The works of Daniel Webster

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Dedication

OF THE FIRST VOLUME.

TO MY NIECES,

MRS. ALICE BRIDGE WHIPPLE,

Contents

OF THE FIRST VOLUME.

BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIR.

Paoi

Chapter II

Entrance on Public Life. — State of Parties in 1 812. — Election to Congress. — Extra Session of 1813. — Foreign Relations of the Country. — Resolutions relative to the Berlin and Milan Decrees. — Naval Defence. — Reelected to Congress in 1814. — Peace with England. — Projects for a National Bank. — Mr. Webster's Course on that Question. — Battle of New Orleans. — New Questions arising on the Return of Peace. — Course of Prominent Men of Different Parties. — Mr. Webster** Opinions on the Constitutionality of the Tariff Policy. — The Resolution to restore Specie Payments moved by Mr. Webster. — Removal to Boston.

Mr. Webster had hitherto taken less interest in politics than has been usual with the young men of talent, at least with the young lawyers, of America. In fact, at the time to which the preceding narrative refers, the politics of the country were in such a state, that there was scarce any course which could be pursued with entire satisfaction by a patriotic young man sagacious enough to penetrate behind mere party names, and to view public questions in their true light Party spirit ran high ; errors had been committed by ardent men on both sides ; and extreme opinions had been advanced on most questions, which no wise and well-informed person at the present day would probably be willing to espouse. The United States, although not actually drawn to any great depth into the vortex of the French Revolution, were powerfully affected by it. The deadly struggle of the two great European belligerents, in which the neutral rights of this country were grossly violated by both, gave a complexion to our domestic politics. A change of administration, mainly resulting from difference of opinion in respect to our foreign relations, had taken place in 1801. If we may consider President Jefferson's inaugural address as the indication of the principles on which he intended to conduct his administration, it was his purpose to take a new departure, and to disregard the former party divisions. " We have," said he, in that eloquent state paper, " called by different names brethren of the same principle. We are all republicans, we are all federalists."

At the time these significant expressions were uttered, Mr. Webster, at the age of nineteen, was just leaving college and preparing to embark on the voyage of life. A sentiment so xxxiv BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIR OF DANIEL WEBSTER.

liberal was not only in accordance with the generous temper of youth, but highly congenial with the spirit of enlarged patriotism which has ever guided his public course. There is certainly no individual who has filled a prominent place in our political history who has shown himself more devoted to principle and less to party. While no man has clung with greater tenacity to the friendships which spring from agreement in political opinion (the idem sentire de republica), no man has been less disposed to find in these associations an instrument of monopoly or exclusion in favor of individuals, interests, or sections of the country.

But however catholic may have been the intentions and wishes of Mr. Jefferson, events both at home and abroad were too strong for him, and defeated that policy of blending the great parties into one, which has always been a favorite, perhaps we must add, a visionary project, with statesmen of elevated and generous characters. The aggressions of the belligerents on our neutral commerce still continued, and, by the joint effect of the Berlin and Milan Decrees and the Orders in Council, it was all but swept from the ocean. In this state of things two courses were open to the United States, as a growing neutral power : one, that of prompt resistance to the aggressive policy of the belligerents ; the other, that which was called " the restrictive system," which consisted in an embargo on our own vessels, with a view to withdraw them from the grasp of for* eign cruisers, and in laws inhibiting commercial intercourse with England and France. There was a division of opinion in the cabinet of Mr. Jefferson and in the country at large. The latter policy was finally adopted. It fell in with the general views of Mr. Jefferson against committing the country to the risks of foreign war. His administration was also strongly pledged to retrenchment and economy, in the pursuit of which a portion of our little navy had been brought to the hammer, and a species of shore defence substituted, which can now be thought of only with mortification and astonishment.

Although the discipline of party was sufficiently strong to cause this system of measures to be adopted and pursued for years, it was never cordially approved by the people of the United States of any party. Leading Republicans both at the South and at the North denounced it With Mr. Jefferson's

BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIR OF DANIEL WEBSTER. xxxv

retirement from office it fell rapidly into disrepute. It continued, however, to form the basis of our party divisions till the war of 1812. In these divisions, as has been intimated, both parties were in a false position ; the one supporting and forcing upon the country a system of measures not cordially approved, even by themselves ; the other, a powerless minority, zealously opposing those measures, but liable for that reason to be thought backward in asserting the neutral rights of the country. A few men of well-balanced minds, true patriotism, and sound statesmanship, in all sections of the country, were able to unite fidelity to their party associations with a comprehensive view to the good of the country. Among these, mature beyond his years, was Mr. Webster. As early as 1806 he had, in a public oration, presented an impartial view of the foreign relations of the country in reference to both belligerents, of the importance of our commercial interests and the duty of protecting them. u Nothing is plainer," said he, " than this : if we will have commerce, we must protect it. This country is commercial as well as agricultural. Indissoluble bonds connect him who ploughs the land with him who ploughs the sea. Nature has placed us in a situation favorable to commercial pursuits, and no government can alter the destination. Habits confirmed by two centuries are not to be changed. An immense portion of our property is on the waves. Sixty or eighty thousand of our most useful citizens are there, and are entitled to such protection from the government as their case requires."

