Mr. Webster was in New Jersey, on his way to Washington, when he first received the proclamation, and at Philadelphia he met Mr. Clay, and from a friend of that gentleman received a copy of a bill which was to do away with the tariff by gradual reductions, prevent the imposition of any further duties, and which at the same time declared against protection and in favor of a tariff for revenue only. This headlong plunge into concession and compromise was not at all to Mr. Webster's taste. He was opposed to the scheme for economical reasons, but still more on the far higher ground that there was open resistance to laws of undoubted constitutionality, and until that resistance was crushed under foot any talk of compromise was a blow at the national dignity and the national existence which ought not to be tolerated for an instant. His own course was plain. He proposed to sustain the administration, and when the national honor should be vindicated and all unconstitutional resistance ended, then would come the time for concessions. Jackson was not slow in giving Mr. Webster something to support. At the opening of the session a message was sent to Congress asking that provision might be made to enable the President to enforce the laws by means of the land and naval forces if necessary. The message was referred to a committee, who at once reported the celebrated "Force Bill," which embodied the principles of the message and had the entire approval of the President. But Jackson's party broke, despite the attitude of their chief, for many of them were from the South and could not bring themselves to the point of accepting the "Force Bill." The moment was critical, and the administration turned to Mr. Webster and took him into their councils. On February 8 Mr. Webster rose, and, after explaining in a fashion which no one was likely to forget, that this was wholly an administration measure, he announced his intention, as an independent senator, of giving it his hearty and inflexible support. The combination thus effected was overwhelming. Mr. Calhoun was now thoroughly alarmed, and we can well imagine that the threats of hanging, in which it was rumored that the President had indulged, began to have a good deal of practical significance to a gentleman who, as Secretary of War, had been familiar with the circumstances attending the deaths of Arbuthnot and Ambrister. At all events, Mr. Calhoun lost no time in having an interview with Mr. Clay, and the result was, that the latter, on February 11, announced that he should, on the following day, introduce a tariff bill, a measure of the same sort having already been started in the House. The bill as introduced did not involve such a complete surrender as that which Mr. Webster had seen in Philadelphia, but it necessitated most extensive modifications and gave all that South Carolina could reasonably demand. Mr. Clay advocated it in a brilliant speech, resting his defence on the ground that this was the only way to preserve the tariff, and that it was founded on the great constitutional doctrine of compromise. Mr. Webster opposed the bill briefly, and then introduced a series of resolutions combating the proposed measure on economical principles and on those of justice, and especially assailing the readiness to abandon the rightful powers of Congress and yield them up to any form of resistance. Before, however, he could speak in support of his resolutions, the "Force Bill" came up, and Mr. Calhoun made his celebrated argument in support of nullification. This Mr. Webster was obliged to answer, and he replied with the great speech known in his works as "The Constitution not a compact between sovereign States." In a general way the same criticism is applicable to this debate as to that with Hayne, but there were some important differences. Mr. Calhoun's argument was superior to that of his follower. It was dry and hard, but it was a splendid specimen of close and ingenious reasoning, and, as was to be expected, the originator and master surpassed the imitator and pupil. Mr. Webster's speech, on the other hand, in respect to eloquence, was decidedly inferior to the masterpiece of 1830. Mr. Curtis says, "Perhaps there is no speech ever made by Mr. Webster that is so close in its reasoning, so compact, and so powerful." To the first two qualities we can readily assent, but that it was equally powerful may be doubted. So long as Mr. Webster confined himself to defending the Constitution as it actually was and as what it had come to mean in point of fact, he was invincible. Just in proportion as he left this ground and attempted to argue on historical premises that it was a fundamental law, he weakened his position, for the historical facts were against him. In the reply to Hayne he touched but slightly on the historical, legal, and theoretical aspects of the case, and he was overwhelming. In the reply to Calhoun he devoted his strength chiefly to these topics, and, meeting his keen antagonist on the latter's own chosen ground, he put himself at a disadvantage. In the actual present and in the steady course of development, the facts were wholly with Mr. Webster. Whatever the people of the United States understood the Constitution to mean in 1789, there can be no question that a majority in 1833 regarded it as a fundamental law, and not as a compact—an opinion which has now become universal. But it was quite another thing to argue that what the Constitution had come to mean was what it meant when it was adopted. The identity of meaning at these two periods was the proposition which Mr. Webster undertook to maintain, and he upheld it as well and as plausibly as the nature of the case admitted. His reasoning was close and vigorous; but he could not destroy the theory of the Constitution as held by leaders and people in 1789, or reconcile the Virginia and Kentucky resolutions or the Hartford Convention with the fundamental-law doctrines. Nevertheless, it would be an error to suppose that because the facts of history were against Mr. Webster in these particulars, this able, ingenious, and elaborate argument was thrown away. It was a fitting supplement and complement to the reply to Hayne. It reiterated the national principles, and furnished those whom the statement and demonstration of an existing fact could not satisfy, with an immense magazine of lucid reasoning and plausible and effective arguments. The reply to Hayne gave magnificent expression to the popular feeling, while that to Calhoun supplied the arguments which, after years of discussion, converted that feeling into a fixed opinion, and made it strong enough to carry the North through four years of civil war. But in his final speech in this debate Mr. Webster came back to his original ground, and said, in conclusion, "Shall we have a general government? Shall we continue the union of States under a government instead of a league? This vital and all-important question the people will decide." The vital question went to the great popular jury, and they cast aside all historical premises and deductions, all legal subtleties and refinements, and gave their verdict on the existing facts. The world knows what that verdict was, and will never forget that it was largely due to the splendid eloquence of Daniel Webster when he defended the cause of nationality against the slave-holding separatists of South Carolina.
