The Works of Daniel Webster, Volume 1

In most of the new States of the West, the United States are yet proprietors of vast bodies of land. Through some of these States, and sometimes through these same public lands, the local authorities have prepared to carry expensive canals, for the general benefit of the country. Some of these undertakings have been attended with great expense, and have subjected the States, whose enterprising spirit has begun and carried them on, to large debts and heavy taxation. The lands of the United States, being exempted from all taxation, of course bear no part of this burden. Looking to the United States, therefore, as a great landed proprietor, essentially benefited by these improvements, I have felt no difficulty in voting for the appropriation of parts of these lands, as a reasonable contribution by the United States to these general objects.

Most of the subjects to which I have referred are much less local, in their influence and importance, than they might seem. The breakwater in the Delaware, useful to Philadelphia, is useful also to all the ship-owners in the United States, and indeed to all interested in commerce, especially that great branch, the coastwise commerce. If the mouths of the Southern rivers be deepened and improved, the neighboring cities are benefited, but so also are the ships which visit them; and if the Mississippi and Ohio be rendered more safe for navigation, the great markets of consumption along their shores are the more readily and 170 cheaply approached by the products of the factories and fisheries of New England.

It is my opinion, Mr. President, that the present government of the United States cannot be maintained but by administering it on principles as wide and broad as the country over which it extends. I mean, of course, no extension of the powers which it confers; but I speak of the spirit with which those powers should be exercised. If there be any doubts, whether so many republics, covering so vast a territory, can be long held together under this Constitution, there is no doubt in my judgment of the impossibility of so holding them together by any narrow, local, or selfish system of legislation. To render the Constitution perpetual (which God grant it may be), it is necessary that its benefits should be practically felt by all parts of the country, and all interests in the country. The East and the West, the North and the South, must all see their own welfare protected and advanced by it. While the eastern frontier is defended by fortifications, its harbors improved, and commerce protected by a naval force, it is right and just that the region beyond the Alleghanies should receive fair consideration and equal attention, in any object of public improvement, interesting to itself, and within the proper power of the government. These, Sir, are in brief the general views by which I have been governed on questions of this kind; and I trust they are such as this meeting does not disapprove.

I would not trespass further upon your attention, if I did not feel it my duty to say a few words on the condition of public affairs under another aspect. We are on the eve of a new election of President; and the manner in which the existing administration is attacked might lead a stranger to suppose that the chief magistrate had committed some flagrant offence against the country, had threatened to overturn its liberties, or establish a military usurpation. On a former occasion I have in this place expressed my opinion of the principle upon which the opposition to the administration is founded, without any reference whatever to the person who stands as its apparent head, and who is intended by it to be placed in the chief executive chair. I think that principle exceedingly dangerous and alarming, inasmuch as it does not profess to found opposition to the government on the measures of government, but to rest it on 171 other causes, and those mostly personal. There is a combination or association of persons holding the most opposite opinions, both on the constitutional powers of the government and on the leading measures of public concern, and uniting in little, or in nothing, except the will to dislodge power from the hands in which the country has placed it. There has been no leading measure of the government, with perhaps a single exception, which has not been strenuously maintained by many, or by some, of those who all coöperate, nevertheless, in pursuit of the object which I have mentioned. This is but one of many proofs that the opposition does not rest on the principle of disapprobation of the measures of government. Many other evidences of the same truth might be adduced easily. A remarkable one is, that, while one ground of objection to the administration is urged in one place, its precise opposite is pressed in another. Pennsylvania and South Carolina, for example, are not treated with the same reasons for a change of administration; but with flatly contradictory reasons. In one, the administration is represented as bent on a particular system oppressive to that State, and which must ultimately ruin it; and for that reason there ought to be a change. In the other, that system, instead of being ruinous, is represented as salutary, as necessary, as indispensable. But the administration is declared to be but half in earnest in supporting it, and for that reason there ought to be a change.

Reflecting men have always supposed, that, if there were a weak point in the Federal Constitution, it was in the provision for the exercise of the executive power. And this, perhaps, may be considered as rendered more delicate and difficult, by the great augmentation of the number of the States. We must expect that there will often be, as there was on the last election, several candidates for the Presidency. All but one, of course, must be disappointed; and if the friends of all such, however otherwise divided, are immediately to unite, and to make common cause against him who is elected, little is ever to be expected but embarrassment and confusion. The love of office will ere long triumph over the love of country, and party and faction usurp the place of wisdom and patriotism. If the contest for the executive power is thus to be renewed every four years; if it is to be conducted as the present has been conducted; and 172 if every election is to be immediately followed, as the last was followed, by a prompt union of all whose friends are not chosen against him who is, there is, in my judgment, danger, much danger, that this great experiment of confederated government may fail, and that even those of us who are not among the youngest may behold its catastrophe.

