CHAPTER V.
RETURN TO CONGRESS.
The thorough knowledge of the principles of government and legislation, the practical statesmanship, and the capacity for debate shown in the State convention, combined with the splendid oration at Plymouth to make Mr.
Webster the most conspicuous man in New England, with the single exception of John Quincy Adams. There was, therefore, a strong and general desire that he should return to public life. He accepted with some reluctance the nomination to Congress from the Boston district in 1822, and in December, 1823, took his seat.
The six years which had elapsed since Mr. Webster left Washington had been a period of political quiet. The old parties had ceased to represent any distinctive principles, and the Federalists scarcely existed as an organization. Mr. Webster, during this interval, had remained almost wholly quiescent in regard to public affairs. He had urged the visit of Mr. Monroe to the North, which had done so much to hasten the inevitable dissolution of parties. He had received Mr. Calhoun when that gentleman visited Boston, and their friendship and apparent intimacy were such that the South Carolinian was thought to be his host"s candidate for the presidency.
Except for this and the part which he took in the Boston opposition to the Missouri compromise and to the tariff, matters to be noticed in connection with later events, Mr. Webster had held aloof from political conflict.
When he returned to Washington in 1823, the situation was much altered from that which he had left in 1817. In reality there were no parties, or only one; but the all-powerful Republicans who had adopted, under the pressure of foreign war, most of the Federalist principles so obnoxious to Jefferson and his school, were split up into as many factions as there were candidates for the presidency. It was a period of transition in which personal politics had taken the place of those founded on opposing principles, and this "era of good feeling" was marked by the intense bitterness of the conflicts produced by these personal rivalries. In addition to the factions which were battling for the control of the Republican party and for the great prize of the presidency, there was still another faction, composed of the old Federalists, who, although without organization, still held to their name and their prejudices, and clung together more as a matter of habit than with any practical object. Mr.
Webster had been one of the Federalist leaders in the old days, and when he returned to public life with all the distinction which he had won in other fields, he was at once recognized as the chief and head of all that now remained of the great party of Washington and Hamilton. No Federalist could hope to be President, and for this very reason Federalist support was eagerly sought by all Republican candidates for the presidency. The favor of Mr. Webster as the head of an independent and necessarily disinterested faction was, of course, strongly desired in many quarters. His political position and his high reputation as a lawyer, orator, and statesman made him, therefore, a character of the first importance in Washington, a fact to which Mr. Clay at once gave public recognition by placing his future rival at the head of the Judiciary Committee of the House.
The six years of congressional life which now ensued were among the most useful if not the most brilliant in Mr. Webster"s whole public career. He was free from the annoyance of opposition at home, and was twice returned by a practically unanimous popular vote. He held a commanding and influential and at the same time a thoroughly independent position in Washington, where he was regarded as the first man on the floor of the House in point of ability and reputation. He was not only able to show his great capacity for practical legislation, but he was at liberty to advance his own views on public questions in his own way, unburdened by the outside influences of party and of a.s.sociation which had affected him so much in his previous term of service and were soon to rea.s.sert their sway in all his subsequent career.
His return to Congress was at once signalized by a great speech, which, although of no practical or immediate moment, deserves careful attention from the light which it throws on the workings of his mind and the development of his opinions in regard to his country. The House had been in session but a few days when Mr. Webster offered a resolution in favor of providing by law for the expenses incident to the appointment of a commissioner to Greece, should the President deem such an appointment expedient. The Greeks were then in the throes of revolution, and the sympathy for the heirs of so much glory in their struggle for freedom was strong among the American people. When Mr. Webster rose on January 19, 1824, to move the adoption of the resolution which he had laid upon the table of the House, the chamber was crowded and the galleries were filled by a large and fashionable audience attracted by the reputation of the orator and the interest felt in his subject. His hearers were disappointed if they expected a great rhetorical display, for which the nature of the subject and the cla.s.sic memories cl.u.s.tering about it offered such strong temptations. Mr. Webster did not rise for that purpose, nor to make capital by an appeal to a temporary popular interest. His speech was for a wholly different purpose. It was the first expression of that grand conception of the American Union which had vaguely excited his youthful enthusiasm. This conception had now come to be part of his intellectual being, and then and always stirred his imagination and his affections to their inmost depths. It embodied the principle from which he never swerved, and led to all that he represents and to all that his influence means in our history.
