[11] See an elaborate opinion of Chancellor Walworth, 14 Wend. 507, Jack VS. Martin.
NOTES
TO THE PRECEDING LETTERS.
I had hoped not to be required to say more on the subject discussed in the above Letters; but, during the last week, Mr. Webster has issued, in a pamphlet form, a speech made by him in the Senate on the 17th ult., accompanied by his letter, dated on the same day, to some gentlemen on the Kennebec River. In this letter, Mr. Webster has referred to me again; and I regret exceedingly to say, that he seems to have given himself full license to depart from all the rules of courtesy belonging to a gentleman, and to disobey the obligations of truth belonging to a man.
That I may not be supposed to make any over-statement respecting the character of Mr. Webster’s language towards me, as expressed in this letter, I quote a specimen or two from it.
“A pamphlet has been put into circulation,” says he, referring to the first of the above two letters, “in which it is said that my remark is ‘undertaking to settle by mountains and rivers, and not by the Ten Commandments, the question of human duty,’ ‘Cease to transcribe,’ it adds, ‘upon the statute book what our wisest and best men believed to be the will of God, in regard to our worldly affairs, and the passions which we think appropriate to devils will soon take possession of society.’” He then adds, “One hardly knows which most to contemn, the nonsense or the dishonesty of such commentaries on another’s words. I know no passion more appropriate to devils than the passion for gross misrepresentation and libel,” &c., &c.
The angry and reproachful language, in which Mr. Webster has here indulged himself, releases me from all further obligation to treat him with personal regard. Yet I do not mean to avail myself of this release. Under our present relations, however, I do feel at liberty to use considerable plainness of speech.
1. Let me first refer to a misrepresentation by Mr. Webster of a plain matter of fact. In professing to quote, from his 7th of March speech, a passage on which I had made a criticism, he alters the passage so as to evade the criticism, and then condemns me for making it. The original passage in his speech read as follows: “I would not take pains to reäffirm an ordinance of Nature, nor to reënact the will of God.” This was the sentiment I criticized. It appears in these words in the National Intelligencer, in the Washington Union, in the Republic, in the Globe, and in the pamphlet edition of his speech, which he dedicated to the people of Massachusetts. But in the Kennebec letter, in order to elude the point of my criticism, he has interpolated a word into the sentence, which changes its whole meaning. Affirming that he quotes himself, he says, “I would not take pains USELESSLY to reäffirm an ordinance of Nature, or to reënact the will of God.” By foisting in the word which I have underscored, he changes the entire character of the sentiment advanced. As now stated, nobody can dissent from it; for who would announce, in a distinct proposition, that he would uselessly do any thing? But, as originally stated, nobody can assent to it. This alteration of his language, after my criticism upon it was made, is not only unjust towards me, but it contains a latent confession that he knew he was wrong, but thought this surreptitious changing of his doctrine to be a less evil than a frank acknowledgment of his error. Had he truly quoted the original false sentiment, the world would have seen that I was right; but, in his dilemma, he falsely interpolated a true sentiment, not only to evade the force of my criticism upon him, but to make occasion for an unfounded imputation against me.
I shall not undertake to define or describe a proceeding like this in words of my own. But I may be permitted, without discourtesy, to use a sentiment advanced by himself, and leave its application to be made by its author. It is in the same connection that Mr. Webster makes the following remark: “I know no passion more appropriate to devils than the passion for gross misrepresentation and libel.” Can any mortal specify a grosser instance of “gross misrepresentation and libel” than when one of the parties to a public discussion has uttered an obnoxious sentiment, and when this sentiment has met with very general reprobation, and when, in the progress of the discussion, the guilty party professes to restate the case, that he should then expunge the false sentiment he originally advanced, foist a trite and common-place one in its stead, then apply the criticism made on the suppressed sentiment to the forged one, and proceed to condemn his critic for “nonsense” or “dishonesty”? Is it not as palpable a case of alteration, as to change the date of a note of hand in order to take it out of the statute of limitations, or to obliterate the description of the premises in a deed, and put a more valuable estate in its place? This proceeding is worse, if possible, than the former “misrepresentation and libel” of my argument and myself, contained in the Newburyport letter. But the subject is painful, and I leave it.
2. Following up his attack upon me, Mr. Webster proceeds to say:
“In classical times, there was a set of small but rapacious critics, denominated captatores verborum, who snatched and caught at particular expressions; expended their strength on the disjecta membra of language; birds of rapine which preyed on words and syllables, and gorged themselves with feeding on the garbage of phrases, chopped, dislocated, and torn asunder by themselves, as flesh and limbs are by the claws of unclean birds.”