The Works of Daniel Webster, Volume 1

Gentlemen, your worthy Mayor has alluded to the subject of internal improvements. Having no doubt of the power of the general government over various objects comprehended under 304 that name, I confess I have felt great pleasure in forwarding them, to the extent of my ability, by means of reasonable aid from the government. It has seemed strange to me, that, in the progress of human knowledge and human virtue (for I have no doubt that both are making progress), the efforts of government should so long have been principally confined to external affairs, and to the enactment of the general laws, without considering how much may be done by government, which cannot be done without it, for the improvement of the condition of the people. There are many objects, of great value to man, which cannot be attained by unconnected individuals, but must be attained, if at all, by association. For many of them government seems the most natural and the most efficient association. Voluntary association has done much, but it cannot do all. To the great honor and advantage of your own State, she has been forward in applying the agency of government to great objects of internal utility. But even States cannot do every thing. There are some things which belong to all the States; and, if done at all, must be done by all the States. At the conclusion of the late war, it appeared to me that the time had come for the government to turn its attention inward; to survey the condition of the country, and particularly the vast Western country; to take a comprehensive view of the whole; and to adopt a liberal system of internal improvements. There are objects not naturally within the sphere of any one State, which yet seemed of great importance, as calculated to unite the different parts of the country, to open a better and shorter way between the producer and consumer, to promise the highest advantage to government itself, in any exigency. It is true, Gentlemen, that the local theatre for such improvement is not mainly in the East. The East is old, pretty fully peopled, and small. The West is new, vast, and thinly peopled. Our rivers can be measured; yours cannot. We are bounded; you are boundless. The West was, therefore, most deeply interested in this system, though certainly not alone interested, even in such works as had a Western locality. To clear her rivers was to open them for the commerce of the whole country; to construct harbors, and clear entrances to existing harbors, whether on the Gulf of Mexico or on the Lakes, was for the advantage of that whole commerce. And if this were not so, he is but a poor public man whose patriotism 305 is governed by the cardinal points; who is for or against a proposed measure, according to its indication by compass, or as it may happen to tend farther from, or come nearer to, his own immediate connections. And look at the West; look at these rivers; look at the Lakes; look especially at Lake Erie, and see what a moderate expenditure has done for the safety of human life, and the preservation of property, in the navigation of that lake; and done, let me add, in the face of a fixed and ardent opposition.

I rejoice, sincerely, Gentlemen, in the general progress of internal improvement, and in the completion of so many objects near you, and connected with your prosperity. Your own canal and railroad unite you with the Atlantic. Near you is the Ohio Canal, which does so much credit to a younger State, and with which your city will doubtless one day have a direct connection. On the south and east approaches the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, a great and spirited enterprise, which I always thought entitled to the aid of government, and a branch of which, it may be hoped, will yet reach the head of the Ohio.

I will only add, Gentlemen, that for what I have done in the cause of internal improvement I claim no particular merit, having only acted with others, and discharged, conscientiously and fairly, what I regarded as my duty to the whole country.

Gentlemen, the Mayor has spoken of the importance and necessity of education. And can any one doubt, that to man, as a social and an immortal being, as interested in the world that is, and infinitely more concerned for that which is to be, education, that is to say, the culture of the mind and the heart, is an object of infinite importance? So far as we can trace the designs of Providence, the formation of the mind and character, by instruction in knowledge, and instruction in righteousness, is a main end of human being. Among the new impulses which society has received, none is more gratifying than the awakened attention to public education. That object begins to exhibit itself to the minds of men in its just magnitude, and to possess its due share of regard. It is but in a limited degree, and indirectly only, that the powers of the general government have been exercised in the promotion of this object. So far as these powers extend, I have concurred in their exercise with great pleasure. The Western States, from the recency of their 306 settlement, from the great proportion of their population which are children, and from other circumstances which must, in all new countries, more or less curtail individual means, have appeared to me to have peculiar claims to regard; and in all cases where I have thought the power clear, I have most heartily concurred in measures designed for their benefit, in this respect. And amidst all our efforts for education, literary, moral, or religious, be it always remembered that we leave opinion and conscience free. Heaven grant that it may be the glory of the United States to have established two great truths, of the highest importance to the whole human race; first, that an enlightened community is capable of self-government; and, second, that the toleration of all sects does not necessarily produce indifference to religion.

But I have already detained you too long. My friends, fellow-citizens, and countrymen, I take a respectful leave of you. The time I have passed on this side the Alleghanies has been a succession of happy days. I have seen much to instruct and much to delight me. I return you, again and again, my unfeigned thanks for the frankness and hospitality with which you have made me welcome; and wherever I may go, or wherever I may be, I pray you to believe I shall not lose the recollection of your kindness.