As the first expression of his conception of the destiny of the United States as a great and united nation, Mr. Webster was, naturally, "more fond of this child" than of any other of his intellectual family. The speech itself was a n.o.ble one, but it was an eloquent essay rather than a great example of the oratory of debate. This description can in no other case be applied to Mr. Webster"s parliamentary efforts, but in this instance it is correct, because the occasion justified such a form. Mr. Webster"s purpose was to show that, though the true policy of the United States absolutely debarred them from taking any part in the affairs of Europe, yet they had an important duty to perform in exercising their proper influence on the public opinion of the world. Europe was then struggling with the monstrous principles of the "Holy Alliance." Those principles Mr. Webster reviewed historically. He showed their pernicious tendency, their hostility to all modern theories of government, and their especial opposition to the principles of American liberty. If the doctrines of the Congress of Laybach were right and could be made to prevail, then those of America were wrong and the systems of popular government adopted in the United States were doomed. Against such infamous principles it behooved the people of the United States to raise their voice. Mr. Webster sketched the history of Greece, and made a fine appeal to Americans to give an expression of their sympathy to a people struggling for freedom. He proclaimed, so that all men might hear, the true duty of the United States toward the oppressed of any land, and the responsibility which they held to exert their influence upon the opinions of mankind. The national destiny of his country in regard to other nations was his theme; to give to the glittering declaration of Canning, that he would "call in the new world to redress the balance of the old," a deep and real significance was his object.
The speech touched Mr. Clay to the quick. He supported Mr. Webster"s resolution with all the ardor of his generous nature, and supplemented it by another against the interference of Spain in South America. A stormy debate followed, vivified by the flings and taunts of John Randolph, but the unwillingness to take action was so great that Mr. Webster did not press his resolution to a vote. He had at the outset looked for a practical result from his resolution, and had desired the appointment of Mr. Everett as commissioner, a plan in which he had been encouraged by Mr. Calhoun, who had given him to understand that the Executive regarded the Greek mission with favor. Before he delivered his speech he became aware that Calhoun had misled him, that Mr. Adams, the Secretary of State, considered Everett too much of a partisan, and that the administration was wholly averse to any action in the premises. This destroyed all hope of a practical result, and made an adverse vote certain. The only course was to avoid a decision and trust to what he said for an effect on public opinion. The real purpose of the speech, however, was achieved. Mr. Webster had exposed and denounced the Holy Alliance as hostile to the liberties of mankind, and had declared the unalterable enmity of the United States to its reactionary doctrines.
The speech was widely read, not only wherever English was spoken, but it was translated into all the languages of Europe, and was circulated throughout South America. It increased Mr. Webster"s fame at home and laid the foundation of his reputation abroad. Above all, it stamped him as a statesman of a broad and national cast of mind.
He now settled down to hard and continuous labor at the routine business of the House, and it was not until the end of March that he had occasion to make another elaborate and important speech. At that time Mr. Clay took up the bill for laying certain protective duties and advocated it strenuously as part of a general and steady policy which he then christened with the name of "the American system." Against this bill, known as the tariff of 1824, Mr. Webster made, as Mr. Adams wrote in his diary at the time, "an able and powerful speech," which can be more properly considered when we come to his change of position on this question a few years later.
As chairman of the Judiciary Committee, the affairs of the national courts were his particular care. Western expansion demanded an increased number of judges for the circuits, but, unfortunately, decisions in certain recent cases had offended the sensibilities of Virginia and Kentucky, and there was a renewal of the old Jeffersonian efforts to limit the authority of the Supreme Court. Instead of being able to improve, he was obliged to defend the court, and this he did successfully, defeating all attempts to curtail its power by alterations of the act of 1789. These duties and that of investigating the charges brought by Ninian Edwards against Mr. Crawford, the Secretary of the Treasury, made the session an unusually laborious one, and detained Mr. Webster in Washington until midsummer.