While this great debate was in progress, and Mr. Webster and the faithful adherents of Jackson were pushing the "Force Bill" to a vote, Mr. Clay was making every effort to carry the compromise tariff. In spite of his exertions, the Force Bill passed on February 20, but close behind came the tariff, which Mr. Webster opposed, on its final passage, in a vigorous speech. There is no need to enter into his economical objections, but he made his strongest stand against the policy of sacrificing great interests to soothe South Carolina. Mr. Clay replied, but did not then press a vote, for, with that dexterous management which he had exhibited in 1820 and was again to display in 1850, he had succeeded in getting his tariff bill carried rapidly through the House, in order to obviate the objection that all money bills must originate in the lower branch. The House bill passed the Senate, Mr. Webster voting against it, and became law. There was no further need of the Force Bill. Clay, Calhoun, even the daring Jackson ultimately, were very glad to accept the easy escape offered by a compromise. South Carolina had in reality prevailed, although Mr. Clay had saved protection in a modified form. Her threats of nullification had brought the United States government to terms, and the doctrines of Calhoun went home to the people of the South with the glory of substantial victory about them, to breed and foster separatism and secession, and prepare the way for armed conflict with the nobler spirit of nationality which Mr. Webster had roused in the North.
Speaking of Mr. Webster at this period, Mr. Benton says:—
"He was the colossal figure on the political stage during that eventful time, and his labors, splendid in their day, survive for the benefit of distant posterity."… "It was a splendid era in his life, both for his intellect and his patriotism. No longer the advocate of classes or interests, he appeared as the great defender of the Union, of the Constitution, of the country, and of the administration to which he was opposed. Released from the bonds of party and the narrow confines of class and corporation advocacy, his colossal intellect expanded to its full proportions in the field of patriotism, luminous with the fires of genius, and commanding the homage not of party but of country. His magnificent harangues touched Jackson in his deepest-seated and ruling feeling, love of country, and brought forth the response which always came from him when the country was in peril and a defender presented himself. He threw out the right hand of fellowship, treated Mr. Webster with marked distinction, commended him with public praise, and placed him on the roll of patriots. And the public mind took the belief that they were to act together in future, and that a cabinet appointment or a high mission would be the reward of his patriotic service. It was a crisis in the life of Mr. Webster. He stood in public opposition to Mr. Clay and Mr. Calhoun. With Mr. Clay he had a public outbreak in the Senate. He was cordial with Jackson. The mass of his party stood by him on the proclamation. He was at a point from which a new departure might be taken: one at which he could not stand still; from which there must be either advance or recoil. It was a case in which will more than intellect was to rule. He was above Mr. Clay and Mr. Calhoun in intellect, below them in will: and he was soon seen cooperating with them (Mr. Clay in the lead) in the great measure condemning President Jackson."
This is of course the view of a Jacksonian leader, but it is none the less full of keen analysis and comprehension of Mr. Webster, and in some respects embodies very well the conditions of the situation. Mr. Benton naturally did not see that an alliance with Jackson was utterly impossible for Mr. Webster, whose proper course was therefore much less simple than it appeared to the Senator from Missouri. There was in reality no common ground possible between Webster and Jackson except defence of the national integrity. Mr. Webster was a great orator, a splendid advocate, a trained statesman and economist, a remarkable constitutional lawyer, and a man of immense dignity, not headstrong in temper and without peculiar force of will. Jackson, on the other hand, was a rude soldier, unlettered, intractable, arbitrary, with a violent temper and a most despotic will. Two men more utterly incompatible it would have been difficult to find, and nothing could have been more wildly fantastic than to suppose an alliance between them, or to imagine that Mr. Webster could ever have done anything but oppose utterly those mad gyrations of personal government which the President called his "policy."
