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INTRODUCTORY NOTE.

On the return of Mr. Webster from the session in which he had particularly signalized himself by the delivery of his masterly speeches on the sub-treasury bill, and in reply to Mr. Calhoun (contained in a subsequent volume of this collection), a large number of his fellow-citizens of Boston could not be restrained from manifesting their sense of his extraordinary efforts, in exhibiting the true character of the odious subtreasury project, and in procuring its ultimate rejection by Congress. He was accordingly invited to meet them at a public dinner, on the 24th of July, 1838. More than fifteen hundred persons attended it, every ticket having been eagerly taken as soon as issued. Every portion of the Hall, floor and galleries, was filled. The Governor of the Commonwealth (Hon. Edward Everett) presided at the table, and the spirit of the occasion and of the company may be gathered from the following remarks with which he introduced Mr. Webster to the assembly: —

"And now, fellow-citizens," said he, "I rise to discharge the most pleasing part of my duty, which I fear you will think I have too long postponed; the duty which devolves on me, as the organ of your feelings toward our distinguished guest, the senior Senator of the Commonwealth. And yet, fellow-citizens, I appeal to you, that I have approached this duty through the succession of ideas which most naturally conducts our minds and hearts to the grateful topic. I have proposed to you, Our country and its prosperity. Who among the great men, his contemporaries, has more widely surveyed and comprehended the various interests of all its parts? I have proposed, The Union of the States. What public man is there living, whose political course has been more steadily consecrated to its perpetuity? I have proposed to you, The Constitution. And who of our statesmen, from the time of its framers, has more profoundly investigated, more clearly expounded, more powerfully vindicated and sustained it? But these topics I may pass over. They are matters which have been long familiar to you; they need not any comment from me.

"The events of the last year, and of the last session of Congress, and the present state of the country, invite our attention more particularly to the recent efforts of our distinguished guest on the subject of The CurRency. I know not but some persons may think that undue importance has been attached to the questions which have divided parties on this subject; that these questions are not so vital to liberty as they have been represented. But such an opinion would be erroneous. Undoubtedly there are countries, not free ones, in which money questions, as connected with the government, are of minor consequence. In China, in Turkey, in Persia, I presume they are very little discussed. In these countries the great question is, whether a man's head at night will be found in the same pleasing and convenient proximity to his shoulders that it was in the morning; and this is a kind of previous question, which, if decided against him, cuts off all others. Under those arbitrary governments of Europe, where the prince takes what he pleases, and when he pleases, it is of very little moment where he deposits it, on its way from the pockets of the people to his own. But it was remarked by Edmund Burke, more than seventy years ago, that in England, (and a fortiori in the United States, that is, under constitutional governments,) the great struggles for liberty had been almost always money questions, and on this ground he excused the Americans for the stand they took in opposition to a paltry tax. But, most certainly, the money question, as it has been agitated among us, is vastly more important, more intimately connected with constitutional liberty, than that which brought on the Revolution. The question with our fathers was one of a small tax; ours, of the entire currency. Theirs concerned three pence per pound on tea, illegally levied ; ours, the entire currency illegally disposed of, the entire medium of circulation deranged, and for a period annihilated, the whole business of the country, in all its great branches, brought under the control of the treasury. The noble stand, therefore, taken by our distinguished Senator in this controversy has been upon points which concern the dearest interests of the people, and the elemental principles of the government. "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.* 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

* The disaster of the Pulaski occurred about the time of the delivery of these remarks.

cruise about on the boiling waters, and pick up all that is left unde stroyed. 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.* 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

* The entire audience rose at this moment.

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.

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