The short session of the next winter was of course marked by the excitement attendant upon the settlement of the presidential election which resulted in the choice of Mr. John Quincy Adams by the House of Representatives. The intense agitation in political circles did not, however, prevent Mr. Webster from delivering one very important speech, nor from carrying through successfully one of the most important and practically useful measures of his legislative career. The speech was delivered in the debate on the bill for continuing the national c.u.mberland road. Mr. Webster had already, many years before, defined his position on the const.i.tutional question involved in internal improvements. He now, in response to Mr. McDuffie of South Carolina, who denounced the measure as partial and sectional, not merely defended the principle of internal improvements, but declared that it was a policy to be pursued only with the purest national feeling. It was not the business of Congress, he said, to legislate for this State or that, or to balance local interests, and because they helped one region to help another, but to act for the benefit of all the States united, and in making improvements to be guided only by their necessity. He showed that these roads would open up the West to settlement, and incidentally defended the policy of selling the public lands at a low price as an encouragement to emigration, telling his Southern friends very plainly that they could not expect to coerce the course of population in favor of their own section. The whole speech was conceived in the broadest and wisest spirit, and marks another step in the development of Mr. Webster as a national statesman. It increased his reputation, and brought to him a great accession of popularity in the West.
The measure which he carried through was the famous "Crimes Act," perhaps the best monument that there is of his legislative and constructive ability. The criminal law of the United States had scarcely been touched since the days of the first Congress, and was very defective and unsatisfactory. Mr. Webster"s first task, in which he received most essential and valuable though unacknowledged a.s.sistance from Judge Story, was to codify and digest the whole body of criminal law. This done, the hardly less difficult undertaking followed of carrying the measure through Congress. In the latter, Mr. Webster, by his skill in debate and familiarity with his subject, and by his influence in the House, was perfectly successful. That he and Judge Story did their work well in perfecting the bill is shown by the admirable manner in which the Act stood the test of time and experience.
When the new Congress came together in 1825, Mr. Webster at once turned his attention to the improvement of the Judiciary, which he had been obliged to postpone in order to ward off the attacks upon the court. After much deliberation and thought, aided by Judge Story, and having made some concessions to his committee, he brought in a bill increasing the Supreme Court judges to ten, making ten instead of seven circuits, and providing that six judges should const.i.tute a quorum for the transaction of business.
Although not a party question, the measure excited much opposition, and was more than a month in pa.s.sing through the House. Mr. Webster supported it at every stage with great ability, and his two most important speeches, which are in their way models for the treatment of such a subject, are preserved in his works. The bill was carried by his great strength in debate and by height of forcible argument. But in the Senate, where it was deprived of the guardianship of its author, it hung along in uncertainty, and was finally lost through the apathy or opposition of those very Western members for whose benefit it had been devised. Mr. Webster took its ultimate defeat very coolly. The Eastern States did not require it, and were perfectly contented with the existing arrangements, and he was entirely satisfied with the a.s.surance that the best lawyers and wisest men approved the principles of the bill. The time and thought which he had expended were not wasted so far as he was personally concerned, for they served to enhance his influence and reputation both as a lawyer and statesman.
This session brought with it also occasions for debate other than those which were offered by measures of purely legislative and practical interest. The administration of Mr. Adams marks the close of the "era of good feeling," as it was called, and sowed the germs of those divisions which were soon to result in new and definite party combinations. Mr. Adams and Mr. Clay represented the conservative and General Jackson and his friends the radical or democratic elements in the now all-embracing Republican party. It was inevitable that Mr. Webster should sympathize with the former, and it was equally inevitable that in doing so he should become the leader of the administration forces in the House, where "his great and commanding influence," to quote the words of an opponent, made him a host himself. The desire of Mr. Adams to send representatives to the Panama Congress, a scheme which lay very near his heart and to which Mr. Clay was equally attached, encountered a bitter and factious resistance in the Senate, sufficient to deprive the measure of any real utility by delaying its pa.s.sage. In the House a resolution was introduced declaring simply that it was expedient to appropriate money to defray the expenses of the proposed mission. The opposition at once undertook by amendments to instruct the ministers, and generally to go beyond the powers of the House.