At length the foreign belligerents themselves perceived the folly and injustice of their measures. In the strife which should inflict the greatest injury on the other, they had paralyzed the commerce of the world and embittered the minds of all the neutral powers. The Berlin and Milan Decrees were revoked, but in a manner so unsatisfactory as in a great degree to impair the pacific tendency of the measure. The Orders in Council were also rescinded in the summer of 1812. War, however, justly provoked by each and both of the parties, had meantime been declared by Congress against England, and active hostilities had been commenced on the frontier. At the elections next ensuing, Mr. Webster was brought forward as a candidate for Congress of the Federal party of that day, and, having been chosen in the month of November, 1812, he xxxvi BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIR OP DANIEL WEBSTER.

took his seat at the first session of the Thirteenth Congress, which was an extra session called in May, 1813. Although his coarse of life hitherto had been in what may be called a provincial sphere, and he had never been a member even of the legislature of his native State, a presentiment of his ability seems to have gone before him to Washington. He was, in the organization of the House, placed by Mr. Clay, its Speaker, upon the Committee of Foreign Affairs, a select committee at that time, and of necessity the leading committee in a state of war.

There were many men of uncommon ability in the Thirteenth Congress. Rarely has so much talent been found at any one time in the House of Representatives. It contained Clay, Calhoun, Lowndes, Pickering, Gaston, Forsyth, in the front rank ; Macon, Benson, J. W. Taylor, Oakley, Grundy, Grosvenor, W. R. King, Kent of Maryland, C. J. Ingersoll of Pennsylvania, Pitkin of Connecticut, and others of scarcely inferior note. Although among^ the youngest and least experienced members of the body, Mr. Webster rose, from the first, to a position of undisputed equality with the most distinguished. The times were critical. The immediate business to be attended to was the financial and military conduct of the war, a subject of difficulty and importance. The position of Mr. Webster was not such as to require or permit him to take a lead ; but it was his steady aim, without the sacrifice of his principles, to pursue such a course as would tend most effectually to extricate the country from the embarrassments of her present position, and to lead to peace upon honorable terms.

As the repeal of the Orders in Council was nearly simultaneous with the declaration of war, the delay of a few weeks might have led to an amicable adjustment Whatever regret on the score of humanity this circumstance may now inspire, the war must be looked upon, in reviewing the past, as a great chapter in the progress of the country, which could not be passed over. When we reflect on the influence of the conflict, in its general results, upon the national character ; its importance as a demonstration to the belligerent powers of the world that the rights of neutrals must be respected ; and more especially, when we consider the position among the nations of the earth which the United States have been enabled to take, in consequence of the capacity for naval achievement which the war displayed,

BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIR OF DANIEL WEBSTER, xxxvii

we shall readily acknowledge it to be a part of that great training, by which the country was prepared to take the station which she now occupies.

Mr. Webster was not a member of Congress when war was declared, nor in any other public station. He was too deeply read in the law of nations, and regarded that august code with too much respect, not to contemplate with indignation its infraction by both the belligerents. With respect to the Orders in Council, the highest judicial magistrate in England (Lord Chief Justice Campbell) has lately admitted that they were contrary to the law of nations.* As little doubt can exist that the French decrees were equally at variance with the public law. But however strong his convictions of this truth, Mr. Webster's sagacity and practical sense pointed out the inadequacy, and what may be called the political irrelevancy, of the restrictive system, as a. measure of defence or retaliation. He could not but feel that it was a policy which tended at once to cripple the national resources, and abase the public sentiment, with an effect upon the foreign powers doubtful and at best indirect In the state of the military resources of the country at that time, he discerned, in common with many independent men of all parties, that less was to be hoped from the attempted conquest of foreign territory, than from a gallant assault upon the fancied supremacy of the enemy at sea. It is unnecessary to state, that the whole course of the war confirmed the justice of these views. They furnish the key to Mr. Webster's course in the Thirteenth Congress.

