When the tariff of 1824 was brought before Congress and advocated with great zeal by Mr. Clay, who upheld it as the "American system," Mr. Webster opposed the policy in the fullest and most elaborate speech he had yet made on the subject. A distinguished American economist, Mr. Edward Atkinson, has described this speech of 1824 briefly and exactly in the following words:—
"It contains a refutation of the exploded theory of the balance of trade, of the fallacy with regard to the exportation of specie, and of the claim that the policy of protection is distinctively the American policy which can never be improved upon, and it indicates how thoroughly his judgment approved and his better nature sympathized with the movement towards enlightened and liberal commercial legislation, then already commenced in Great Britain."
This speech was in truth one of great ability, showing a remarkable capacity for questions of political economy, and opening with an admirable discussion of the currency and of finance, in regard to which Mr. Webster always held and advanced the soundest, most scientific, and most enlightened views. Now, as in 1820, he stood forth as the especial champion of commerce, which, as he said, had thriven without protection, had brought revenue to the government and wealth to the country, and would be grievously injured by the proposed tariff. He made his principal objection to the protection policy on the ground of favoritism to some interests at the expense of others when all were entitled to equal consideration. Of England he said, "Because a thing has been wrongly done, it does not follow that it can be undone; and this is the reason, as I understand it, for which exclusion, prohibition, and monopoly are suffered to remain in any degree in the English system." After examining at length the different varieties of protection, and displaying very thoroughly the state of current English opinion, he defined the position which he, in common with the Federalists of New England, then as always adhered to in the following words:—
"Protection, when carried to the point which is now recommended, that is, to entire prohibition, seems to me destructive of all commercial intercourse between nations. We are urged to adopt the system on general principles; … I do not admit the general principle; on the contrary, I think freedom of trade the general principle, and restriction the exception."
He pointed out that the proposed protective policy involved a decline of commerce, and that steadiness and uniformity, the most essential requisites in any policy, were endangered. He then with great power dealt with the various points summarized by Mr. Atkinson, and concluded with a detailed and learned examination of the various clauses of the bill, which finally passed by a small majority and became law.
In 1828 came another tariff bill, so bad and so extreme in many respects that it was called the "bill of abominations." It originated in the agitation of the woollen manufacturers which had started the year before, and for this bill Mr. Webster spoke and voted. He changed his ground on this important question absolutely and entirely, and made no pretence of doing anything else. The speech which he made on this occasion is a celebrated one, but it is so solely on account of the startling change of position which it announced. Mr. Webster has been attacked and defended for his action at this time with great zeal, and all the constitutional and economic arguments for and against protection are continually brought forward in this connection. From the tone of the discussion, it is to be feared that many of those who are interested in the question have not taken the trouble to read what he said. The speech of 1828 is by no means equal in any way to its predecessors in the same field. It is brief and simple to the last degree. It has not a shred of constitutional argument, nor does it enter at all into a discussion of general principles. It makes but one point, and treats that point with great force as the only one to be made under the circumstances, and thereby presents the single and sufficient reason for its author's vote. A few lines from the speech give the marrow of the whole matter. Mr. Webster said:—
"New England, sir, has not been a leader in this policy. On the contrary, she held back herself and tried to hold others back from it, from the adoption of the Constitution to 1824. Up to 1824 she was accused of sinister and selfish designs,because she discountenanced the progress of this policy…. Under this angry denunciation against her the act of 1824 passed. Now the imputation is of a precisely opposite character…. Both charges, sir, are equally without the slightest foundation. The opinion of New England up to 1824 was founded in the conviction that, on the whole, it was wisest and best, both for herself and others, that manufactures should make haste slowly…. When, at the commencement of the late war, duties were doubled, we were told that we should find a mitigation of the weight of taxation in the new aid and succor which would be thus afforded to our own manufacturing labor. Like arguments were urged, and prevailed, but not by the aid of New England votes, when the tariff was afterwards arranged at the close of the war in 1816. Finally, after a winter's deliberation, the act of 1824 received the sanction of both Houses of Congress and settled the policy of the country. What, then, was New England to do?… Was she to hold out forever against the course of the government, and see herself losing on one side and yet make no effort to sustain herself on the other? No, sir. Nothing was left to New England but to conform herself to the will of others. Nothing was left to her but to consider that the government had fixed and determined its own policy; and that policy wasprotection…. I believe, sir, almost every man from New England who voted against the law of 1824 declared that if, notwithstanding his opposition to that law, it should still pass, there would be no alternative but to consider the course and policy of the government as then settled and fixed, and to act accordingly. The law did pass; and a vast increase of investment in manufacturing establishments was the consequence."
Opinion in New England changed for good and sufficient business reasons, and Mr. Webster changed with it. Free trade had commended itself to him as an abstract principle, and he had sustained and defended it as in the interest of commercial New England. But when the weight of interest in New England shifted from free trade to protection Mr. Webster followed it. His constituents were by no means unanimous in support of the tariff in 1828, but the majority favored it, and Mr. Webster went with the majority. At a public dinner given to him in Boston at the close of the session, he explained to the dissentient minority the reasons for his vote, which were very simple. He thought that good predominated over evil in the bill, and that the majority throughout the whole State of which he was the representative favored the tariff, and therefore he had voted in the affirmative.
Much fault has been found, as has been said, both at the time and since, with Mr. Webster's change of position on this question. It has been held up as a monument of inconsistency, and as indicating a total absence of deep conviction. That Mr. Webster was, in a certain sense, inconsistent is beyond doubt, but consistency is the bugbear of small minds, as well as a mark of strong characters, while its reverse is often the proof of wisdom. On the other hand, it may be fairly argued that, holding as he did that the whole thing was purely a business question to be decided according to circumstances, his course, in view of the policy adopted by the government, was at bottom perfectly consistent. As to the want of deep conviction, Mr. Webster's vote on this question proves nothing. He believed in free trade as an abstract general principle, and there is no reason to suppose that he ever abandoned his belief on this point. But he had too clear a mind ever to be run away with by the extreme vagaries of the Manchester school. He knew that there was no morality, no immutable right and wrong, in an impost or a free list. It has been the fashion to refer to Mr. Disraeli's declaration that free trade was "a mere question of expediency" as a proof of that gentleman's cynical indifference to moral principles. That the late Earl of Beaconsfield had no deep convictions on any subject may be readily admitted, but in this instance he uttered a very plain and simple truth, which all the talk in the world about free trade as the harbinger and foundation of universal peace on earth, cannot disguise.
