Why, then, I would ask, do we see these lengthened shadows, which follow in the course of our political day? is it because the sun is declining to the horizon? Are they the shadows of evening; or are they, as I hopefully believe, but the mists which are exhaled by the sun as it rises, but which are to be dispersed by its meridian splendor? Are they but evanescent clouds that flit across but cannot obscure the great purposes for which the Constitution was established?
I hopefully look forward to the reaction which will establish the fact that our sun is yet in the ascendant—that the cloud which has covered our political prospect is but a mist of the morning—that we are again to be amicably divided in opinion upon measures of expediency, upon questions of relative interest, upon discussions as to the rights of the States, and the powers of the federal government,—such discussion as is commemorated in this historical picture [pointing to the painting.] There your own great Statesman, Webster, addresses his argument to our brightest luminary, the incorruptible Calhoun, who leans over to catch the accents of eloquence that fall from his lips. [Loud applause.]
They differed as Statesmen and philosophers; they railed not, warred not against each other; they stood to each other in the relation of affection and regard. And never did I see Mr. Webster so agitated, never did I hear his voice so falter, as when he delivered his eulogy on John C. Calhoun. [Applause.]
But allusion was made to my own connection with your favorite departed Statesman. I will only say on this occasion, that very early in the commencement of my congressional life, Mr. Webster was arraigned for an offence which affected him most deeply. He was no accountant; all knew that there was but little of mercantile exactness in his habits. He was arraigned on a pecuniary charge—the misapplication of what is known as the secret service fund; and I was one of the committee that had to investigate the charge. I endeavored to do justice, to examine the evidence with a view to ascertain the truth. As an American I hoped he would come out without stain or smoke upon his garments. But however the fame of so distinguished an American Statesman might claim such hopes, the duty was rigidly to inquire, and rigorously to do justice. The result was that he was acquitted of every charge that was made against him, and it was equally my pride and my pleasure to vindicate him in every form which lay within my power. [Applause.] No man who knew Daniel Webster, would have expected less of him. Had our position been reversed, none such could have believed that he would with a view to a judgment ask whether a charge was made against a Massachusetts man or a Mississippian. No! it belonged to a lower, a later, and I trust a shorter lived race of statesmen [“hear,” “hear,”] to measure all facts by considerations of latitude and longitude. [Warm applause.]
I honor that sentiment which makes us oftentimes too confident, and to despise too much the danger of that agitation which disturbs the peace of the country. I honor that feeling which believes the Constitutional Union too strong to be shaken. But at the same time I say, in sober judgment, it will not do to treat too lightly the danger which has beset and which still impends over us. Who has not heard our Constitutional Union compared to the granite cliffs which line the sea and dash back the foam of the waves, unmoved by their fury. Recently I have stood upon New England’s shore, and have seen the waves of a troubled sea dash upon the granite which frowns over the ocean, have seen the spray thrown back from the cliff, and the receding wave fret like the impotent rage of baffled malice. But when the tide had ebbed, I saw that the rock was seamed and worn by the ceaseless beating of the sea, and fragments riven from the rock were lying on the beach.
Thus the waves of sectional agitation are dashing themselves against the granite patriotism of the land. If long continued, that too must show the seams and scars of the conflict. Sectional hostility must sooner or later produce political fragments. The danger lies at your door, it is time to arrest it. It is time that men should go back to the origin of our institutions. They should drink the waters of the fountain, ascend to the source, of our colonial history.
You, men of Boston, go to the street where the massacre occurred in 1770. There learn how your fathers unfaltering stood for community right. And near the same spot mark how proudly the delegation of the democracy came to demand the removal of the troops from Boston, and how the venerable Samuel Adams stood asserting the rights of the people, dauntless as Hampden, clear and eloquent as Sidney.
All over our country these monuments, instructive to the present generation, of what our fathers felt and said and did, are to be found. In the library of your association for the collection of your early history, I found a letter descriptive of the reading of the address to his army by Gen. Washington during one of those winters when he sought shelter for the ill clad, unshod, but victorious army with which he achieved the independence we enjoy; he had built a log cabin for a meeting house, and there reading his address, his sight failed him, he put on his glasses and with emotion which manifested the reality of his feelings, said, “I have grown gray in the service of my country, and now I am growing blind.” Who can measure the value of such incidents in a people’s history? It is a privilege to have access to documents, which cause us to realize the trials, the patient endurance, the hardy virtue and moral grandeur of the men from whom we inherit our political institutions, and to whose teachings it were well that the present generations should constantly refer.
If you choose still further to stretch your vision to South Carolina, you will find a parallel to that devotion to their country’s cause which illustrates the early history of the Democrats of Boston. The prisoners at Charleston, when confined upon the hulks where they were exposed to the small pox, and, wasted by the progress of the infection, were brought upon the shore and assured that if they would enlist in his majesty’s service they should be relieved from their present and prospective suffering, but if they refused the rations would be taken from their families, and themselves sent to the hulks and exposed to the infection. Emaciated as they were, distressed with the prospect of their families being turned into the street to starve, the spirit of independence, the devotion to liberty, was so warm within their breasts that they gave one loud hurrah for General Washington, and chose death rather than dishonor. [Loud applause.] And if from these glorious recollections, from the emotions they excite, your eye is directed to your present condition, and you mark the prosperity, the growth and honorable career of your country, I envy not the heart of that man whose pulse does not beat quicker, who does not feel within him the exultation of pride at the past glory and the future prospects of his country. These prospects are to be realized if we are only wise and true to the obligations of the compact of our fathers. For all which can sow dissension can stop the progress of the American people, can endanger the achievement of the high prospects we have before us is that miserable spirit, which, disregarding duty and honor, makes war upon the Constitution. Madness must rule the hour when American citizens, trampling as well upon the great principles at the foundation of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States, as upon the honorable obligations which their fathers imposed upon them, shall turn with internicine hand to sacrifice themselves as well as their brethren, upon the altar of sectional fanaticism.
With these views, it will not be surprising to those who differ from me, that I feel an ardent desire for the success of the State Rights Democracy, that convinced of the destructive consequences of the heresies of their opponents, and of the evils upon which they would precipitate the country, I do not forbear to advocate, here and elsewhere, the success of that party which alone is national, on which alone I rely for the preservation of the Constitution, to perpetuate the Union, and to fulfil the purposes which it was ordained to establish and secure. [Loud cheers.]