The Works of Daniel Webster, Volume 1

“In fact, I know not that a policy can be imagined more at war with the true character of the government, than that which he has been called to combat. The past and present administrations, relying too confidently on the popular delusions which brought them into office, have systematically defeated one of the great original objects for which the Union was framed, that of a uniform medium of commerce. Nor has the manner of their policy been less objectionable than its design. They have crowded experiment upon experiment, with the fatal recklessness of the rash engineer who urges the fires in his furnaces till some noble steamer bursts in an awful explosion.110 Our Senators and Representatives, and their associates, could they have forgotten that a revered Constitution and a beloved country were the chief victims, might well have folded their arms, and left the authors of the calamity to extricate themselves, as best they might, from the ruin. But not thus have they understood their duty; and we have seen them with admiration, in the last days of the session, gallantly putting out in the life-boat of the Constitution, with an eye of fire at the top, and an arm of iron at the helm, to 415 cruise about on the boiling waters, and pick up all that is left undestroyed. When I have seen the adherents of the administration rejecting, so far as they ventured, the salutary measures proposed or supported by our distinguished guest and his associates, for the restoration of the currency and the reestablishment of the public credit, and clinging to all that events have spared of their discredited measures, they have seemed to me to resemble the sun-stricken victims of a moody madness, who, instead of thankfully embracing the proffered relief, would prefer to float about on the weltering waters, clinging to the broken planks and the shivered splinters of their exploded policy, sure as they are, at the very best, if they reach solid ground, to do so beneath the overwhelming surge of popular indignation.

“I should take up a great deal more time than belongs to me, did I attempt even to sketch the distinguished services of our friend and guest in this constitutional warfare. They are impressed on your memories, and on your hearts. In the thickest of the conflict, his plume, like that of Henry the Fourth of France, discerned from afar, has pointed out the spot where, to use his own language, ‘the blows fall thickest and hardest’; and there he has been found, with the banner of the Union above his head, and the flaming cimeter of the Constitution in his hand. If the public mind has been thoroughly awakened to the inconsistency of the government policy with the genius of our institutions, if, to the experience we have all had of the pernicious operation of this policy, there has been added a clear understanding of the false principles, as well of constitutional law as of political economy, on which it rests, how much of this is not fairly to be ascribed to the efforts of our distinguished guest, efforts never stinted in or out of Congress, repeated in every form which can persuade the judgment or influence the conduct of men, never less than cogent, eloquent, irrefutable, but in the last session of Congress, perhaps more than ever before, grand, masterly, and overwhelming. It has indeed been a rare, I had almost said a sublime spectacle, to see him, unsupported by a majority in either house, opposed by the entire influence of the government, denounced by the administration press from one end of the Union to the other, yet carrying resolution after resolution against the administration, carrying them alike against the old guard and the new recruits, and, notwithstanding their abrupt and ill-compacted alliance, compelling them, in spite of themselves, to afford some relief to the country.

“These are the services, fellow-citizens, for which you this day tender your thanks to your distinguished guest. These are the services for which, Sir, on behalf of my fellow-citizens, I thank you; for which they thank you themselves. Behold, Sir, how they rise to pay you a manly homage.111 The armies of Napoleon could not coerce it; the wealth of the Indies could not buy it; but it is freely, joyously paid, by fifteen hundred freemen, to the man of their affections. They thank you for having stood by them in these dark times,—at all times. They thank you, because they think they are beginning to feel the fruit of your exertions in the daily round of their pursuits. They ascribe it in 416 no small degree to you, that the iron grasp of the government policy has been relaxed; that its bolts and chains, relics of a barbarous age, have been shivered as soon as forged, and before they were riveted on the necks of the people. They thank you for having stood by the Constitution, in which their all of human hope for themselves and their children is enshrined. They thank you as one of themselves; and because they know that your affections are with the people from which you sprung. They thank you because you have at all times shown, that, as the Whig blood of the Revolution circles in your veins, the Whig principles of the Revolution are imprinted on your heart. They thank you for the entire manliness of your course; that you have never joined the treacherous cry of the ‘hatred of the poor against the rich,’—a cry raised by artful men, who think to flatter the people, while in reality they are waging war against the people’s business, the people’s prosperity, and the people’s Constitution. They are willing that this day’s offering should be remembered, when all this mighty multitude shall have passed from the stage. When that day shall have arrived, history will have written your name on one of her brightest pages; fame will have encircled your bust with her greenest laurels; but neither history nor fame will have paid you a truer, heartier tribute, than that which now, beneath the arches of this venerable hall, in the approving presence of these images of our canonized fathers, is tendered you by this great company of your fellow-citizens.

