Part 4 (1/2)
CHAPTER V
Election to Congress froress--Mr Webster's Resolution and Speech in favor of the Greeks--Arguden--Circumstances under which it was made--Speech on the Tariff Law of 1824--A coainst the United States reported by Mr
Webster, and enacted--The Election of Mr Ada of the Nineteenth Congress, and State of Parties--Congress of Panama, and Mr Webster's Speech on that Subject--Election as a Senator of the United States--Revision of the Tariff Law by the Twentieth Congress--Embarrassments of the Question--Mr Webster's Course and Speech on this Subject
In the auturess for the city (then town) of Boston, and was chosen by a very large majority over his opponent, Mr Jesse Putnam The former party distinctions, as has been already observed, had nearly lost their significance in Massachusetts, as in some other parts of the country
As a necessary, or at least a natural consequence of this state of things, four candidates had already been brought forward for the Presidential election of November, 1824; namely, Mr John Quincy Adams of Massachusetts, Mr Clay of Kentucky, General Jackson of Tennessee, and Mr Crawford of Georgia Mr Calhoun of South Carolina and Mr
Lowndes of the same State had also both been nominated by their friends at an early period of the canvass; but the latter was soon removed by death, and Mr Calhoun withdrew his pretensions in favor of General Jackson All the candidates naed to the old Democratic party (or Republican party as it was then more usually called), or had for many years attached theround Mr Crawford alone had attempted to avail himself of the ancient party ressional caucus of his friends They forress, and the signal failure of the nomination contributed to the final abandonment of that mode of procedure No Presidential candidate has since been noressional caucus In the canvass of 1824, it was theout the prospect of a liberal basis of administration, to draw to themselves as many as possible of the old Federal party In Massachusetts, and generally in New England, the fusion of parties was complete, and Mr Adams received their united support In the Middle States the union was less perfect, and the votes of a large proportion of the old Federal party were given to General Jackson and Mr
Crawford
The Congressional elections in Massachusetts are held a year in advance
It was not till December, 1823, that Mr Webster took his seat as a ress It has rarely happened to an individual, by engaging in public life, to make an equal sacrifice of personal interest Born to an inheritance of poverty, struggling through youth and early ainst all the difficulties of straitened means and a narrow sphere, he had risen above theht of his reputation, receiving as great a professional inco the foundation of an ample independence All this was to be put at risk for the hazardous uncertainties, and the scarcely less hazardous certainties, of public life It was not till after repeated refusals of a noress, that Mr Webster was at last called upon, in a reat sacrifice In fact, ittalent and familiarity with political affairs, and consequent ability to take a lead in the public business, the question whether he shall do so is hardly subes of second-rate ree to follow the bent of their inclinations It was theto political life, that the cessation of the coarse conflicts of party warfare seeher order, an ireat interests of the country, and a policy ai to proht be called into action
Although the domestic politics of the United States were in a condition of repose, the politics of Europe at this time were disturbed and anxious Revolutions had within a few years broken out in Naples, Piedle was in progress, between the Christian population of that country and the government of their Ottoman oppressors At an early period of this contest, it had attracted much notice in the United States A correspondence had been opened between an accredited co at Paris, with the celebrated Koray at their head, and friends of the cause of Greece in this country;[11] and a formal appeal had been made to the people of the United States, by the Messenian Senate of Kalaress which assee of December, 1822, and in that of 1823, had expressed respect and sy thus called to the subject, Mr Webster thought it a favorable opportunity to speak an emphatic word, from a quarter whence it would be respected, in favor of those principles of rational liberty and enlightened progress which were seeking to extend theth of the Grecian patriots was to be derived, not froovernments of Christendom, but from the public opinion and the sympathy of the civilized world, he felt that they had a peculiar right to expect so from the only powerful republican state He was also evidently willing to eainst the doctrines which had been proresses of the European sovereigns
Till the administration of Mr Jefferson, it had been the custoes of the President These answers furnished Congress with the estions Asthese answers, (a consuislative result,) and as differences in opinion between Congress and the executive, if they existed, were thus preht a matter of convenience, when Mr
Jefferson cah attended with evils, it had its advantages The opportunity of general political debate, under a government like ours, if not furnished, will be taken The constituencies look to their representatives to discuss public questions It will perhaps be found, on coress at the present day hat they were fifty years ago, that, although the general debate on the answer to the President's e has been retrenched, there is in the course of the session quite as ht in, and often to the serious obstruction of the public business, at the advanced stages of the session
Whatever eneral principle, President Monroe, as we have seen, having in two successive annual ress to this subject, Mr Webster, by way of response to these allusions, at an early period of the session offered the following resolution in the House of Representatives:--
”_Resolved_, That provision ought to bethe expense incident to the appointent or commissioner to Greece, whenever the President shall deem it expedient to make such appointment”
His speech in support of this resolution was delivered on the 19th of January, 1824, in the presence of an i nature of the subject and by the fame of the speaker, now returned, after six years' absence, to the field where he had gathered early laurels, and to which he had now cohly excited; and it is but little to say, that it was entirely fulfilled The speech was conceived and executed with rare felicity; and was as remarkable for what it did not, as for what it did contain To a subject on which it was almost impossible to avoid a certain strain of classical sentiic He indulged in no _ad captandum_ reference to the topics which lay le allusion to Greece, as the mistress of the world in letters and arts, found an appropriate place in the exordium But he neither rhapsodized about the ancients, nor denounced the Turks, nor overfloith Americanism He treated, in a statesreat political question of the age,” the question ”between absolute and regulated govern occasions to let their voice be heard on this question He concisely reviewed the doctrines of the Continental sovereigns, as set forth in what has been called ”the Holy Alliance,”