Early in the session, he moved a series of resolutions of inquiry, relative to the repeal of the Berlin and Milan Decrees* The object of these resolutions was to elicit a communication on this subject from the executive, which would unfold the proximate causes of the war, as far as they were to be sought in those famous Decrees, and in the Orders in Council* On the 10th of June, 1813, Mr. Webster delivered his maiden, speech) on* these resolutions. No full report of this speech has been, preserved. It is known only from extremely imperfect sketches, contained in the contemporaneous newspaper accounts of the proceedings of Congress, from the recollection of those who heard

• Lives of the Chancellors, Vol. VII. p. 218; see also p. SOL VOL. I. d xxxviii BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIR OF DANIEL WEBSTER.

it, and from general tradition. It was a calm and statesmanlike exposition of the objects of the resolutions ; and was listened to with profound attention by the House. It was marked by all the characteristics of Mr. Webster's maturest parliamentary efforts, — moderation of tone, precision of statement, force of reasoning, absence of ambitious rhetoric and high-flown language, occasional bursts of true eloquence, and, pervading the whole, a genuine and fervid patriotism. We have reason to believe that its effect upon the House is accurately described in the following extract from Mr. March's work.

" The speech took the House by surprise, not so much from its eloquence as from the vast amount of historical knowledge and illustrative ability displayed in it. How a person, untrained to forensic contests and unused to public affairs, could exhibit so much parliamentary tact, such nice appreciation of the difficulties of a difficult question, and such quiet facility in surmounting them, puzzled the mind. The age and inexperience of the speaker had prepared the House for no such display, and Astonishment for a time subdued the expression of its admiration.

" ' No member before,' says a person then in the House, * ever riveted the attention of the House so closely, in his first speech. Members left their seats, where they could not see the speaker face to face, and sat down, or stood on the floor, fronting him. All listened attentively and silently, during the whole speech ; and when it was over, many went up and warmly congratulated the orator ; among whom were some, not the most niggard of their compliments, who most dissented from the views he had expressed.'

44 Chief Justice Marshall, writing to a friend some time after this speech, says : 4 At the time when this speech was delivered, I did not know Mr. Webster, but I was so much struck with it, that I did not hesitate then to state, that Mr. Webster was a very able man, and would become one of the very first statesmen in America, and perhaps the very first.'"— pp. 35, 36*

The resolutions moved by Mr. Webster prevailed by a large majority, and drew forth from Mr. Monroe, then Secretary of State, an elaborate and instructive report upon the subject to which they referred. ,

• The friend to whom the letter referred to by Mr. March was written, was Mr. Justice Story, who adds : u Such praise from such a man ought to be very gratifying. Consider that he is now seventy-five years old, and that he •peaks of his recollections of some eighteen years ago with a freshness which shows how deeply your reasoning impressed itself upon his mind. Keep this in memoriam ret."

BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIR OF DANIEL WEBSTER, xmix

We have already observed, that, as early as 1806, Mr. Webster had expressed himself in favor of the protection of our commerce against the aggressions of both the belligerents. Some years later, before the war was declared, but when i^ was visibly impending, he had put forth some vigorous articles to the same effect In an oration delivered in 1812, he had said : " A navy sufficient for the defence of our coasts and harbors, for the convoy of important branches of our trade, and sufficient also to give our enemies to understand, when they injure us, that tJiey too are vulnerable, and that we have the power of retaliation as well as of defence, seems to be the plain, necessary, indispensable policy of the nation. It is the dictate of nature and common sense, that means of defence shall have relation to the danger." In accordance with these views, first announced by Mr. Webster a considerable time before Hull, Decatur, and Bainbridge had broken the spell of British naval supremacy, he used the following language in his speech on encouraging enlistments in 1814: —

" The humble aid which it would be in my power to render to measx ures of government shall be given cheerfully, if government will pursue measures which I can conscientiously support. If even now, failing in an honest and sincere attempt to procure an honorable peace, it will return to measures of defence and protection, such as reason and common sense and the public opinion all call for, my vote shall not be withholden from the means. Give up your futile projects of invasion. Extinguish the fires which blaze on your inland frontiers. Establish perfect safety and defence there by adequate force. Let every man that sleeps on your soil sleep in security. Stop the blood that flows from the veins of unarmed yeomanry, and women and children. Give to the living time to bury and lament their dead, in the quietness of private sorrow. Having performed this work of beneficence and mercy on your inland border, turn and look with the eye of justice and compassion on your vast population along the coast. Unclench the iron grasp of your embargo. Take measures for that end before another sun sets upon you. With all the war of the enemy on your commerce, if you would cease to make war upon it yourselves, you would still have some commerce. That commerce would give you some revenue. Apply that revenue to the augmentation of your navy. That navy in torn will protect your commerce. Let it no longer be said, that not one ship of force, built by your hands since the war, yet floats upon the ocean. Turn the current of your efforts into the channel which national xj BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIR OF DANIEL WEBSTER.