Mr. Webster never at any time treated the question of free trade or protection as anything but one of expediency. Under the lead of Mr. Calhoun, in 1816, the South and West initiated a protective policy, and after twelve years it had become firmly established and New England had adapted herself to it. Mr. Webster, as a New England representative, resisted the protective policy at the outset as against her interests, but when she had conformed to the new conditions, he came over to its support simply on the ground of expediency. He rested the defence of his new position upon the doctrine which he had always consistently preached, that uniformity and permanency were the essential and sound conditions of any policy, whether of free trade or protection. In 1828, neither at the dinner in Boston nor in the Senate, did he enter into any discussion of general principles or constitutional theories. He merely said, in substance, You have chosen to make protection necessary to New England, and therefore I am now forced to vote for it. This was the position which he continued to hold to the end of his life. As he was called upon, year after year, to defend protection, and as New England became more and more wedded to the tariff, he elaborated his arguments on many points, but the essence of all he said afterwards is to be found in the speech of 1828. On the constitutional point he was obliged to make a more violent change. He held, of course, to his opinion that, under the revenue power, protection could be incidental only, because from that doctrine there was no escape. But he dropped the condemnation expressed in 1814 and the doubts uttered in 1820 as to the theory that it was within the direct power of Congress to enact a protective tariff, and assumed that they had this right as one of the general powers in the Constitution, or that at all events they had exercised it, and that therefore the question was henceforward to be considered asres adjudicata. The speech of 1828 marks the separation of Mr. Webster from the opinions of the old school of New England Federalism. Thereafter he stood forth as the champion of the tariff and of the "American system" of Henry Clay. Regarding protection in its true light, as a mere question of expediency, he followed the interests of New England and of the great industrial communities of the North. That he shifted his ground at the proper moment, bad as the "bill of abominations" was, and that, as a Northern statesman, he was perfectly justified in doing so, cannot be fairly questioned or criticised. It is true that his course was a sectional one, but everybody else's on this question was the same, and it could not be, it never has been, and never will be otherwise.
The tariff of 1828 was destined indirectly to have far more important results to Mr. Webster than the brief speech in which he signalized his change of position on the question of protection. Soon after the passage of the act, in May, 1828, the South Carolina delegation held a meeting to take steps to resist the operation of the tariff, but nothing definite was then accomplished. Popular meetings in South Carolina, characterized by much violent talk, followed, however, during the summer, and in the autumn the Legislature of the State put forth the famous "exposition and protest" which emanated from Mr. Calhoun, and embodied in the fullest and strongest terms the principles of "nullification." These movements were viewed with regret and with some alarm throughout the country, but they were rather lost sight of in the intense excitement of the presidential election. The accession of Jackson then came to absorb the public attention, and brought with it the sweeping removals from office which Mr. Webster strongly denounced. At the same time he was not led into the partisan absurdity of denying the President's power of removal, and held to the impregnable position of steady resistance to the evils of patronage, which could be cured only by the operation of an enlightened public sentiment. It is obvious now that, in the midst of all this agitation about other matters, Mr. Calhoun and the South Carolinians never lost sight of the conflict for which they were preparing, and that they were on the alert to bring nullification to the front in a more menacing and pronounced fashion than had yet been attempted.
The grand assault was finally made in the Senate, under the eye of the great nullifier, who then occupied the chair of the Vice-President, and came in an unexpected way. In December, 1829, Mr. Foote of Connecticut introduced a harmless resolution of inquiry respecting the sales and surveys of the Western lands. In the long-drawn debate which ensued, General Hayne of South Carolina, on January 19, 1830, made an elaborate attack on the New England States. He accused them of a desire to check the growth of the West in the interests of the protective policy, and tried to show the sympathy which should exist between the West and South, and lead them to make common cause against the tariff. Mr. Webster felt that this attack could not be left unanswered, and the next day he replied to it. This first speech on Foote's resolution has been so obscured by the greatness of the second that it is seldom referred to and but little read. Yet it is one of the most effective retorts, one of the strongest pieces of destructive criticism, ever uttered in the Senate, although its purpose was simply to repel the charge of hostility to the West on the part of New England. The accusation was in fact absurd, and but few years had elapsed since Mr. Webster and New England had been assailed by Mr. McDuffie for desiring to build up the West at the expense of the South by the policy of internal improvements. It was not difficult, therefore, to show the groundlessness of this new attack, but Mr. Webster did it with consummate art and great force, shattering Hayne's elaborate argument to pieces and treading it under foot. Mr. Webster only alluded incidentally to the tariff agitation in South Carolina, but the crushing nature of the reply inflamed and mortified Mr. Hayne, who, on the following day, insisted on Mr. Webster's presence, and spoke for the second time at great length. He made a bitter attack upon New England, upon Mr. Webster personally, and upon the character and patriotism of Massachusetts. He then made a full exposition of the doctrine of nullification, giving free expression of the views and principles entertained by his master and leader, who presided over the discussion. The debate had now drifted far from the original resolution, but its real object had been reached at last. The war upon the tariff had been begun, and the standard of nullification and of resistance to the Union and to the laws of Congress had been planted boldly in the Senate of the United States. The debate was adjourned and Mr. Hayne did not conclude till January 25. The next day Mr. Webster replied in the second speech on Foote's resolution, which is popularly known as the "Reply to Hayne."
This great speech marks the highest point attained by Mr. Webster as a public man. He never surpassed it, he never equalled it afterwards. It was his zenith intellectually, politically, and as an orator. His fame grew and extended in the years which followed, he won ample distinction in other fields, he made many other splendid speeches, but he never went beyond the reply which he made to the Senator from South Carolina on January 26, 1830.
The doctrine of nullification, which was the main point both with Hayne and Webster, was no new thing. The word was borrowed from the Kentucky resolutions of 1799, and the principle was contained in the more cautious phrases of the contemporary Virginia resolutions and of the Hartford Convention in 1814. The South Carolinian reproduction in 1830 was fuller and more elaborate than its predecessors and supported by more acute reasoning, but the principle was unchanged. Mr. Webster's argument was simple but overwhelming. He admitted fully the right of revolution. He accepted the proposition that no one was bound to obey an unconstitutional law; but the essential question was who was to say whether a law was unconstitutional or not. Each State has that authority, was the reply of the nullifiers, and if the decision is against the validity of the law it cannot be executed within the limits of the dissenting State. The vigorous sarcasm with which Mr. Webster depicted practical nullification, and showed that it was nothing more or less than revolution when actually carried out, was really the conclusive answer to the nullifying doctrine. But Mr. Calhoun and his school eagerly denied that nullification rested on the right to revolt against oppression. They argued that it was a constitutional right; that they could live within the Constitution and beyond it,—inside the house and outside it at one and the same time. They contended that, the Constitution being a compact between the States, the Federal government was the creation of the States; yet, in the same breath, they declared that the general government was a party to the contract from which it had itself emanated, in order to get rid of the difficulty of proving that, while the single dissenting State could decide against the validity of a law, the twenty or more other States, also parties to the contract, had no right to deliver an opposite judgment which should be binding as the opinion of the majority of the court. There was nothing very ingenious or very profound in the argument by which Mr. Webster demonstrated the absurdity of the doctrine which attempted to make nullification a peaceable constitutional privilege, when it could be in practice nothing else than revolution. But the manner in which he put the argument was magnificent and final. As he himself said, in this very speech of Samuel Dexter, "his statement was argument, his inference demonstration."
The weak places in his armor were historical in their nature. It was probably necessary, at all events Mr. Webster felt it to be so, to argue that the Constitution at the outset was not a compact between the States, but a national instrument, and to distinguish the cases of Virginia and Kentucky in 1799 and of New England in 1814, from that of South Carolina in 1830. The former point he touched upon lightly, the latter he discussed ably, eloquently, ingeniously, and at length. Unfortunately the facts were against him in both instances. When the Constitution was adopted by the votes of States at Philadelphia, and accepted by the votes of States in popular conventions, it is safe to say that there was not a man in the country from Washington and Hamilton on the one side, to George Clinton and George Mason on the other, who regarded the new system as anything but an experiment entered upon by the States and from which each and every State had the right peaceably to withdraw, a right which was very likely to be exercised. When the Virginia and Kentucky resolutions appeared they were not opposed on constitutional grounds, but on those of expediency and of hostility to the revolution which they were considered to embody. Hamilton, and no one knew the Constitution better than he, treated them as the beginnings of an attempt to change the government, as the germs of a conspiracy to destroy the Union. As Dr. Von Holst tersely and accurately states it, "there was no time as yet to attempt to strangle the healthy human mind in a net of logical deductions." That was the work reserved for John C. Calhoun.
