level. A plain tale explains the whole matter. In 1816 I had not acquiesced in the tariff then supported by South Carolina. To some parts of it I felt and expressed great repugnance. I held the same opinions in 1821. I said then, and say now, that, as an original question, the authority of Congress to exercise the revenue power, with direct reference to the protection of manufactures, is a questionable authority,-far more questionable, in my judgement, than the power of internal improvement.

“With a great majority of the representatives of Massachusetts, I voted against the tariff of 1824. But notwithstanding our dissent, the great states of New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Kentucky, went for the bill, and it passed. What then were we to do? Our only option was, either to fall in with this settled course of public policy, and accommodate ourselves to it as well as we could, or to embrace the South Carolina doctrine, and talk of nullifying the statute by state interference.

"This last alternative did not suit our principles, and of course we adopted the former. In 1827 the subject came again before Congress, on a proposition favourable to wool and woollens. We looked upon the system of protection as being fixed and settled. The law of 1824 remained. It had gone into full operation. No man proposed to repeal it. But, owing to subsequent and unforeseen occurrences, the benefit intended by it to wool and woollens had not been realized. A measure was accordingly brought forward to meet this precise deficiency. Was ever anything more reasonable? If the policy of the tariff laws had become established in principle, as the permanent policy of the government, should they not be revised and amended and made equal, like other laws, as exigencies should arise, or justice require? Because we had doubted about adopting the system, were we to refuse to cure its manifest defects after it became adopted, and when no one attempted its repeal? And this, Sir, is the inconsistency so much bruited. I had voted against the tariff of 1824, but it passed; and in 1827 and 1828 I voted to amend it in a point essential to the interest of my constituents. Could I do otherwise? Having voted against the tariff originally, does consistency demand that I should do all in my power to maintain an unequal tariff,-burdensome to my own constituents in many respects, favourable in none? To consistency of this sort I lay no claim. And there is another sort to which I lay as little, and that is, a kind of consistency by which persons feel themselves as much bound to oppose a proposition after it has become a law of the land, as before."

On the nature and merits of Mr. Webster's views in relation to the Bank question, our limits forbid us here to dwell; we shall therefore conclude this part of our article with the following paragraph explaining in brief his sentiments on slavery :

"The slavery of the South has always been regarded as a matter of domestic policy, left with the states themselves, and with which the federal government had nothing to do. Certainly, Sir, I am, and ever have been

of that opinion. The gentleman, indeed, argues that slavery, in the abstract, is no evil. Most assuredly, I need not say, I differ with him altogether and most widely on that point. I regard domestic slavery as one of the greatest of evils, both moral and political. But though it be a malady, and whether it be curable, and if so, by what means; or, on the other hand, whether it be the vulnus immedicabile of the social system, I leave it to those whose right and duty it is to inquire and to decide.”—Vol. i. p. 380.

We have already alluded to the difference in the matter and complexion of these two volumes of speeches. It may be said, perhaps, that from the first we learn more of the ornate and ambitious orator,-from the second of the able and accomplished statesman. The latter especially exhibits the action of Mr. Webster's intellect employed on some of the most momentous questions that have agitated American society for a considerable period; and employed at a time of life, too, when that intellect may be supposed to have reached the meridian of its vigour, and to have felt and acted under the responsibility of a reputation already acquired. At no previous æra, it is believed, has the field for the display of true statesman-like qualities been so ample, or filled with so great a number of able and anxious competitors. That he has acquitted himself with the highest honour in all the relations in which he has been called upon to act his part, even those who may disapprove of his general principles, or the particular auses that he has espoused, will not readily be disposed to gainsay. It should be recollected, that whatever position Mr. Webster now occupies in the eyes of his country, and whatever credit his contemporaries may be inclined to concede to him, have been gained solely by talent and integrity. They were not won in the high places of power and official station. It may be emphatically said of him, that he is not one of those who have had "greatness thrust upon them." The period of his coming forward into public life was somewhat against him. New England, from which he originally issued as a representative, had then lost much of her former ascendency among the States, and other influences had grown up; nay, this state was even now excluded from her just participation in the newly-formed combinations of political power. "Had he been a foreigner, barely naturalized, he would have "come forward with less prejudice than as a New Englander

"of talent and promise." Notwithstanding these disadvantages, however, he has forced his way to the exalted moral position he now occupies in the public mind. He has reared the fabric of his own reputation, and that by appealing to no other than the popular favour, without, at the same time, flattering popular prejudices and passions.