Yet at the same time it is perfectly true that just after the passage of the tariff bill Mr. Webster was at a great crisis in his life. He could not act with Jackson. That way was shut to him by nature, if by nothing else. But he could have maintained his position as the independent and unbending defender of nationality and as the foe of compromise. He might then have brought Mr. Clay to his side, and remained himself the undisputed head of the Whig party. The coalition between Clay and Calhoun was a hollow, ill-omened thing, certain to go violently to pieces, as, in fact, it did, within a few years, and then Mr. Clay, if he had held out so long, would have been helpless without Mr. Webster. But such a course required a very strong will and great tenacity of purpose, and it was on this side that Mr. Webster was weak, as Mr. Benton points out. Instead of waiting for Mr. Clay to come to him, Mr. Webster went over to Clay and Calhoun, and formed for a time the third in that ill-assorted partnership. There was no reason for his doing so. In fact every good reason was against it. Mr. Clay had come to Mr. Webster with his compromise, and had been met with the reply "that it would be yielding great principles to faction; and that the time had come to test the strength of the Constitution and the government." This was a brave, manly answer, but Mr. Clay, nationalist as he was, had straightway deserted his friend and ally, and gone over to the separatists for support. Then a sharp contest had occurred between Mr. Webster and Mr. Clay in the debate on the tariff; and when it was all over, the latter wrote with frank vanity and a slight tinge of contempt: "Mr. Webster and I came in conflict, and I have the satisfaction to tell you that he gained nothing. My friends flatter me with my having completely triumphed. There is no permanent breach between us. I think he begins already to repent his course." Mr. Clay was intensely national, but his theory of preserving the Union was by continual compromise, or, in other words, by constant yielding to the aggressive South. Mr. Webster's plan was to maintain a firm attitude, enforce absolute submission to all constitutional laws, and prove that agitation against the Union could lead only to defeat. This policy would not have resulted in rebellion, but, if it had, the hanging of Calhoun and a few like him, and the military government of South Carolina, by the hero of New Orleans, would have taught slave-holders such a lesson that we should probably have been spared four years of civil war. Peaceful submission, however, would have been the sure outcome of Mr. Webster's policy. But a compromise appealed as it always does to the timid, balance-of-power party. Mr. Clay prevailed, and the manufacturers of New England, as well as elsewhere, finding that he had secured for them the benefit of time and of the chapter of accidents, rapidly came over to his support. The pressure was too much for Mr. Webster. Mr. Clay thought that if Mr. Webster "had to go over the work of the last few weeks he would have been for the compromise, which commands the approbation of a great majority." Whether Mr. Webster repented his opposition to the compromise no one can say, but the change of opinion in New England, the general assent of the Whig party, and the dazzling temptations of presidential candidacy prevailed with him. He fell in behind Mr. Clay, and remained there in a party sense and as a party man for the rest of his life.
The terrible prize of the presidency was indeed again before his eyes. Mr. Clay's overthrow at the previous election had removed him, for the time being at least, from the list of candidates, and thus freed Mr. Webster from his most dangerous rival. In the summer of 1833 Mr. Webster made a tour through the Western States, and was received everywhere with enthusiasm, and hailed as the great expounder and defender of the Constitution. The following winter he stood forward as the preëminent champion of the Bank against the President. Everything seemed to point to him as the natural candidate of the opposition. The Legislature of Massachusetts nominated him for the presidency, and he himself deeply desired the office, for the fever now burned strongly within him. But the movement came to nothing. The anti-masonic schism still distracted the opposition. The Kentucky leaders were jealous of Mr. Webster, and thought him "no such man" as their idol Henry Clay. They admitted his greatness and his high traits of character, but they thought his ambition mixed with too much self-love. Governor Letcher wrote to Mr. Crittenden in 1836 that Clay was more elevated, disinterested and patriotic than Webster, and that the verdict of the country had had a good effect on the latter. Despite the interest and enthusiasm which Mr. Webster aroused in the West, he had no real hold upon that section or upon the masses of the people and the Western Whigs turned to Harrison. There was no hope in 1836 for Mr. Webster, or, for that matter, for his party either. He received the electoral vote of faithful Massachusetts, and that was all. As it was then, so it had been at the previous election, and so it was to continue to be at the end of every presidential term. There never was a moment when Mr. Webster had any real prospect of attaining to the presidency. Unfortunately he never could realize this. He would have been more than human, perhaps, if he had done so. The tempting bait hung always before his eyes. The prize seemed to be always just coming within his reach, and was really never near it. But the longing had entered his soul. He could not rid himself of the idea of this final culmination to his success; and it warped his feelings and actions, injured his career, and embittered his last years.