The real ground of the attack was slavery, threatened, as was supposed, by the att.i.tude of the South American republics--a fact which no one understood or cared to recognize. Mr. Webster stood forth as the champion of the Executive. In an elaborate speech of great ability he denounced the unconst.i.tutional attempt to interfere with the prerogative of the President, and discussed with much effect the treaty-making power a.s.sailed on another famous occasion, many years before, by the South, and defended at that time also by the eloquence of a representative of Ma.s.sachusetts.
Mr. Webster showed the nature of the Panama Congress, defended its objects and the policy of the administration, and made a full and fine exposition of the intent of the "Monroe doctrine." The speech was an important and effective one. It exhibited in an exceptional way Mr. Webster"s capacity for discussing large questions of public and const.i.tutional law and foreign policy, and was of essential service to the cause which he espoused. It was imbued, too, with that sentiment of national unity which occupied a larger s.p.a.ce in his thoughts with each succeeding year, until it finally pervaded his whole career as a public man.
At the second session of the same Congress, after a vain effort to confer upon the country the benefit of a national bankrupt law, Mr. Webster was again called upon to defend the Executive in a much more heated conflict than that aroused by the Panama resolution. Georgia was engaged in oppressing and robbing the Creek Indians, in open contempt of the treaties and obligations of the United States. Mr. Adams sent in a message reciting the facts and hinting pretty plainly that he intended to carry out the laws by force unless Georgia desisted. The message was received with great wrath by the Southern members. They objected to any reference to a committee, and Mr. Forsyth of Georgia declared the whole business to be "base and infamous," while a gentleman from Mississippi announced that Georgia would act as she pleased. Mr. Webster, having said that she would do so at her peril, was savagely attacked as the organ of the administration, daring to menace and insult a sovereign State. This stirred Mr. Webster, although slow to anger, to a determination to carry through the reference at all hazards. He said:--
"He would tell the gentleman from Georgia that if there were rights of the Indians which the United States were bound to protect, that there were those in the House and in the country who would take their part. If we have bound ourselves by any treaty to do certain things, we must fulfil such obligation. High words will not terrify us, loud declamation will not deter us from the discharge of that duty. In my own course in this matter I shall not be dictated to by any State or the representative of any State on this floor. I shall not be frightened from my purpose nor will I suffer harsh language to produce any reaction on my mind. I will examine with great and equal care all the rights of both parties.... I have made these few remarks to give the gentleman from Georgia to understand that it was not by bold denunciation nor by bold a.s.sumption that the members of this House are to be influenced in the decision of high public concerns."
When Mr. Webster was thoroughly roused and indignant there was a darkness in his face and a gleam of dusky light in his deep-set eyes which were not altogether pleasant to contemplate. How well Mr. Forsyth and his friends bore the words and look of Mr. Webster we have no means of knowing, but the message was referred to a select committee without a division. The interest to us in all this is the spirit in which Mr. Webster spoke. He loved the Union as intensely then as at any period of his life, but he was still far distant from the frame of mind which induced him to think that his devotion to the Union would be best expressed and the cause of the Union best served by mildness toward the South and rebuke to the North. He believed in 1826 that dignified courage and firm language were the surest means of keeping the peace. He was quite right then, and he would have been always right if he had adhered to the plain words and determined manner to which he treated Mr. Forsyth and his friends.
