You have not forgotten Mr. Webster's definition of the object of government. In 1845, standing over the grave of Judge Story, he said, "Justice is the great interest of mankind." I think he thought so too; but at New York, on the 18th of November, 1850, he said, -"The great object of government is the protection of property at home, and respect and renown abroad."

He went to Annapolis, and made a speech complimenting a series of ultra-resolutions in favor of slavery and slavecatching. One of the resolutions made the execution of the Fugitive Slave Law the sole bond of the Union. The orator of Bunker Hill replied: —

"Gentlemen, I concur in the sentiments expressed by you all—and I thank God they were expressed by you all-in the resolutions passed here on the 10th of December. And allow me to say, that any State, North or South, which departs one iota from the sentiment of that resolution, is disloyal to this Union.

are

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'Further, so far as any act of that sort has been committed,

SUCH

A STATE HAS NO PORTION OF MY REGARD. I do not sympathize with it. I rebuke it wherever I speak, and on all occasions where it is proper for me to express my sentiments. . If there are States and I am afraid there which have sought, by ingenious contrivances of State legislation, to thwart the fair exercise and fulfilment of the laws of Congress passed to carry into effect the compacts of the Constitution, THAT STATE, So FAR, IS ENTITLED TO NO REGARD FROM ME. AT THE NORTH THERE HAVE BEEN CERTAINLY SOME INTIMATIONS IN CERTAIN STATES OF SUCH A POLICY.

"I hold the importance of maintaining these measures to be of the highest character and nature, every one of them out and out, and through and through. I have no confidence in anybody who seeks the repeal, in anybody who wishes to alter or modify these constitutional provisions. There they are. Many of these great measures are irrepealable. The settlement with Texas is as irrepealable as the admission of California. Other important objects of legislation, if not in themselves in the nature of grants, and therefore not so irrepealable, are just as important; and we are to hear no parleying upon it. We are to listen to no modification or qualification. They were passed in conformity with the provisions of the Constitution; and they must be performed and abided by, IN WHATEVER EVENT, AND AT WHATEVER COST."

Surrounded by the Federalists of New England, when a

young man, fresh in Congress, he stood out nobly for the right to discuss all matters. Every boy knows his brave words by heart:

Important as I deem it, sir, to discuss, on all proper occasions, the policy of the measures at present pursued, it is still more important to maintain the right of such discussion in its full and just extent. Sentiments lately sprung up, and now growing popular, render it necessary to be explicit on this point. It is the ancient and constitutional right of this people to canvass public measures, and the merits of public men. It is a homebred right, a fireside privilege. It has ever been enjoyed in every house, cottage, and cabin in the nation. It is not to be drawn into controversy. It is as undoubted as the right of breathing the air, and walking on the earth. Belonging to private life as a right, it belongs to public life as a duty; and it is the last duty which those whose representative I am shall find me to abandon. This high constitutional privilege I shall defend and exercise within this house and without this house, and in all places; in time of war, in time of peace, and at all times.

"Living, I will assert it; dying, I will assert it; and should I leave no other inheritance to my children, by the blessing of God I will leave them the inheritance of Free Principles, and the example of a manly, independent, and constitutional defence of them."

Then, in 1850, when vast questions, so intimately affecting the welfare of millions of men, were before the country, he told us to suppress agitation!

"Neither you nor I shall see the legislation of the country proceed in the old harmonious way, until the discussions in Congress and out of Congress upon the subject [of slavery] shall be in some way suppressed. Take that truth home with you, and take it as truth."

"I shall support no agitations having their foundation in unreal and ghostly abstractions."*

The opponents of Mr. Webster, contending for the freedom of all Americans, of all men, appealed from the Fugitive Slave Bill to "the element of all laws, out of which they are derived, to the end of all laws, for which they are designed and in which they are perfected." How did he resist the appeal? You have not forgotten the speech at Capron Springs, on the 26th of June, 1851. "When noth

* Speech at the Revere House in Boston, April 29, 1850, in "Daily Advertiser" of April 30.

ing else will answer," says he, "they," the abolitionists, "invoke religion, and speak of the higher law!'" He of the granite hills of New Hampshire, looking on the mountains of Virginia, blue with loftiness and distance, said, "Gentlemen, this North Mountain is high, the Blue Ridge higher still, the Alleghanies higher than either, and yet this 'higher law' ranges further than an eagle's flight above the highest peaks of the Alleghanies! No common vision can discern it; no common and unsophisticated conscience can feel it; the hearing of common men never learns its high behests; and, therefore, one would think it is not a safe law to be acted upon in matters of the highest practical moment. It is the code, however, of the abolitionists of the North." This speech was made at dinner. The next "sentiment given after his was this:

“The Fugitive Slave Law-Upon its faithful execution depends the perpetuity of the Union."

