cxlii
This brief enumeration will of itself sufficiently show the extensive range of the subjects to which the attention of Mr. Webster was called, during the two years for which he filled the Department of State.
The published correspondence probably forms but a small portion of the official labors of the Department of State for the period during which it was filled by Mr. Webster. They constitute, nevertheless, the most important part of the documentary record of a period of official service, brief, indeed, but as beneficial to the country as any of which the memory is preserved in her annals. The administration of General Harrison found the United States, in the spring of 1841, on the verge of a war, not with a feeble Spanish province, scarcely capable of a respectable resistance, but with the most powerful government on earth. The conduct of our foreign relations was intrusted to Mr. Webster, as Secretary of State, and in the two years during which he filled that office controversies of fifty years’ standing were terminated, new causes of quarrel that sprung up like hydra’s heads were settled, and peace was preserved upon honorable terms. The British government, fresh from the conquest of China, perhaps never felt itself stronger than in the year 1842, and a full share of credit is due to the spirit of conciliation which swayed its counsels. Much is due to the wise and amiable minister who was despatched from England on the holy errand of peace; much to the patriotism of the Senate of the United States, who confirmed the treaty of Washington by a larger majority than ever before sustained a measure of this kind which divided public opinion; but the first meed of praise is unquestionably due to the American negotiator. Let the just measure of that praise be estimated, by reflecting what would have been our condition during the last few years, if, instead of, or in addition to, the war with Mexico, we had been involved in a war with Great Britain.
[23]This chapter is republished, with but slight modifications, from the volume of Mr. Webster’s Diplomatic and Official Papers which appeared in 1848, to which it served as the Introduction.
This chapter is republished, with but slight modifications, from the volume of Mr. Webster’s Diplomatic and Official Papers which appeared in 1848, to which it served as the Introduction.
[24]Mr. Stevenson.
Mr. Stevenson.
[25]Senate Papers, Twenty-seventh Congress, First Session, No. 33.
Senate Papers, Twenty-seventh Congress, First Session, No. 33.
[26]Younger son of Mr. Webster, who died in Mexico, in 1848, being a major in the regiment of Massachusetts Volunteers.
Younger son of Mr. Webster, who died in Mexico, in 1848, being a major in the regiment of Massachusetts Volunteers.
[27]The authorities are given in Story’s Commentaries Vol. III. pp. 675, 676; Conflict of Laws, pp. 520, 522; and in Kent’s Commentaries, Vol. I. pp. 36, 37.
The authorities are given in Story’s Commentaries Vol. III. pp. 675, 676; Conflict of Laws, pp. 520, 522; and in Kent’s Commentaries, Vol. I. pp. 36, 37.
[28]The following passage from a letter of Robert Walsh, Esq., to the editors of the National Intelligencer, dated Paris, 28th October, 1842, furnishes confirmation of the remark in the text:—“The former journal [The Times], of the 18th instant, acknowledges that Mr. Webster ‘has not exaggerated the hardships and evils which the practice of impressment occasioned in the last war.’ It ratifies his ideas of the probable aggravation of them, if the practice should be ever renewed; it would even dispense with press-warrants at home, as adverse to the general principles of British liberty and law: it advises some general measure for the entire abolition of arbitrary impressment both at home and abroad, and it expresses its belief of a very strong probability, that, in the event of a war, no instructions for the impressment of British seamen found in American merchant-vessels will be issued to her Majesty’s cruisers. The Standard chimes with the great oracle, and concludes in this strain: ‘We may infer that, whatever may be the plan hereafter for managing our navy, impressment will never again be resorted to; this is beyond a doubt:the practice complained of by Mr. Webster will be abandoned.’”
The following passage from a letter of Robert Walsh, Esq., to the editors of the National Intelligencer, dated Paris, 28th October, 1842, furnishes confirmation of the remark in the text:—
“The former journal [The Times], of the 18th instant, acknowledges that Mr. Webster ‘has not exaggerated the hardships and evils which the practice of impressment occasioned in the last war.’ It ratifies his ideas of the probable aggravation of them, if the practice should be ever renewed; it would even dispense with press-warrants at home, as adverse to the general principles of British liberty and law: it advises some general measure for the entire abolition of arbitrary impressment both at home and abroad, and it expresses its belief of a very strong probability, that, in the event of a war, no instructions for the impressment of British seamen found in American merchant-vessels will be issued to her Majesty’s cruisers. The Standard chimes with the great oracle, and concludes in this strain: ‘We may infer that, whatever may be the plan hereafter for managing our navy, impressment will never again be resorted to; this is beyond a doubt:the practice complained of by Mr. Webster will be abandoned.’”
[29]Mr. Cushing.
Mr. Cushing.
cxliiiCHAPTER IX.