What is true of 1799 is true of the New England leaders at Washington when they discussed the feasibility of secession in 1804; of the declaration in favor of secession made by Josiah Quincy in Congress a few years later; of the resistance of New England during the war of 1812, and of the right of "interposition" set forth by the Hartford Convention. In all these instances no one troubled himself about the constitutional aspect; it was a question of expediency, of moral and political right or wrong. In every case the right was simply stated, and the uniform answer was, such a step means the overthrow of the present system.
When South Carolina began her resistance to the tariff in 1830, times had changed, and with them the popular conception of the government established by the Constitution. It was now a much more serious thing to threaten the existence of the Federal government than it had been in 1799, or even in 1814. The great fabric which had been gradually built up made an overthrow of the government look very terrible; it made peaceable secession a mockery, and a withdrawal from the Union equivalent to civil war. The boldest hesitated to espouse any principle which was avowedly revolutionary, and on both sides men wished to have a constitutional defence for every doctrine which they promulgated. This was the feeling which led Mr. Calhoun to elaborate and perfect with all the ingenuity of his acute and logical mind the arguments in favor of nullification as a constitutional principle. At the same time the theory of nullification, however much elaborated, had not altered in its essence from the bald and brief statement of the Kentucky resolutions. The vast change had come on the other side of the question, in the popular idea of the Constitution. It was no longer regarded as an experiment from which the contracting parties had a right to withdraw, but as the charter of a national government. "It is a critical moment," said Mr. Bell of New Hampshire to Mr. Webster, on the morning of January 26, "and it is time, it is high time that the people of this country should know what this Constitutionis." "Then," answered Mr. Webster, "by the blessing of heaven they shall learn, this day, before the sun goes down, what I understand it to be." With these words on his lips he entered the senate chamber, and when he replied to Hayne he stated what the Union and the government had come to be at that moment. He defined the character of the Union as it existed in 1830, and that definition so magnificently stated, and with such grand eloquence, went home to the hearts of the people, and put into noble words the sentiment which they felt but had not expressed. This was the significance of the reply to Hayne. It mattered not what men thought of the Constitution in 1789. The government which was then established might have degenerated into a confederation little stronger than its predecessor. But the Constitution did its work better, and converted a confederacy into a nation. Mr. Webster set forth the national conception of the Union. He expressed what many men were vaguely thinking and believing, and the principles which he made clear and definite went on broadening and deepening until, thirty years afterwards, they had a force sufficient to sustain the North and enable her to triumph in the terrible struggle which resulted in the preservation of national life. When Mr. Webster showed that practical nullification was revolution, he had answered completely the South Carolinian doctrine, for revolution is not susceptible of constitutional argument. But in the state of public opinion at that time it was necessary to discuss nullification on constitutional grounds also, and Mr. Webster did this as eloquently and ably as the nature of the case admitted. Whatever the historical defects of his position, he put weapons into the hands of every friend of the Union, and gave reasons and arguments to the doubting and timid. Yet after all is said, the meaning of Mr. Webster's speech in our history and its significance to us are, that it set forth with every attribute of eloquence the nature of the Union as it had developed under the Constitution. He took the vague popular conception and gave it life and form and character. He said, as he alone could say, the people of the United States are a nation, they are the masters of an empire, their union is indivisible, and the words which then rang out in the senate chamber have come down through long years of political conflict and of civil war, until at last they are part of the political creed of every one of his fellow-countrymen.
The reply to Hayne cannot, however, be dismissed with a consideration of its historical and political meaning or of its constitutional significance. It has a personal and literary importance of hardly less moment. There comes an occasion, a period perhaps, in the life of every man when he touches his highest point, when he does his best, or even, under a sudden inspiration and excitement, something better than his best, and to which he can never again attain. At the moment it is often impossible to detect this point, but when the man and his career have passed into history, and we can survey it all spread out before us like a map, the pinnacle of success can easily be discovered. The reply to Hayne was the zenith of Mr. Webster's life, and it is the place of all others where it is fit to pause and study him as a parliamentary orator and as a master of eloquence.
Before attempting, however, to analyze what he said, let us strive to recall for a moment the scene of his great triumph. On the morning of the memorable day, the senate chamber was packed by an eager and excited crowd. Every seat on the floor and in the galleries was occupied, and all the available standing-room was filled. The protracted debate, conducted with so much ability on both sides, had excited the attention of the whole country, and had given time for the arrival of hundreds of interested spectators from all parts of the Union, and especially from New England. The fierce attacks of the Southern leaders had angered and alarmed the people of the North. They longed with an intense longing to have these assaults met and repelled, and yet they could not believe that this apparently desperate feat could be successfully accomplished. Men of the North and of New England could be known in Washington, in those days, by their indignant but dejected looks and downcast eyes. They gathered in the senate chamber on the appointed day, quivering with anticipation, and with hope and fear struggling for the mastery in their breasts. With them were mingled those who were there from mere curiosity, and those who had come rejoicing in the confident expectation that the Northern champion would suffer failure and defeat.
In the midst of the hush of expectation, in that dead silence which is so peculiarly oppressive because it is possible only when many human beings are gathered together, Mr. Webster rose. He had sat impassive and immovable during all the preceding days, while the storm of argument and invective had beaten about his head. At last his time had come; and as he rose and stood forth, drawing himself up to his full height, his personal grandeur and his majestic calm thrilled all who looked upon him. With perfect quietness, unaffected apparently by the atmosphere of intense feeling about him, he said, in a low, even tone: "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." This opening sentence was a piece of consummate art. The simple and appropriate image, the low voice, the calm manner, relieved the strained excitement of the audience, which might have ended by disconcerting the speaker if it had been maintained. Every one was now at his ease; and when the monotonous reading of the resolution ceased Mr. Webster was master of the situation, and had his listeners in complete control. With breathless attention they followed him as he proceeded. The strong masculine sentences, the sarcasm, the pathos, the reasoning, the burning appeals to love of State and country, flowed on unbroken. As his feelings warmed the fire came into his eyes; there was a glow on his swarthy cheek; his strong right arm seemed to sweep away resistlessly the whole phalanx of his opponents, and the deep and melodious cadences of his voice sounded like harmonious organ-tones as they filled the chamber with their music. As the last words died away into silence, those who had listened looked wonderingly at each other, dimly conscious that they had heard one of the grand speeches which are land-marks in the history of eloquence; and the men of the North and of New England went forth full of the pride of victory, for their champion had triumphed, and no assurance was needed to prove to the world that this time no answer could be made.