Mr. Webster made a speech in reply, and distinctly declared,

"You of the South have as much right to secure your fugitive slaves, as the North has to any of its rights and privileges of navigation and

commerce."

Do you think he believed that? Daniel Webster knew better. In 1844, only seven years before, he had said,—

"What! when all the civilized world is opposed to slavery; when morality denounces it; when Christianity denounces it; when every thing respected, every thing good, bears one united witness against it, is it for America — America, the land of Washington, the model republic of the world — is it for America to come to its assistance, and to insist that the maintenance of slavery is necessary to the support of her institutions?",

How do you think the audience answered then? With six and twenty cheers. It was in Faneuil Hall. Said Mr. Webster, "These are Whig principles;" and, with these, "Faneuil Hall may laugh a siege to scorn." That speech

is not printed in his collection! How could it stand side by side with the speech of the 7th of March?

In 1846, a Whig Convention voted to do its possible to “defeat all measures calculated to uphold slavery, and promote all constitutional measures for its overthrow; to oppose any further addition of Slaveholding States to this Union;" and to have "free institutions for all, chains and fetters for none."

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Then Mr. Webster declared he had a heart which beat for every thing favorable to the progress of human liberty, either here or abroad; then, when in "the dark and troubled night" he saw only the Whig party as his Bethlehem Star, he rejoiced in "the hope of obtaining the power to resist whatever threatens to extend slavery."* Yet after New York had kidnapped Christians, and with civic pomp sent her own sons into slavery, he could go to that city and say, "It is an air which for the last few months I love to inhale. It is a patriotic atmosphere: constitutional breezes fan it every day."†

To accomplish a bad purpose, he resorted to mean artifice, to the low tricks of vulgar adventurers in politics. He used the same weapons once wielded against him, — misrepresentation, denunciation, invective. Like his old enemy of New Hampshire, he carried his political quarrel into private life. He cast off the acquaintance of men intimate with him for twenty or thirty years. The malignity of his conduct, as it was once said of a great apostate, "was hugely aggravated by those rare abilities whereof God had given him the use." Time had not in America bred a man before bold enough to consummate such aims as his. In this New Hampshire Strafford, "despotism had at length obtained an instrument with mind to comprehend, and resolution to act upon, its principles in their length and breadth; and enough of his

* Speech at Faneuil Hall, Sept. 23, 1846, reported in the "Daily Advertiser," Sept. 24.

+ Speech at New York, May 12, 1851, in “Boston Atlas" of May 14.

purposes were effected by him to enable mankind to see as from a tower the end of all."

What was the design of all this? It was to "save the Union." Such was the cry. Was the Union in danger? Here were a few non-resistants at the North, who said, We will have "no no union with slaveholders." There was a party of seceders at the South, who periodically blustered about disunion. Could these men bring the Union into peril? Did Daniel Webster think so? I shall never insult that giant intellect by the thought. He knew South Carolina, he knew Georgia, very well.* Mr. Benton knew of no "distress," even at the time when it was alleged that the nation was bleeding at "five gaping wounds," so that it would take the whole Omnibus full of compromises to stanch the blood : "All the political distress is among the politicians." think Mr. Webster knew there was no danger of a dissolution of the Union. But here is a proof that he knew it. In 1850, on the 22d of December, he declared, "There is no longer imminent danger of the dissolution of the United States. We shall live, and not die." But, soon after, he went about saving the Union again, and again, and again,— saved it at Buffalo, Albany, Syracuse, at Annapolis, and then at Capron Springs.

I

I say there was no real danger; but my opinion is a mere opinion, and nothing more. Look at a fact. We have the most delicate test of public opinion, the state of the public funds; the barometer which indicates any change in the political weather. If the winds blow down the Tiber, Roman funds fall. Talk of war between France and England, the stocks go down at Paris and London. The foolish talk about the fisheries last summer lowered American stocks in the market, to the great gain of prudent and far-sighted brokers, who knew there was no danger. But all this time, when Mr.

* See his description in 1830 of the process and conclusion of nullification. Works, vol. iii. p. 337, et seq.

† Speech in Senate, Sept. 10, 1850.