It cannot have escaped the notice of any gentleman present, that, in the course of the controversy, pains have been taken to affect the character and the success of the present chief magistrate, by exciting odium towards that part of the country in which he was born and to which he belongs. Sneers, contumely, reproach, every thing that gentlemen could say, and many things which gentlemen could not say, have been uttered against New England. I am sure, Sir, every true son of New England must receive such things, when they come from sources which ought to be considered respectable, with a feeling of just indignation; and when proceeding from elsewhere, with contempt. If there be one among ourselves who can be induced, by any motives, to join in this cry against New England, he disgraces the New England mother who bore him, the New England father who bred and nurtured him, and the New England atmosphere which first supplied respiration to those lungs, now so unworthily employed in uttering calumnies against his country. Persons not known till yesterday, and having little chance of being remembered beyond to-morrow, have affected to draw a distinction between the patriot States and the States of New England; assigning the last to the present President, and the rest to his rival. I do not wonder, Sir, at the indignation and scorn which I perceive the recital of this injustice produces here. Nothing else was to be expected. Faneuil Hall is not a place where one is expected to hear with indifference that New England is not to be counted among the patriot States. The patriot States! What State was it, Sir, that was patriotic when patriotism cost something? Where but in New England did the great drama of the Revolution open? Where, but on the soil of Massachusetts, was the first blood poured out in the cause of liberty and independence? Where, sooner than here, where earlier than within the walls which now surround us, was patriotism found, when to be patriotic was to endanger houses and homes, and wives and children, and to be ready also to pay 173 for the reputation of patriotism by the sacrifice of blood and of life?

Not farther to refer to her Revolutionary merits, it may be truly said that New England did her part, and more than her part, in the establishment of the present government, and in giving effect to the measures and the policy of the first President. Where, Sir, did the measures of Washington find the most active friends and the firmest support? Where are the general principles of his policy most widely spread, and most deeply seated? If, in subsequent periods, different opinions have been held by different portions of her people, New England has, nevertheless, been always obedient to the laws, even when she most severely felt their pressure, and most conscientiously doubted or disbelieved their propriety. Every great and permanent institution of the country, intended for defence or for improvement, has met her support. And if we look to recent measures, on subjects highly interesting to the community, and especially some portions of it, we see proofs of the same steady and liberal policy. It may be said with entire truth, and it ought to be said, and ought to be known, that no one measure for internal improvement has been carried through Congress, or could have been carried, but by the aid of New England votes. It is for those most deeply interested in subjects of that sort to consider in season, how far the continuance of the same aid is necessary for the further prosecution of the same objects. From the interference of the general government in making roads and canals, New England has as little to hope or expect as any part of the country. She has hitherto supported them upon principle, and from a sincere disposition to extend the blessings and the beneficence of the government. And, Sir, I confidently believe that those most concerned in the success of these measures feel towards her respect and friendship. They feel that she has acted fairly and liberally, wholly uninfluenced by selfish or sinister motives. Those, therefore, who have seen, or thought they saw, an object to be attained by exciting dislike and odium towards New England, are not likely to find quite so favorable an audience as they have expected. It will not go for quite so much as wished, to the disadvantage of the President, that he is a native of Massachusetts. Nothing is wanting but that we ourselves should entertain a proper feeling on this subject, and 174 act with a just regard to our own rights and our own duties. If I could collect around me the whole population of New England, or if I could cause my voice to be heard over all her green hills, or along every one of her pleasant streams, in the exercise of true filial affection, I would say to her, in the language of the great master of the maxims of life and conduct,

“This above all,—to thine own self be true,And it must follow, as the night the day,Thou canst not then be false to any man.”

Mr. President,—I have delayed you too long. I beg to repeat my thanks for the kindness which has been manifested towards me by my fellow-citizens, and to conclude by reciprocating their good wishes:—

The City of Boston. Prosperity to all her interests, and happiness to all her citizens.

THE BOSTON MECHANICS’ INSTITUTION. 89

I appear before you, Gentlemen, for the performance of a duty which is in so great a degree foreign from my habitual studies and pursuits, that it may be presumptuous in me to hope for a creditable execution of the task. But I have not allowed considerations of this kind to weigh against a strong and ardent desire to signify my approbation of the objects, and my conviction of the utility, of this institution; and to manifest my prompt attention to whatever others may suppose to be in my power to promote its respectability and to further its designs.

The constitution of the association declares its precise object to be, “Mutual Instruction in the Sciences, as connected with the Mechanic Arts.”