This session was crowded with work of varying importance, but the close of Mr. Webster"s career in the lower House was near at hand. The failing health of Mr. E.H. Mills made it certain that Ma.s.sachusetts would soon have a vacant seat in the Senate, and every one turned to Mr. Webster as the person above all others ent.i.tled to this high office. He himself was by no means so quick in determining to accept the position. He would not even think of it until the impossibility of Mr. Mills"s return was a.s.sured, and then he had to meet the opposition of the administration and all its friends, who regarded with alarm the prospect of losing such a tower of strength in the House. Mr. Webster, indeed, felt that he could render the best service in the lower branch, and urged the senatorship upon Governor Lincoln, who was elected, but declined. After this there seemed to be no escape from a manifest destiny. Despite the opposition of his friends in Washington, and his own reluctance, he finally accepted the office of United States senator, which was conferred upon him by the Legislature of Ma.s.sachusetts in June, 1827.
In tracing the labors of Mr. Webster during three years spent in the lower House, no allusion has been made to the purely political side of his career at this time, nor to his relations with the public men of the day. The period was important, generally speaking, because it showed the first signs of the development of new parties, and to Mr. Webster in particular, because it brought him gradually toward the political and party position which he was to occupy during the rest of his life. When he took his seat in Congress, in the autumn of 1823, the intrigues for the presidential succession were at their height. Mr. Webster was then strongly inclined to Mr. Calhoun, as was suspected at the time of that gentleman"s visit to Boston. He soon became convinced, however, that Mr. Calhoun"s chances of success were slight, and his good opinion of the distinguished South Carolinian seems also to have declined. It was out of the question for a man of Mr. Webster"s temperament and habits of thought, to think for a moment of supporting Jackson, a candidate on the ground of military glory and unreflecting popular enthusiasm. Mr. Adams, as the representative of New England, and as a conservative and trained statesman, was the natural and proper candidate to receive the aid of Mr. Webster. But here party feelings and traditions stepped in. The Federalists of New England had hated Mr. Adams with the peculiar bitterness which always grows out of domestic quarrels, whether in public or private life; and although the old strife had sunk a little out of sight, it had never been healed. The Federalist leaders in Ma.s.sachusetts still disliked and distrusted Mr. Adams with an intensity none the less real because it was concealed. In the nature of things Mr. Webster now occupied a position of political independence; but he had been a steady party man when his party was in existence, and he was still a party man so far as the old Federalist feelings retained vitality and force. He had, moreover, but a slight personal acquaintance with Mr. Adams and no very cordial feeling toward him. This disposed of three presidential candidates. The fourth was Mr.
Clay, and it is not very clear why Mr. Webster refused an alliance in this quarter. Mr. Clay had treated him with consideration, they were personal friends, their opinions were not dissimilar and were becoming constantly more alike. Possibly there was an instinctive feeling of rivalry on this very account. At all events, Mr. Webster would not support Clay. Only one candidate remained: Mr. Crawford, the representative of all that was extreme among the Republicans, and, in a party sense, most odious to the Federalists. But it was a time when personal factions flourished rankly in the absence of broad differences of principle. Mr. Crawford was bidding furiously for support in every and any quarter, and to Mr. Crawford, accordingly, Mr. Webster began to look as a possible leader for himself and his friends. Just how far Mr. Webster went in this direction cannot be readily or surely determined, although we get some light on the subject from an attack made on Mr. Crawford just at this time. Ninian Edwards, recently senator from Illinois, had a quarrel with Mr. Crawford, and sent in a memorial to Congress containing charges against the Secretary of the Treasury which were designed to break him down as a candidate for the presidency. Of the merits of this quarrel it is not very easy to judge, even if it were important. The character of Edwards was none of the best, and Mr. Crawford had unquestionably made a highly unscrupulous use, politically, of his position. The members of the administration, although with no great love for Edwards, who had been appointed Minister to Mexico, were distinctly hostile to Mr. Crawford, and refused to attend a dinner from which Edwards had been expressly excluded. Mr. Webster"s part in the affair came from his being on the committee charged with the investigation of the Edwards memorial. Mr. Adams, who was of course excited by the presidential contest, disposed to regard his rivals with extreme disfavor, and especially and justly suspicious of Mr. Crawford, speaks of Mr.
