peared immediately after the great southern and western convention at Memphis, of which he was president, near the close of 1845.

A collection of Mr. Calhoun's speeches from 1811 to 1843 was published in New York in 1844. It is incomplete, but perhaps contains every thing he had written in illustration or defence of the principles he held at the time of its appearance. His subsequent speeches and reports, especially his speech on the Oregon question and report on the memorial of the Memphis Convention, are not inferior in terseness and clearness of expression, or in argumentative power, to any of his earlier productions.

The doctrines for the defence of which he is chiefly distinguished are those of free trade and the sovereignty of the individual states. He holds that the union is a league for special purposes between the governments, and not between the people, of the states which "acceded" to the Constitution, and that under certain contingencies each state may decide and act for itself upon the laws of Congress, and, holding them unconstitutional, may oppose its own force to their execution. But "state rights are no more!" he exclaims in his speech on the removal of the deposits: "The bill which vested in the central government the privilege of judging of the extent of its powers, and authorized it to enforce its judgments by the sword, prostrated the states as helpless corporations at its feet." And since the defeat of his party on this question he has generally acted with the one under whose auspices he first came into Congress.

It has been stated that he has devoted his leisure for several years to the composition of a work on the Principles of Government, in which his peculiar views will be more methodically defined and vindicated.

Mr. Calhoun is in many respects one of the most extraordinary men of the nineteenth century, and is undoubtedly one of the few for whom this period will be memorable in after times. His eloquence is altogether unlike that which is supposed to belong to a new country, or to a democracy, which is the eloquence of passion. Its power is from an excessive refinement and compactness of reason, which requires the perfect submission of the mind, and carries it forward with irresistible force; and its glow from the vehement energy and rapidity with which his argument is conducted. In his intellectual constitution

he more than any other statesman resembles Jonathan Edwards. His mind has the same quickness of perception, subtle sharpness of discrimination, and comprehensive grasp. He has the same sincerity of conviction, fervour of tone, and heartiness of purpose. One of the differences between him and Edwards is in the manner of approaching a point of controversy. The great divine who gave to metaphysics so much of the exactness and certainty of mathematics, assailed the central proposition of his antagonist cautiously, and by various trains of reasoning, each of which seemed conclusive, but all of which, starting at different points and ending in the same result, were overwhelming. Mr. Calhoun, on the contrary, fixes his eye at once upon the essential issue, and upon this expends his whole force; and his clear and skilful analysis and rapid generalization are not unworthy of that great master of logic, to whom in perspicuousness of arrangement and in the hard polish of his diction he is frequently superior. In the Senate Mr. Calhoun's countenance is always serious.

Deep on his front engraven
Deliberation sits and public care.

It has been said that when speaking here he has no action and exhibits no emotion. This may be true, generally, but it is not so always. He was very much excited during the remarkable scene of the declaration of war against Mexico in a preamble to a bill of supplies. I sat near him during one of his speeches on that occasion. He stood erect and motionless at first, but as he proceeded his head turned from side to side, and his eyes glowed, and his words came fast and faster, and when he declared with vehement earnestness of tone that he would sooner stab himself to the heart than vote for that lying clause, he flung the back of his skeletonlike hand upon the desk before him with such energy, that men looked from all parts of the hall as if to see whether it had not been shattered to atoms by the blow. Yet this is not often his manner. He speaks rapidly indeed, but calmly, with the most judicious emphasis, and with perfect distinct

ness.

-Mr. Calhoun died in Washington on the thirty-first day of March, 1850; in what seemed the most important period of his political life; reverenced for wisdom by his party, and for virtue by all the nation.

P%

ECONOMY AND HONOUR.

FROM A SPEECH IN REPLY TO JOHN RANDOLPH, IN 1811.

Ir taxes should become necessary, I do not hesitate to say the people will pay cheerfully. It is for their government and their cause, and it would be their interest and duty to pay. But it may be, and 1 believe was said, that the people will not pay taxes, because the rights violated are not worth defending, or that the defence will cost more than the gain. Sir, I here enter my solemn protest against this low and "calculating avarice" entering this hall of legislation. It is only fit for shops and counting-houses, and ought not to disgrace the seat of power by its squalid aspect. Whenever it touches sovereign power, the nation is ruined. It is too short-sighted to defend itself. It is a compromising spirit, always ready to yield a part to save the residue. It is too timid to have in itself the laws of self-preservation. It is never safe but under the shield of honour. There is, sir, one principle necessary to make us a great people-to produce, not the form, but real spirit of union, and that is to protect every citizen in the lawful pursuit of his business. He will then feel that he is backed by the government-that its arm is his arm. He then will rejoice in its increased strength and prosperity. Protection and patriotism are reciprocal. This is the way which has led nations to greatness. Sir, I am not versed in this calculating policy, and will not, therefore, pretend to estimate in dollars and cents the value of national independence. I cannot measure in shillings and pence the misery, the stripes, and the slavery of our impressed seamen; not even the value of our shipping, commercial and agricultural losses, under the orders in council and the British system of blockade. In thus expressing myself, I do not intend to condemn any prudent estimate of the means of a country before it enters That is wisdom, the other folly.

on a war.