Mr. Webster resigns his Place in Mr. Tyler’s Cabinet.—Attempts to draw public Attention to the projected Annexation of Texas.—Supports Mr. Clay’s Nomination for the Presidency.—Causes of the Failure of that Nomination.—Mr. Webster returns to the Senate of the United States.—Admission of Texas to the Union.—The War with Mexico.—Mr. Webster’s Course in Reference to the War.—Death of Major Webster in Mexico.—Mr. Webster’s unfavorable Opinion of the Mexican Government.—Settlement of the Oregon Controversy.—Mr. Webster’s Agency in effecting the Adjustment.—Revival of the Sub-Treasury System and Repeal of the Tariff Law of 1842.—Southern Tour.—Success of the Mexican War and Acquisition of the Mexican Provinces.—Efforts in Congress to organize a Territorial Government for these Provinces.—Great Exertions of Mr. Webster on the last Night of the Session.—Nomination of General Taylor, and Course of Mr. Webster in Reference to it.—A Constitution of State Government adopted by California prohibiting Slavery.—Increase of Antislavery Agitation.—Alarming State of Affairs.—Mr. Webster’s Speech for the Union.—Circumstances under which it was made, and Motives by which he was influenced.—General Taylor’s Death, and the Accession of Mr. Fillmore to the Presidency.—Mr. Webster called to the Department of State.
Mr. Webster resigns his Place in Mr. Tyler’s Cabinet.—Attempts to draw public Attention to the projected Annexation of Texas.—Supports Mr. Clay’s Nomination for the Presidency.—Causes of the Failure of that Nomination.—Mr. Webster returns to the Senate of the United States.—Admission of Texas to the Union.—The War with Mexico.—Mr. Webster’s Course in Reference to the War.—Death of Major Webster in Mexico.—Mr. Webster’s unfavorable Opinion of the Mexican Government.—Settlement of the Oregon Controversy.—Mr. Webster’s Agency in effecting the Adjustment.—Revival of the Sub-Treasury System and Repeal of the Tariff Law of 1842.—Southern Tour.—Success of the Mexican War and Acquisition of the Mexican Provinces.—Efforts in Congress to organize a Territorial Government for these Provinces.—Great Exertions of Mr. Webster on the last Night of the Session.—Nomination of General Taylor, and Course of Mr. Webster in Reference to it.—A Constitution of State Government adopted by California prohibiting Slavery.—Increase of Antislavery Agitation.—Alarming State of Affairs.—Mr. Webster’s Speech for the Union.—Circumstances under which it was made, and Motives by which he was influenced.—General Taylor’s Death, and the Accession of Mr. Fillmore to the Presidency.—Mr. Webster called to the Department of State.
Mr. Webster remained in the Department of State but a little over two years. His last act was the preparation of the instructions of Mr. Cushing, who had been appointed Commissioner to China. Difficulties had occurred the summer before, between President Tyler and some of the members of his Cabinet, and all of those gentlemen, with the exception of Mr. Webster, tendered their resignations, which were accepted. Hard thoughts were entertained of Mr. Webster in some quarters for continuing to hold his seat after the resignation of his colleagues. President Tyler, however, had in no degree withdrawn his confidence from Mr. Webster in reference to the foreign affairs of the country, nor interfered with the administration of his department, and Mr. Webster conceived that the interests involved in his remaining at his post were far too important to be sacrificed to punctilio. His own sense of duty in this respect was confirmed by the unanimous counsel of the Massachusetts delegation in Congress, and by judicious friends in all parts of the country. In fact, it will be remembered that when difficulties sprung up between Mr. Tyler and the Whig party in Congress, in 1842, the Whig press generally throughout the country called upon the members of the Cabinetcxlivappointed by General Harrison to retain their places till they should be removed by Mr. Tyler.
Mr. Webster remained in private life during the residue of President Tyler’s administration, occupied as usual with professional pursuits, and enjoying in the appropriate seasons the retirement of his farm. He endeavored by private communications to arouse the feeling of the North to the projects which he perceived to be in agitation for the annexation of Texas but the danger was regarded at that time as too remote to be contended against. A short time only elapsed before the fulfilment of his anticipations was forced upon the country, with fearful urgency, and a train of consequences of which it will be left to a late posterity to witness the full development. Between the years 1843 and 1845 the fortunes of the United States were subjected to an influence, for good or for evil, not to be exhausted for centuries.
The nomination of Mr. Clay to the Presidency in 1844 was cordially supported by Mr. Webster. He took the field, as in the summer of 1840 in favor of General Harrison. The proofs of the untiring zeal with which he entered into the canvass, and of the great power and fertility with which he discussed the various topics of the day, will be seen in the second volume of the present collection. It has, however, been found impossible to insert more than a selection of the speeches made by him during the campaign. Others not inferior in merit and interest were made by him in the course of the summer and autumn of 1844.
It is well known that the result of this election was decisive of the question of the annexation of Texas. The opinions expressed by Mr. Van Buren against the immediate consummation of that project had prevented his receiving the nomination of the Baltimore Convention. Mr. Clay was pledged against the measure, and Mr. Polk was selected as its sure friend. If in 1844 the friends of Mr. Van Buren, instead of giving in their adhesion to the Baltimore nomination (which was in fact turning the scale in favor of Texas), had been prepared, as in 1848, to support a separate nomination, or even if the few thousand votes cast by the “Liberty party” against Mr. Clay had been given in his favor, he would have been chosen President of the United States, to the indefinite postponement of the annexationcxlvof Texas and the Mexican war, with all their consequences. But in great things as in small, men throw away the substance while they grasp at the shadow.