From this last consideration it may very reasonably be inferred that he has at times been in temporary disfavour with a portion of the American people: such has, indeed, been the fact; but good sense, triumphing over passion in the long run, has at length attained to a perception of the justness of his views, and made cheerful acknowledgement of his services. It has been said of the American government by an eminent American judge, that "the centrifugal force is far 66 greater than the centripetal; the danger is, not that we shall "fall into the sun, but that we may fly off in eccentric orbits, "and never return to our perihelion." The same image may be applied, with a greater or less degree of qualification, to the spirit of popular faction; and whenever any erratic tendency of this kind has manifested itself,-whenever any disposition has appeared in the American people to fly off from the central element of their strength, their bond of union, the provisions and spirit of the constitution, Mr. Webster, at the risk of whatsoever unpopularity, and casting aside, equally and at once, all party animosities and predilections, has never relaxed his strenuous efforts to bring them back to a due sense of their dangerous position. The discharge of duties like this, in which the very heroism of politics consists, is the test of the true statesman; and in nothing do Mr. Webster's public character and course of political conduct appear in so dignified and commanding a light. On all occasions he has been the great champion of the constitution and laws; the supporter of the institutions of the country, and of its great and essential interests; and from his first appearance in public life to the present day, his writings may be searched in vain for a single attempt to play the demagogue. Moreover, we may here notice as an incontestable fact, that the Jackson administration, but for the voice of Webster and of his friends, would have been left in a state of great weakness in the war of Nullification. But for him, the powerful

of that opinion. The gentleman, indeed, argues that slavery, in the abstract, is no evil. Most assuredly, I need not say, I differ with him altogether and most widely on that point. I regard domestic slavery as one of the greatest of evils, both moral and political. But though it be a malady, and whether it be curable, and if so, by what means; or, on the other hand, whether it be the vulnus immedicabile of the social system, I leave it to those whose right and duty it is to inquire and to decide."—Vol. i. p. 380.

We have already alluded to the difference in the matter and complexion of these two volumes of speeches. It may be said, perhaps, that from the first we learn more of the ornate and ambitious orator,-from the second of the able and accomplished statesman. The latter especially exhibits the action of Mr. Webster's intellect employed on some of the most momentous questions that have agitated American society for a considerable period; and employed at a time of life, too, when that intellect may be supposed to have reached the meridian of its vigour, and to have felt and acted under the responsibility of a reputation already acquired. At no previous æra, it is believed, has the field for the display of true statesman-like qualities been so ample, or filled with so great a number of able and anxious competitors. That he has acquitted himself with the highest honour in all the relations in which he has been called upon to act his part, even those who may disapprove of his general principles, or the particular auses that he has espoused, will not readily be disposed to gainsay. It should be recollected, that whatever position Mr. Webster now occupies in the eyes of his country, and whatever credit his contemporaries may be inclined to concede to him, have been gained solely by talent and integrity. They were not won in the high places of power and official station. It may be emphatically said of him, that he is not one of those who have had "greatness thrust upon them." The period of his coming forward into public life was somewhat against him. New England, from which he originally issued as a representative, had then lost much of her former ascendency among the States, and other influences had grown up; nay, this state was even now excluded from her just participation in the newly-formed combinations of political power. "Had he been a foreigner, barely naturalized, he would have "come forward with less prejudice than as a New Englander

"of talent and promise." Notwithstanding these disadvantages, however, he has forced his way to the exalted moral position he now occupies in the public mind. He has reared the fabric of his own reputation, and that by appealing to no other than the popular favour, without, at the same time, flattering popular prejudices and passions.

From this last consideration it may very reasonably be inferred that he has at times been in temporary disfavour with a portion of the American people: such has, indeed, been the fact; but good sense, triumphing over passion in the long run, has at length attained to a perception of the justness of his views, and made cheerful acknowledgement of his services. It has been said of the American government by an eminent American judge, that "the centrifugal force is far 66 greater than the centripetal; the danger is, not that we shall "fall into the sun, but that we may fly off in eccentric orbits, " and never return to our perihelion." The same image may be applied, with a greater or less degree of qualification, to the spirit of popular faction; and whenever any erratic tendency of this kind has manifested itself,-whenever any disposition has appeared in the American people to fly off from the central element of their strength, their bond of union, the provisions and spirit of the constitution, Mr. Webster, at the risk of whatsoever unpopularity, and casting aside, equally and at once, all party animosities and predilections, has never relaxed his strenuous efforts to bring them back to a due sense of their dangerous position. The discharge of duties like this, in which the very heroism of politics consists, is the test of the true statesman; and in nothing do Mr. Webster's public character and course of political conduct appear in so dignified and commanding a light. On all occasions he has been the great champion of the constitution and laws; the supporter of the institutions of the country, and of its great and essential interests; and from his first appearance in public life to the present day, his writings may be searched in vain for a single attempt to play the demagogue. Moreover, we may here notice as an incontestable fact, that the Jackson administration, but for the voice of Webster and of his friends, would have been left in a state of great weakness in the war of Nullification. But for him, the powerful