“Mr. President, I shall enter upon no encomium on Massachusetts; she needs none. There she is. Behold her and judge for yourselves. There is her history; the world knows it by heart. The past, at least, is secure. There is Boston, and Concord, and Lexington, and Bunker Hill; and there they will remain forever. The bones of her sons, falling in the great struggle for independence, now lie mingled with the soil of every State from New England to Georgia, and there they will lie forever. And, sir, where American liberty raised its first voice, and where its youth was nurtured and sustained, there it still lives, in the strength of its manhood and full of its original spirit. If discord and disunion shall wound it, if party strife and blind ambition shall hawk at and tear it, if folly and madness, if uneasiness under salutary and necessary restraint, shall succeed in separating it from that union by which alone its existence is made sure, it will stand, in the end, by the side of that cradle in which its infancy was rocked; it will stretch forth its arm with whatever of vigor it may still retain over the friends who gather round it; and it will fall at last, if fall it must, amidst the proudest monuments of its own glory, and on the very spot of its origin.”
Mr. Webster shows his magnanimity by pronouncing, in like manner, an eulogium upon his opponent’s native State, which is in bright contrast with the mean and unjust attacks of Col. Hayne upon Massachusetts. This is what he says:
“Let me observe that the eulogium pronounced on the character of South Carolina by the honorable gentleman for her Revolutionary and other merits meets my hearty concurrence. I shall not acknowledge that the honorable member goes before me in regard for whatever of distinguished talent, of distinguished character, South Carolina has produced. I claim part of the honor. I partake in the pride of her great names. I claim them for countrymen, one and all, the Laurenses, the Rutledges, the Pinkneys, the Sumters, the Marions, Americans all, whose fame is no more to be hemmed in by State lines than their talents and patriotism were capable of being circumscribed within the same narrow limits. In their day and generation they served and honored the country, and the whole country; and their renown is one of the treasures of the whole country. Him whose honored name the gentleman himself bears—does he esteem me less capable of gratitude for his patriotism, or sympathy for his sufferings, than if his eyes had first opened upon the light of Massachusetts instead of South Carolina? Sir, does he suppose it in his power to exhibit a Carolina name so bright as to produce envy in my bosom? No, sir; increased gratification rather. I thank God that, if I am gifted with little of the spirit which is able to raise mortals to the skies, I have yet none, as I trust, of that other spirit which would drag angels down. When I shall be found, sir, in my place here in the Senate, or elsewhere, to sneer at public merit because it happens to spring up beyond the little limits of my own State or neighborhood; when I refuse, for any such cause, or for any cause, the homage due to American talent, to elevated patriotism, to sincere devotion to liberty and the country; or, if I see an uncommon endowment of Heaven, if I see extraordinary capacity and virtue in any son of the South, and if, moved by local prejudice or gangrened by State jealousy, I get up here to abate the tithe of a hair from his just character and just fame, may my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth!”
It must not be supposed that Mr. Webster’s speech was merely of a personal character. In a sound and logical manner he discussed the limits of constitutional authority, and combated the pernicious doctrine of State supremacy, which thirty years later was to kindle a civil war of vast proportions, the starting-point being South Carolina. At the risk of quoting paragraphs which my young readers may skip, I proceed to introduce an extract which may give an idea of this part of the oration.
“We approach at length, sir, to a more important part of the honorable gentleman’s observations. Since it does not accord with my views of justice and policy to give away the public lands altogether, as mere matter of gratuity, I am asked by the honorable gentleman on what ground it is that I consent to vote them away in particular instances. How, he inquires, do I reconcile with these profound sentiments my support of measures appropriating portions of the land to particular roads, particular canals, particular rivers, and particular institutions of education in the West? This leads, sir, to the real and wide difference in political opinion between the honorable gentleman and myself. On my part, I look upon all these objects as connected with the common good, fairly embraced in its object and terms; he, on the contrary, deems them all, if good at all, only local good.
“This is our difference.
“The interrogatory which he proceeded to put at once explains this difference. ‘What interest,’ asks he, ‘has South Carolina in a canal in Ohio?’ Sir, this very question is full of significance. It develops the gentleman’s whole political system, and its answer expounds mine. Here we differ. I look upon a road over the Alleghanies, a canal round the Falls of the Ohio, or a canal or railway from the Atlantic to the Western waters, as being an object large and extensive enough to be fairly said to be for the common benefit. The gentleman thinks otherwise, and this is the key to his construction of the powers of the government. He may well ask what interest has South Carolina in a canal in Ohio. On his system, it is true, she has no interest. On that system, Ohio and South Carolina are different governments and different countries; connected here, it is true, by some slight and ill-defined bond of union, but in all main respects separate and diverse. On that system South Carolina has no more interest in a canal in Ohio than in Mexico. The gentleman, therefore, only follows out his own principles; he does no more than arrive at the natural conclusions of his own doctrines; he only announces the true results of that creed which he has adopted himself, and would persuade others to adopt, when he thus declares that South Carolina has no interest in a public work in Ohio.
“Sir, we narrow-minded people of New England do not reason thus. Our notion of things is entirely different. We look upon the States not as separated but united. We love to dwell on that union, and on the mutual happiness which it has so much promoted, and the common renown which it has so greatly contributed to acquire. In our contemplation South Carolina and Ohio are parts of the same country, States united under the same general government, having interests common, associated, intermingled. In whatever is within the proper sphere of the constitutional power of this government we look upon the States as one. We do not impose geographical limits to our patriotic feelings or regard; we do not follow rivers and mountains and lines of latitude to find boundaries beyond which public improvements do not benefit us.
“We who come here, as agents and representatives of these narrow-minded and selfish men of New England, consider ourselves as bound to regard with an equal eye the good of the whole in whatever is within our power of legislation. Sir, if a railroad or canal, beginning in South Carolina and ending in South Carolina, appeared to me to be of national importance and national magnitude, believing, as I do, that the power of government extends the encouragement of works of that description, if I were to stand up here and ask, What interest has Massachusetts in a railroad in South Carolina? I should not be willing to face my constituents. These same narrow-minded men would tell me that they had sent me to act for the whole country, and that one who possessed too little comprehension either of intellect or feeling, one who was not large enough both in mind and in heart to embrace the whole, was not fit to be intrusted with the interests of our part.”
This will give an idea of the broad national sentiments entertained and expressed by the senator from Massachusetts. It is certainly in strong contrast to the narrow sectional views of Col. Hayne and John C. Calhoun.