At the first session of the Twenty-ninth Congress (1845-46), Mr. Webster took his seat as the successor of Mr. Choate in the Senate of the United States. The question of the admission of Texas was decided at the very commencement of the session. It was opposed by Mr. Webster. To all the other objections to the measure in his mind was added that of unconstitutionality. The annexation was now brought about simply by a joint resolution of the two houses, after it had been found impossible to effect it by treaty, the only form known to the Constitution by which a compact can be entered into with a foreign power. Mr. Jefferson was of opinion in 1803, that even a treaty with France was not sufficient for the annexation of Louisiana, but that an amendment of the Constitution was necessary for that purpose. In 1845 the executive and a majority of Congress, having failed to carry the ratification of a treaty of annexation by the constitutional majority, scrupled not to accomplish their purpose by a joint resolution of the two houses; and this measure was effected under the lead of statesmen who claim to construe the Constitution with literal strictness. Events like these furnish a painful illustration of the frailty of constitutional restraints as a barrier against the consummation of the favorite measures of a dominant party.
The great event of the administration of President Polk was the war with Mexico. The time has not yet arrived when the counsels under which this war was brought about can be fully unfolded. On the 2d of December, 1845, in his first annual message, having communicated to Congress the acceptance by Texas of the terms of annexation offered by the joint resolution, President Polk thus expressed himself:—
“This accession to our territory has been a bloodless achievement. No arm of force has been raised to produce the result. The sword has had no part in the victory. We have not sought to extend our territorial possessions by conquest, or our republican institutions over a reluctant people. It was the deliberate homage of each people to the great principle of our federative Union.”
“This accession to our territory has been a bloodless achievement. No arm of force has been raised to produce the result. The sword has had no part in the victory. We have not sought to extend our territorial possessions by conquest, or our republican institutions over a reluctant people. It was the deliberate homage of each people to the great principle of our federative Union.”
The proffered annexation of Texas had been declined bothcxlviby General Jackson and Mr. Van Buren, on the ground that, unless made with the consent of Mexico, it would involve a war with that power. That this would be the effect was not less certain on the 2d of December, 1845, when Congress were congratulated on the “bloodless” acquisition, than it was when, on the 13th of January following, General Taylor was instructed to occupy the left bank of the Rio del Norte. In fact, in the very message in which President Polk remarks to Congress “that the sword had had no part in the victory,” he gives them also the significant information, that, upon the earnest appeal both of the Congress and convention of Texas, he had ordered “an efficient military force to take a position between the Nueces and the Del Norte.”
This force, however efficient in proportion to its numbers and in virtue of the gallantry and skill of its commander, was found to be inadequate to sustain the brunt of the Mexican arms. Rapid movements on the part of Generals Ampudia and Arista, commanding on the frontier, seriously endangered the safety of General Taylor’s force, and it became necessary for Congress to strengthen it by prompt reinforcements. In this way the war was commenced. No formal declaration had taken place, nor had it been in the power of Congress to make known its will on the subject, till an absolute necessity arose of reinforcing General Taylor, and the subject had ceased to be one for legislative discretion.
Under these circumstances it was of course impossible for Mr. Webster to approve the war. It had been brought on by the executive will, and without the concurrence of Congress till Congress had ceased to have an option, and its well-known ulterior objects were such as he could not but contemplate with equal disapprobation and alarm. Still, however, in common with the body of his political friends, in and out of Congress, he abstained from all factious opposition, and all measures calculated to embarrass the government. The supplies were voted for by him, but he never ceased to urge upon the President to pursue a magnanimous policy toward the distracted and misgoverned country with which we had been brought in collision. Nor did his opinions of the character of the war lead him to discourage the inclination of his younger son, Mr. Edward Webster, to accept a commission in the regiment of MassachusettscxlviiVolunteers. This young gentleman had evinced an energy beyond his years, and practical talent of a high order, as a member of the commission for marking the boundary line between Maine and the British Provinces under the treaty of Washington. His friends looked forward with confidence to his running a brilliant military career. These hopes, like those which accompanied so many other gallant and patriotic spirits to the scene of action, were destined to be early blasted. Major Webster fell a victim to the labors and exposures of the service, and to the climate of the country, under the walls of Mexico.
To avoid all misconception, it may be proper to state that Mr. Webster has at all times entertained an unfavorable opinion of the various administrations by which Mexico, almost ever since her revolution, has been successively misgoverned. He has felt constrained to regard the greater part of them as military factions, bent more upon supplanting each other than upon promoting the welfare of their country. He was fully aware of the justice of many of the complaints of citizens of the United States for wrongs inflicted and justice withheld. Both while in the executive government himself, and as a member of Congress, he had uniformly expressed himself in terms of severe condemnation of the conduct of the Mexican government in withholding or delaying redress; and he foresaw and foretold that, in obstinately refusing to recognize the independence of Texas, she was laying up for herself a store of consequences the most humiliating and disastrous. Nothing but the most deplorable infatuation could have led the government of Mexico to suppose, that, after the independence of Texas had been recognized by the United States, Great Britain, France, and Belgium, it would be possible for a power as feeble as that of Mexico to reduce the rebellious province to submission. If any confirmation of these statements is needed, it may be found in Mr. Webster’s letter to Mr. de Bocanegra, in the sixth volume of this collection.
