The Works of Daniel Webster, Volume 1

“He never rose on an ordinary occasion to address an ordinary audience more self-possessed. There was no tremulousness in his voice nor manner; nothing hurried, nothing simulated. The calmness of superior strength was visible everywhere; in countenance, voice, and bearing. A deep-seated conviction of the extraordinary character of the emergency, and of his ability to control it, seemed to possess him wholly. If an observer, more than ordinarily keen-sighted, detected at times something like exultation in his eye, he presumed it sprang from the excitement of the moment, and the anticipation of victory.

“The anxiety to hear the speech was so intense, irrepressible, and universal, that no sooner had the Vice-President assumed the chair, than a motion was made, and unanimously carried, to postpone the ordinary preliminaries of Senatorial action, and to take up immediately the consideration of the resolution.

“Mr. Webster rose and addressed the Senate. His exordium is known by heart everywhere: ‘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 before the Senate.’

“There wanted no more to enchain the attention. There was a spontaneous, though silent, expression of eager approbation, as the orator concluded these opening remarks. And while the clerk read the resolution, many attempted the impossibility of getting nearer the speaker. Every head was inclined closer towards him, every ear turned in the direction of his voice, and that deep, sudden, mysterious silence followed, which xcv always attends fulness of emotion. From the sea of upturned faces before him, the orator beheld his thoughts reflected as from a mirror. The varying countenance, the suffused eye, the earnest smile, the ever-attentive look, assured him of his audience’s entire sympathy. If among his hearers there were those who affected at first an indifference to his glowing thoughts and fervent periods, the difficult mask was soon laid aside, and profound, undisguised, devoted attention followed. In the earlier part of his speech, one of his principal opponents seemed deeply engrossed in the careful perusal of a newspaper he held before his face; but this, on nearer approach, proved to be upside down. In truth, all, sooner or later, voluntarily, or in spite of themselves, were wholly carried away by the eloquence of the orator.

“Those who had doubted Mr. Webster’s ability to cope with and overcome his opponents were fully satisfied of their error before he had proceeded far in his speech. Their fears soon took another direction. When they heard his sentences of powerful thought, towering in accumulative grandeur, one above the other, as if the orator strove, Titan-like, to reach the very heavens themselves, they were giddy with an apprehension that he would break down in his flight. They dared not believe that genius, learning, and intellectual endowment however uncommon, that was simply mortal, could sustain itself long in a career seemingly so perilous. They feared an Icarian fall.

“What New England heart was there but throbbed with vehement, tumultuous, irrepressible emotion, as he dwelt upon New England sufferings, New England struggles, and New England triumphs during the war of the Revolution? There was scarcely a dry eye in the Senate; all hearts were overcome; grave judges and men grown old in dignified life turned aside their heads, to conceal the evidences of their emotion.

“In one corner of the gallery was clustered a group of Massachusetts men. They had hung from the first moment upon the words of the speaker, with feelings variously but always warmly excited, deepening in intensity as he proceeded. At first, while the orator was going through his exordium, they held their breath and hid their faces, mindful of the savage attack upon him and New England, and the fearful odds against him, her champion;—as he went deeper into his speech, they felt easier; when he turned Hayne’s flank on Banquo’s ghost, they breathed freer and deeper. But now, as he alluded to Massachusetts, their feelings were strained to the highest tension; and when the orator, concluding his encomium of the land of their birth, turned, intentionally or otherwise, his burning eye full upon them, they shed tears like girls!

“No one who was not present can understand the excitement of the scene. No one who was, can give an adequate description of it. No word-painting can convey the deep, intense enthusiasm, the reverential attention, of that vast assembly, nor limner transfer to canvas their earnest, eager, awe-struck countenances. Though language were as subtile and flexible as thought, it still would be impossible to represent the full idea of the scene. There is something intangible in an emotion, which cannot be transferred. The nicer shades of feeling elude pursuit. Every description, therefore, of the occasion, seems to the narrator himself most tame, spiritless, unjust.