This notice of the presidential election of 1836 has somewhat anticipated the course of events. Soon after the tariff compromise had been effected, Mr. Webster renewed his relations with Mr. Clay, and, consequently, with Mr. Calhoun, and their redoutable antagonist in the President's chair soon gave them enough to do. The most immediate obstacle to Mr. Webster's alliance with General Jackson was the latter's attitude in regard to the bank. Mr. Webster had become satisfied that the bank was, on the whole, a useful and even necessary institution. No one was better fitted than he to decide on such a question, and few persons would now be found to differ from his judgment on this point. In a general way he may be said to have adopted the Hamiltonian doctrine in regard to the expediency and constitutionality of a national bank. There were intimations in the spring of 1833 that the President, not content with preventing the re-charter of the bank, was planning to strike it down, and practically deprive it of even the three years of life which still remained to it by law. The scheme was perfected during the summer, and, after changing his Secretary of the Treasury until he got one who would obey, President Jackson dealt his great blow. On September 26 Mr. Taney signed the order removing the deposits of the government from the Bank of the United States. The result was an immediate contraction of loans, commercial distress, and great confusion.
The President had thrown down the gage, and the leaders of the opposition were not slow to take it up. Mr. Clay opened the battle by introducing two resolutions,—one condemning the action of the President as unconstitutional, the other attacking the policy of removal, and a long and bitter debate ensued. A month later, Mr. Webster came forward with resolutions from Boston against the course of the President. He presented the resolutions in a powerful and effective speech, depicting the deplorable condition of business, and the injury caused to the country by the removal of the deposits. He rejected the idea of leaving the currency to the control of the President, or of doing away entirely with paper, and advocated the re-charter of the present bank, or the creation of a new one; and, until the time for that should arrive, the return of the deposits, with its consequent relief to business and a restoration of stability and of confidence for the time being at least. He soon found that the administration had determined that no law should be passed, and that the doctrine that Congress had no power to establish a bank should be upheld. He also discovered that the constitutional pundit in the White House, who was so opposed to a single national bank, had created, by his own fiat, a large number of small national banks in the guise of state banks, to which the public deposits were committed, and the collection of the public revenues intrusted. Such an arbitrary policy, at once so ignorant, illogical, and dangerous, aroused Mr. Webster thoroughly, and he entered immediately upon an active campaign against the President. Between the presentation of the Boston resolutions and the close of the session he spoke on the bank, and the subjects necessarily connected with it, no less than sixty-four times. He dealt entirely with financial topics,—chiefly those relating to the currency, and with the constitutional questions raised by the extension of the executive authority. This long series of speeches is one of the most remarkable exhibitions of intellectual power ever made by Mr. Webster, or indeed by any public man in our history. In discussing one subject in all its bearings, involving of necessity a certain amount of repetition, he not only displayed an extraordinary grasp of complicated financial problems and a wide knowledge of their scientific meaning and history, but he showed an astonishing fertility in argument, coupled with great variety and clearness of statement and cogency of reasoning. With the exception of Hamilton, Mr. Webster is the only statesman in our history who was capable of such a performance on such a subject, when a thorough knowledge had to be united with all the resources of debate and all the arts of the highest eloquence.
The most important speech of all was that delivered in answer to Jackson's "Protest," sent in as a reply to Mr. Clay's resolutions which had been sustained by Mr. Webster as chairman of the Committee on Finance. The "Protest" asserted, in brief, that the Legislature could not order a subordinate officer to perform certain duties free from the control of the President; that the President had the right to put his own conception of the law into execution; and, if the subordinate officer refused to obey, then to remove such officer; and that the Senate had therefore no right to censure his removal of the Secretary of the Treasury, in order to reach the government deposits. To this doctrine Mr. Webster replied with great elaboration and ability. The question was a very nice one. There could be no doubt of the President's power of removal, and it was necessary to show that this power did not extend to the point of depriving Congress of the right to confer by law specified and independent powers upon an inferior officer, or of regulating the tenure of office. To establish this proposition, in such a way as to take it out of the thick and heated atmosphere of personal controversy, and put it in a shape to carry conviction to the popular understanding, was a delicate and difficult task, requiring, in the highest degree, lucidity and ingenuity of argument. It is not too high praise to say that Mr. Webster succeeded entirely. The real contest was for the possession of that debatable ground which lies between the defined limits of the executive and legislative departments. The struggle consolidated and gave coherence to the Whig party as representing the opposition to executive encroachments. At the time Jackson, by his imperious will and marvellous personal popularity, prevailed and obtained the acceptance of his doctrines. But the conflict has gone on, and the balance of advantage now rests with the Legislature. This tendency is quite as dangerous as that of which Jackson was the exponent, if not more so. The executive department has been crippled; and the influence and power of Congress, and especially of the Senate, have become far greater than they should be, under the system of proportion and balance embodied in the Constitution. Despite Jackson's victory there is, to-day, far more danger of undue encroachments on the part of the Senate than on that of the President.