As every one knows, this speech contains much more than the argument against nullification, which has just been discussed, and exhibits all its author's intellectual gifts in the highest perfection. Mr. Hayne had touched on every conceivable subject of political importance, including slavery, which, however covered up, was really at the bottom of every Southern movement, and was certain sooner or later to come to the surface. All these various topics Mr. Webster took up, one after another, displaying a most remarkable strength of grasp and ease of treatment. He dealt with them all effectively and yet in just proportion. Throughout there are bursts of eloquence skilfully mingled with statement and argument, so that the listeners were never wearied by a strained and continuous rhetorical display; and yet, while the attention was closely held by the even flow of lucid reasoning, the emotions and passions were from time to time deeply aroused and strongly excited. In many passages of direct retort Mr. Webster used an irony which he employed always in a perfectly characteristic way. He had a strong natural sense of humor, but he never made fun or descended to trivial efforts to excite laughter against his opponent. He was not a witty man or a maker of epigrams. But he was a master in the use of a cold, dignified sarcasm, which at times, and in this instance particularly, he used freely and mercilessly. Beneath the measured sentences there is a lurking smile which saves them from being merely savage and cutting attacks, and yet brings home a keen sense of the absurdity of the opponent's position. The weapon resembled more the sword of Richard than the scimetar of Saladin, but it was none the less a keen and trenchant blade. There is probably no better instance of Mr. Webster's power of sarcasm than the famous passage in which he replied to Hayne's taunt about the "murdered coalition," which was said to have existed between Adams and Calhoun. In a totally different vein is the passage about Massachusetts, perhaps in its way as good an example as we have of Webster's power of appealing to the higher and more tender feelings of human nature. The thought is simple and even obvious, and the expression unadorned, and yet what he said had that subtle quality which stirred and still stirs the heart of every man born on the soil of the old Puritan Commonwealth.
The speech as a whole has all the qualities which made Mr. Webster a great orator, and the same traits run through his other speeches. An analysis of the reply to Hayne, therefore, gives us all the conditions necessary to forming a correct idea of Mr. Webster's eloquence, of its characteristics and its value. The Attic school of oratory subordinated form to thought to avoid the misuse of ornament, and triumphed over the more florid practice of the so-called "Asiatics." Rome gave the palm to Atticism, and modern oratory has gone still farther in the same direction, until its predominant quality has become that of making sustained appeals to the understanding. Logical vigilance and long chains of reasoning, avoided by the ancients, are the essentials of our modern oratory. Many able men have achieved success under these conditions as forcible and convincing speakers. But the grand eloquence of modern times is distinguished by the bursts of feeling, of imagery or of invective, joined with convincing argument. This combination is rare, and whenever we find a man who possesses it we may be sure that, in greater or less degree, he is one of the great masters of eloquence as we understand it. The names of those who in debate or to a jury have been in every-day practice strong and effective speakers, and also have thrilled and shaken large masses of men, readily occur to us. To this class belong Chatham and Burke, Fox, Sheridan and Erskine, Mirabeau and Vergniaud, Patrick Henry and Daniel Webster.
Mr. Webster was of course essentially modern in his oratory. He relied chiefly on the sustained appeal to the understanding, and he was a conspicuous example of the prophetic character which Christianity, and Protestantism especially, has given to modern eloquence. At the same time Mr. Webster was in some respects more classical, and resembled more closely the models of antiquity, than any of those who have been mentioned as belonging to the same high class. He was wont to pour forth the copious stream of plain, intelligible observations, and indulge in the varied appeals to feeling, memory, and interest, which Lord Brougham sets down as characteristic of ancient oratory. It has been said that while Demosthenes was a sculptor, Burke was a painter. Mr. Webster was distinctly more of the former than the latter. He rarely amplified or developed an image or a description, and in this he followed the Greek rather than the Englishman. Dr. Francis Lieber wrote: "To test Webster's oratory, which has ever been very attractive to me, I read a portion of my favorite speeches of Demosthenes, and then read, always aloud, parts of Webster; then returned to the Athenian; and Webster stood the test." Apart from the great compliment which this conveys, such a comparison is very interesting as showing the similarity between Mr. Webster and the Greek orator. Not only does the test indicate the merit of Mr. Webster's speeches, but it also proves that he resembled the Athenian, and that the likeness was more striking than the inevitable difference born of race and time. Yet there is no indication that Webster ever made a study of the ancient models or tried to form himself upon them.
The cause of the classic self-restraint in Webster was partly due to the artistic sense which made him so devoted to simplicity of diction, and partly to the cast of his mind. He had a powerful historic imagination, but not in the least the imagination of the poet, which
"Bodies forth the forms of things unknown."
He could describe with great vividness, brevity, and force what had happened in the past, what actually existed, or what the future promised. But his fancy never ran away with him or carried him captive into the regions of poetry. Imagination of this sort is readily curbed and controlled, and, if less brilliant, is safer than that defined by Shakespeare. For this reason, Mr. Webster rarely indulged in long, descriptive passages, and, while he showed the highest power in treating anything with a touch of humanity about it, he was sparing of images drawn wholly from nature, and was not peculiarly successful in depicting in words natural scenery or phenomena. The result is, that in his highest flights, while he is often grand and affecting, full of life and power, he never shows the creative imagination. But if he falls short on the poetic side, there is the counterbalancing advantage that there is never a false note nor an overwrought description which offends our taste and jars upon our sensibilities.
Mr. Webster showed his love of direct simplicity in his style even more than in his thought or the general arrangement and composition of his speeches. His sentences are, as a rule, short, and therefore pointed and intelligible, but they never become monotonous and harsh, the fault to which brevity is always liable. On the contrary, they are smooth and flowing, and there is always a sufficient variety of form. The choice of language is likewise simple. Mr. Webster was a remorseless critic of his own style, and he had an almost extreme preference for Anglo-Saxon words and a corresponding dislike of Latin derivatives. The only exception he made was in his habit of using "commence" instead of its far superior synonym "begin." His style was vigorous, clear, and direct in the highest degree, and at the same time warm and full of vitality. He displayed that rare union of strength with perfect simplicity, the qualities which made Swift the great master of pure and forcible English.
Charles Fox is credited with saying that a good speech never reads well. This opinion, taken in the sense in which it was intended, that a carefully-prepared speech, which reads like an essay, lacks the freshness and glow that should characterize the oratory of debate, is undoubtedly correct. But it is equally true that when a speech which we know to have been good in delivery is equally good in print, a higher intellectual plane is reached and a higher level of excellence is attained than is possible to either the mere essay or to the effective retort or argument, which loses its flavor with the occasion which draws it forth. Mr. Webster's speeches on the tariff, on the bank, and on like subjects, able as they are, are necessarily dry, but his speeches on nobler themes are admirable reading. This is, of course, due to the variety and ease of treatment, to their power, and to the purity of the style. At the same time, the immediate effect of what he said was immense, greater, even, than the intrinsic merit of the speech itself. There has been much discussion as to the amount of preparation which Mr. Webster made. His occasional orations were, of course, carefully written out beforehand, a practice which was entirely proper; but in his great parliamentary speeches, and often in legal arguments as well, he made but slight preparation in the ordinary sense of the term. The notes for the two speeches on Foote's resolution were jotted down on a few sheets of note-paper. The delivery of the second one, his masterpiece, was practically extemporaneous, and yet it fills seventy octavo pages and occupied four hours. He is reported to have said that his whole life had been a preparation for the reply to Hayne. Whether he said it or not, the statement is perfectly true. The thoughts on the Union and on the grandeur of American nationality had been garnered up for years, and this in a greater or less degree was true of all his finest efforts. The preparation on paper was trifling, but the mental preparation extending over weeks or days, sometimes, perhaps, over years, was elaborate to the last point. When the moment came, a night's work would put all the stored-up thoughts in order, and on the next day they would pour forth with all the power of a strong mind thoroughly saturated with its subject, and yet with the vitality of unpremeditated expression, having the fresh glow of morning upon it, and with no trace of the lamp.