“Much of the instantaneous effect of the speech arose, of course, from the orator’s delivery,—the tones of his voice, his countenance, and manner. These die mostly with the occasion that calls them forth; the impression is lost in the attempt at transmission from one mind to another. They can only be described in general terms. ‘Of the effectiveness of Mr. Webster’s manner in many parts,’ says Mr. Everett, ‘it would be in vain to attempt to give any one not present the faintest idea. It has been my fortune to hear some of the ablest speeches of the greatest living orators on both sides of the water, but I must confess I never heard any thing which so completely realized my conception of what Demosthenes was when he delivered the Oration for the Crown.’

“The variety of incident during the speech, and the rapid fluctuation of passions, kept the audience in continual expectation and ceaseless agitation. There was no chord of the heart the orator did not strike, as with a master-hand. The speech was a complete drama of comic and pathetic scenes; one varied excitement; laughter and tears gaining alternate victory.

“A great portion of the speech is strictly argumentative; an exposition of constitutional law. But grave as such portion necessarily is, severely logical, abounding in no fancy or episode, it engrossed throughout the undivided attention of every intelligent hearer. Abstractions, under the glowing genius of the orator, acquired a beauty, a vitality, a power to thrill the blood and enkindle the affections, awakening into earnest activity many a dormant faculty. His ponderous syllables had an energy, a vehemence of meaning in them, that fascinated, while they startled. His thoughts in their statuesque beauty merely would have gained all critical judgment; but he realized the antique fable, and warmed the marble into life. There was a sense of power in his language,—of power withheld and suggestive of still greater power,—that subdued, as by a spell of mystery, the hearts of all. For power, whether intellectual or physical, produces in its earnest development a feeling closely allied to awe. It was never more felt than on this occasion. It xcvii had entire mastery. The sex which is said to love it best, and abuse it most, seemed as much or more carried away than the sterner one. Many who had entered the hall with light, gay thoughts, anticipating at most a pleasurable excitement, soon became deeply interested in the speaker and his subject; surrendered him their entire heart; and when the speech was over, and they left the hall, it was with sadder, perhaps, but surely with far more elevated and ennobling emotions.

“The exulting rush of feeling with which he went through the peroration threw a glow over his countenance, like inspiration. Eye, brow, each feature, every line of the face, seemed touched, as with a celestial fire.

“The swell and roll of his voice struck upon the ears of the spellbound audience, in deep and melodious cadence, as waves upon the shore of the ‘far-resounding’ sea. The Miltonic grandeur of his words was the fit expression of his thought, and raised his hearers up to his theme. His voice, exerted to its utmost power, penetrated every recess or corner of the Senate,—penetrated even the ante-rooms and stairways, as he pronounced in deepest tones of pathos these words of solemn significance: ‘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, discordant, belligerent; on a land rent with civil feuds, or drenched, it may be, in fraternal blood! Let their last feeble and lingering 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 lustre, not a stripe erased or polluted, nor a single star obscured, bearing for its motto, no such miserable interrogatory as, “What is all this worth?” nor those other words of delusion 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 American heart,—Liberty and Union, now and for ever, one and inseparable!’

“The speech was over, but the tones of the orator still lingered upon the ear, and the audience, unconscious of the close, retained their positions. The agitated countenance, the heaving breast, the suffused eye, attested the continued influence of the spell upon them. Hands that, in the excitement of the moment, had sought each other, still remained closed in an unconscious grasp. Eye still turned to eye, to receive and repay mutual sympathy; and everywhere around seemed forgetfulness of all but the orator’s presence and words.”—pp. 132-148.

After having spoken about three hours on the 26th of January, Mr. Webster gave way for an adjournment. He resumed and concluded the speech on the following day. During most of the time that he was speaking, Mr. Hayne occupied himself in taking notes, and rose to reply at the conclusion of Mr. Webster’s argument. An adjournment was proposed by one of Mr. Hayne’s friends, but he wisely determined to terminate all that he intended to say on the subject upon the spot. He accordingly addressed the Senate for about half an hour upon the constitutional question which formed the most important portion of Mr. Webster’s speech. These remarks of Mr. Hayne were, in the newspaper report, expanded into an elaborate argument, which occupies nineteen pages in the register of Congressional debates. When Mr. Hayne sat down, Mr. Webster, in turn, rose to make a brief rejoinder. “The gentleman,” said he, “has in vain attempted to reconstruct his shattered argument”; and this formidable exordium was followed up by a brief restatement of his own argument, which, for condensation, precision, and force, may be referred to as a specimen of parliamentary logic never surpassed. The art of reasoning on moral questions can go no further.