RECEPTION AT BANGOR. 102

During a visit to Maine, in the summer of 1835, on business connected with his profession, Mr. Webster was at Bangor, where he partook of a collation with many of the citizens of that place. There were so many more people, however, desirous to see and hear him than could be accommodated in the hall of the hotel, that, after the cloth was removed, he was compelled to proceed to the balcony, where, after thanking the company for their hospitality, and their manifestation of regard, he addressed the assembly as follows:—

Having occasion to come into the State on professional business, I have gladly availed myself of the opportunity to visit this city, the growing magnitude and importance of which have recently attracted such general notice. I am happy to say, that I see around me ample proofs of the correctness of the favorable representations which have gone abroad. Your city, Gentlemen, has certainly experienced an extraordinary growth; and it is a growth, I think, which there is reason to hope is not unnatural, or greatly disproportionate to the eminent advantages of the place. It so happened, that, at an early period of my life, I came to this spot, attracted by that favorable position, which the slightest glance on the map must satisfy every one that it occupies. It is near the head of tide-water, on a river which brings to it from the sea a volume of water equal to the demands of the largest vessels of war, and whose branches, uniting here, from great distances above, traverse in their course extensive tracts now covered with valuable productions of the forest, and capable, most of them, of profitable agricultural cultivation. But at the period I speak of, the time had not come 310 for the proper development and display of these advantages. Neither the place itself, nor the country, was then ready. A long course of commercial restrictions and embargo, and a foreign war, were yet to be gone through, before the local advantages of such a spot could be exhibited or enjoyed, or the country would be in a condition to create an active demand for its main products.

I believe some twelve or twenty houses were all that Bangor could enumerate, when I was in it before; and I remember to have crossed the stream which now divides your fair city on some floating logs, for the purpose of visiting a former friend and neighbor, who had just then settled here; a gentleman always most respectable, and now venerable for his age and his character, whom I have great pleasure in seeing among you to-day, in the enjoyment of health and happiness.

It is quite obvious, Gentlemen, that while the local advantages of a noble river, and of a large surrounding country, may be justly considered as the original spring of the present prosperity of the city, the current of this prosperity has, nevertheless, been put in motion, enlarged, and impelled, by the general progress of improvement, and growth of wealth throughout the whole country.

At the period of my former visit, there was, of course, neither railroad, nor steamboat, nor canal, to favor communication; nor do I recollect that any public or stage coach came within fifty miles of the town.

Internal improvement (as it is comprehensively called in this country) has been the great agent of this favorable change; and so blended are our interests, that the general activity which exists elsewhere, supported and stimulated by internal improvement, pervades and benefits even those portions of the country which are locally remote from the immediate scene of the main operations of this improvement. Whatever promotes communication, whatsoever extends general business, whatsoever encourages enterprise, or whatsoever advances the general wealth and prosperity of other States, must have a plain, direct, and powerful bearing on your own prosperity. In truth, there is no town in the Union, whose hopes can be more directly staked on the general prosperity of the country, than this rising city. If any thing should interrupt the general operations of business, 311 if commercial embarrassment, foreign war, pecuniary derangement, domestic dissension, or any other causes, were to arrest the general progress of the public welfare, all must see with what a blasting and withering effect such a course must operate on Bangor.

Gentlemen, I have often taken occasion to say, what circumstances may render it proper now to repeat, that, at the close of the last war, a new era, in my judgment, had opened in the United States. A new career then lay before us. At peace ourselves with the nations of Europe, and those nations, too, at peace with one another, and the leading civilized states of the world no longer allowing that carrying trade which had been the rich harvest of our neutrality in the midst of former wars, but all now coming forward to exercise their own rights, in sharing the commerce and navigation of the world, it seemed to me to be very plain, that, while our commerce was still to be fostered with the most zealous care, yet quite a new view of things was presented to us in regard to our internal pursuits and concerns. The works of peace, as it seemed to me, had become our duties. A hostile exterior, a front of brass, and an arm of iron, all necessary in the just defence of the country against foreign aggression, naturally gave place, in a change of circumstances, to the attitude, the objects, and the pursuits of peace. Our true interest, as I thought, was to explore our own resources, to call forth and encourage labor and enterprise upon internal objects, to multiply the sources of employment and comfort at home, and to unite the country by ties of intercourse, commerce, benefits, and prosperity, in all parts, as well as by the ties of political association. And it appeared to me that government itself clearly possessed the power, and was as clearly charged with the duty of helping on, in various ways, this great business of internal improvement. I have, therefore, steadily supported all measures directed to that end, which appeared to me to be within the just power of the government, and to be practicable within the limits of reasonable expenditure. And if any one would judge how far the fostering of this spirit has been beneficial to the country, let him compare its state at this moment with its condition at the commencement of the late war; and let him then say how much of all that has been added to national wealth and national strength, and to individual prosperity 312 and happiness, has been the fair result of internal improvement.