The settlement of the controversy with England relative to the boundary of Oregon was effected in the first year of Mr. Polk’s administration. The foundations for this adjustment had long been laid; in fact, as long ago as the administration of Mr. Monroe, the United States had offered to England the obvious basis of the extension of the forty-ninth degree of latitudecxlviiito the Pacific. Great Britain allowed herself to be influenced by the Hudson’s Bay Company so far, as to insist upon following the course of the Columbia down to the sea. She even took the extravagant ground that, although the United States, by the Louisiana and Florida treaties, combined the Spanish and the French titles with that of actual contiguity and prior discovery of the Columbia River, they had no exclusive title to any portion of the territory, but that it was all subject to her own joint and rival claim. This unreasonable pretension brought the two countries to the verge of war. The Baltimore Convention, in the year 1844, set up a claim, equally unreasonable, to the whole of the territory. President Polk in his inaugural message, quoting the words of the resolution of the Baltimore Convention, pronounced our title to the territory to be “clear and unquestionable.”
The assertion of these opposite extremes of pretension happily resulted in the final adjustment on the forty-ninth degree. Mr. Webster had uniformly been of opinion that this was the fair basis of settlement. Had he supposed that an arrangement could have been effected on this basis with Lord Ashburton, he would gladly have included it in the treaty of Washington. After Mr. Webster’s retirement from the Department of State, it is stated by President Polk that Mr. Upshur instructed Mr. Everett to offer that line to the British government; but the negotiation had in the mean time, by the appointment of Mr. Pakenham, been transferred to Washington. The offer of the forty-ninth degree of latitude was renewed to Mr. Pakenham, but accompanied with conditions which led him to decline it, and to express the hope that the United States would make “some further proposal for the settlement of the Oregon question more consistent with fairness and equity, and with the reasonable expectations of the British government.” The offer thus injudiciously rejected was withdrawn by the administration. In this dangerous juncture of affairs, the following incidents occurred, which we give in the words of the “London Examiner”:
“In reply to a question put to him in reference to the present war establishments of this country, and the propriety of applying the principle of arbitration in the settlement of disputes arising among nations, Mr. McGregor, one of the candidates for the representation of Glasgow,cxlixtook occasion to narrate the following very important and remarkable anecdote in connection with our recent, but now happily terminated differences with the United States on the Oregon question. At the time our ambassador at Washington, the Hon. Mr. Pakenham, refused to negotiate on the forty-ninth parallel of north latitude as the basis of a treaty, and when by that refusal the danger of a rupture between Great Britain and America became really imminent, Mr. Daniel Webster, formerly Secretary of State to the American government, wrote a letter to Mr. McGregor, in which he strongly deprecated Mr. Pakenham’s conduct, which, if persisted in and adopted at home, would, to a certainty, embroil the two countries, and suggested an equitable compromise, taking the forty-ninth parallel as the basis of an adjustment. Mr. McGregor agreeing entirely with Mr. Webster in the propriety of a mutual giving and taking to avoid a rupture, and the more especially as the whole territory in dispute was not worth £20,000 to either power, while the preparations alone for a war would cost a great deal more before the parties could come into actual conflict, communicated the contents of Mr. Webster’s letter to Lord John Russell, who at the time was living in the neighborhood of Edinburgh, and, in reply, received a letter from Lord John, in which he stated his entire accordance with the proposal recommended by Mr. Webster, and approved of by Mr. McGregor, and requested the latter, as he (Lord John) was not in a position to do it himself, to intimate his opinion to Lord Aberdeen. Mr. McGregor, through Lord Canning, Under-Secretary for the Foreign Department, did so, and the result was, that the first packet that left England carried out to America the proposal, in accordance with the communication already referred to, on which the treaty of Oregon was happily concluded. Mr. McGregor may, therefore, be very justly said to have been the instrument of preserving the peace of the world; and for that alone, even if he had no other services to appeal to, he has justly earned the applause and admiration, not of his own countrymen only, but of all men who desire to promote the best interests of the human race.”