“I give you, Gentlemen,—

“Daniel Webster,—the statesman and the man; whose name is engraven alike on the pillars of the Constitution and the hearts of his fellow-citizens. He is worthy of that place in the councils of the nation which he fills in the affections of the people.”

Mr. Webster then rose, amidst enthusiastic cheering, and addressed the meeting in the following speech.

PUBLIC DINNER IN FANEUIL HALL. 112

Gentlemen:—I shall be happy indeed, if the state of my health and the condition of my voice shall enable me to express, in a few words, my deep and heartfelt gratitude for this expression of your approbation. If public life has its cares and its trials, it has occasionally its consolations also. Among these, one of the greatest, and the chief, is the approbation of those whom we have honestly endeavored to serve. This cup of consolation you have now administered,—full, crowned, abundantly overflowing.

It is my chief desire at this time, in a few spontaneous and affectionate words, to render you the thanks of a grateful heart. When I lately received your invitation in New York, nothing was farther from my thoughts or expectations, than that I should meet such an assembly as I now behold in Boston.

But I was willing to believe that it was not meant merely as a compliment, which it was expected would be declined, but that it was in truth your wish, at the close of the labors of a long session of Congress, that I should meet you in this place, that we might mingle our mutual congratulations, and that we might enjoy together one happy, social hour.

The president of this assembly has spoken of the late session as having been not only long, but arduous; and, in some respects, it does deserve to be so regarded. I may indeed say, that, in an experience of twenty years of public life, I have never yet encountered labors or anxieties such as this session brought with it.

With a short intermission in the autumn, so short as not to allow the more distant members to visit their homes, we have been in continual session from the early part of September to the 9th of July, a period of ten months.113 On our part, during this whole time, we have been contending in minorities against majorities; majorities, indeed, not to be relied on for all measures, as the event has proved, but still acknowledged and avowed majorities, professing general attachment and support to the measures, and to the men, of the administration. My own object, and that of those with whom I have had the honor to act, has been steady and uniform. That object was, to resist new theories, new schemes, new and dangerous projects, until time could be gained for their consideration by the people. This was our great purpose, and its accomplishment required no slight effort. It was the commencement of a new Congress. The organization of the two houses showed clear and decisive administration majorities. The administration itself was new, and had come into its fresh power with something of the popularity of that which preceded it. It was no child’s play, therefore, to resist, successfully, its leading measures, for so long a period as should allow time for an effectual appeal to the people, pressed, as those measures were, with the utmost zeal and assiduity.

The president of the day has alluded in a very flattering manner to my own exertions and efforts, made at different times, in connection with the leading topics. But I claim no particular merit for myself. In what I have done, I have only acted with others. I have acted, especially, with my most estimable, able, and excellent colleague,114 and with the experienced and distinguished men who form the delegation of Massachusetts in the House of Representatives, a delegation of which any State might be justly proud. We have acted together, as men holding, in almost all cases, common opinions, and laboring for a common end. It gives me great pleasure to have the honor of seeing so many of the Representatives of the State in Congress here to-day; but I must not be prevented, even by their presence, from bearing my humble but hearty testimony to the 419 fidelity and ability with which they have, in this arduous struggle, performed their public duties. The crisis has, indeed, demanded the efforts of all; and we of Massachusetts, while we hope we have done our duty, have done it only in concurrence with other Whigs, whose zeal, ability, and exertions can never be too much commended.

This is not an occasion in which it is fit or practicable to discuss very minutely, and at length, the questions which have been chiefly agitated during this long and laborious session of Congress. Yet, so important is the great and general question, which, for the last twelve or fifteen months, has been presented to the consideration of the legislature, that I deem it proper, on this, as on all occasions, to state, at the risk of some repetition, perhaps, what is the nature of that important question, and briefly to advert to some of the circumstances in which it had its origin.

Whatever subordinate questions may have been raised touching a sub-treasury, or a constitutional treasury, or a treasury in one, or in another, or in yet a third form, I take the question, the plain, the paramount, the practical question, to be this; namely, whether it be among the powers and the duties of Congress to take any further care of the national currency than to regulate the coinage of gold and silver. That question lies at the foundation of all. Other questions, however multiplied or varied, have but grown out of that.