REBELLION AND REVOLUTION.

FROM A SPEECH ON THE BILL FOR THE ADMISSION OF MICHIGAN INTO THE UNION.

I SHALL resist all encroachments on the Constitution, whether it be the encroachment of this government on the states, or the opposite-the executive on Congress, or Congress on the executive. My creed is to hold both governments, and all the departments of each, to their proper sphere, and to maintain the authority of the laws and the Constitution against all revolutionary movements. I believe the means which our system furnishes to preserve itself are ample, if fairly understood and applied; and I shall resort to them, however corrupt and disordered the times, so long as there is hope of reforming the government. The result is in the hands of the Disposer of events. It is my part to do my duty. Yet, while I thus openly avow myself a conservative, God forbid I should ever deny the glorious right of rebellion and revolution. Should corruption and oppression become

intolerable, and cannot otherwise be thrown off if liberty must perish, or the government be overthrown, I would not hesitate, at the hazard of life, to resort to revolution, and to tear down a corrupt government, that could neither be reformed nor borne by freemen; but I trust in God things will never come to that pass. I trust never to see such fearful times; for fearful indeed they would be if they should ever befall us. It is the last remedy, and not to be thought of till common sense and the voice of mankind would justify the resort.

FORMATION OF THE CONSTITUTION.

FROM A SPEECH ON THE FORCE BILL

THERE never existed an example before of a free community spreading over such an extent of territory; and the ablest and profoundest thinkers, at the time, believed it to be utterly impracticable that there should be. Yet this difficult problem was solved-successfully solved, by the wise and sagacious men who framed our Constitution. No: it was above unaided human wisdom-above the sagacity of the most enlightened. It was the result of a fortunate combination of circumstances co-operating and leading the way to its formation; directed by that kind Providence which has so often and so signally disposed events in our favour.

THE OLD PARTIES.

FROM THE SAME.

I AVAIL myself of the occasion to avow my high respect for both of the great parties which divided the country in its early history. They were both eminently honest and patriotic, and the preference which each gave to its respective views resulted from a zealous attachment to the public interest. At that early period, before there was any experience as to the operation of the system, it is not surprising that one should believe that the danger was a tendency to anarchy, while the other believed it to be towards despotism, and that these different theoretical views should honestly have a decided influence on their public conduct.

THE DANGER OF SUBSERVIENCY.

FROM A SPEECH ON THE PUBLIC DEPOSITS.

PIRACY, robbery, and violence of every description may, as history proves, be followed by virtue, patriotism, and national greatness; but where is the example to be found of a degenerate, corrupt, and subservient people, who have ever recovered their virtue and patriotism? Their doom has ever been the lowest state of wretchedness and misery: scorned, trodden down, and obliterated for ever from the list of nations. May Heaven grant that such may never be our doom!

A NOTICE of the great statesman of the south is naturally followed by one of the illustrious New Englander who sits opposite to him in the Senate, and who from their first entrance into Congress has been his most powerful and most constant antagonist. Daniel Webster and John Caldwell Calhoun were born in the same year. One is the son of a respectable northern farmer, who emigrated into New Hampshire when it was a wilderness, and served as an officer in the old French war and the Revolution; and the other of a southern planter, of similar circumstances, who was a pioneer in the forests of Carolina, and, with the same rank, fought the Cherokees and the British. The fathers of both, after distinguishing themselves in the field, were called to honourable civil stations, but they continued to be cultivators of the soil, and their sons, after partially acquiring their education, decided to follow their inherited occupations, and passed some three years in the quiet pursuits of agriculture. What changed the purpose of Webster is unknown, but Calhoun was led to study his profession by the just appreciation of an elder brother. When Christopher Gore presented his pupil, young Daniel Webster, for admission to the bar of Boston, he ventured a prediction of his future eminence, which all his present fame has not more than fulfilled; and Doctor Dwight, about the same time, at the close of a class examination at Yale College, foretold that his southern student, John Caldwell Calhoun, would one day be President of the United States. For a while, they lingered about the northern and southern horizons, and then simultaneously shot up into mid-heaven, with a steady, but different lustre, to fix the gaze, not of their admiring countrymen only, but of mankind. Whatever may now or hereafter be the estimation in which any man or men engaged in our public affairs may be held, Daniel Webster and John Caldwell Calhoun will continue to be regarded as the representatives of the genius and of the leading opinions in political philosophy, held by the northern and southern states of the confederacy in the first half of the nineteenth century.

