pany with judges, sheriffs, and jurors, and plaintiffs and defendants. If I had been in Congress, and had enjoyed the benefit of hearing the honorable gentleman's speeches, for all I can say, I might have concurred with him. But I was not in public life. I never had been, for a single hour; and was in no situation, therefore, to oppose or to support the declaration of war. I am speaking to the fact, sir; and if the gentleman has any fact, let us know it. Well, sir, I came into Congress during the war. I found it waged, and raging. And what did I do here to oppose it? Look to the journals. Let the honorable gentleman tax his memory. Bring up any thing, if there be any thing to bring up-not showing error of opinion, but showing want of loyalty or fidelity to the country. I did not agree to all that was proposed, nor did the honorable member. I did not approve of every measure, nor did he.

The war had been preceded by the restrictive system, and the embargo. As a private individual, I certainly did not think well of these measures. It appeared to me the embargo annoyed us as much as our enemies, while it destroyed the business and cramped the spirits of the people.

In this opinion I may have been right or wrong, but the gentleman was himself of the same opinion. He told us, the other day, as a proof of his independence of party, on great questions, that he differed with his friends on the subject of the embargo. He was decidedly and unalterably opposed to it. It furnishes, in his judgment, therefore, no imputation either on my patriotism, or the soundness of my political opinions, that I was opposed to it also. I mean opposed in opinion: for I was not in Congress, and had nothing to do with the act creating the embargo. And as to opposition to measures for carrying on the war, after I came into Congress, I again say, let the gentleman specify-let him lay his finger on any thing, calling for an answer, and he shall have an answer.

Mr. President, you were yourself in the House during a considerable part of this time. The honorable gentleman may make a witness of you. He may make a witness of any body else. He may be his own witness. Give us but some fact, some charge, something capable in itself either of being proved or disproved. Prove any thing, state any thing, not consistent with honorable and patriotic conduct, and I am ready to answer it. Sir, I am glad this subject has been alluded to, in a manner which justifies me in taking public notice of it; because I am well aware that, for ten years past, infinite pains have been taken to find something, in the range of these topics, which might create prejudice against me in the country. The journals have all been poured over, and the reports ransacked, and scraps of paragraphs, and half sentences have been collected, put together in the falsest manner, and then made to flare out, as if there had been some discovery. But all this failed. The next resort was to supposed correspondence. My letters were sought for, to learn if in the confidence of private friendship I had never said, any thing which an enemy could make use of. With this view, the vicinity of my former resi

dence has been searched, as with a lighted candle. New Hampshirehas been explored, from the mouth of the Merrimack to the White Hills. In one instance, a gentleman had left the State, gone five hundred miles off, and died. His papers were examined-a letter was found, and I have understood it was brought to Washingtona conclave was held to consider it, and the result was, that if there was nothing else against Mr. Webster, the matter had better be let alone. Sir, I hope to make every body of that opinion who brings against me a charge of want of patriotism. Errors of opinion can be found, doubtless, on many subjects; but as conduct flows from the feelings which animate the heart, I know that no act of my life has had its origin in the want of ardent love of country.

Sir, when I came to Congress, I found the honorable gentleman a leading member of the House of Representatives. Well, sir, in what did we differ? One of the first measures of magnitude, after I came here, was Mr. Dallas's proposition for a bank. It was a war measure. It was urged as being absolutely necessary to enable Government to carry on the war. Government wanted revenue-such a bank it was hoped would furnish it; and on that account it was most warmly pressed and urged on Congress. You remember all this, Mr. President. You remember how much some persons supposed the success of the war and the salvation of the country depended on carrying that measure. Yet, the honorable member from South Carolina opposed this bill. He now takes to himself a good deal of merit-none too much, but still a good deal of merit, for having defeated it. Well, sir, I agreed with him. It was a mere paper bank-a mere machine for fabricating irredeemable paper. It was a new form for paper money; and instead of benefiting the country, I thought it would plunge it deeper and deeper in difficulty. I made a speech on the subject: It has often been quoted. There it is; let whoever pleases, read and examine it. I am not proud of it, for any ability it exhibits; on the other hand, I am not ashamed of it, for the spirit which it manifests. But, sir, I say again, that the gentleman himself took the lead, against this measure-this darling measure of the Administration. I followed him; if I was seduced into error, or into unjustifiable opposition, there sits my seducer.