More than all this, however, in the immediate effect of Mr. Webster's speeches was the physical influence of the man himself. We can but half understand his eloquence and its influence if we do not carefully study his physical attributes, his temperament and disposition. In face, form, and voice, nature did her utmost for Daniel Webster. No envious fairy was present at his birth to mar these gifts by her malign influence. He seemed to every one to be a giant; that, at least, is the word we most commonly find applied to him, and there is no better proof of his enormous physical impressiveness than this well-known fact, for Mr. Webster was not a man of extraordinary stature. He was five feet ten inches in height, and, in health, weighed a little less than two hundred pounds. These are the proportions of a large man, but there is nothing remarkable about them. We must look elsewhere than to mere size to discover why men spoke of Webster as a giant. He had a swarthy complexion and straight black hair. His head was very large, the brain weighing, as is well known, more than any on record, except those of Cuvier and of the celebrated bricklayer. At the same time his head was of noble shape, with a broad and lofty brow, and his features were finely cut and full of massive strength. His eyes were extraordinary. They were very dark and deep-set, and, when he began to rouse himself to action, shone with the deep light of a forge-fire, getting ever more glowing as excitement rose. His voice was in harmony with his appearance. It was low and musical in conversation; in debate it was high but full, ringing out in moments of excitement like a clarion, and then sinking to deep notes with the solemn richness of organ-tones, while the words were accompanied by a manner in which grace and dignity mingled in complete accord. The impression which he produced upon the eye and ear it is difficult to express. There is no man in all history who came into the world so equipped physically for speech. In this direction nature could do no more. The mere look of the man and the sound of his voice made all who saw and heard him feel that he must be the embodiment of wisdom, dignity, and strength, divinely eloquent, even if he sat in dreamy silence or uttered nothing but heavy commonplaces.
It is commonly said that no one of the many pictures of Mr. Webster gives a true idea of what he was. We can readily believe this when we read the descriptions which have come down to us. That indefinable quality which we call personal magnetism, the power of impressing by one's personality every human being who comes near, was at its height in Mr. Webster. He never, for instance, punished his children, but when they did wrong he would send for them and look at them silently. The look, whether of anger or sorrow, was punishment and rebuke enough. It was the same with other children. The little daughter of Mr. Wirt once came into a room where Mr. Webster was sitting with his back toward her, and touched him on the arm. He turned suddenly, and the child started back with an affrighted cry at the sight of that dark, stern, melancholy face. But the cloud passed as swiftly as the shadows on a summer sea, and the next moment the look of affection and humor brought the frightened child into Mr. Webster's arms, and they were friends and playmates in an instant.
The power of a look and of changing expression, so magical with a child, was hardly less so with men. There have been very few instances in history where there is such constant reference to merely physical attributes as in the case of Mr. Webster. His general appearance and his eyes are the first and last things alluded to in every contemporary description. Every one is familiar with the story of the English navvy who pointed at Mr. Webster in the streets of Liverpool and said, "There goes a king." Sidney Smith exclaimed when he saw him, "Good heavens, he is a small cathedral by himself." Carlyle, no lover of America, wrote to Emerson:—
"Not many days ago I saw at breakfast the notablest of all your notabilities, Daniel Webster. He is a magnificent specimen. You might say to all the world, 'This is our Yankee Englishman; such limbs we make in Yankee land!' As a logic fencer, or parliamentary Hercules, one would incline to back him at first sight against all the extant world. The tanned complexion; that amorphous crag-like face; the dull black eyes under the precipice of brows, like dull anthracite furnaces needing only to beblown; the mastiff mouth accurately closed; I have not traced so much ofsilent Berserkir ragethat I remember of in any man. 'I guess I should not like to be your nigger!' Webster is not loquacious, but he is pertinent, conclusive; a dignified, perfectly bred man, though not English in breeding; a man worthy of the best reception among us, and meeting such I understand."
Such was the effect produced by Mr. Webster when in England, and it was a universal impression. Wherever he went men felt in the depths of their being the amazing force of his personal presence. He could control an audience by a look, and could extort applause from hostile listeners by a mere glance. On one occasion, after the 7th of March speech, there is a story that a noted abolitionist leader was present in the crowd gathered to hear Mr. Webster, and this bitter opponent is reported to have said afterwards, "When Webster, speaking of secession, asked 'what is to become of me,' I was thrilled with a sense of some awful impending calamity." The story may be apocryphal, but there can be no doubt of its essential truth so far as the effect of Mr. Webster's personal presence goes. People looked at him, and that was enough. Mr. Parton in his essay speaks of seeing Webster at a public dinner, sitting at the head of the table with a bottle of Madeira under his yellow waistcoat, and looking like Jove. When he presided at the Cooper memorial meeting in New York he uttered only a few stately platitudes, and yet every one went away with the firm conviction that they had heard him speak words of the profoundest wisdom and grandest eloquence.
The temptation to rely on his marvellous physical gifts grew on him as he became older, which was to be expected with a man of his temperament. Even in his early days, when he was not in action, he had an impassible and slumberous look; and when he sat listening to the invective of Hayne, no emotion could be traced on his cold, dark, melancholy face, or in the cavernous eyes shining with a dull light. This all vanished when he began to speak, and, as he poured forth his strong, weighty sentences, there was no lack of expression or of movement. But Mr. Webster, despite his capacity for work, and his protracted and often intense labor, was constitutionally indolent, and this sluggishness of temperament increased very much as he grew older. It extended from the periods of repose to those of action until, in his later years, a direct stimulus was needed to make him exert himself. Even to the last the mighty power was still there in undiminished strength, but it was not willingly put forth. Sometimes the outside impulse would not come; sometimes the most trivial incident would suffice, and like a spark on the train of gunpowder would bring a sudden burst of eloquence, electrifying all who listened. On one occasion he was arguing a case to the jury. He was talking in his heaviest and most ponderous fashion, and with half-closed eyes. The court and the jurymen were nearly asleep as Mr. Webster argued on, stating the law quite wrongly to his nodding listeners. The counsel on the other side interrupted him and called the attention of the court to Mr. Webster's presentation of the law. The judge, thus awakened, explained to the jury that the law was not as Mr. Webster stated it. While this colloquy was in progress Mr. Webster roused up, pushed back his thick hair, shook himself, and glanced about him with the look of a caged lion. When the judge paused, he turned again to the jury, his eyes no longer half shut but wide open and glowing with excitement. Raising his voice, he said, in tones which made every one start: "If my client could recover under the law as I stated it, how much more is he entitled to recover under the law as laid down by the court;" and then, the jury now being thoroughly awake, he poured forth a flood of eloquent argument and won his case. In his latter days Mr. Webster made many careless and dull speeches and carried them through by the power of his look and manner, but the time never came when, if fairly aroused, he failed to sway the hearts and understandings of men by a grand and splendid eloquence. The lion slept very often, but it never became safe to rouse him from his slumber.