If government is bound to take care that there is a good currency for all the country, then, of course, it will have a good currency for itself, and need take no especial pains to provide for itself any thing peculiar. But if, on the other hand, government is at liberty to abandon the general currency to its fate, without concern and without remorse, then, from necessity, it must take care of itself; amidst the general wreck of currency and credit, it must have places of resort and a system of shelter; it must have a currency of its own, and modes of payment and disbursement peculiar to itself. It must burrow and hide itself in sub-treasury vaults. Scorning credit, and having trust in nobody, it must grasp metallic money, and act as if nothing represented, or could represent, property, which could not be counted, paid piece by piece, or weighed in the scales, and made to ring upon the table; or it must resort to special deposits in banks, 420 even in those banks whose conduct has been so loudly denounced as flagitious and criminal, treacherous to the government, and fraudulent towards the people. All these schemes and contrivances are but the consequences of the general doctrine which the administration has advanced, and attempted to recommend to the country; that is, that Congress has nothing to do with the currency, beyond the mere matter of coinage, except to provide for itself. How such a notion should come to be entertained, at this day, may well be a matter of wonder for the wise; since it is a truth capable of the clearest demonstration, that, from the first day of the existence of the Constitution, from the moment when a practical administration of government drew a first breath under its provisions, the superintendence and care over the currency of the country have been admitted to be among the clear and unquestioned powers and duties of Congress. This was the opinion in Washington’s time, and his administration acted upon it, vigorously and successfully. And in Mr. Madison’s time, when the peculiar circumstances of the country again brought up the subject, and gave it new importance, it was held to be the exclusive, or at least the paramount and unquestioned, right of Congress to take care of the currency; to restore it when depreciated; to see that there was a sound, convertible paper circulation, suited to the circumstances of the country, and having equal value, and the same credit, in all parts of it. This was Mr. Madison’s judgment. He acted upon it; and both houses of Congress concurred with him. But if we now quote Mr. Madison’s sentiments, we get no reply at all from the friends of the government system. We may read his messages of 1815 and 1816 as often as we please. No man answers them, and yet the party of the administration, professing to belong to Mr. Madison’s political school, acts upon directly opposite principles.

Now, what has brought about this state of things? What has caused this attempt, now made, at the end of half a century, to change a great principle of administration, and to surrender a most important power of the government? Gentlemen, it has been a crisis of party, not of the country, which has given birth to these new sentiments. The tortuous windings of party policy have conducted us, and nothing else could well have conducted us, to such a point. Nothing but party pledges, nothing 421 but courses of political conduct entered upon for party purposes, and pursued from necessary regard to personal and party consistency, could so far have pushed the government out of its clear and well-trodden path of constitutional duty. From General Washington’s presidency to the last hour of the late President’s, both the government and the country have supposed Congress to be clothed with the general duty of protecting the currency, either as an inference from the coinage power or from the obvious and incontestable truth, that the regulation of the currency is naturally and plainly a branch of the commercial power. General Jackson himself was behind no one of his predecessors in asserting this power, and in acknowledging the corresponding duty. We all know that his very first complaint against the late Bank of the United States was, that it had not fulfilled the expectation of the country, by furnishing for the use of the people a sound and uniform currency. There were many persons, certainly, who did not agree with him in his opinions respecting the bank and the effects of its agency on the country; but it was expressly on the ground of this alleged failure of the bank, that he undertook what was called the great reform. There are those, again, who think that of this attempted reform he made a very poor and sorry business; but still the truth is, that he undertook this reform for the very purpose professed and avowed, that he might fulfil better than it had yet been fulfilled the duty of government in furnishing the people with a good currency. The President thought that the currency, in 1832 and 1833, was not good enough; that the people had a right to expect a better; and to meet this expectation, he began what he himself called his experiment. He said the currency was not so sound, and so uniform, as it was the duty of government to make it; and he therefore undertook to give us a currency more sound and more uniform. And now, Gentlemen, let us recur shortly to what followed; for there we shall find the origin of the present constitutional notions and dogmas. Let us see what has changed the Constitution in this particular.