Mr. Webster was born in Salisbury, a rural town on the headwaters of the Merrimack river, in New Hampshire, in 1782, and after an imperfect preparation, in the common schools, entered Dartmouth College, where he was graduated when about twenty years of age. He soon after turned his attention to the law, but the necessity of exerting himself for his support interrupted and finally induced the abandonment of his studies. The pursuit of business however led him to Boston, and while there into the office of Mr. Gore, who discerned his genius, cultivated his acquaintance, and became his instructor. Here he finished the study of his profession, and was admitted an attorney and counsellor, in 1805. He then opened an office at Boscowen, a small village near his birthplace, but in 1807 removed to Portsmouth, where a larger field was opened to him, and there, in constant competition with the best lawyers of New Hampshire, he rose rapidly until he was acknowledged to be second to no one at the bar in the state.

Among the earliest, perhaps the first of all Mr. Webster's published writings, was an oration "delivered before the Federal gentlemen of Concord and its vicinity” on the fourth of July, 1806. He was then but twenty-four years of age, and the performance is interesting for its subject and its style. He discusses the question whether it be possible to preserve the Constitution. He saw thus early the dangers to which it was exposed, and enlisted for life in its defence.

Soon after the declaration of war, in 1812, he was elected a member of the national House of Representatives, in which, during four sessions, he greatly distinguished himself by his eloquence, extensive knowledge, and independent action. Although opposed to the war, he advocated such measures as were essential to the honour and safety of the country, and particularly an increase of the Navy. "Even our party divisions cease at the water's edge," he said: "They are lost in attachment to the national character, where that character is made respectable." We were contending on land for maritime rights. "In time," he continued,

"you may be enabled to redress injuries in the places where they are offered, and, if need be to accompany your own flag throughout the world with the protection of your own cannon." But his most important services in this period were rendered to the finances. In 1815 a bill had passed the Senate and was expected to pass the House, for the establishment of a bank, with a capital of fifty millions, nine tenths of which were to consist of depreciated government securities, and it was owing principally to his efforts that it was defeated. In the following year he introduced and secured the adoption of a resolution requiring the payment of revenue in specie or convertible paper. When he retired from Congress, in 1817, his course on these questions had secured to him the reputation of being one of the most practical and sagacious statesmen of the country.

He now removed to Boston, and for five years, except during the period in which he held a seat in the convention for revising the Constitution of Massachusetts, devoted himself exclusively and assiduously to his profession. A few masterly arguments in the Supreme Court confirmed in the general judgment the opinion of his friends, that as a lawyer he had no superior in the United States.

In this time Mr. Webster wrote several articles for the North American Review. And on the twenty-second of December, 1820, the second centennial anniversary of the landing of the Pilgrims, he delivered at Plymouth his splendid oration on the first settlement of New England; on the seventeenth of June, 1825, fifty years after the battle, his address at the laying of the corner-stone of the Bunker Hill Monument; and on the second of August, 1826, in Faneuil Hall, his Discourse in commemoration of the Lives and Services of Adams and Jefferson.

In December, 1823, Mr. Webster again took his seat in the House of Representatives, and in the following month delivered his celebrated speech in behalf of the Greeks. He remained in the House until 1827, distinguishing himself by his speeches on the Panama mission, the tariff, and internal improvements, and by preparing and securing the passage of the Crimes Act, of 1825.

In 1826 he was elected almost unanimously to represent the city of Boston in the House

With others, that on the Battle of Bunker Hill, in 1818, and that on the Laws of Debtor and Creditor in 1821.

of Representatives, but before the new Congress assembled a vacancy occurred in the Senate, and the Legislature chose him by acclamation to fill it. He was regularly returned to this body until he resigned the senatorial dignity to become Secretary of State, in 1840.

Near the close of December, 1829, Mr. Foot introduced his celebrated resolutions on the Public Lands. They were the subject of occasional and desultory debate until the nineteenth of January, when General Hayne, of South Carolina, in a vehement speech accused New England of a selfish opposition to the interests of the western states. While he was speaking Mr. Webster entered the Senate, from the Supreme Court, where he had been engaged in an important case, and he would have replied as soon as General Hayne sat down, but that the Senate then adjourned. The next day he delivered one of the most powerful and brilliant speeches that have been heard in modern times. The debate was continued until the twenty-third of January, on both sides with extraordinary ability, but on that of Mr. Webster with a force of logic and splendour of eloquence that had never been equalled in the Senate, that have rarely been equalled in the world. In this famous controversy the doctrine of nullification was first avowed in the Congress, and its triumphant overthrow by Mr. Webster won for him more honourable triumphs than ever rewarded the victories of the field. With its praise the nation "rung from side to side." At the banquet given to him soon after in New York, the great Chancellor of that state said that the discussion had rescued constitutional law from archives and libraries, and placed it "under the eye, and submitted it to the judgment of the American people." In 1838 another attempt was made by an abler champion to enforce the same doctrines in the Senate, but Mr. Webster's victory over Mr. Calhoun was not less decisive than that he had achieved over General Hayne.