Gentlemen, it has been your pleasure to give utterance to sentiments expressing approbation of my humble efforts, on several occasions, in defence and maintenance of the Constitution of the country. I have nothing to say of those efforts, except that they have been honestly intended. The country sees no reason, I trust, to suppose that on those occasions I have taken counsel of any thing but a deep sense of duty. I have, on some occasions, felt myself called on to maintain my opinions, in opposition to power, to place, to official influence, and to overwhelming personal popularity. I have thought it my imperative duty to put forth my most earnest efforts to maintain what I considered to be the just powers of the government, when it appeared to me that those to whom its administration was intrusted were countenancing doctrines inevitably tending to its destruction. And I have, with far more pleasure, on other occasions, supported the constituted authorities, when I have deemed their measures to be called for by a regard to its preservation.

The Constitution of the United States, Gentlemen, has appeared to me to have been formed and adopted for two grand objects. The first is the Union of the States. It is the bond of that union, and it states and defines its terms. Who can speak in terms warm enough and high enough of its importance in this respect, or the admirable wisdom with which it is formed? Or who, when he shall have stated the benefits and blessings which it has conferred upon the States most strongly, will venture to say that he has done it justice? For one, I am not sanguine enough to believe that, if this bond of union were dissolved, any other tie uniting all the States would take its place for generations to come. It requires no common skill, it is no piece of ordinary political journey-work, to form a system which shall hold together four-and-twenty separate State sovereignties, the line of whose united territories runs down all the parallels of latitude from New Brunswick to the Gulf of Mexico, and whose connected breadth stretches from the sea far beyond the Mississippi. Nor are all times or all occasions suited to such great operations. It is only under the most favorable circumstances, and only when great men are called on to meet great 313 exigencies, only once in centuries, that such fortunate political results are to be attained. Whoever, therefore, undervalues this National Union, whoever depreciates it, whoever accustoms himself to consider how the people might get on without it, appears to me to encourage sentiments subversive of the foundations of our prosperity.

It is true that these twenty-four States are, more or less, different in climate, productions, and local pursuits. There are planting States, grain-growing States, manufacturing States, and commercial States. But those several interests, if not identical, are not therefore inconsistent and hostile. Far from it. They unite, on the contrary, to promote an aggregate result of unrivalled national happiness. It is not precisely a case in which

“All nature’s difference keeps all nature’s peace”;

but it is a case in which variety of climate and condition, and diversities of pursuits and productions, all unite to exhibit one harmonious, grand, and magnificent whole, to which the world may be proudly challenged to show an equal. In my opinion, no man, in any corner of any one of these States, can stand up and declare, that he is less prosperous or less happy than if the general government had never existed. Entertaining these sentiments, and feeling their force most deeply, I regard it as the bounden duty of every good citizen, in public and in private life, to follow the admonition of Washington, and to cherish that Union which makes us one people. I most earnestly deprecate, therefore, whatever occurs, in the government or out of it, calculated to endanger the Union or disturb the basis on which it rests.

Another object of the Constitution I take to be such as is common to all written constitutions of free governments; that is, to fix limits to delegated authority, or, in other words, to impose constitutional restraints on political power. Some, who esteem themselves republicans, seem to think no other security for public liberty necessary than a provision for a popular choice of rulers. If political power be delegated power, they entertain little fear of its being abused. The people’s servants and favorites, they think, may be safely trusted. Our fathers, certainly, were not of this school. They sought to make assurance 314 doubly sure, by providing, in the first place, for the election of political agents by the people themselves, at short intervals, and, in the next place, by prescribing constitutional restraints on all branches of this delegated authority. It is not among the circumstances of the times most ominous for good, that a diminished estimate appears to be placed on those constitutional securities. A disposition is but too prevalent to substitute personal confidence for legal restraint; to put trust in men rather than in principles; and this disposition being strongest, as it most obviously is, whenever party spirit prevails to the greatest extent, it is not without reason that fears are entertained of the existence of a spirit tending strongly to an unlimited, if it be but an elective, government.