Thus terminated the day’s great work. In the evening the Senatorial champions met at a friend’s house, and exchanged those courteous salutations which mitigate the asperity of political collision, and prevent the conflicts of party from embittering social life.

The sensation produced by the great debate on those who heard it was but the earnest of its effect on the country at large. The length of Mr. Webster’s speech did not prevent its being copied into the leading newspapers throughout the country. It was the universal theme of conversation. Letters of acknowledgment and congratulation from the most distinguished individuals, from politicians retired from active life, from entire strangers, from persons not sympathizing with all Mr. Webster’s views, from distant parts of the Union, were addressed to him by every mail. Immense editions of the speech in a pamphlet form were called for. A proposal was made to the friends of Mr. Hayne to unite in the publication of a joint edition of the two speeches for general circulation throughout the country, but this offer was declined. Mr. Webster’s xcix friends in Boston published a pamphlet edition of the speeches of Mr. Hayne and Mr. Webster. It is no exaggeration to say, that throughout the country Mr. Webster’s speech was regarded, not only as a brilliant and successful personal defence and a triumphant vindication of New England, but as a complete overthrow of the dangerous constitutional heresies which had menaced the stability of the Union.

In this light it was looked upon by a large number of the most distinguished citizens of New York, who took occasion to offer Mr. Webster the compliment of a public dinner the following winter. Circumstances delayed the execution of their purpose till some time had elapsed from the delivery of the speech, but the recollection of it was vivid, and it was referred to by Chancellor Kent, the president of the day, as the service especially demanding the grateful recognition of the country. After alluding to the debate on Foot’s resolution and to the character of Mr. Webster’s speech, the venerable Chancellor added:—

“The consequences of that discussion have been extremely beneficial. It turned the attention of the public to the great doctrines of national rights and national union. Constitutional law ceased to remain wrapped up in the breasts, and taught only by the responses, of the living oracles of the law. Socrates was said to have drawn down philosophy from the skies, and scattered it among the schools. It may with equal truth be said that constitutional law, by means of those senatorial discussions and the master genius that guided them, was rescued from the archives of our tribunals and the libraries of our lawyers, and placed under the eye and submitted to the judgment of the American people. Their verdict is with us, and from it there lies no appeal.”[16 - Chancellor Kent’s remarks are given entire in the introduction to Mr. Webster’s Speech at the New York Dinner, Vol. I. p. 194.]

With respect to Mr. Foot’s resolution it may be observed, that it continued before the Senate a long time, a standing subject of discussion. One half at least of the members of the Senate took part in the debate, which daily assumed a wider range and wandered farther from the starting-point. Many speeches were made which, under other circumstances, would have attracted notice, but the interest of the controversy expired with the great effort of the 26th and 27th of January. At length, on the 21st of May, a motion for indefinite postponement, c submitted by Mr. Webster at the close of his first speech, prevailed, and thus the whole discussion ended.

It may be worthy of remark, that Mr. Webster’s speech was taken in short-hand by Mr. Gales, the veteran editor of the National Intelligencer, a stenographer of great experience and skill. It was written out in common hand by a member of his family, and sent to Mr. Webster for correction. It remained in his hands for that purpose a part of one day, and then went to the press.

A young and gifted American artist,[17 - Mr. Geo. P. A. Healey.] whose talents had been largely put in requisition by King Louis Philippe to adorn the walls of Versailles, conceived a few years ago the happy idea of a grand historical picture of this debate. On a canvas of the largest size he has nobly delineated the person of the principal individual in the act of replying to Mr. Hayne, with those of his colleagues in the Senate. The passages and galleries of the Senate-Chamber are filled with attentive listeners of both sexes. Above a hundred accurate studies from life give authenticity to a work in which posterity will find the sensible presentment of this great intellectual effort.