Webster"s conduct in the matter with the utmost bitterness. He refers to it again and again as an attempt to screen Crawford and break down Edwards, and denounces Mr. Webster as false, insidious, and treacherous. Much of this may be credited to the heated animosities of the moment, but there can be no doubt that Mr. Webster took the matter into his own hands in the committee, and made every effort to protect Mr. Crawford, in whose favor he also spoke in the House. It is likewise certain that there was an attempt to bring about an alliance between Crawford and the Federalists of the North and East. The effort was abortive, and even before the conclusion of the Edwards business Mr. Webster avowed that he should take but little part in the election, and that his only purpose was to secure the best terms possible for the Federalists, and obtain recognition for them from the next administration. At that time he wished Mr. Mason to be attorney-general, and had already turned his thoughts toward the English mission for himself.
To this waiting policy he adhered, but when the popular election was over, and the final decision had been thrown into the House of Representatives, more definite action became necessary. From the questions which he put to his brother and others as to the course which he ought to pursue in the election by the House, it is obvious that he was far from anxious to secure the choice of Mr. Adams, and was weighing carefully other contingencies.
The feeling of New England could not, however, be mistaken. Public opinion there demanded that the members of the House should stand by the New England candidate to the last. To this sentiment Mr. Webster submitted, and soon afterwards took occasion to have an interview with Mr. Adams in order to make the best terms possible for the Federalists, and obtain for them suitable recognition. Mr. Adams a.s.sured Mr. Webster that he did not intend to proscribe any section or any party, and added that although he could not give the Federalists representation in the cabinet, he should give them one of the important appointments. Mr. Webster was entirely satisfied with this promise and with all that was said by Mr. Adams, who, as everybody knows, was soon after elected by the House on the first ballot.
Mr. Adams on his side saw plainly the necessity of conciliating Mr.
Webster, whose great ability and influence he thoroughly understood. He told Mr. Clay that he had a high opinion of Mr. Webster, and wished to win his support; and the savage tone displayed in regard to the Edwards affair now disappears from the Diary. Mr. Adams, however, although he knew, as he says, that "Webster was panting for the English mission," and hinted that the wish might be gratified hereafter, was not ready to go so far at the moment, and at the same time he sought to dissuade Mr. Webster from being a candidate for the speakership, for which in truth the latter had no inclination. Their relations, indeed, soon grew very pleasant. Mr. Webster naturally became the leader of the administration forces in the House, while the President on his side sought Mr. Webster"s advice, admired his oration on Adams and Jefferson, dined at his house, and lived on terms of friendship and confidence with him. It is to be feared, however, that all this was merely on the surface. Mr. Adams at the bottom of his heart never, in reality, relaxed in his belief that Mr. Webster was morally unsound. Mr.
Webster, on the other hand, whose Federalist opposition to Mr. Adams had only been temporarily allayed, was not long in coming to the conclusion that his services, if appreciated, were not properly recognized by the administration. There was a good deal of justice in this view. The English mission never came, no help was to be obtained for Mr. Mason"s election as senator from New Hampshire, the speakership was to be refused in order to promote harmony and strength in the House. To all this Mr. Webster submitted, and fought the battles of the administration in debate as no one else could have done. Nevertheless, all men like recognition, and Mr.
Webster would have preferred something more solid than words and confidence or the triumph of a common cause. When the Ma.s.sachusetts senatorship was in question Mr. Adams urged the election of Governor Lincoln, and objected on the most flattering grounds to Mr. Webster"s withdrawal from the House. It is not a too violent conjecture to suppose that Mr. Webster"s final acceptance of a seat in the Senate was due in large measure to a feeling that he had sacrificed enough for the administration. There can be no doubt that coolness grew between the President and the Senator, and that the appointment to England, if still desired, never was made, so that when the next election came on Mr. Webster was inactive, and, despite his hostility to Jackson, viewed the overthrow of Mr. Adams with a good deal of indifference and some satisfaction. It is none the less true, however, that during these years when the first foundations of the future Whig party were laid, Mr. Webster formed the political affiliations which were to last through life. He inevitably found himself a.s.sociated with Clay and Adams, and opposed to Jackson, Benton, and Van Buren, while at the same time he and Calhoun were fast drifting apart. He had no specially cordial feeling to his new a.s.sociates; but they were at the head of the conservative elements of the country, they were nationalists in policy, and they favored the views which were most affected in New England. As a conservative and nationalist by nature and education, and as the great New England leader, Mr. Webster could not avoid becoming the parliamentary chief of Mr. Adams"s administration, and thus paved the way for leadership in the Whig party of the future.
