 
 
 3. Compare the final paragraphs of The Great 
 Stone Face, Lamb's Dream Children, Emerson's 
 Self-Reliance, and Webster's Reply to Hayne. 
 
 4. Does the conclusion in all of these subserve 
 the same purpose ? Is it in any case a direct ap- 
 peal to the emotions ? 
 
 5. In what respect should the study of an 
 oration differ from the study of an essay ? 
 
 6. Does the presence of such a person as Sir 
 Roger de Coverley add to the interest of the es- 
 says in which he appears ? If so, in what way 
 and for what reason? 
 
 7. Which is the more readable, Self-Reliance 
 or the Reply to Hayne? Why? 
 
 8. Find expository passages in the fiction of 
 the first two Parts of this course. 
 
 9. Find descriptive prose in the two orations. 
 10. Compare Lincoln's Gettysburg Address with 
 
 Bacon's Nature in Men. Can you see any points 
 of similarity ? What difference do you notice ? 
 
 277
 
 n
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA AT LOS ANGELES 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY 
 
 This book is DUE on the last date stamped below 
 
 APR 2 8 1950 
 
 ^'^ 7 RECO 
 
 Form L-0 
 
 aOm-1, '41(1122)
 
 FR81 
 S98 
 1906 
 V.3 
 
 Sylvester - 
 English and 
 American 
 
 literature. 
 
 DEMCO 2S4N 
 
 Af^l^2^t950 
 
 UC SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY 
 
 1l|<ll':'i| lllllllll N llll III 
 
 A A 000 293 192 
 
 1 
 
 PR81 
 S98 
 1906 
 V.3