The distinct purpose is to connect science more and more with art; to teach the established, and invent new, modes of combining skill with strength; to bring the power of the human understanding in aid of the physical powers of the human frame; to facilitate the coöperation of the mind with the hand; to promote convenience, lighten labor, and mitigate toil, by stretching the dominion of mind farther and farther over the elements of nature, and by making those elements themselves submit to human rule, follow human bidding, and work together for human happiness.

The visible and tangible creation into which we are introduced at our birth, is not, in all its parts, fixed and stationary. Motion or change of place, regular or occasional, belongs to all or most of the things which are around us. Animal life everywhere 178 moves; the earth itself has its motion, and its complexities of motion; the ocean heaves and subsides; rivers run, lingering or rushing, to the sea; and the air which we breathe moves and acts with mighty power. Motion, thus pertaining to the physical objects which surround us, is the exhaustless fountain whence philosophy draws the means by which, in various degrees and endless forms, natural agencies and the tendencies of inert matter are brought to the succor and assistance of human strength. It is the object of mechanical contrivance to modify motion, to produce it in new forms, to direct it to new purposes, to multiply its uses, by its means to do better that which human strength could do without its aid, and to perform that, also, which such strength, unassisted by art, could not perform.

Motion itself is but the result of force; or, in other words, force is defined to be whatever tends to produce motion. The operation of forces, therefore, on bodies, is the broad field which is open for that philosophical examination, the results of which it is the business of mechanical contrivance to apply. The leading forces or sources of motion are, as is well known, the power of animals, gravity, heat, the winds, and water. There are various others of less power, or of more difficult application. Mechanical philosophy, therefore, may be said to be that science which instructs us in the knowledge of natural moving powers, animate or inanimate; in the manner of modifying those powers, and of increasing the intensity of some of them by artificial means, such as heat and electricity; and in applying the varieties of force and motion, thus derived from natural agencies, to the arts of life. This is the object of mechanical philosophy. None can doubt, certainly, the high importance of this sort of knowledge, or fail to see how suitable it is to the elevated rank and the dignity of reasoning beings. Man’s grand distinction is his intellect, his mental capacity. It is this which renders him highly and peculiarly responsible to his Creator. It is on account of this, that the rule over other animals is established in his hands; and it is this, mainly, which enables him to exercise dominion over the powers of nature, and to subdue them to himself.

But it is true, also, that his own animal organization gives him superiority, and is among the most wonderful of the works of God on earth. It contributes to cause, as well as prove, his 179 elevated rank in creation. His port is erect, his face toward heaven, and he is furnished with limbs which are not absolutely necessary to his support or locomotion, and which are at once powerful, flexible, capable of innumerable modes and varieties of action, and terminated by an instrument of wonderful, heavenly workmanship,—the human hand. This marvellous physical conformation gives man the power of acting with great effect upon external objects, in pursuance of the suggestions of his understanding, and of applying the results of his reasoning power to his own purposes. Without this particular formation, he would not be man, with whatever sagacity he might have been endowed. No bounteous grant of intellect, were it the pleasure of Heaven to make such grant, could raise any of the brute creation to an equality with the human race. Were it bestowed on the leviathan, he must remain, nevertheless, in the element where alone he could maintain his physical existence. He would still be but the inelegant, misshapen inhabitant of the ocean, “wallowing unwieldy, enormous in his gait.” Were the elephant made to possess it, it would but teach him the deformity of his own structure, the unsightliness of his frame, though “the hugest of things,” his disability to act on external matter, and the degrading nature of his own physical wants, which lead him to the deserts, and give him for his favorite home the torrid plains of the tropics. It was placing the king of Babylon sufficiently out of the rank of human beings, though he carried all his reasoning faculties with him, when he was sent away to eat grass like an ox. And this may properly suggest to our consideration, what is undeniably true, that there is hardly a greater blessing conferred on man than his natural wants. If he had wanted no more than the beasts, who can say how much more than they he would have attained? Does he associate, does he cultivate, does he build, does he navigate? The original impulse to all these lies in his wants. It proceeds from the necessities of his condition, and from the efforts of unsatisfied desire. Every want, not of a low kind, physical as well as moral, which the human breast feels, and which brutes do not feel and cannot feel, raises man by so much in the scale of existence, and is a clear proof and a direct instance of the favor of God towards his so much favored human offspring. If man had been so made as to desire nothing, he would have wanted almost every thing worth possessing.