CHAPTER VII

General Character of President Jackson’s Administrations.—Speedy Discord among the Parties which had united for his Elevation.—Mr. Webster’s Relations to the Administration.—Veto of the Bank.—Rise and Progress of Nullification in South Carolina.—The Force Bill, and the Reliance of General Jackson’s Administration on Mr. Webster’s Aid.—His Speech in Defence of the Bill, and in Opposition to Mr. Calhoun’s Resolutions.—Mr. Madison’s Letter on Secession.—The Removal of the Deposits.—Motives for that Measure.—The Resolution of the Senate disapproving it.—The President’s Protest.—Mr. Webster’s Speech on the Subject of the Protest.—Opinions of Chancellor Kent and Mr. Tazewell.—The Expunging Resolution.—Mr. Webster’s Protest against it.—Mr. Van Buren’s Election.—The Financial Crisis and the Extra Session of Congress.—The Government Plan of Finance supported by Mr. Calhoun and opposed by Mr. Webster.—Personalities.—Mr. Webster’s Visit to Europe and distinguished Reception.—The Presidential Canvass of 1840.—Election of General Harrison.

It would require a volume of ample dimensions to relate the history of Mr. Webster’s Senatorial career from this time till the accession of General Harrison to the Presidency, in 1841. In this interval the government was administered for two successive terms by General Jackson, and for a single term by Mr. Van Buren. It was a period filled with incidents of great importance in various departments of the government, often of a startling character at the time, and not less frequently exerting a permanent influence on the condition of the country. It may be stated as the general characteristic of the political tendencies of this period, that there was a decided weakening of respect for constitutional restraint. Vague ideas of executive discretion prevailed on the one hand in the interpretation of the Constitution, and of popular sovereignty on the other, as represented by a President elevated to office by overwhelming majorities of the people. The expulsion of the Indian tribes from the Southern States, in violation of the faith of treaties and in open disregard of the opinion of the Supreme Court of the United States as to their obligation; the claim of a right on the part of a State to nullify an act of the general government; the violation of the charter of the bank, and the Presidential veto of the act of Congress rechartering it; the deposit of the public money in the selected State banks with a view to its safe keeping and for the greater encouragement of trade by the cii loan of the public funds; the explosion of this system, and the adoption of one directly opposed to it, which rejected wholly the aid of the banks and denied the right of the government to employ the public funds for any but fiscal purposes; the executive menaces of war against France; the unsuccessful attempt of Mr. Van Buren’s administration to carry on the government upon General Jackson’s system; the panic of 1837, succeeded by the general uprising of the country and the universal demand for a change of men and measures,—these are the leading incidents in the chronicle of the period in question. Most of the events referred to are discussed in the following volumes. On some of them Mr. Webster put forth all his power. The questions pertaining to the construction of the Constitution, to the bank, to the veto power, to the currency, to the constitutionality of the tariff, to the right of removal from office, and to the finances, were discussed in almost every conceivable form, and with every variety of argument and illustration.

It has already been observed, that General Jackson was brought into power by a somewhat ill-compacted alliance between his original friends and a portion of the friends of the other candidates of 1824. As far as Mr. Calhoun and his followers were concerned, the cordiality of the union was gone before the inauguration of the new President. There was not only on the list of the cabinet to be appointed no adequate representative of the Vice-President, but his rival candidate for the succession (Mr. Van Buren) was placed at the head of the administration. There is reason to suppose that General Jackson, who, though his policy tended greatly to impair the strength of the Union, was in feeling a warm Unionist, witnessed with no dissatisfaction the result of the great constitutional debate and its influence upon the country.

But the effect of this debate on the friendly relations of Mr. Webster with the administration was in some degree neutralized by the incidents of the second session of the Twenty-first Congress. Mr. Van Buren had retreated before the embarrassments of the position in which he found himself in the Department of State, and had accepted the mission to England. The instructions which he had given to Mr. McLane in 1829, in reference to the adjustment of the question relative to the colonial trade, were deemed highly objectionable by a majority ciii of the Senate, as bringing the relations of our domestic parties to the notice of a foreign government, and founding upon a change of administration an argument for the concession of what was deemed and called “a boon” by the British government. In order to mark the spirit of these instructions with the disapprobation of the Senate, the nomination of Mr. Van Buren as Minister to England was negatived by a majority of that body. While the subject was under discussion, Mr. Clay, Mr. Webster, and Mr. Calhoun took the same view of this delicate question. It will be found treated in the speech of Mr. Webster of the 24th of January, 1832, with all the gravity, temper, and moderation which its importance demanded.