Surely, Gentlemen, this government can go through no such change. Long before that change could take place, the Constitution would be shattered to pieces, and the Union of the States become matter of past history. To the Union, therefore, as well as to civil liberty, to every interest which we enjoy and value, to all that makes us proud of our country, or which renders our country lovely in our own eyes, or dear to our own hearts, nothing can be more repugnant, nothing more hostile, nothing more directly destructive, than excessive, unlimited, unconstitutional confidence in men; nothing worse, than the doctrine that official agents may interpret the public will in their own way, in defiance of the Constitution and the laws; or that they may set up any thing for the declaration of that will except the Constitution and the laws themselves; or that any public officer, high or low, should undertake to constitute himself or to call himself the representative of the people, except so far as the Constitution and the laws create and denominate him such representative. There is no usurpation so dangerous as that which comes in the borrowed name of the people. If from some other authority, or other source, prerogatives be attempted to be enforced upon the people, they naturally oppose and resist it. It is an open enemy, and they can easily subdue it. But that which professes to act in their own name, and by their own authority, that which calls itself their servant, although it exercises their power without legal right or constitutional sanction, requires something more of vigilance to detect, and something more of stern patriotism to repress; and if it be not seasonably both detected 315 and repressed, then the republic is already in the downward path of those which have gone before it.

I hold, therefore, Gentlemen, that a strict submission, by every branch of the government, to the limitations and restraints of the Constitution, is of the very essence of all security for the preservation of liberty; and that no one can be a true and intelligent friend of that liberty, who will consent that any man in public station, whatever he may think of the honesty of his motives, shall assume to exercise an authority above the Constitution and the laws. Whatever government is not a government of laws, is a despotism, let it be called what it may.

Gentlemen, on an occasion like this, I ought not to detain you longer. Let us hope for the best, in behalf of this great and happy country, and of our glorious Constitution. Indeed, Gentlemen, we may well congratulate ourselves that the country is so young, so fresh, and so vigorous, that it can bear a great deal of bad government. It can take an enormous load of official mismanagement on its shoulders, and yet go ahead. Like the vessel impelled by steam, it can move forward, not only without other than the ordinary means, but even when those means oppose it; it can make its way in defiance of the elements, and

“Against the wind, against the tide,Still steady, with an upright keel.”

There are some things, however, which the country cannot stand. It cannot stand any shock of civil liberty, or any disruption of the Union. Should either of these happen, the vessel of the state will have no longer either steerage or motion. She will lie on the billows helpless and hopeless, the scorn and contempt of all the enemies of free institutions, and an object of indescribable grief to all their friends.

PRESENTATION OF A VASE

INTRODUCTORY NOTE

A large number of the citizens of Boston being desirous to offer to Mr. Webster some enduring testimony of their gratitude for his services in Congress, and more especially for his defence of the Constitution during the crisis of Nullification, a committee was raised, in the spring of 1835, to procure a piece of plate which should be worthy of such an object. By their direction, and more particularly under the superintendence of one of their number, the late Mr. George W. Brimmer, to whose taste and skill the committee were deeply indebted for the selection of the model and the arrangement of the devices, the beautiful vase, now well known throughout the country as the Webster Vase, was prepared at the manufactory of Messrs. Jones, Lows, & Ball, in Boston. After it was finished, the committee found it impossible to withstand the wish, both of the numerous subscribers and of the public generally, to witness the ceremonies and hear the remarks by which its presentation might be accompanied. It was accordingly presented to Mr. Webster in the presence of three or four thousand spectators, assembled at the Odeon, on the evening of the 12th of October. The Vase was placed on a pedestal covered with the American flag, and contained on its front the following inscription:—

PRESENTED TODANIEL WEBSTERTHE DEFENDER OF THE CONSTITUTION,BY THE CITIZENS OF BOSTON,Oct. 12, 1835

The chairman of the committee (Mr. Z. Jellison) opened the meeting with the following remarks:—

“Fellow-Citizens:—The friends of the Hon. Daniel Webster in this city, conceiving the propriety of giving that gentleman an expression of the high estimation in which they hold his public services, and wishing 320 also to tender him a testimonial of their regard for his moral worth and social virtues, called a meeting of consultation on the subject, some months since, at which a committee was appointed, with instructions to procure a suitable piece of plate, to be presented to him in their behalf, before his official duty should again require his departure hence for the seat of government. In obedience to their instructions, that committee have procured, from the hands of the most skilful artists in this country, the piece of plate I now have the honor to exhibit to you.

“They have now called their constituents together, for the purpose of presenting this Vase in their presence. Had the committee consulted the wishes only of the gentleman for whom it is intended, this presentation might, perhaps, have taken place in a more private or less imposing manner; but, in the course they have adopted, they have been governed by the wishes of the citizens at large. They now respectfully ask your kind indulgence while they proceed in the discharge of this part of their duty.

“The committee have appointed, as their organ of communication, the Hon. Francis C. Gray, with whom I now have the pleasure to leave the subject.”