The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster Part 73

Not high-raised battlement or labored mound, Thick wall or moated gate; Not cities proud, with spires and turrets crowned; Not bays and broad-armed ports, Where, laughing at the storm, rich navies ride; Not starred and spangled courts, Where low-browed baseness wafts perfume to pride.

No: MEN, high-minded MEN, With powers as far above dull brutes endued, In forest, brake, or den, As beasts excel cold rocks and brambles rude: Men who their duties know, But know their rights, and, knowing, dare maintain; Prevent the long-aimed blow, And crush the tyrant while they rend the chain: These const.i.tute a state; And SOVEREIGN LAW, that state's collected will, O'er thrones and globes elate Sits empress, crowning good, repressing ill."

And, finally, another most important part of the great fabric of American liberty is, that there shall be written const.i.tutions, founded on the immediate authority of the people themselves, and regulating and restraining all the powers conferred upon government, whether legislative, executive, or judicial.

This, fellow-citizens, I suppose to be a just summary of our American principles, and I have on this occasion sought to express them in the plainest and in the fewest words. The summary may not be entirely exact, but I hope it may be sufficiently so to make manifest to the rising generation among ourselves, and to those elsewhere who may choose to inquire into the nature of our political inst.i.tutions, the general theory upon which they are founded.

And I now proceed to add, that the strong and deep-settled conviction of all intelligent persons amongst us is, that, in order to support a useful and wise government upon these popular principles, the general education of the people, and the wide diffusion of pure morality and true religion, are indispensable. Individual virtue is a part of public virtue. It is difficult to conceive how there can remain morality in the government when it shall cease to exist among the people; or how the aggregate of the political inst.i.tutions, all the organs of which consist only of men, should be wise, and beneficent, and competent to inspire confidence, if the opposite qualities belong to the individuals who const.i.tute those organs, and make up that aggregate.

And now, fellow-citizens, I take leave of this part of the duty which I proposed to perform; and, once more felicitating you and myself that our eyes have seen the light of this blessed morning, and that our ears have heard the shouts with which joyous thousands welcome its return, and joining with you in the hope that every revolving year may renew these rejoicings to the end of time, I proceed to address you, shortly, upon the particular occasion of our a.s.sembling here to-day.

Fellow-citizens, by the act of Congress of the 30th of September, 1850, provision was made for the extension of the Capitol, according to such plan as might be approved by the President of the United States, and for the necessary sums to be expended, under his direction, by such architect as he might appoint. This measure was imperatively demanded, for the use of the legislative and judiciary departments, the public libraries, the occasional accommodation of the chief executive magistrate, and for other objects. No act of Congress incurring a large expenditure has received more general approbation from the people. The President has proceeded to execute this law. He has approved a plan; he has appointed an architect; and all things are now ready for the commencement of the work.

The anniversary of national independence appeared to afford an auspicious occasion for laying the foundation-stone of the additional building. That ceremony has now been performed by the President himself, in the presence and view of this mult.i.tude. He has thought that the day and the occasion made a united and imperative call for some short address to the people here a.s.sembled; and it is at his request that I have appeared before you to perform that part of the duty which was deemed inc.u.mbent on us.

Beneath the stone is deposited, among other things, a list of which will be published, the following brief account of the proceedings of this day, in my handwriting:--

"On the morning of the first day of the seventy-sixth year of the Independence of the United States of America, in the city of Washington, being the 4th day of July, 1851, this stone, designed as the corner-stone of the extension of the Capitol, according to a plan approved by the President, in pursuance of an act of Congress, was laid by

"MILLARD FILLMORE,

"PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES,

"a.s.sisted by the Grand Master of the Masonic Lodges, in the presence of many members of Congress, of officers of the Executive and Judiciary Departments, National, State, and District, of officers of the army and navy, the corporate authorities of this and neighboring cities, many a.s.sociations, civil and military and masonic, members of the Smithsonian Inst.i.tution and National Inst.i.tute, professors of colleges and teachers of schools of the District, with their students and pupils, and a vast concourse of people from places near and remote, including a few surviving gentlemen who witnessed the laying of the corner-stone of the Capitol by President Washington, on the 18th day of September, A.D.

1793.