It was soon after the reply to Hayne that Mr. Webster made his great argument for the government in the White murder case. One other address to a jury in the Goodridge case, and the defence of Judge Prescott before the Massachusetts Senate, which is of similar character, have been preserved to us. The speech for Prescott is a strong, dignified appeal to the sober, and yet sympathetic, judgment of his hearers, but wholly free from any attempt to confuse or mislead, or to sway the decision by unwholesome pathos. Under the circumstances, which were very adverse to his client, the argument was a model of its kind, and contains some very fine passages full of the solemn force so characteristic of its author. The Goodridge speech is chiefly remarkable for the ease with which Mr. Webster unravelled a complicated set of facts, demonstrated that the accuser was in reality the guilty party, and carried irresistible conviction to the minds of the jurors. It was connected with a remarkable exhibition of his power of cross-examination, which was not only acute and penetrating, but extremely terrifying to a recalcitrant witness. The argument in the White case, as a specimen of eloquence, stands on far higher ground than either of the other two, and, apart from the nature of the subject, ranks with the very best of Mr. Webster's oratorical triumphs. The opening of the speech, comprising the account of the murder and the analysis of the workings of a mind seared with the remembrance of a horrid crime, must be placed among the very finest masterpieces of modern oratory. The description of the feelings of the murderer has a touch of the creative power, but, taken in conjunction with the wonderful picture of the deed itself, the whole exhibits the highest imaginative excellence, and displays the possession of an extraordinary dramatic force such as Mr. Webster rarely exerted. It has the same power of exciting a kind of horror and of making us shudder with a creeping, nameless terror as the scene after the murder of Duncan, when Macbeth rushes out from the chamber of death, crying, "I have done the deed. Didst thou not hear a noise?" I have studied this famous exordium with extreme care, and I have sought diligently in the works of all the great modern orators, and of some of the ancient as well, for similar passages of higher merit. My quest has been in vain. Mr. Webster's description of the White murder, and of the ghastly haunting sense of guilt which pursued the assassin, has never been surpassed in dramatic force by any speaker, whether in debate or before a jury. Perhaps the most celebrated descriptive passage in the literature of modern eloquence is the picture drawn by Burke of the descent of Hyder Ali upon the plains of the Carnatic, but even that certainly falls short of the opening of Webster's speech in simple force as well as in dramatic power. Burke depicted with all the ardor of his nature and with a wealth of color a great invasion which swept thousands to destruction. Webster's theme was a cold-blooded murder in a quiet New England town. Comparison between such topics, when one is so infinitely larger than the other, seems at first sight almost impossible. But Mr. Webster also dealt with the workings of the human heart under the influence of the most terrible passions, and those have furnished sufficient material for the genius of Shakespeare. The test of excellence is in the treatment, and in this instance Mr. Webster has never been excelled. The effect of that exordium, delivered as he alone could have delivered it, must have been appalling. He was accused of having been brought into the case to hurry the jury beyond the law and evidence, and his whole speech was certainly calculated to drive any body of men, terror-stricken by his eloquence, wherever he wished them to go. Mr. Webster did not have that versatility and variety of eloquence which we associate with the speakers who have produced the most startling effect upon that complex thing called a jury. He never showed that rapid alternation of wit, humor, pathos, invective, sublimity, and ingenuity which have been characteristic of the greatest advocates. Before a jury as everywhere else he was direct and simple. He awed and terrified jurymen; he convinced their reason; but he commanded rather than persuaded, and carried them with him by sheer force of eloquence and argument, and by his overpowering personality.
The extravagant admiration which Mr. Webster excited among his followers has undoubtedly exaggerated his greatness in many respects; but, high as the praise bestowed upon him as an orator has been, in that direction at least he has certainly not been overestimated. The reverse rather is true. Mr. Webster was, of course, the greatest orator this country has ever produced. Patrick Henry's fame rests wholly on tradition. The same is true of Hamilton, who, moreover, never had an opportunity adequate to his talents, which were unquestionably of the first order. Fisher Ames's reputation was due to a single speech which is distinctly inferior to many of Webster's. Clay's oratory has not stood the test of time; his speeches, which were so wonderfully effective when he uttered them, seem dead and cold and rather thin as we read them to-day. Calhoun was a great debater, but was too dry and hard for the highest eloquence. John Quincy Adams, despite his physical limitations, carried the eloquence of combat and bitter retort to the highest point in the splendid battles of his congressional career, but his learning, readiness, power of expression, argument, and scathing sarcasm were not rounded into a perfect whole by the more graceful attributes which also form an essential part of oratory.
Mr. Webster need not fear comparison with any of his countrymen, and he has no reason to shun it with the greatest masters of speech in England. He had much of the grandeur of Chatham, with whom it is impossible to compare him or indeed any one else, for the Great Commoner lives only in fragments of doubtful accuracy. Sheridan was universally considered to have made the most splendid speech of his day. Yet the speech on the Begums as given by Moore does not cast Webster's best work at all into the shade. Webster did not have Sheridan's brilliant wit, but on the other hand he was never forced, never involved, never guilty of ornament, which fastidious judges would now pronounce tawdry. Webster's best speeches read much better than anything of Sheridan, and, so far as we can tell from careful descriptions, his manner, look, and delivery were far more imposing. The "manly eloquence" of Fox seems to have resembled Webster's more closely than that of any other of his English rivals. Fox was more fertile, more brilliant, more surprising than Webster, and had more quickness and dash, and a greater ease and charm of manner. But he was often careless, and sometimes fell into repetitions, from which, of course, no great speaker can be wholly free any more than he can keep entirely clear of commonplaces. Webster gained upon him by superior finish and by greater weight of argument. Before a jury Webster fell behind Erskine as he did behind Choate, although neither of them ever produced anything at all comparable to the speech on the White murder; but in the Senate, and in the general field of oratory, he rises high above them both. The man with whom Webster is oftenest compared, and the last to be mentioned, is of course Burke. It may be conceded at once that in creative imagination, and in richness of imagery and language, Burke ranks above Webster. But no one would ever have said of Webster as Goldsmith did of Burke:—
"Who, too deep for his hearers, still went on refining,And thought of convincing while they thought of dining."
Webster never sinned by over refinement or over ingenuity, for both were utterly foreign to his nature. Still less did he impair his power in the Senate as Burke did in the Commons by talking too often and too much. If he did not have the extreme beauty and grace of which Burke was capable, he was more forcible and struck harder and more weighty blows. He was greatly aided in this by his brief and measured periods, and his strength was never wasted in long and elaborate sentences. Webster, moreover, would never have degenerated into the ranting excitement which led Burke to draw a knife from his bosom and cast it on the floor of the House. This illustrates what was, perhaps, Mr. Webster's very strongest point,—his absolute good taste. He may have been ponderous at times in his later years. We know that he was occasionally heavy, pompous, and even dull, but he never violated the rules of the nicest taste. Other men have been more versatile, possessed of a richer imagination, and more gorgeous style, with a more brilliant wit and a keener sarcasm, but there is not one who is so absolutely free from faults of taste as Webster, or who is so uniformly simple and pure in thought and style, even to the point of severity.[1]
[Footnote 1: A volume might be written comparing Mr. Webster with other great orators. Only the briefest and most rudimentary treatment of the subject is possible here. A most excellent study of the comparative excellence of Webster's eloquence has been made by Judge Chamberlain, Librarian of the Boston Public Library, in a speech at the dinner of the Dartmouth Alumni, which has since been printed as a pamphlet.]