In narrating the history of these years, I have confined myself to Mr.
Webster"s public services and political course. But it was a period in his career which was crowded with work and achievement, bringing fresh fame and increased reputation, and also with domestic events both of joy and sorrow.
Mr. Webster steadily pursued the practice of the law, and was constantly engaged in the Supreme Court. To these years belong many of his great arguments, and also the prosecution of the Spanish claims, a task at once laborious and profitable. In the summer of 1824 Mr. Webster first saw Marshfield, his future home, and in the autumn of the same year he visited Monticello, where he had a long interview with Mr. Jefferson, of whom he has left a most interesting description. During the winter he formed the acquaintance and lived much in the society of some well-known Englishmen then travelling in this country. This party consisted of the Earl of Derby, then Mr. Stanley, Lord Wharncliffe, then Mr. Stuart Wortley; Lord Taunton, then Mr. Labouchere, and Mr. Denison, afterwards Speaker of the House of Commons. With Mr. Denison this acquaintance was the foundation of a lasting and intimate friendship maintained by correspondence. In June, 1825, came the splendid oration at Bunker Hill, and then a visit to Niagara, which, of course, appealed strongly to Mr. Webster. His account of it, however, although indicative of a deep mental impression, shows that his power of describing nature fell far short of his wonderful talent for picturing human pa.s.sions and action. The next vacation brought the eulogy on Adams and Jefferson, when perhaps Mr. Webster may be considered to have been in his highest physical and intellectual perfection. Such at least was the opinion of Mr. Ticknor, who says:--
"He was in the perfection of manly beauty and strength; his form filled out to its finest proportions, and his bearing, as he stood before the vast mult.i.tude, that of absolute dignity and power. His manner of speaking was deliberate and commanding. I never heard him when his manner was so grand and appropriate; ... when he ended the minds of men were wrought up to an uncontrollable excitement, and then followed three tremendous cheers, inappropriate indeed, but as inevitable as any other great movement of nature."
He had held the vast audience mute for over two hours, as John Quincy Adams said in his diary, and finally their excited feelings found vent in cheers.
He spoke greatly because he felt greatly. His emotions, his imagination, his entire oratorical temperament were then full of quick sensibility. When he finished writing the imaginary speech of John Adams in the quiet of his library and the silence of the morning hour, his eyes were wet with tears.
A year pa.s.sed by after this splendid display of eloquence, and then the second congressional period, which had been so full of work and intellectual activity and well-earned distinction, closed, and he entered upon that broader field which opened to him in the Senate of the United States, where his greatest triumphs were still to be achieved.
CHAPTER VI.
THE TARIFF OF 1828 AND THE REPLY TO HAYNE.
The new dignity conferred on Mr. Webster by the people of Ma.s.sachusetts had hardly been a.s.sumed when he was called upon to encounter a trial which must have made all his honors seem poor indeed. He had scarcely taken his seat when he was obliged to return to New York, where failing health had arrested Mrs. Webster"s journey to the capital, and where, after much suffering, she died, January 21, 1828. The blow fell with terrible severity upon her husband. He had many sorrows to bear during his life, but this surpa.s.sed all others. His wife was the love of his youth, the mother of his children, a lovely woman whose strong but gentle influence for good was now lost to him irreparably. In his last days his thoughts reverted to her, and as he followed her body to the grave, on foot in the wet and cold, and leading his children by the hand, it must indeed have seemed as if the wine of life had been drunk and only the lees remained. He was excessively pale, and to those who looked upon him seemed crushed and heart-broken.