In the Twenty-second Congress (the second of General Jackson’s administration) the bank question became prominent. General Jackson had in his first message called the attention of Congress to the subject of the bank. No doubt of its constitutionality was then intimated by him. In the course of a year or two an attempt was made, on the part of the executive, to control the appointment of the officers of one of the Eastern branches. This attempt was resisted by the bank, and from that time forward a state of warfare, at first partially disguised, but finally open and flagrant, existed between the government and the directors of the institution. In the first session of the Twenty-second Congress (1831-32), a bill was introduced by Mr. Dallas, and passed the two houses, to renew the charter of the bank. This measure was supported by Mr. Webster, on the ground of the importance of a national bank to the fiscal operations of the government, and to the currency, exchange, and general business of the country. No specific complaints of mismanagement had then been made, nor were any abuses alleged to exist. The bank was, almost without exception, popular at that time with the business interests of the country, and particularly at the South and West. Its credit in England was solid; its bills and drafts on London took the place of specie for remittances to India and China. Its convenience and usefulness were recognized in the report of the Secretary of the Treasury (Mr. McLane), at the same time that its constitutionality was questioned and its existence threatened by the President. So completely, however, was the policy of General Jackson’s administration the impulse of his civ own feelings and individual impressions, and so imperfectly had these been disclosed on the present occasion, that the fate of the bill for rechartering the bank was a matter of uncertainty on the part both of adherents and opponents. Many persons on both sides of the two houses were taken by surprise by the veto. When the same question was to be decided by General Washington, he took the opinion in writing of every member of the Cabinet.

But events of a different complexion soon occurred, and gave a new direction to the thoughts of men throughout the country. The opposition of South Carolina to the protective policy had been pushed to a point of excitement at which it was beyond the control of party leaders. Although, as we have seen, that policy had in 1816 been established by the aid of distinguished statesmen of South Carolina, who saw in the success of American cotton manufactures a new market for the staple of the South, in which it would take the place of the cotton of India, the protective policy at a later period had come to be generally considered unconstitutional at the South. A change of opinion somewhat similar had taken place in New England, which had been originally opposed to this policy, as adverse to the commercial and navigating interests. Experience gradually showed that such was not the case. The enactment of the law of 1824 was considered as establishing the general principle of protection as the policy of the country. It was known to be the policy of the great central States. The capital of the North was to some extent forced into new channels. Some branches of manufactures flourished, as skill was acquired and improvements in machinery made. The coarse cotton fabrics which had enjoyed the protection of the minimum duty prospered, manufacturing villages grew up, the price of the fabric fell, and as competition increased the tariff did little more than protect the domestic manufacturer from fraudulent invoices and the fluctuation of foreign markets. Thus all parties were benefited, not excepting the South, which gained a new customer for her staple. These changes in the condition of things led Mr. Webster, as we have remarked in a former chapter, to modify his course on the tariff question.

Unfortunately, no manufactures had been established at the South. The vast quantities of new and fertile land opened in the west of Georgia, in Alabama, and Mississippi, injured the cv value of the old and partly exhausted lands of the Atlantic States. Labor was drawn off to found plantations in the new States, and the injurious consequences were ascribed to the tariff. Considerations of a political nature had entirely changed the tolerant feeling which, up to a certain period, had been shown by one class of Southern politicians toward the protective policy. With the exception of Louisiana, and one or two votes in Virginia, the whole South was united against the tariff. South Carolina had suffered most by the inability of her worn lands to sustain the competition with the lands of the Yazoo and the Red River, and to her the most active opposition, under the lead of Mr. Calhoun, was confined. The modern doctrine of nullification was broached by her accomplished statesmen, and an unsuccessful attempt made to deduce it from the Virginia resolutions of 1798. Mr. Madison, in a letter addressed to the writer of these pages,[18 - North American Review, Vol. XXXI. p. 537.] in August, 1830, firmly resisted this attempt; and, as a theory, the whole doctrine of nullification was overthrown by Mr. Webster, in his speech of the 26th of January, 1830. But public sentiment had gone too far in South Carolina to be checked; party leaders were too deeply committed to retreat; and at the close of 1832 the ordinance of nullification was adopted by a State convention.