It is easy to compare Mr. Webster with this and the other great orator, and to select points of resemblance and of difference, and show where Mr. Webster was superior and where he fell behind. But the final verdict must be upon all his qualities taken together. He had the most extraordinary physical gifts of face, form, and voice, and employed them to the best advantage. Thus equipped, he delivered a long series of great speeches which can be read to-day with the deepest interest, instruction, and pleasure. He had dignity, grandeur, and force, a strong historic imagination, and great dramatic power when he chose to exert it. He possessed an unerring taste, a capacity for vigorous and telling sarcasm, a glow and fire none the less intense because they were subdued, perfect clearness of statement joined to the highest skill in argument, and he was master of a style which was as forcible as it was simple and pure. Take him for all in all, he was not only the greatest orator this country has ever known, but in the history of eloquence his name will stand with those of Demosthenes and Cicero, of Chatham and Burke.
In the year preceding the delivery of his great speech Mr. Webster had lost his brother Ezekiel by sudden death, and he had married for his second wife Miss Leroy of New York. The former event was a terrible grief to him, and taken in conjunction with the latter seemed to make a complete break with the past, and with its struggles and privations, its joys and successes. The slender girl whom he had married in Salisbury church and the beloved brother were both gone, and with them went those years of youth in which,—
"He had sighed deep, laughed free,Starved, feasted, despaired, been happy."
One cannot come to this dividing line in Mr. Webster's life without regret. There was enough of brilliant achievement and substantial success in what had gone before to satisfy any man, and it had been honest, simple, and unaffected. A wider fame and a greater name lay before him, but with them came also ugly scandals, bitter personal attacks, an ambition which warped his nature, and finally a terrible mistake. One feels inclined to say of these later years, with the Roman lover:—
"Shut them inWith their triumphs and their glories and the rest,Love is best."
The home changed first, and then the public career. The reply which, as John Quincy Adams said, "utterly demolished the fabric of Hayne's speech and left scarcely a wreck to be seen," went straight home to the people of the North. It gave eloquent expression to the strong but undefined feeling in the popular mind. It found its way into every house and was read everywhere; it took its place in the school books, to be repeated by shrill boy voices, and became part of the literature and of the intellectual life of the country. In those solemn sentences men read the description of what the United States had come to be under the Constitution, and what American nationality meant in 1830. The leaders of the young war party in 1812 were the first to arouse the national sentiment, but no one struck the chord with such a master hand as Mr. Webster, or drew forth such long and deep vibrations. There is no single utterance in our history which has done so much by mere force of words to strengthen the love of nationality and implant it deeply in the popular heart, as the reply to Hayne.
Before the delivery of that speech Mr. Webster was a distinguished statesman, but the day after he awoke to a national fame which made all his other triumphs pale. Such fame brought with it, of course, as it always does in this country, talk of the presidency. The reply to Hayne made Mr. Webster a presidential candidate, and from that moment he was never free from the gnawing, haunting ambition to win the grand prize of American public life. There was a new force in his career, and in all the years to come the influence of that force must be reckoned and remembered.
Mr. Webster was anxious that the party of opposition to General Jackson, which then passed by the name of National Republicans, should be in some way strengthened, solidified, and placed on a broad platform of distinct principles. He saw with great regret the ruin which was threatened by the anti-masonic schism, and it would seem that he was not indisposed to take advantage of this to stop the nomination of Mr. Clay, who was peculiarly objectionable to the opponents of masonry. He earnestly desired the nomination himself, but even his own friends in the party told him that this was out of the question, and he acquiesced in their decision. Mr. Clay's personal popularity, moreover, among the National Republicans was, in truth, invincible, and he was unanimously nominated by the convention at Baltimore. The action of the anti-masonic element in the country doomed Clay to defeat, which he was likely enough to encounter in any event; but the consolidation of the party so ardently desired by Mr. Webster was brought about by acts of the administration, which completely overcame any intestine divisions among its opponents.
The session of 1831-1832, when the country was preparing for the coming presidential election, marks the beginning of the fierce struggle with Andrew Jackson which was to give birth to a new and powerful organization known in our history as the Whig party, and destined, after years of conflict, to bring overwhelming defeat to the "Jacksonian democracy." There is no occasion here to enter into a history of the famous bank controversy. Established in 1816, the bank of the United States, after a period of difficulties, had become a powerful and valuable financial organization. In 1832 it applied for a continuance of its charter, which then had three years still to run. Mr. Webster did not enter into the personal contest which had already begun, but in a speech of great ability advocated a renewal of the charter, showing, as he always did on such themes, a knowledge and a grasp of the principles and intricacies of public finance unequalled in our history except by Hamilton. In a second speech he made a most effective and powerful argument against a proposition to give the States authority to tax the bank, defending the doctrines laid down by Chief Justice Marshall in McCullough vs. Maryland, and denying the power of Congress to give the States the right of such taxation, because by so doing they violated the Constitution. The amendment was defeated, and the bill for the continuance of the charter passed both Houses by large majorities.
Jackson returned the bill with a veto. He had the audacity to rest his veto upon the ground that the bill was unconstitutional, and that it was the duty of the President to decide upon the constitutionality of every measure without feeling in the least bound by the opinion of Congress or of the Supreme Court. His ignorance was so crass that he failed to perceive the distinction between a new bill and one to continue an existing law, while his vanity and his self-assumption were so colossal that he did not hesitate to assert that he had the right and the power to declare an existing law, passed by Congress, approved by Madison, and held to be constitutional by an express decision of the Supreme Court, to be invalid, because he thought fit to say so. To overthrow such doctrines was not difficult, but Mr. Webster refuted them with a completeness and force which were irresistible. At the same time he avoided personal attack in the dignified way which was characteristic of him, despite the extraordinary temptation to indulge in invective and telling sarcasm to which Jackson by his ignorance and presumption had so exposed himself. The bill was lost, the great conflict with the bank was begun, and the Whig party was founded.
Another event of a different character, which had occurred not long before, helped to widen the breach and to embitter the contest between the parties of the administration and of the opposition. When in 1829 Mr. McLane had received his instructions as Minister to England, he had been directed by Mr. Van Buren to reopen negotiations on the subject of the West Indian trade, and in so doing the Secretary of State had reflected on the previous administration, and had said that the party in power would not support the pretensions of its predecessors. Such language was, of course, at variance with all traditions, was wholly improper, and was mean and contemptible in dealing with a foreign nation. In 1831 Mr. Van Buren was nominated as Minister to England, and came up for confirmation in the Senate some time after he had actually departed on his mission. Mr. Webster opposed the confirmation in an eloquent speech full of just pride in his country and of vigorous indignation against the slight which Mr. Van Buren had put upon her by his instructions to Mr. McLane. He pronounced a splendid "rebuke upon the first instance in which an American minister had been sent abroad as the representative of his party and not as the representative of his country." The opposition was successful, and Mr. Van Buren's nomination was rejected. It is no doubt true that the rejection was a political mistake, and that, as was commonly said at the time, it created sympathy for Mr. Van Buren and insured his succession to the presidency. Yet no one would now think as well of Mr. Webster if, to avoid awakening popular sympathy and party enthusiasm in behalf of Mr. Van Buren, he had silently voted for that gentleman's confirmation. To do so was to approve the despicable tone adopted in the instructions to McLane. As a patriotic American, above all as a man of intense national feelings, Mr. Webster could not have done otherwise than resist with all the force of his eloquence the confirmation of a man who had made such an undignified and unworthy exhibition of partisanship. Politically he may have been wrong, but morally he was wholly right, and his rebuke stands in our history as a reproach which Mr. Van Buren's subsequent success can neither mitigate nor impair.