sentiment has already worn broad and deep to receive it A naval force competent to defend your coasts against considerable armaments, to convoy your trade, and perhaps raise the blockade of your rivers, is not a chimera. It may be realized. If then the war must continue, go to the ocean. If you are seriously contending for maritime rights, go to the theatre where alone those rights can be defended. Thither every indication of your fortune points you. There the united wishes and exertions of the nation will go with you. JSven our party divisions, acrimonious as they are, cease at the water's edge. They are lost in attachment to the national character, on the element where that character is made respectable. In protecting naval interests by naval means, you will arm yourselves with the whole power of national sentiment, and may command the whole abundance of the national resources. In time you may be able to redress injuries in the place where they may be offered ; and, if need be, to accompany your own flag throughout the world with the protection of your own cannon."

The principal subjects on which Mr. Webster addressed the House during the Thirteenth Congress were his own resolutions, the increase of the navy, the repeal of the embargo, and an appeal from the decision of the chair on a motion for the previous question. His speeches on those questions raised him to the front rank of debaters. He manifested upon his entrauce into public life that variety of knowledge, familiarity with the history and traditions of the government, and self-possession on the floor, which in most cases are acquired by time and long experience. They gained for him the reputation indicated by the well-known remark of Mr. Lowndes, that "the North had not his equal, nor the South his superior." It was not the least conspicuous of the strongly marked qualities of his character as a public man, disclosed at this early period, and uniformly preserved throughout his career, that, at a time when party spirit went to great lengths, he never permitted himself to be infected with its contagion. His opinions were firmly maintained and boldly expressed; but without bitterness toward those who differed from him. He cultivated friendly relations on both sides of the House, and gained the personal respect even of those with whom he most differed.

In August, 1814, Mr. Webster was reelected to Congress. The treaty of Ghent, as is well known, was signed in December, 1814, and the prospect of peace, universally welcomed by the country, opened on the Thirteenth Congress toward the closo

BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIR OF DANIEL WEBSTER. xli

of its third session. Earlier in the season a project for a Bank of the United States was introduced into the House of Representatives on the recommendation of Mr. Dallas, Secretary of the Treasury. The charter of the first incorporated bank of the United States had expired in 1811. No general complaints of mismanagement or abuse had been raised against this institution ; but the opinions entertained by what has been called the "Virginia School" of politicians, against the constitutionality of a national bank, prevented the renewal of the charter. The want of such an institution was severely felt in the war of 1812, although it is probable that the amount of assistance which it could have afforded the financial operations of the government was greatly overrated. Be this as it may, both the Treasury Department and Congress were now strongly disposed to create a bank. Its capital was to consist of forty-five millions of the public stocks and five millions of specie, and it was to be under obligation to lend the government thirty millions of dollars on demand. To enable it to exist under these conditions, it was relieved from the necessity of redeeming its notes in specie. In other words, it was an arrangement for the issue of an irredeemable paper currency. It was opposed mainly on this ground by Mr. Calhoun, Mr. Webster, Mr. Lowndes, and others of the ablest men on both sides of the House, as a project not only unsound in its principles, but sure to increase the derangement of the currency already existing. The speech of Mr. Webster against the bill will be found in one of these volumes, and it will be generally admitted to display a mastery of the somewhat difficult subjects of banking and finance, rarely to be found in the debates in Congress. The project was supported as an administration measure, but the leading members from South Carolina and their friends united with the regular opposition against it, and it was lost by the casting vote of the Speaker, Mr. Cheves. It was revived by reconsideration, on motion of Mr. Webster, and such amendments introduced that it passed the House by a large majority. It was carried through the Senate in this amended form with difficulty, but it was negatived by Mr. Madison, being one of the two cases in which he exercised the veto power during his eight years* administration.

On the 8th of January of the year 1815, the victory at

Xii BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIR OF DANIEL WEBSTER.

New Orleans was gained by General Jackson. No occurrence on land, in the course of the war, was of equal immediate interest, or destined to have so abiding an influence on the future. Besides averting the indescribable calamity of the sack Of a populous and flourishing city, it showed the immense military power of the volunteer force of the country, when commanded with energy and skill. The praises of General Jackson were on every tongue throughout the land, and Congress responded to the grateful feelings of the country. A vote of thanks was unanimously passed by the Senate and House of Representatives.