What, sir, were other leading sentiments, or leading measures of that day? On what other subjects did men differ? The gentleman has adverted to one, and that a most important one; I mean the navy. He says, and says truly, that at the commencement of the war, the navy was unpopular. It was unpopular with his friends, who then controlled the politics of the country. But he says he dif fered with his friends; in this respect, he resisted party influence, and party connexion, and was the friend and advocate of the navy. Sir, I commend him for it. He showed his wisdom. That gallant little navy soon fought itself into favor, and showed that no man, who had placed reliance on it, had been disappointed.

Well, sir, in all this, I was exactly of the same opinion as the honorable gentleman.

Sir, I do not know when my opinion of the importance of a naval force to the United States had its origin. I can give no date to my sentiments on this subject, because I never entertained different sentiments. I remember, sir, that immediately after coming into my profession, at a period when the navy was most unpopular, when it was called by all sorts of hard names, and designated by many coarse epithets, on one of those occasions, on which young men address their neighbors, I ventured to put forth a boy's hand in defence of the navy. I insisted on its importance, its adaptation to our circumstances, and to our national character; and its indispensable necessity, if we intended to maintain and extend our commerce. These opinions and sentiments I brought into Congress; and, so far as I remember, it was the first, or among the first times, in which I presumed to speak on the topics of the day, that I attempted to urge on the House a greater attention to the naval service. There were divers modes of prosecuting the war. On these modes, or on the degree of attention and expense which should be bestowed on each, different men held different opinions. I confess I looked with most hope to the results of naval warfare, and therefore I invoked Government to invigorate and strengthen that arm of the national defence. I invoked it to seek its enemy upon the seas-to go where every auspicious indication pointed, and where the whole heart and soul of the country would go with it.

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Sir, we were at war with the greatest maritime Power on earth. England had gained an ascendency on the seas over the whole combined Powers of Europe. She had been at war twenty years. She had tried her fortunes on the continent, but generally with no sucAt one time the whole continent had closed against her. long line of armed exterior, an unbroken hostile array, frowned upon her from the gulf of Archangel, round the promontory of Spain and Portugal, to the foot of the boot of Italy. There was not a port, which an English ship could enter. Every where on the land the genius of her great enemy had triumphed. He had defeated armies, crushed coalitions, and overturned thrones; but, like the fabled giants, he was unconquerable only while he touched the land.. On the ocean, he was powerless. That field of fame was his adversary's, and her meteor flag was streaming in triumph all over it. To her maritime ascendency, England owed every thing, and we were now at war with her. One of the most charming of her poets had said of her, that

"Her march is o'er the mountain wave,
"Her home is on the deep."

Now, sir, since we were at war with her, I was for intercepting this march; I was for calling upon her, and paying our respects to her at home; I was for giving her to know that we, too, had a right of way over the seas, and that our marine officers and our sailors were not entire strangers on the bosom of the deep; I

was for doing something more with our navy, than to keep it on our shores, for the protection of our own coasts and own harbors; I was for giving play to its gallant and burning spirit; for allowing it to go forth upon the seas, and to encounter, on an open and an equal field, whatever the proudest or the bravest of the enemy could bring against it. I knew the character of its officers, and the spirit of its seamen; and I knew that, in their hands, though the flag of the country might go down to the bottom, while they went with it, yet that it could never be dishonored or disgraced.

Since she was our enemy-and a most powerful enemy-I was for touching her, if we could, in the very apple of her eye; for reaching the highest feather in her cap; for clutching at the very brightest jewel in her crown. There seemed to me to be a peculiar propriety in all this, as the war was undertaken for the redress of maritime injuries alone. It was a war declared for free trade and sailors' rights. The ocean, therefore, was the proper theatre for deciding this controversy with our enemy, and on that theatre my ardent wish was, that our own power should be concentrated to the utmost.

