Politics & government > Oration on the death of Daniel Webster

11
walk the course of life, and at its close devoutly commend our beloved country,
the common parent of us all, to the Divine benignity.”
As a political officer, I shall speak of him as a legislator and
executor of the law, a maker and administrator of laws.
It is said that he had a large influence in the Massachusetts Con-.
vention. The speeches, however, do not show any remarkable depth
of philosophy, or width of historic view; but they show the strength
of a great man not fully master of his theme. They are not always
fair; they sometimes show the spacious arguments of the advocate,
and do not always indicate the soundness of the judge. His learning
was then, as it always was, towards the concentration of power, not
to its diffusion. It was the Federal leaning of Hew England at
the time. He had no philosophical objection to a technical religious
test as the qualification for office, but did not think it expedient to
found a measure on that principle. He wanted property and not
population as the basis of representation in the Senate. The House
might rest on men, the Senate on money. Said he, “ it would seem
to be the part of political wisdom to found government on property
yet he wished to have the property diffused as widely as possible.
He was a little jealous of the legislature, but he wanted an indepen¬
dent judiciary. In Congress, in 1813, he was with the Federal party,
and, of course, not friendly to the war ; yet he went for the defence
of the country, and especially for naval defence. He had an eye on
the commerce of America. He saw its value, and declared it a unit.
He did early large service by procuring the passage of a law for the
payment of bills in uniform currency. That was the greatest service, I
think, he ever performed in matters of currency or national finance.
In later years he defended the United States Bank, but that ques¬
tion, like others, had then become a party question ; and a horse in
the party team must go on with his fellows, or be flayed by the
driver’s lash. In 1816, he opposed the protective tariff, and so in
1824. His speech at that time is a work of large labour, nice re¬
search, and still of value.
In 1828, he voted for the “ Bill of Abominations,” as the tariff
was called, not because he was in favour of the measure, but as the
least of sundry evils. Afterwards, he became a strong advocate for
a high protective tariff. Here he has been blamed for his change
of opinion. It seems to me his first opinion was right, and his last
opinion wrong—that he never answered his first great speech—but it
seems to me that he was honest in the change.
In 1816 and 1824, the South wanted a protective tariff; the
North hated it. It was Mr. Calhoun who introduced the measure
first. Calhoun at that time was in favour of an United States pro¬
tective tariff. There was to Mr. Webster for this change, it seems
to me, a good and sufficient reason; but he had other fluctuations
on this matter, which, I grieve to say, do not seem capable of an ex¬
planation quite so honourble.