and in the resses He pointed out the inconsistency of these principles with those of self-government and national independence, and the duty of the United States to declare their sentiments in support of the latter He showed that such a declaration was inconsistent with no principle of public law, and forbidden by no prudential consideration He briefly sketched the history of the Greek revolution; and having shown that his proposal was a pacific overnment and the European allies, he took leave of the subject with a few manly words of sympathy for the Greeks
He was supported by several leading inia, afterwards Speaker of the House and Minister to England, and by General Houston of Tennessee; but the subject lay too far beyond the ordinary range of legislation; it gained no strength from the calculations of any of the Presidential candidates; it enlisted none of the great local interests of the country; and it was not of a nature to be pushed against opposition or indifference It was probably with little or no expectation of carrying it, that the resolution was ained in the opportunity of expressing hireat political question of the day His words of encouragement were soon read in every capital and at every court of Europe, and in every Continental language; they were received with grateful emotion in Greece At home the speech fully sustained Mr
Webster's reputation, not merely for parliaeneral politics, which few public ive the those who are selected to represent the country abroad In a letter froment on a matter of this kind was entitled to as much respect as that of any man in the community, this speech is pronounced ”the best sa which our country can show”
It was during this session, that Mr Webster ument in the Supreden, to which we have already alluded It reat constitutional effort is read, to know that the case came on in court a week or ten days earlier than Mr
Webster expected, and that it was late in the afternoon, after a severe debate in the House of Representatives on some of the details of the tariff bill, that he received the intiue the cause the nextAt this tiuest of hisor fact, were to be the work of the few intervening hours It is superfluous to say that there was no long space for rest or sleep; though it seems hardly credible that the only specific preument before such a tribunal should have been in the stolen watches of one night
In the course of this session Mr Webster, besides taking a leading part in the discussion of the details of the tariff law of 1824, made a carefully prepared speech, in reply to Mr Clay, on some of the principles upon which he had supported it His exposition of the popular errors on the subject of the balance of trade may be referred to as a very happy speci applied to commercial questions Mr Webster did not contest the constitutional right of Congress to lay duties for the protection of rounds of expediency, drawn from the condition of the country at the ti of so interests He was the representative of the principal coreat majority of his constituents were opposed to the bill; one member only from Massachusetts voted in its favor The last sentence of the speech shows the general viehich he took of the provisions of the act as a whole: ”There are sohly approve; there are others in which I should acquiesce; but those to which I have now stated my objections appear to erous to that interest which has steadily enriched, gallantly defended, and proudly distinguished us, that nothing can prevail upon ive it my support” This sentence sufficiently shoith how little justice it was asserted, in 1828, that Mr
Webster had, in 1824, declared an uncoislative provision for the encouragereat popular interest caress, but the attention of Mr Webster, as chairman of the Judiciary Coreat practical iht forward entirely without ostentation or display, but inferior in interest to scarce any act of legislation since the first organization of the government We refer to the act of the 3d of March, 1825, ”more effectually to provide for the punishainst the United States, and for other purposes” This chapter in the legislation of the United States had been coinal act of the 30th of April, 1790, ”for the punishainst the United States,”
deserves, in coress, the praise of great sagacity and foresight in anticipating the wants and the operation of the new systeovern out of the complex nature of our syste in the United States, which, being entirely novel in the history of other governments, was scarcely to be provided for in advance The analysis of the English constitution here failed the able overnment in operation It is to be wondered at, not that sos were overlooked, but that so many were provided for
Of the cases left thus unprovided for, more perhaps were to be found in the judiciary department than in any other Many crimes committed on shi+pboard, beyond the jurisdiction of any State, or in places within the Union excepted from State jurisdiction, were unprovided for Statutes had been enacted from time to time to supply these deficiencies; but the subject does not appear at any time to have attracted the special attention of any one whose professional knowledge and weight of character qualified hith taken up by Mr Webster, in the second session of the Eighteenth Congress It fell appropriately within the sphere of the Committee on the Judiciary, of which he was chairman; and his own extensive practice in the courts both of the United States and of the separate States hadlaws He accordingly drehat finally passed the two houses, as the sixty-fifth chapter of the laws of the second session of the Eighteenth Congress, and procured the assent of the Committee on the Judiciary to report it to the House Soreat e, partly on the estion of other members of the House As it finally passed, in twenty-six sections, it covered all the cases which had occurred in the thirty-five years which had elapsed since the law of 1790 was enacted; and it amounted to a brief, but comprehensive, code of the criminal jurisprudence of the United States, as distinct from that of the separate States
It was Mr Webster's object in this statute, not to enact theoretical reforms, but to remedy practical evils; to make provision for crione unpunished It was objected to the bill, on its passage through the House, that it created a considerable number of capital offences But these were already, in every case, capital offences either at common law or by the criminal law of the States, whenever the State tribunals were conizance of them It was the effect of Mr Webster's act, not to create new offences, but to bring within the reach of a proper tribunal crinized as such by all the codes of law, but which had hitherto escaped with impunity between separate jurisdictions The bill was received with great favor by the House Mr Buchanan said that he highly approved its general features ”It was a disgrace,” he added, ”to our system of laws, that no provision had ever been made for the punishment of the crimes which it embraced, when committed in places within the jurisdiction of the United States” An eloquent arguston of Louisiana in favor of substituting lower penalties for capital punishment, but he failed to satisfy the House of the expediency of so great a revolution in our criht modifications of the bill were conceded to the sensitiveness of those who apprehended encroachment on State jurisdiction; but it passed substantially in the form in which it was reported by Mr
Webster Twenty-seven years' experience have shown it to be one of the most valuable laws in the statute-book