In 1839 Mr. Webster visited England, where he was received with the honours due to his genius, acquirements, and illustrious character. When the whig party came into power, in 1841, he was made Secretary of State, and the extraordinary ability which he displayed in negotiating the Treaty of Washington, and in other cases, crowned his name with a new glory. He returned to the Senate

in 1845, and is now a member of that body. | At a magnificent banquet, attended by five hundred gentlemen, which was given to him in Philadelphia on the second of December, 1846, he delivered a speech of nearly four hours, which showed that at sixty-five he retains in perfection his remarkable powers. This is not a place in which it is proper to speak at length of his course in regard to public affairs; but "peace has its victories as well as war," and he is not moved by the spirit of this age or of this nation, who does not look upon a statesman who prevents an appeal to arms as more deserving of applause than a soldier who wins a hundred battles.

Of Daniel Webster as an author, we may speak in every presence with unhesitating freedom. By whatever circumstances educed, his works are "vital in every part." His mind is of the foremost rank, and in that rank will unquestionably always hold a distinguished place. It cannot be doubted that he will be remembered with Franklin, Hamilton, and Marshall, those illustrious countrymen of ours, upon whose intellectual calibre the world has set the seal of its high and final judgment.

the

Of Mr. Webster's State Papers no collections have been published. For wise apprehension and dialectic skill they are among finest monuments of his genius. Of his forensic arguments we have but a few meagre outlines, sufficient to justify the measure of his logical endowments which they occasioned, but not sufficient to account for the extraordinary effects which they produced upon the mixed multitude who heard them. A few of his historical addresses and congressional speeches we possess as they came from his hand, with the antique simplicity and strength which are characteristics of the highest order of such productions. The first volume of his Speeches and Forensic Arguments was published in Boston in 1830, the second in 1838, and a third in 1843: the last ending with his Remarks in the Senate a few days before he resigned his seat to enter the cabinet. Since he went back to the Senate, the most important of his speeches that have been published are one on the Treaty of Washington, and the one delivered in Philadelphia. His attention has generally been directed to home subjects. He is in every sense American. But in a few of his speeches he has shown a comprehensive and particular familiarity with European history and politics. All his works

bear the deeply impressed stamp of nationality: But in his luminous expositions of constitutional law, his discerning examinations of the origin, nature, and influences of our liberty and institutions, his powerful discussions of our policy, and his masterly portraitures of those great men whose fame is one of the choicest inheritances of the nation, are shown most clearly his love of country and the joint action and fusion of his own with the national mind.

He speaks always with a manifest sincerity, and a consciousness of strength. His object is the conviction of the understanding, and he proceeds in effecting it with a simplicity and directness, and a skill in analysis and generalization, which make his advance like that of the sunlight in the track of night. At times the action of the Reason is so intense as to warm into life the Imagination, which follows, with bright-eyed Patriotism, its impetuous and resistless march, to grace and crown its triumph.

Mr. Webster's style is generally plain, sententious, and earnest,-sometimes solemn and imposing,-and at rare intervals brilliant with the play of wit, and keen with sarcasm and invective. The greatest variety to be found in any one of his speeches is in the reply to Hayne, and the most withering resentment and scorn in his merciless arraignment and exposure of Ingersoll and others who assailed the Washington Treaty, and went out of their way to attack its author. He is thoroughly furnished with all solid learning that can be turned to account in the service of the state. He is a classical scholar of the first order, as familiar with the poets as with the historians and publicists, and has a perfect mastery of his native tongue, which has been acquired by a careful study of the Saxon, and the best English literature, particularly the common version of the Bible, and Bacon, Shakspeare, and Milton.

-Since these pages were written, Mr. Webster has been called again, by President Fillmore, to the Department of State; and in several diplomatic papers, and in occasional speeches, has won anew the fame of being "the foremost man of all the world." At nearly seventy years of age, his extraordinary faculties, instead of decaying, seem still unfolding and expanding, with youthful freshness and vigour; and he remains, while his earlier associates are dead or in oblivion, the leader of the nation in intelligence and in affairs.