“In reply to a question put to him in reference to the present war establishments of this country, and the propriety of applying the principle of arbitration in the settlement of disputes arising among nations, Mr. McGregor, one of the candidates for the representation of Glasgow,cxlixtook occasion to narrate the following very important and remarkable anecdote in connection with our recent, but now happily terminated differences with the United States on the Oregon question. At the time our ambassador at Washington, the Hon. Mr. Pakenham, refused to negotiate on the forty-ninth parallel of north latitude as the basis of a treaty, and when by that refusal the danger of a rupture between Great Britain and America became really imminent, Mr. Daniel Webster, formerly Secretary of State to the American government, wrote a letter to Mr. McGregor, in which he strongly deprecated Mr. Pakenham’s conduct, which, if persisted in and adopted at home, would, to a certainty, embroil the two countries, and suggested an equitable compromise, taking the forty-ninth parallel as the basis of an adjustment. Mr. McGregor agreeing entirely with Mr. Webster in the propriety of a mutual giving and taking to avoid a rupture, and the more especially as the whole territory in dispute was not worth £20,000 to either power, while the preparations alone for a war would cost a great deal more before the parties could come into actual conflict, communicated the contents of Mr. Webster’s letter to Lord John Russell, who at the time was living in the neighborhood of Edinburgh, and, in reply, received a letter from Lord John, in which he stated his entire accordance with the proposal recommended by Mr. Webster, and approved of by Mr. McGregor, and requested the latter, as he (Lord John) was not in a position to do it himself, to intimate his opinion to Lord Aberdeen. Mr. McGregor, through Lord Canning, Under-Secretary for the Foreign Department, did so, and the result was, that the first packet that left England carried out to America the proposal, in accordance with the communication already referred to, on which the treaty of Oregon was happily concluded. Mr. McGregor may, therefore, be very justly said to have been the instrument of preserving the peace of the world; and for that alone, even if he had no other services to appeal to, he has justly earned the applause and admiration, not of his own countrymen only, but of all men who desire to promote the best interests of the human race.”
Without wishing to detract in any degree from the praise due to Mr. McGregor for his judicious and liberal conduct on this occasion, the credit of the main result is exclusively due to his American correspondent. A powerful influence was ascribed also to an able article in the Edinburgh Review for April, 1845, in which the reasonableness of this basis of settlement was set forth with great ability.
The first session of the Twenty-ninth Congress was signalized by the revival of the sub-treasury system, and the overthrowclof the tariff of 1842. At a moment when the public finances were, in reference to the means of collection, custody, and transfer, in a sound and healthy condition, the administration deemed it expedient to subject the country and the treasury to the hazard and inconvenience of a change. Mr. Webster spoke with equal earnestness and power against the renewal of experiments which had already proved so disastrous; but the bill was carried by a party vote. The same success attended the President’s recommendation of an entire change in the revenue system, by which, instead of specific duties,ad valoremduties were to be assessed on the foreign valuation. Various other changes were made in the tariff established in 1842, equally tending to depress our own manufactures, and to give a preference to foreign over native labor, and this even in cases where no benefit could be expected to accrue to the treasury from the change. Mr. Webster made a truly Herculean effort against the government project, in his speech of the 25th and 26th of July, 1846, but the decree had gone forth. The scale was turned by the Senators from the new State of Texas, which had been brought into the Union by the votes of members of Congress whose constituents had the deepest interest in sustaining the tariff of 1842.
In the spring of 1847, after the adjournment of Congress, Mr. Webster undertook a tour to the South. His object was to pass by the way of the Atlantic States to New Orleans, and to ascend the Mississippi. He had never seen that part of the Union, and promised himself equal gratification and instruction from an opportunity, however brief, of personal inspection. He was ever of opinion that higher motives than those of curiosity and recreation should lead the citizens of different parts of the country to the interchange of visits of this kind. That they had become so much less frequent than they were in former years he regarded as one of the inauspicious features of the times. He was accompanied on this excursion by his family. They passed hastily through Virginia and North Carolina to South Carolina. At Charleston he was received with the most distinguished attention and cordiality. He was welcomed on his arrival by an assemblage of the most respectable citizens. Entertainments were given him by the New England Society of Charleston and by the Charleston Bar. At these festivals theclisentiments and speeches were of the most cordial description. Similar hospitalities and honors were paid him at Columbia, Augusta, and Savannah. No trace of sectional or party feeling detracted from the warmth of his reception. His visit was everywhere regarded as an interesting public event. Unhappily, his health failed him on his arrival at Savannah; and the advance of the season made it impossible for him to execute the original project of a journey to New Orleans. He was compelled to hasten back to the North.
Meantime events of higher importance were in progress. Success crowned our arms in the Mexican war. The military skill, gallantry, and indomitable resolution of the great captains to whom the chief command of the war had been committed, (though not by the first choice of the administration,) aided by the spirit and discipline of the troops, achieved the conquest of Mexico. Peace was dictated to her from Washington, and a treaty concluded, by which extensive portions of her territory, comprising the province of New Mexico and a considerable part of California, were ceded to the United States. Mr. Webster, foreseeing that these cessions would prove a Pandora’s box of discord and strife between the different sections of the Union, voted against the ratification of the treaty. He was sustained in this course by some Southern Whig Senators, but the constitutional majority deemed any treaty better than the continuation of the war.