So much, sir, for the war, and for my conduct and opinions as connected with it. And, as I do not mean to recur to this subject often, nor ever, unless indispensably necessary, I repeat the demand for any charge, any accusation, any allegation whatever, that throws me behind the honorable gentleman, or behind any other man, in honor, in fidelity, in devoted love to that country in which I was born, which has honored me, and which I serve. I, who seldom deal in defiance, now, here, in my place, boldly defy the honorable member to put his insinuation in the form of a charge, and to support that charge by any proof whatever.

The gentleman has adverted to the subject of slavery. On this subject, he says I have not proved myself a friend to the South. Why, sir, the only proof is, that I did not vote for his resolutions.

Sir, this is a very grave matter, it is a subject, very exciting and inflammable. I take, of course, all the responsibility belonging to my opinions; but I desire these opinions to be understood, and fairly stated. If I am to be regarded as an enemy to the South, because I could not support the gentleman's resolutions, be it so. I cannot purchase favor, from any quarter, by the sacrifice of clear and conscientious convictions. The principal resolution declared that Congress had plighted its faith, not to interfere, either with slavery or the slave trade, in the District of Columbia.

Now, sir, this is quite a new idea. I never heard it advanced until this session. I have heard gentlemen contend, that no such power was in the constitution; but the notion, that though the constitution contained no prohibition, yet that Congress had plighted its faith, not to exercise such a power, is an entire novelty, so far as I know. I must say, sir, it appeared to me little else than an attempt to put a prohibition into the constitution, because there was none there already. For this supposed plighting of the public faith, or the faith of Congress, I saw no ground, either in the history of the

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Government, or in any one fact, or in any argument. I therefore could not vote for the proposition.

Sir, it is now several years, since I took care to make my opinion known, that this Government has, constitutionally, nothing to do with slavery, as it exists in the States. That opinion is entirely unchanged. I stand steadily by the resolution of the House of Representatives, adopted, after much consideration, at the commencement of the Government-which was, that Congress have no authority to interfere in the emancipation of slaves, or in the treatment of them, within any of the States; it remaining with the several States alone to provide any regulations therein, which humanity and true policy may require. This, in my opinion, is the constitution, and the law. I feel bound by it. I have quoted the resolution often. It expresses the judgment of men of all parts of the country, deliberately formed, in a cool time; and it expresses my judgment, and I shall adhere to it. But this has nothing to do with the other constitutional question; that is to say, the mere constitutional question, whether Congress has the power to regulate slavery and the slave trade, in the District of Columbia.

On such a question, sir, when I am asked what the constitution is, or whether any power granted by it, has been compromised away; or, indeed, could be compromised away-I must express my honest opinion, and always shall express it, if I say any thing, notwithstanding it may not meet concurrence either in the South, or the North, or the East, or the West. I cannot express, by my vote, what I do not believe.

He has chosen to bring that subject into this debate, with which it has no concern, but he may make the most of it, if he thinks he can produce unfavorable impressions on the South, from my negative to his fifth resolution. As to the rest of them, they were commonplaces, generally, or abstractions; in regard to which, one may well not feel himself called on to vote at all.

And now, sir, in regard to the tariff. That is a long chapter, but I am quite ready to go over it with the honorable member.

He charges me with inconsistency. That may depend on deciding what inconsistency is, in respect to such subjects, and how it is to be proved. I will state the facts, for I have them in my mind somewhat more fully than the honorable member has himself presented them. Let us begin at the beginning. In 1816, I voted against the tariff law, which then passed. In 1824, I again voted against the tariff law, which was then proposed, and which passed. A majority of New England votes, in 1824, was against the tariff system. The bill received but one vote from Massachusetts; but it passed. The policy was established; New England acquiesced in it, conformed her business and pursuits to it; embarked her capital, and employed her labor, in manufactures; and I certainly admit that, from that time, I have felt bound to support interests thus called into being, and into importance, by the settled policy of the Government. I have stated