Mr. Webster holds Massachusetts up to the ridicule of the world, because, as he says, she “grows fervid on Pennsylvania wrongs;” and he has deemed it his duty to inquire how many seizures of fugitive slaves have occurred in New England within our time. Is this the Christian standard by which to estimate the evil of encroachments upon the most sacred rights of men? If I repose in contentment and indifference, because my own section, or state, or county, is as yet but a partial sufferer, why should I not continue contented and indifferent while I myself am safe? In providing for the liberties of the citizen, under a common government, I think Massachusetts worthy of all honor and not of ridicule, because she does “grow fervid on Pennsylvania wrongs,” and on the wrongs of an entire race, whether in Pennsylvania or California, or any where within the boundaries of our own country. I see no reason why my sympathies as a man, or the obligations of my oath as an officer, in regard to the nearer or the remoter states, should be inversely as the squares of the distances. Even with regard to foreign countries, did Mr. Webster think so, in those better days, when his eloquent appeal for oppressed and bleeding Greece roused the nation, like the voice of a clarion. Did Mr. Webster deem it necessary to make inquisitions through all the New England States, to learn how many Hungarian patriots they had seen shot at the tap of drum, or how many noble Hungarian women had been stripped and whipped in their market places, before he thrilled the heart of the nation at the wrongs of Kossuth and his compatriots, and invoked the execrations of the world upon the Austrian and Russian despots? I see no difference between these cases, which is not in favor of our home interests, of our own domestic rights, except the difference of their bearings upon partisan politics and presidential rivalries. Mr. Webster quotes and commends Mr. Bissell, who said that those southern states which had suffered the least from loss of slaves, made the greatest clamor. That statement of a fact was well put by Mr. Bissell; but was it well applied by Mr. Webster? In the statement, it was a question as to the loss of property. In the application, it is a question as to the loss of liberty. The latter is not, therefore, the “counterpart” of the former. Blindness to the distinction between the value and the principle of property, and the value and the principle of liberty, could alone have permitted the comparison.
But I have extended this communication greatly beyond my original purpose. Several other topics contained in Mr. Webster’s speech, or growing out of what has since happened in relation to it, and hardly less important than those already considered, must await another opportunity for discussion; unless, indeed, some disposal of the question shall render further discussion unnecessary.
I am not unmindful of the position in which I stand. I am not unaware that circumstances have placed me in an antagonist relation to a man whose vast powers of intellect the world has long so vividly enjoyed and so profoundly admired. I well know that a personal contest between us seems unequal, far more than did the impending combat between the Hebrew stripling and that champion of the Philistines who had a helmet of brass upon his head, and greaves of brass upon his legs, and the staff of whose spear was like a weaver’s beam. But the contest is not between us. It is between truth and error; and just so certain as the spirit of Good will prevail over the spirit of Evil, just so certain will Truth ultimately triumph. In such a case as this, there is one point of view in which Mr. Webster is a desirable antagonist; for the thick and far-beaming points of light which he has left all along his former course of life, cannot fail to expose, to all eyes but his own, the devious path into which he has now wandered.
HORACE MANN.
Washington, June 6, 1850.
Several editions of the preceding Letters having been exhausted, another was printed, under date of July 8, 1850, with Notes.
FOOTNOTES:
[9] All my quotations from Mr. Webster are taken from the edition of his speech which he dedicated to the “People of Massachusetts,” March 18, 1850. Among the numerous readings which have appeared, I suppose this to be the most authentic.
[10] This argument may be found repeated and enlarged upon in a subsequent part of the present volume, p. 409, et seq. It is retained here only to preserve the logical and legal symmetry of the letter.