With the restoration of peace, the question what should be done with the territories presented itself with alarming prominence. Formidable under any circumstances, it became doubly so in consequence of the discovery of gold in California, and the prodigious rush to that quarter of adventurers from every part of the world. Population flocked into and took possession of the country, its ancient political organization, feeble at best, was subverted, and the immediate action of Congress was necessary to prevent a state of anarchy. The House of Representatives passed a bill providing for the organization of a territorial government for the provinces newly acquired from Mexico, with the antislavery proviso, borrowed from the Ordinance of 1787. This bill failed to pass the Senate, and nothing was done at the first session of the Thirtieth Congress to meet the existing emergency in California.
clii
At the second session, bills were introduced into the Senate for erecting California and New Mexico into States; the question of slavery to be left to the people of the States respectively. These bills, however, did not pass the Senate. A few days before the close of the session, Mr. Walker of Wisconsin moved an amendment to the general appropriation bill for the support of government, providing for the extension of the revenue laws of the United States over California and New Mexico; to extend the provisions of the Constitution of the United States to these territories, together with all the laws applicable to them; and granting authority to the President to appoint the officers necessary to carry these provisions into effect. This amendment prevailed in the Senate, but was further amended in the House, by adding to it the “Wilmot Proviso.” The Senate refused to accede to this amendment of their amendment, and the two houses were brought to the verge of a disagreement, which would have prevented the passage of the general appropriation bill, and stopped the wheels of government. The debates in the Senate were of the most impassioned kind, and were protracted till five o’clock of Sunday morning, the 4th of March; when the Senate, on the suggestion of Mr. Webster, disagreed to the amendment of the House relative to California, and at the same time receded from their own amendment, and thus passed the general appropriation bill, as it originally came from the House. All provision for the territories was necessarily sacrificed by this course; but a bill which had previously passed the House, extending the revenue laws of the United States to California, was passed by the Senate, and rescued the people of California from an entire destitution of government on behalf of the United States. The Senate on this occasion was, for the first time since the adoption of the Constitution, on the verge of disorganization; and it was felt throughout the day and night, that it was saved from falling into that condition mainly by the parliamentary tact and personal influence of Mr. Webster. This tribute was paid to Mr. Webster’s arduous exertions on that occasion by a member of Congress warmly opposed to him.
Not the least important consequence of the Mexican war was the political revolution in the United States of which it was the cause. When the policy of invading and conquering Mexicocliiiwas determined upon, it was probably regarded by the administration as a measure calculated to strengthen their party. Opponents were likely to expose themselves to odium by disapproving the war. The commanding generals were both Whigs, and one of them had been named as a candidate for the Presidency. It was probably thought that, if they succeeded, the glory would accrue to the administration; if they failed, the discredit would fall upon themselves.
If anticipations like these were formed, they were signally disappointed. A series of the most brilliant triumphs crowned the arms both of General Taylor and General Scott. Those of General Taylor were first in time; and as they had been preceded by doubts, anxieties, and, in the case of Buena Vista, by rumors of disaster, they took the stronger hold of the public mind. The nomination for the Presidency was not reserved for the Whig convention. It was in effect made at Palto Alto and Monterey, and was confirmed at Buena Vista. It was a movement of the people to which resistance was in vain.
Statesmen and civilians, however, might well pause for a moment. The late experience of the country, under a President elected in consequence of military popularity, was not favorable to a repetition of the experiment; and General Taylor was wholly unknown in political life. At the Whig convention in Philadelphia other distinguished Whigs, General Scott, Mr. Clay, and Mr. Webster, had divided the votes with General Taylor. He was, however, selected by a great majority as the candidate of the party. Mr. Webster took the view of this nomination which might have been expected from a veteran statesman and a civilian of forty years’ experience in the service of the country. He had, in common with the whole Whig party, in General Jackson’s case, opposed the nomination of a military chieftain. How many Whigs who hailed General Taylor’s nomination with enthusiasm had as good reasons for so doing as Mr. Webster had for the moderation and reserve with which he spoke of it in his Marshfield speech? Few persons, at the present day, will find in that speech any thing, with respect to General Taylor’s nomination, from which a candid and impartial judgment would dissent; and it is well known, that, in the progress of the canvass, that nomination found no firmer supporter than Mr. Webster. On his accession to theclivPresidency, General Taylor found Mr. Webster disposed and prepared to give his administration a cordial and efficient support.
In the summer and autumn of 1849 events of the utmost importance occurred in California. The people of that region, left almost entirely without a government by Congress, met in convention to form a constitution; and although nearly half of the members who were new-comers were from the Southern States, they unanimously agreed to the prohibition of slavery. The constitution prepared by the convention was accepted by the people, and with it they applied for admission to the Union. General Riley, who had been appointed by the President to command the forces in that territory, was instructed to facilitate, as far as it was in his power, the assembling of a convention; and the course pursued by the convention and the people in the formation of the constitution was understood to be in all respects approved by President Taylor.
Other occurrences, however, had in the mean time taken place, which materially increased the difficulties attending the territorial question. The subject of slavery had for fifteen or twenty years been agitated with steadily increasing warmth, and for the latter portion of the period with growing violence. On the acquisition of the Mexican provinces, the representatives of the non-slaveholding States generally deemed it their duty to introduce into the acts passed for their government a restriction analogous to the antislavery proviso of the Ordinance of 1787. A motion to this effect having been made by Mr. Wilmot of Pennsylvania, by way of amendment to one of the appropriation bills passed during the war, the restriction has obtained the name of the “Wilmot Proviso.” This motion in the House of Representatives was extensively seconded by the press, by popular assemblies, and by legislative resolutions throughout the non-slaveholding States, and caused a considerable increase of antislavery agitation.