This decisive act roused the hero of New Orleans from the vigilant repose with which he had watched the coming storm. Confidential orders to hold themselves in readiness for active service were sent in every direction to the officers of the army and the navy. Prudent and resolute men were quietly stationed at the proper posts. Arms and munitions in abundance were held in readiness, and a chain of expresses in advance of the mail was established from the Capitol to Charleston. These preparations made, the Presidential proclamation of the 11th of December, 1832, was issued. It was written by Mr. Edward Livingston, then Secretary of State, from notes furnished by General Jackson himself; but there is not an idea of importance in it which may not be found in Mr. Webster’s speech on Foot’s resolution.

The proclamation of the President was met by the counter-proclamation of Governor Hayne; and the State of South Carolina cvi proceeded to pass laws for carrying the ordinance of nullification into effect, and for putting the State into a condition to carry on war with the general government. In this posture of affairs the President of the United States laid the matter before Congress, in his message of the 16th of January, 1833, and the bill “further to provide for the collection of duties on imports” was introduced into the Senate, in pursuance of his recommendations. Mr. Calhoun was at this time a member of that body, having been chosen to succeed Governor Hayne, and having of course resigned the office of Vice-President. Thus called, for the first time, to sustain in person before the Senate and the country the policy of nullification, which had been adopted by South Carolina mainly under his influence, and which was now threatening the Union, it hardly need be said that he exerted all his ability, and put forth all his resources, in defence of the doctrine which had brought his State to the verge of revolution. It is but justice to add, that he met the occasion with equal courage and vigor. The bill “to make further provision for the collection of the revenue,” or “Force Bill,” as it was called, was reported by Mr. Wilkins from the Committee on the Judiciary on the 21st of January, and on the following day Mr. Calhoun moved a series of resolutions, affirming the right of a State to annul, as far as her citizens are concerned, any act of Congress which she may deem oppressive and unconstitutional. On the 15th and 16th of February, he spoke at length in opposition to the bill, and in development and support of his resolutions. On this occasion the doctrine of nullification was sustained by him with far greater ability than it had been by General Hayne, and in a speech which we believe is regarded as Mr. Calhoun’s most powerful effort. In closing his speech, Mr. Calhoun challenged the opponents of his doctrines to disprove them, and warned them, in the concluding sentence, that the principles they might advance would be subjected to the revision of posterity.[19 - This passage does not appear in the report preserved in the volume containing his Select Speeches.]

Mr. Webster, before Mr. Calhoun had resumed his seat, or he had risen from his own, accepted the challenge, and commenced his reply. He began to speak as he was rising, and continued to address the Senate with great force and effect, for about cvii two hours. The Senate then took a recess, and after it came together Mr. Webster spoke again, from five o’clock till eight in the evening. The speech was more purely a constitutional argument than that of the 26th of January, 1830. It was mainly devoted to an examination of Mr. Calhoun’s resolutions; to a review of the adoption and ratification of the Constitution of the United States, by way of elucidating the question whether the system provided by the Constitution is a government of the people or a compact between the States; and to a discussion of the constitutionality of the tariff. It was less various and discursive in its matter than the speech on Foot’s resolution, but more condensed and systematic. Inferior, perhaps, in interest for a mixed audience, from the absence of personal allusions, which at all times give the greatest piquancy to debate, a severe judgment might pronounce it a finer piece of parliamentary logic. Nor must it be inferred from this description that it was destitute of present interest. The Senate-chamber was thronged to its utmost capacity, both before and after the recess, although the streets of Washington, owing to the state of the weather at the time, were nearly impassable.

The opinion entertained of this speech by the individual who, of all the people of America, was the best qualified to estimate its value, may be seen from the following letter of Mr. Madison, which has never before been published.

    “Montpellier, March 15th, 1833.

“My dear Sir:—I return my thanks for the copy of your late very powerful speech in the Senate of the United States. It crushes ‘nullification,’ and must hasten an abandonment of ‘secession.’ But this dodges the blow, by confounding the claim to secede at will with the right of seceding from intolerable oppression. The former answers itself, being a violation without cause of a faith solemnly pledged. The latter is another name only for revolution, about which there is no theoretic controversy. Its double aspect, nevertheless, with the countenance received from certain quarters, is giving it a popular currency here, which may influence the approaching elections both for Congress and for the State legislature. It has gained some advantage also by mixing itself with the question, whether the Constitution of the United States was formed by the people or by the States, now under a theoretic discussion by animated partisans.