In 1833, the public deposits were removed, by an act of the President himself, from the Bank of the United States, and placed in certain State banks, under regulations prescribed by the executive alone. This was the experiment. The utmost confidence, indeed, an arrogant and intolerant confidence, was 422 entertained and expressed of its success; and all who doubted were regarded as blind bigots to a national bank. When the experiment was put into operation, it was proclaimed that its success was found to be complete. Down to the very close of General Jackson’s administration, we heard of nothing but the wonderful success of the experiment. It was declared, from the highest official sources, that the State banks, used as banks of deposit, had not only shown themselves perfectly competent to fulfil the duties of fiscal agents to government, but also that they had sustained the currency, and facilitated the great business of internal exchanges, with the most singular and gratifying success, and better than the same thing had been done before. In all this glow and fervor of self-commendation, the late administration went out of office, having bequeathed the experiment, with all its blushing honors and rising glories, to its successor. But a frost, a nipping frost, was at hand. Two months after General Jackson had retired, the banks suspended specie payments, deposit banks and all; a universal embarrassment smote down the business and industry of the country; the treasury was left without a dollar, and the brilliant glory of the experiment disappeared in gloom and thick darkness! And now, Gentlemen, came the change of sentiments, now came the new reading of the Constitution. A national bank had already been declared by the party to be unconstitutional, the State bank system had failed, and what more could be done? What other plan was to be devised? How could the duty of government over the currency be now performed? The administration had decried a national bank, and it now felt bound to denounce all State institutions; and what, therefore, could it do? The whole party had laid out its entire strength, in an effort to render the late Bank of the United States, and any bank of the United States, unpopular and odious. It had pronounced all such institutions to be dangerous, anti-republican and monarchical. It had, especially, declared a national bank to be plainly and clearly unconstitutional. Now, Gentlemen, I have nothing to say of the diffidence and modesty of men, who without hesitation or blushing, set up their own favorite opinions on a question of this kind against the judgment of the government and the judgment of the country, maintained for fifty years. I will only remark, that, if we were to find men acting 423 thus in their own affairs, if we should find them disposing of their own interests, or making arrangements for their own property, in contempt of rules which they knew the legislative and the judicial authorities had all sanctioned for half a century, we should be very likely to think them out of their heads. Yet this ground had been taken against the late bank, and against all national banks; and it could not be surrendered without apparent and gross inconsistency. What, then, I ask again, was the administration to do? You may say, it should have retracted its error, it should have seen the necessity of a national institution, and yielded to the general judgment of the country.

But that would have required an effort of candor and magnanimity, of which all men are not capable. Besides, there were open, solemn, public pledges in the way. This commitment of the party against a national bank, and the disastrous results of its experiment on the State institutions, brought the party into a difficulty, from which it seemed to have no escape, but in shifting off, altogether, the duty of taking care of the currency. I was at Wheeling, in Virginia, in May of last year, when the banks suspended payment; and, at the risk of some imputation of bad taste, I will refer to observations of mine made then, to the citizens of that town, and published, in regard to the questions which that event would necessarily bring before the country.115 I saw at once that we were at the commencement of a new era, and that a controversy must arise, which would greatly excite the community.

No sooner had the State banks suspended specie payments, and among the rest those which were depositories of the government, than a cry of fraud and treachery was raised against them, with no better reason, perhaps, than existed for that loud, and boisterous, and boastful confidence, with which the late administration had spoken of their capacity of usefulness, and had assured the country that its experiment could not fail. But whether the suspension by the banks was a matter of necessity with them, or not, the administration, after it had happened, seeing itself now shut out from the use of all banks by its own declared opinions and the results of its own policy, and seeing 424 no means at hand for making another attempt at reforming the currency, turned a short corner, and in all due form denied that the government had any duty of the kind to discharge. From the time of the veto of the bank charter, in 1832, the administration had been like a man who had voluntarily deserted a safe bottom, on deep waters, and, having in vain sought to support himself by laying hold on one and another piece of floating timber, chooses rather to go down than to seek safety in returning to what he has abandoned.

Seeing that it had deprived itself of the common means of regulating the currency, it now denied its obligation to do so; declared it had nothing to do with the currency beyond coinage; that it would take care of the revenues of the government, and as for the rest, the people must look out for themselves. This decision thus evidently grew out of party necessity. Having deprived themselves of the ordinary and constitutional means of performing their duty, they sought to avoid the responsibility by declaring that there was no such duty to perform. They have looked further into the Constitution, and examined it by daylight and by moonlight, and cannot find any such duty or obligation. Though General Jackson saw it very plainly, during the whole course of his presidency, it has now vanished, and the new commentators can nowhere discern a vestige of it. The present administration, indeed, stood pledged to tread in the steps of its predecessor; but here was one footprint which it could not, or would not, occupy, or one stride too long for it to take. The message, I had almost said the fatal message, communicated to Congress in September, contained a formal disavowal, by the administration, of all power under the Constitution to regulate the general actual currency of the country.

The President says, in that message, that if he refrains from suggesting to Congress any specific plan for regulating the exchanges, relieving mercantile embarrassments, or interfering with the ordinary operations of foreign or domestic commerce, it is from the conviction that such measures are not within the constitutional provision of government.

How all this could be said, when the Constitution expressly gives to Congress the power to regulate commerce, both foreign and domestic, I cannot conceive. But the Constitution was not to be trifled with, and the people are not to be trifled 425 with. The country, I believe, by a great majority, is of opinion that this duty does belong to government, and ought to be exercised. All the new expounders have not been able to erase this general power over commerce, and all that belongs to commerce. Their fate, in this respect, is like that of him in ancient story. While endeavoring to tear up and rend asunder the Constitution, its strong fibres have recoiled, and caught them in the cleft. They experience