The only relief was to return to his work and to the excitement of public affairs; but the cloud hung over him long after he was once more in his place in the Senate. Death had made a wound in his life which time healed but of which the scar remained. Whatever were Mr. Webster"s faults, his affection for those nearest to him, and especially for the wife of his youth, was deep and strong.
"The very first day of Mr. Webster"s arrival and taking his seat in the Senate," Judge Story writes to Mr. Ticknor, "there was a process bill on its third reading, filled, as he thought, with inconvenient and mischievous provisions. He made, in a modest undertone, some inquiries, and, upon an answer being given, he expressed in a few words his doubts and fears. Immediately Mr.
Tazewell from Virginia broke out upon him in a speech of two hours.
Mr. Webster then moved an adjournment, and on the next day delivered a most masterly speech in reply, expounding the whole operation of the intended act in the clearest manner, so that a recommitment was carried almost without an effort. It was a triumph of the most gratifying nature, and taught his opponents the danger of provoking a trial of his strength, even when he was overwhelmed by calamity. In the labors of the court he has found it difficult to work himself up to high efforts; but occasionally he comes out with all his powers, and when he does, it is sure to attract a brilliant audience."
It would be impossible to give a better picture than that presented by Judge Story of Mr. Webster"s appearance and conduct in the month immediately following the death of his wife. We can see how his talents, excited by the conflicts of the Senate and the court, struggled, sometimes successfully, sometimes in vain, with the sense of loss and sorrow which oppressed him.
He did not again come prominently forward in the Senate until the end of April, when he roused himself to prevent injustice. The bill for the relief of the surviving officers of the Revolution seemed on the point of being lost. The object of the measure appealed to Mr. Webster"s love for the past, to his imagination, and his patriotism. He entered into the debate, delivered the fine and dignified speech which is preserved in his works, and saved the bill.
A fortnight after this he made his famous speech on the tariff of 1828, a bill making extensive changes in the rates of duties imposed in 1816 and 1824. This speech marks an important change in Mr. Webster"s views and in his course as a statesman. He now gave up his position as the ablest opponent in the country of the protective policy, and went over to the support of the tariff and the "American system" of Mr. Clay. This change, in every way of great importance, subjected Mr. Webster to severe criticism both then and subsequently. It is, therefore, necessary to examine briefly his previous utterances on this question in order to reach a correct understanding of his motives in taking this important step and to appreciate his reasons for the adoption of a policy with which, after the year 1828, he was so closely identified.
When Mr. Webster first entered Congress he was a thorough-going Federalist.
But the Federalists of New England differed from their great chief, Alexander Hamilton, on the question of a protective policy. Hamilton, in his report on manufactures, advocated with consummate ability the adoption of the principle of protection for nascent industries as an integral and essential part of a true national policy, and urged it on its own merits, without any reference to its being incident to revenue. The New England Federalists, on the other hand, coming from exclusively commercial communities, were in principle free-traders. They regarded with disfavor the doctrine that protection was a good thing in itself, and desired it, if at all, only in the most limited form and purely as an incident to raising revenue. With these opinions Mr. Webster was in full sympathy, and he took occasion when Mr. Calhoun, in 1814, spoke in favor of the existing double duties as a protective measure, and also in favor of manufactures, during the debate on the repeal of the embargo, to define his position on this important question. A few brief extracts will show his views, which were expressed very clearly and with his wonted ability and force.
"I consider," he said, "the imposition of double duties as a mere financial measure. Its great object was to raise revenue, not to foster manufactures.... I do not say the double duties ought to be continued. I think they ought not. But what I particularly object to is the holding out of delusive expectations to those concerned in manufactures.... In respect to manufactures it is necessary to speak with some precision. I am not, generally speaking, their enemy. I am their friend; but I am not for rearing them or any other interest in hot-beds. I would not legislate precipitately, even in favor of them; above all, I would not profess intentions in relation to them which I did not purpose to execute. I feel no desire to push capital into extensive manufactures faster than the general progress of our wealth and population propels it.