“It is fortunate when disputed theories can be decided by undisputed cviii facts, and here the undisputed fact is, that the Constitution was made by the people, but as embodied into the several States who were parties to it, and therefore made by the States in their highest authoritative capacity. They might, by the same authority and by the same process, have converted the confederacy into a mere league or treaty, or continued it with enlarged or abridged powers; or have embodied the people of their respective States into one people, nation, or sovereignty; or, as they did, by a mixed form, make them one people, nation, or sovereignty for certain purposes, and not so for others.

“The Constitution of the United States, being established by a competent authority, by that of the sovereign people of the several States who were parties to it, it remains only to inquire what the Constitution is; and here it speaks for itself. It organizes a government into the usual legislative, executive, and judiciary departments; invests it with specified powers, leaving others to the parties to the Constitution. It makes the government like other governments to operate directly on the people; places at its command the needful physical means of executing its powers; and finally proclaims its supremacy, and that of the laws made in pursuance of it, over the constitutions and laws of the States, the powers of the government being exercised, as in other elective and responsible governments, under the control of its constituents, the people and the legislatures of the States, and subject to the revolutionary rights of the people, in extreme cases.

“Such is the Constitution of the United States de jure and de facto, and the name, whatever it be, that may be given to it can make it nothing more or less than what it is.

“Pardon this hasty effusion, which, whether precisely according or not with your ideas, presents, I am aware, none that will be new to you.

    “With great esteem and cordial salutations,
    “James Madison.”

To “Mr. Webster.”

It may be observed, in reference to the closing remark in the above important letter, that the view which it presents of the nature of the government established by the Constitution is precisely that taken by Mr. Webster in the various speeches in which the subject is discussed by him.

The President of the United States felt the importance of Mr. Webster’s aid in the great constitutional struggle of the session. There were men of great ability enlisted in support of his administration, Messrs Forsyth, Grundy, Dallas, Rives, and others, but no one competent to assume the post of antagonist cix to the great Southern leader. The general political position of Mr. Webster made it in no degree his duty to sustain the administration in any party measure, but the reverse. But his whole course as a public man, and all his principles, forbade him to act from party motives in a great crisis of the country’s fortunes. The administration was now engaged in a fearful struggle for the preservation of the Union, and the integrity of the Constitution. The doctrines of the proclamation were the doctrines of his speech on Foot’s resolution almost to the words. He would have been unjust to his most cherished principles and his views of public duty had he not come to the rescue, not of the administration, but of the country, in this hour of her peril. His aid was personally solicited in the great debate on the “Force Bill” by a member of the Cabinet, but it was not granted till the bill had undergone important amendments suggested by him, when it was given cordially, without stint and without condition.[20 - It is not wholly unworthy of remark in this place, as illustrating the dependence on Mr. Webster’s aid which was felt at the White House, that, on the day of his reply to Mr. Calhoun, the President’s carriage was sent to Mr. Webster’s lodgings, as was supposed with a message borne by the President’s private secretary. Happening to be still at the door when Mr. Webster was about to go to the Capitol, it conveyed him to the Senate-chamber.]

In the recess of Congress in the year 1833, Mr. Webster made a short journey to the Middle States and the West. He was everywhere the object of the most distinguished and respectful attentions. Public receptions took place at Buffalo and Pittsburg, where, under the auspices of committees of the highest respectability, he addressed immense assemblages convened without distinction of party. Invitations to similar meetings reached him from many quarters, which he was obliged by want of leisure to decline.

The friendly relations into which Mr. Webster had been drawn with the President, and the enthusiastic welcome given to the President on his tour to the East, in the summer of 1833, awakened jealousy in certain quarters. It was believed at the time, by well-informed persons, that among the motives which actuated some persons in General Jackson’s confidence, in fanning his hostility to the Bank of the United States, was that of bringing forward a question of great interest both to the cx public and the President, on which he would be sure to encounter Mr. Webster’s opposition.

