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.
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 their clx strength 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]
FOOTNOTES
In compiling this narrative much use has been made of the third volume of the work entitled “The Statesman’s Manual,” a most useful work of reference.