The South, of course, took an interest in the question not inferior to that of the North. The extension of the United States on the southwestern frontier has long been a cardinal point in the policy of most Southern statesmen. The application of an antislavery proviso to territories acquired by conquest in that quarter came into direct conflict with this policy. Meetingsclvwere accordingly held at Washington during the first session of the Thirtieth Congress, attended by a majority of the members from the slaveholding States, to take into consideration the measures proper to be adopted. At one of these meetings a sub-committee was appointed, of which Mr. Calhoun was chairman, to prepare an address “of the Southern delegates to their constituents.” At a subsequent meeting a substitute for this address was submitted by Mr. Berrien of Georgia, under the title of an address “to the people of the United States.” The original paper was, however, adopted in preference, and received the signatures of forty-eight of the members of Congress from the slaveholding States. Of these all but two were of the Democratic party.[30]
These proceedings contributed materially to increase the discontents existing at the South. Nor was the progress of excitement less rapid at the North. The nomination of General Taylor by the Whig convention, accompanied by the refusal of that convention to countenance the Wilmot Proviso, led to the organization of the Free Soil party in the non-slaveholding States. In the summer of 1848, a convention of delegates of this party assembled at Buffalo in New York, at which an antislavery platform was adopted, and Mr. Van Buren was nominated as a candidate for the Presidency.
These occurrences and the state of feeling which they created, or indicated, appeared to Mr. Webster to constitute a crisis in the condition of the country of a most formidable description. Opinion at the North and South had, in his judgment, either reached, or was rapidly reaching, a point at which the coöperation of the two sections of the country in carrying on the government as coequal members of the Federal Union would cease to be practicable. The constitutional opinions and the views on the subject of slavery set forth in Mr. Calhoun’s address he deemed to be such as could never be acquiesced in by the non-slaveholding States. On the other hand, the organization of a party on the basis of antislavery agitation at the North appeared to him equally menacing to the Union. The professions of attachment to the Union and the Constitution made on both sides, and often, no doubt, inclvientire good faith, did but increase the danger, by their tendency to produce misapprehension and self-deception as to the really irreconcilable nature of the opposite extremes of opinion.
It was his profound and anxious sense of the dangers of the Union, in this crisis of affairs, which reconciled Mr. Webster to the nomination of General Taylor. He saw in his position as a citizen of a Southern State and a slaveholder the basis of support to his administration from that quarter of the Union; while his connection with the Whig party, the known moderation of his views, with his declared sentiments on the subject of the Presidential veto, were a sufficient ground for the confidence of the North. In fact, in the existing state of things, it was soon apparent that there was no other candidate of either party so well calculated to allay sectional differences, and guide the vessel of state over the stormy sea of excitement and agitation.
But whatever reliance might justly have been placed upon the character and disposition of General Taylor, the prospect of affairs was sufficiently dark and inauspicious. Thoughtful persons looked forward to a struggle on the territorial question, at the first session of the Thirty-first Congress, which would convulse the country. In this state of things the event which we have already alluded to took place, and California presented herself for admission as a State, with a constitution prohibiting slavery. As California was the only portion of the Mexican territory in reference to which the question was of practical importance, Mr. Webster derived from this unexpected and seasonable occurrence a gleam of hope. It removed a topic of controversy in reference to which it had seemed hopeless to propose any terms of compromise; and it opened, as it were providentially, the door for an understanding on other points, on the basis of carrying into execution existing compacts and constitutional provisions on the one hand, and not strenuously insisting, on the other hand, upon applying the antislavery proviso where, as in Utah and New Mexico, he was persuaded it could be of no practical importance.
On these principles, and with this object in view, Mr. Webster made his great speech of the 7th of March, 1850.
It would be too much to expect, in reference to a subject of so much difficulty, and one on which the public mind hasclviibeen so greatly excited, that a speech of this description should find universal favor in any part of the country. It is believed, however, that by the majority of patriotic and reflecting citizens in every part of the United States, while on single topics there may be differences of opinion, it has been regarded as holding out a practical basis for the adjustment of controversies, which had already gone far to dissolve the Union, and could not be much longer pursued without producing that result. If those who have most strongly expressed their dissent from the doctrines of the speech (we do not, of course, allude to the mere clamor of political or personal enemies) will pause from the work of denunciation, and make the attempt themselves to lay downa practicable platformon which this great controversy can in fact be settled, and the union of the States perpetuated, they will not find it so hard to censure what is done by others as to do better themselves. It is quite easy to construct a Southern platform or a Northern platform; the difficulty is to find a basis on which South and North will be able andwillingto stand together. Of all those who have condemned the views of Mr. Webster, who has gone further than he, in the speech of the 7th of March, 1850, to furnish such a basis? Or rather, we may ask, who of those that have been loudest in condemnation of his course has taken a single step towards effecting this paramount object?