Such a subject was the removal of the deposits of the public moneys from the Bank of the United States, a measure productive of more immediate distress to the community and a larger train of evil consequences than perhaps any similar measure in our political history. It was finally determined upon while the President was on his Northern tour, in the summer of 1833, receiving in every part of New England those warm demonstrations of respect which his patriotic course in the great nullification struggle had inspired. It is proper to state, that up to this period, in the judgment of more than one committee of Congress appointed to investigate its affairs, in the opinion of both houses of Congress, who in 1832 had passed a bill to renew the charter, and of the House of Representatives, which had resolved that the deposits were safe in its custody, the affairs of the bank had been conducted with prudence, integrity, and remarkable skill. It was not the least evil consequence of the warfare waged upon the bank, that it was finally drawn into a position (though not till its Congressional charter expired, and it accepted very unwisely a charter as a State institution) in which, in its desperate struggle to sustain itself, it finally forfeited the confidence of its friends and the public, and made a deplorable and shameful shipwreck at once of its interests and honor, involving hundreds, at home and abroad, in its own deserved ruin.

The second administration of General Jackson, which commenced in March, 1833, was principally employed in carrying on this war against the bank, and in the effort to build up the league of the associated banks into an efficient fiscal agent of the government. The dangerous crisis of affairs in South Carolina had, for the time, passed. The passage of the “Force Bill” had vindicated the authority of the Constitution as the supreme law of the land, and had armed the President with the needed powers to maintain it. On the other hand, the Compromise Bill of Mr. Clay, providing for the gradual reduction of all duties to one uniform rate of twenty per cent., was accepted by Mr. Calhoun and his friends as a practical concession, and furnished them the opportunity of making what they deemed a not discreditable retreat from the attitude of military resistance in cxi which they had placed the State. Regarding this bill in the light of a concession to unconstitutional menace, as tending to the eventual prostration of all the interests which had grown up under the system so long pursued by the government, Mr. Webster felt himself compelled to withhold from it his support. He rejoiced, however, in the concurrence of events which had averted the dread appeal to arms that seemed at one time unavoidable.

It would occupy an unreasonable space to dwell upon every public measure before Congress at this session; but there is one which cannot with propriety be passed over, as it drew forth from Mr. Webster an argument not inferior to his speech on the “Force Bill.” A resolution, originally moved by Mr. Clay, expressing disapprobation of the removal of the deposits from the bank, was, after material amendments, adopted by the Senate. This resolution led to a formal protest from the President, communicated to the Senate on the 15th of April, 1834. Looking upon the resolution referred to as one of expediency, it is probable that Mr. Webster did not warmly favor, though, with Mr. Calhoun, he concurred in, its passage. The protest of the President, however, placed the subject on new ground. Mr. Webster considered it as an encroachment on the constitutional rights of the Senate, and as a denial to that body of the freedom of action which the executive claimed so earnestly for itself. He accordingly addressed the Senate on the 7th of May, in a speech of the highest ability, in which the doctrines of the protest were subjected to the severest scrutiny, and the constitutional rights and duties of the Senate asserted with a force and spirit worthy of the important position occupied by that body in the frame of the government. This speech will be ever memorable for that sublime passage on the extent of the power of England, which will be quoted with admiration wherever our language is spoken and while England retains her place in the family of nations.

This speech was received throughout the country with the highest favor; by the most distinguished jurists and statesmen as well as by the mass of the people. Chancellor Kent’s language of praise passes the limits of moderation. “You never,” said he, “equalled this effort. It surpasses every thing in logic, in simplicity and beauty and energy of diction, in clearness, in cxii rebuke, in sarcasm, in patriotic and glowing feeling, in just and profound constitutional views, in critical severity, and matchless strength. It is worth millions to our liberties.” Not less decided was the approbation of a gentleman of great sagacity and experience as a statesman, Governor Tazewell of Virginia. In writing to Mr. Tyler he uses this language: “Tell Webster from me that I have read his speech in the National Intelligencer with more pleasure than any I have lately seen. If the approbation of one who has not been used to coincide with him in opinion can be grateful to him, he has mine in extenso. I agree with him perfectly, and thank him cordially for his many excellent illustrations of what I always thought. If it is published in a pamphlet form, beg him to send me one. I will have it bound in good Russia leather, and leave it as a special legacy to my children.”[21 - March’s Reminiscences of Congress, pp. 291, 292.]