But doubtless the reasoning faculty, the mind, is the leading and characteristic attribute of the human race. By the exercise of this, man arrives at the knowledge of the properties of natural bodies. This is science, properly and emphatically so called. It is the science of pure mathematics; and in the high branches of this science lies the true sublime of human acquisition. If any attainment deserve that epithet, it is the knowledge, which, from the mensuration of the minutest dust of the balance, proceeds on the rising scale of material bodies, everywhere weighing, everywhere measuring, everywhere detecting and explaining the laws of force and motion, penetrating into the secret principles which hold the universe of God together, and balancing world against world, and system against system. When we seek to accompany those who pursue studies at once so high, so vast, and so exact; when we arrive at the discoveries of Newton, which pour in day on the works of God, as if a second fiat for light had gone forth from his own mouth; when, further, we attempt to follow those who set out where Newton paused, making his goal their starting-place, and, proceeding with demonstration upon demonstration, and discovery upon discovery, bring new worlds and new systems of worlds within the limits of the known universe, failing to learn all only because all is infinite; however we say of man, in admiration of his physical structure, that “in form and moving he is express and admirable,” it is here, and here without irreverence, we may exclaim, “In apprehension how like a god!” The study of the pure mathematics will of course not be extensively pursued in an institution, which, like this, has a direct practical tendency and aim. But it is still to be remembered, that pure mathematics lie at the foundation of mechanical philosophy, and that it is ignorance only which can speak or think of that sublime science as useless research or barren speculation.

It has already been said, that the general and well-known agents usually regarded as the principal sources of mechanical powers are gravity, acting on solid bodies, the fall of water, which is but gravity acting on fluids, air, heat, and animal strength. For the useful direction and application of the first four of these, that is, of all of them which belong to inanimate nature, some intermediate apparatus or contrivance becomes necessary; and this apparatus, whatever its form, is a machine. A machine is an invention for the application of motion, either 181 by changing the direction of the moving power, or by rendering a body in motion capable of communicating a motion greater or less than its own to other bodies, or by enabling it to overcome a power of greater intensity or force than its own. And it is usually said that every machine, however apparently complex, is capable of being resolved into some one or more of those single machines, of which, according to one mode of description, there are six, and according to another, three, called the mechanical powers. But because machinery, or all mechanical contrivance, is thus capable of resolution into a few elementary forms, it is not to be inferred that science, or art, or both together, though pressed with the utmost force of human genius, and cultivated by the last degree of human assiduity, will ever exhaust the combinations into which these elementary forms may be thrown. An indefinite, though not an infinite, reach of invention may be expected; but indefinite, also, if not infinite, are the possible combinations of elementary principles. The field, then, is vast and unbounded. We know not to what yet unthought of heights the power of man over the agencies of nature may be carried. We only know that the last half-century has witnessed an amazingly accelerated progress in useful discoveries, and that, at the present moment, science and art are acting together with a new companionship, and with the most happy and striking results. The history of mechanical philosophy is, of itself, a very interesting subject, and will doubtless be treated in this place fully and methodically, by stated lecturers.

It is a part of the history of man, which, like that of his domestic habits and daily occupations, has been too seldom the subject of research; having been thrust aside by the more dazzling topics of war and political revolutions. We are not often conducted by historians within the houses or huts of our ancestors, as they were centuries ago, and made acquainted with their domestic utensils and domestic arrangements. We see too little both of the conveniences and inconveniences of their daily and ordinary life. There are, indeed, rich materials for interesting details on these particulars to be collected from the labors of Goguet and Beckmann, Henry and Turner; but still, a thorough and well-written history of those inventions in the mechanic arts which are now commonly known is a desideratum in literature.

Human sagacity, stimulated by human wants, seizes first on the nearest natural assistant. The power of his own arm is an early lesson among the studies of primitive man. This is animal strength; and from this he rises to the conception of employing, for his own use, the strength of other animals. A stone, impelled by the power of his arm, he finds will produce a greater effect than the arm itself; this is a species of mechanical power. The effect results from a combination of the moving force with the gravity of a heavy body. The limb of a tree is a rude, but powerful instrument; it is a lever. And the mechanical powers being all discovered, like other natural qualities, by induction (I use the word as Bacon used it) or experience, and not by any reasoning a priori, their progress has kept pace with the general civilization and education of nations. The history of mechanical philosophy, while it strongly illustrates in its general results the force of the human mind, exhibits in its details most interesting pictures of ingenuity struggling with the conception of new combinations, and of deep, intense, and powerful thought, stretched to its utmost to find out or deduce the general principle from the indications of particular facts. We are now so far advanced beyond the age when the principal leading, important mathematical discoveries were made, and they have become so much matter of common knowledge, that it is not easy to feel their importance, or be justly sensible what an epoch in the history of science each constituted. The half-frantic exultation of Archimedes, when he had solved the problem respecting the crown of Hiero, was on an occasion and for a cause certainly well allowing very high joy. And so also was the duplication of the cube.