Mr. Webster’s thoughts are known to have been earnestly and profoundly employed on this subject from the commencement of the session. He saw beforehand the difficulties and the dangers incident to the step which he adopted, but he believed that, unless some such step was taken in the North, the separation of the States was inevitable. The known state of opinion of leading members of Congress led him to look for little support from them. He opened the matter to some of his political friends, but they did not encourage him in the course he felt bound to pursue. He found that he could not expect the coöperation of the members of Congress from his own State, nor that of many of the members from the other Northern States. He gave up all attempt to rally beforehand a party which would sustain him. His own description of his feelings at the time was, “that he had made up his mind to embark alone on what he was aware would prove a stormy sea, because, in that case, should final disaster ensue, there wouldclviiibe but one life lost.” But he believed that the step which he was about to take would be sanctioned by the mass of the people, and in that reliance he went forward.
While the compromise measures were still undecided before Congress, about midsummer of 1850, President Taylor was removed from his high office by death. In the reorganization of the executive occasioned by this event, Mr. Webster, to the general satisfaction of the country, was placed by President Fillmore at the head of the administration. Subsequent events are too recent to need to be described. The correspondence with the Austrian Chargé d’Affaires is the worthy complement, after an interval of a quarter of a century, to the profound discussion of international politics contained in the speech of January, 1824, on the revolution in Greece, and that of 1826, on the Congress of Panama. We have before us a translation of this correspondence furtively published in Germany, and circulated throughout the Austrian empire. The fervid appeals to the patriotism of the people, with which Mr. Webster has electrified the Union on various occasions during the last nine months, have contributed materially to the great work of sectional conciliation; and his last noble effort, on laying the corner-stone of the Capitol, will be read with admiration as long as the Capitol itself shall last.
Such, in a brief and imperfect narrative, is the public life of Mr. Webster, extending over a period of forty years, marked by the occurrence of events of great importance. It has been the aim of the writer to prevent the pen of the biographer from being too much influenced by the partiality of the friend. Should he seem to the candid not wholly to have escaped that error, (which, however, he trusts will not be the case,) he ventures to hope that it will be forgiven to an intimacy which commenced in the youth of one of the parties and the boyhood of the other, and which has subsisted for nearly half a century. It will be admitted, he thinks, by every one, that this career, however inadequately delineated, has been one of singular eminence and brilliancy. Entering upon public life at the close of the first epoch in the political history of the United States under the present Constitution, Mr. Webster has stood below none of the distinguished men who have impressed their character on the second.
clix
There is a class of public questions in reference to which the opinions of most men are greatly influenced by prejudices founded in natural temperament, early association, and real or supposed local interest. As far as such questions are concerned, it is too much to hope that, in times of high party excitement, full justice will be done to prominent statesmen by those of their contemporaries who differ from them. We greatly err, however, if candid men of all parties, and in all parts of the country, do not accord to Mr. Webster the praise of having formed to himself a large and generous view of the character of an American statesman, and of having adopted the loftiest standard of public conduct. They will agree that he has conceived, in all its importance, the position of the country as a member of the great family of nations, and as the leading republican government. In reference to domestic politics it will be as generally conceded, that, reposing less than most public men on a party basis, it has been the main object of his life to confirm and perpetuate the great work of the constitutional fathers of the last generation.
By their wisdom and patriotic forethought we are blessed with a system in which the several States are brought into a union so admirably composed and balanced,—both complicated and kept distinct with such skill,—as to seem less a work of human prudence than of Providential interposition.[31]Mr. Webster has at all times been fully aware of the evils of anarchy, discord, and civil war at home, and of utter national insignificance abroad, from which the formation of the Union saved us. He has been not less sensible to the obstacles to be overcome the perils to be encountered, and the sufferings to be borne, before this wonderful framework of government could be established. And he has been firmly persuaded that, if once destroyed, it can never be reconstructed. With these views, his political life has been consecrated to the maintenance in all theirclxstrength of the principles on which the Constitution rests, and to the support of the system of government created by it.
The key to his whole political course is the belief that, when the Union is dissolved, the internal peace, the vigorous growth, and the prosperity of the States, and the welfare of their inhabitants, are blighted for ever, and that, while the Union endures, all else of trial and calamity which can befall a nation may be remedied or borne. So believing, he has pursued a course which has earned for him an honored name among those who have discharged the duty of good citizens with the most distinguished ability, zeal, and benefit to the country. In the relations of civilized life, there is no higher service which man can render to man, than thus to preserve a wise constitution of government in healthful action. Nor does the most eloquent of the statesmen of antiquity content himself with pronouncing this the highest human merit. In that admirable treatise on the Republic, of which some precious chapters have been restored to us after having been lost for ages, he does not hesitate to affirm, that there is nothing in which human virtue approaches nearer the divine, than in establishing and preserving states: “neque enim ulla res est, in qua propius ad deorum numen virtus accedat humana, quam civitates aut condere novas aut conservare jam conditas.”[32]