In the interval between the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Congresses (March -December, 1815), Mr. Webster was busily engaged at home in the practice of the law. He had begun ai this time to consider the expediency of removing his residence to a wider professional field. Though receiving a full share of the best business of New Hampshire, it ceased to yield an adequate support for his increasing family, and still more failed to afford any thing like the just reward of his legal attainment and labors. The destruction of his house, furniture, library, and many important manuscript collections, in " the great fire " at Portsmouth, in December, 1813, had entailed upon him the loss of the entire fruits of his professional industry up to that time, and made it necessary for him to look around him for the means of a considerably increased income. He hesitated between Albany and Boston ; and, in consequence of this inde- •eisiou, the execution of his purpose was for the present postj>one<L

The Fourteenth Congress assembled in December, 1815. An vorder of things in a great degree new presented itself. After a rinomentary pause, the country rose with an elastic bound from the pressure of the war. Old party dissensions had lost much *>f their interest. The condition of Europe had undergone a great change. The power of the French emperor was annihilated ; and with the return of general peace, all occasions for ■belligerent encroachments on neutral rights had ceased. Two thirds of our domestic feuds had turned on foreign questions, &rjd there was a spontaneous feeling throughout the country in favor of healing the wounds which these feuds had inflicted ApOQ its social and political harmony. Nor was this alL New

BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIR OF DANIEL WEBSTER. xliil

relations and interests had arisen. The public debt had been swelled by the war expenditure to a large amount, and its interest was to be paid. Domestic manufactures had, in some of the States, grown up into importance through the operation of the restrictive system and the war, and asked for protection. The West began to fill up with unexampled rapidity, and required new facilities of communication with the Atlantic coast. The navy had fought itself into favor, and the war with Algiers, in 1816, forbade its reduction below the recent war establishment. The necessity of a system of coast defences had made itself felt With all these loud calls for increased expenditure, the public finances were embarrassed and the currency was in extreme disorder. In a word, there were new and great wants and interests at home and abroad, throwing former topics of dissension into the shade, and calling for the highest efforts of statesmanship and a patriotism embracing the whole country.

Among those who responded with the greatest cordiality and promptness to the new demand were the distinguished statesmen of the preceding Congress, and conspicuous among them Clay, Calhoun, Webster, Lowndes, and Cheves. It will excite some surprise at the present day, in consideration of the political history of the last thirty years, to find how little difference as to leading measures existed in 1816 between these distinguished statesmen. No line of general party difference separated the members of the first Congress after the peace. The great measures brought forward were a national bank, internal improvement, and a protective tariff. On these various subjects members divided, not in accordance with any party organization, but from individual convictions, supposed sectional interests, and general public grounds. On the two first-named subjects no systematic difference of views disclosed itself between the great Northern and Southern leaders ; on the third alone there was diversity of opinion. In the Northern States considerable advances had been made in manufacturing industry, in different places, especially at Waltham ( Mass.) ; but a great manufacturing interest had not yet grown up. The strength of tliis interest as yet lay mainly in Pennsylvania. Navigation and foreign trade were the leading pursuits of the North ; and these interests, it was feared, would suffer from the attempt to build np manufactures by a protective tariff*. It is accordingly a xliv BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIR OF DANIEL WEBSTER.

well-known fact, which may teach all to entertain opinions on public questions with some distrust of their own judgment, that the tariff of 1816, containing the minimum duty on coarse cotton fabrics, the corner-stone of the protective system, was supported by Mr. Calhoun and a few other Southern members, and carried by their influence against the opposition of the New England members generally, including Mr. Webster. It has been stated, that, during the pendency of this law before Congress, he denied the constitutionality of a tariff for protection. This statement is inaccurate ; although, had it been true, it would have placed him only in the same relation to the question with Mr. Calhoun and other Southern members, who at that time admitted the principle of protection, but lived to reject it as the grossest and most pernicious constitutional heresy. It would have shown only that, in a long political career, he had, on the first discussion of a new question, expressed an opinion which, in the lapse of time and under a change of circumstances, he had seen occasion to alter. This is no ground of just reproach. It has happened to every public man in every free country, who has been of importance enough to have his early opinions remembered. It has happened to a large portion of the prominent men at the South, in reference to almost every great question agitated within the last generation. The bank, internal improvements, a navy, the Colonization Society, the annexation of Texas, the power of Congress over the territories, this very question of the tariff, the doctrine of State rights generally, are subjects on which many prominent statesmen of the South, living or recently deceased, have in the course of their career entertained opposite views.