There was another measure, however, which had a far different effect from those which tended to build up the opposition to Jackson and his followers. A movement was begun by Mr. Clay looking to a revision and reduction of the tariff, which finally resulted in a bill reducing duties on many articles to a revenue standard, and leaving those on cotton and woollen goods and iron unchanged. In the debates which occurred during the passage of this bill Mr. Webster took but little part, but they caused a furious outbreak on the part of the South Carolinians led by Hayne, and ended in the confirmation of the protective policy. When Mr. Webster spoke at the New York dinner in 1831, he gave his hearers to understand very clearly that the nullification agitation was not at an end, and after the passage of the new tariff bill he saw close at hand the danger which he had predicted.
In November, 1832, South Carolina in convention passed her famous ordinance nullifying the revenue laws of the United States, and her Legislature, which assembled soon after, enacted laws to carry out the ordinance, and gave an open defiance to the Federal government. The country was filled with excitement. It was known that Mr. Calhoun, having published a letter in defence of nullification, had resigned the vice-presidency, accepted the senatorship of South Carolina, and was coming to the capital to advocate his favorite doctrine. But the South Carolinians had made one trifling blunder. They had overlooked the President. Jackson was a Southerner and a Democrat, but he was also the head of the nation, and determined to maintain its integrity. On December 10, before Congress assembled, he issued his famous proclamation in which he took up rigorously the position adopted by Mr. Webster in his reply to Hayne, and gave the South Carolinians to understand that he would not endure treason, but would enforce constitutional laws even though he should be compelled to use bayonets to do it. The Legislature of the recalcitrant State replied in an offensive manner which only served to make Jackson angry. He, too, began to say some pretty violent things, and, as he generally meant what he said, the gallant leaders of nullification and other worthy people grew very uneasy. There can be no doubt that the outlook was very threatening, and the nullifiers were extremely likely to be the first to suffer from the effects of the impending storm.
Mr. Webster was in New Jersey, on his way to Washington, when he first received the proclamation, and at Philadelphia he met Mr. Clay, and from a friend of that gentleman received a copy of a bill which was to do away with the tariff by gradual reductions, prevent the imposition of any further duties, and which at the same time declared against protection and in favor of a tariff for revenue only. This headlong plunge into concession and compromise was not at all to Mr. Webster's taste. He was opposed to the scheme for economical reasons, but still more on the far higher ground that there was open resistance to laws of undoubted constitutionality, and until that resistance was crushed under foot any talk of compromise was a blow at the national dignity and the national existence which ought not to be tolerated for an instant. His own course was plain. He proposed to sustain the administration, and when the national honor should be vindicated and all unconstitutional resistance ended, then would come the time for concessions. Jackson was not slow in giving Mr. Webster something to support. At the opening of the session a message was sent to Congress asking that provision might be made to enable the President to enforce the laws by means of the land and naval forces if necessary. The message was referred to a committee, who at once reported the celebrated "Force Bill," which embodied the principles of the message and had the entire approval of the President. But Jackson's party broke, despite the attitude of their chief, for many of them were from the South and could not bring themselves to the point of accepting the "Force Bill." The moment was critical, and the administration turned to Mr. Webster and took him into their councils. On February 8 Mr. Webster rose, and, after explaining in a fashion which no one was likely to forget, that this was wholly an administration measure, he announced his intention, as an independent senator, of giving it his hearty and inflexible support. The combination thus effected was overwhelming. Mr. Calhoun was now thoroughly alarmed, and we can well imagine that the threats of hanging, in which it was rumored that the President had indulged, began to have a good deal of practical significance to a gentleman who, as Secretary of War, had been familiar with the circumstances attending the deaths of Arbuthnot and Ambrister. At all events, Mr. Calhoun lost no time in having an interview with Mr. Clay, and the result was, that the latter, on February 11, announced that he should, on the following day, introduce a tariff bill, a measure of the same sort having already been started in the House. The bill as introduced did not involve such a complete surrender as that which Mr. Webster had seen in Philadelphia, but it necessitated most extensive modifications and gave all that South Carolina could reasonably demand. Mr. Clay advocated it in a brilliant speech, resting his defence on the ground that this was the only way to preserve the tariff, and that it was founded on the great constitutional doctrine of compromise. Mr. Webster opposed the bill briefly, and then introduced a series of resolutions combating the proposed measure on economical principles and on those of justice, and especially assailing the readiness to abandon the rightful powers of Congress and yield them up to any form of resistance. Before, however, he could speak in support of his resolutions, the "Force Bill" came up, and Mr. Calhoun made his celebrated argument in support of nullification. This Mr. Webster was obliged to answer, and he replied with the great speech known in his works as "The Constitution not a compact between sovereign States." In a general way the same criticism is applicable to this debate as to that with Hayne, but there were some important differences. Mr. Calhoun's argument was superior to that of his follower. It was dry and hard, but it was a splendid specimen of close and ingenious reasoning, and, as was to be expected, the originator and master surpassed the imitator and pupil. Mr. Webster's speech, on the other hand, in respect to eloquence, was decidedly inferior to the masterpiece of 1830. Mr. Curtis says, "Perhaps there is no speech ever made by Mr. Webster that is so close in its reasoning, so compact, and so powerful." To the first two qualities we can readily assent, but that it was equally powerful may be doubted. So long as Mr. Webster confined himself to defending the Constitution as it actually was and as what it had come to mean in point of fact, he was invincible. Just in proportion as he left this ground and attempted to argue on historical premises that it was a fundamental law, he weakened his position, for the historical facts were against him. In the reply to Hayne he touched but slightly on the historical, legal, and theoretical aspects of the case, and he was overwhelming. In the reply to Calhoun he devoted his strength chiefly to these topics, and, meeting his keen antagonist on the latter's own chosen ground, he put himself at a disadvantage. In the actual present and in the steady course of development, the facts were wholly with Mr. Webster. Whatever the people of the United States understood the Constitution to mean in 1789, there can be no question that a majority in 1833 regarded it as a fundamental law, and not as a compact—an opinion which has now become universal. But it was quite another thing to argue that what the Constitution had come to mean was what it meant when it was adopted. The identity of meaning at these two periods was the proposition which Mr. Webster undertook to maintain, and he upheld it as well and as plausibly as the nature of the case admitted. His reasoning was close and vigorous; but he could not destroy the theory of the Constitution as held by leaders and people in 1789, or reconcile the Virginia and Kentucky resolutions or the Hartford Convention with the fundamental-law doctrines. Nevertheless, it would be an error to suppose that because the facts of history were against Mr. Webster in these particulars, this able, ingenious, and elaborate argument was thrown away. It was a fitting supplement and complement to the reply to Hayne. It reiterated the national principles, and furnished those whom the statement and demonstration of an existing fact could not satisfy, with an immense magazine of lucid reasoning and plausible and effective arguments. The reply to Hayne gave magnificent expression to the popular feeling, while that to Calhoun supplied the arguments which, after years of discussion, converted that feeling into a fixed opinion, and made it strong enough to carry the North through four years of civil war. But in his final speech in this debate Mr. Webster came back to his original ground, and said, in conclusion, "Shall we have a general government? Shall we continue the union of States under agovernmentinstead of a league? This vital and all-important question the people will decide." The vital question went to the great popular jury, and they cast aside all historical premises and deductions, all legal subtleties and refinements, and gave their verdict on the existing facts. The world knows what that verdict was, and will never forget that it was largely due to the splendid eloquence of Daniel Webster when he defended the cause of nationality against the slave-holding separatists of South Carolina.