"If, therefore, it shall be hereafter the will of G.o.d that this structure shall fall from its base, that its foundation be upturned, and this deposit brought to the eyes of men, be it then known, that on this day the Union of the United States of America stands firm, that their Const.i.tution still exists unimpaired, and with all its original usefulness and glory; growing every day stronger and stronger in the affections of the great body of the American people, and attracting more and more the admiration of the world. And all here a.s.sembled, whether belonging to public life or to private life, with hearts devoutly thankful to Almighty G.o.d for the preservation of the liberty and happiness of the country, unite in sincere and fervent prayers that this deposit, and the walls and arches, the domes and towers, the columns and entablatures, now to be erected over it, may endure for ever!

"G.o.d SAVE THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA!

"DANIEL WEBSTER,

"_Secretary of State of the United States_."

Fellow-citizens, fifty-eight years ago Washington stood on this spot to execute a duty like that which has now been performed. He then laid the corner-stone of the original Capitol. He was at the head of the government, at that time weak in resources, burdened with debt, just struggling into political existence and respectability, and agitated by the heaving waves which were overturning European thrones. But even then, in many important respects, the government was strong. It was strong in Washington's own great character; it was strong in the wisdom and patriotism of other eminent public men, his political a.s.sociates and fellow-laborers; and it was strong in the affections of the people.

Since that time astonishing changes have been wrought in the condition and prospects of the American people; and a degree of progress witnessed with which the world can furnish no parallel. As we review the course of that progress, wonder and amazement arrest our attention at every step.

The present occasion, although allowing of no lengthened remarks, may yet, perhaps, admit of a short comparative statement of important subjects of national interest as they existed at that day, and as they now exist. I have adopted for this purpose the tabular form of statement, as being the most brief and significant.

COMPARATIVE TABLE.

Year 1793. Year 1851.

Number of States 15 31 Representatives and Senators in Congress 135 295 Population of the United States 3,929,328 23,267,498 Population of Boston 18,038 136,871 Population of Baltimore 13,503 169,054 Population of Philadelphia 42,520 409,045 Population of New York (city) 33,121 515,507 Population of Washington . . . 40,075 Population of Richmond 4,000 27,582 Population of Charleston 16,359 42,983 Amount of receipts into the Treasury $5,720,624 $52,312,980 Amount of expenditures $7,529,575 $48,005,879 Amount of imports $31,000,000 $215,725,995 Amount of exports $26,109,000 $217,517,130 Amount of tonnage (tons) 520,764 3,772,440 Area of the United States in square miles 805,461 3,314,365 Rank and file of the army 5,120 10,000 Militia (enrolled) . . . 2,006,456 Navy of the United States (vessels) (None.) 76 Navy armament (ordnance) . . . 2,012 Treaties and conventions with foreign powers 9 90 Light-houses and light-boats 12 372 Expenditures for ditto $12,061 $529,265 Area of the Capitol 1/2 acre. 4-1/8 acres.

Number of miles of railroad in operation . . . 10,287 Cost of ditto . . . $306,607,954 Number of miles in course of construction . . . 10,092 Lines of electric telegraph, in miles . . . 15,000 Number of post-offices 209 21,551 Number of miles of post-route 5,642 196,290 Amount of revenue from post-offices $104,747 $6,727,867 Amount of expenditures of Post-Office Department $72,040 $6,024,567 Number of miles of mail transportation . . . 52,465,724 Number of colleges 19 121 Public libraries 35 694 Volumes in ditto 75,000 2,201,632 School libraries . . . 10,000 Volumes in ditto . . . 2,000,000 Emigrants from Europe to the United States 10,000 299,610 Coinage at the Mint $9,664 $52,019,465

In respect to the growth of Western trade and commerce, I extract a few sentences from a very valuable address before the Historical Society of Ohio, by William D. Gallagher, Esq., 1850:--

"A few facts will exhibit as well as a volume the wonderful growth of Western trade and commerce. Previous to the year 1800, some eight or ten keel-boats, of twenty or twenty-five tons each, performed all the carrying trade between Cincinnati and Pittsburg.

In 1802 the first government vessel appeared on Lake Erie. In 1811 the first steamboat (the Orleans) was launched at Pittsburg. In 1826 the waters of Michigan were first ploughed by the keel of a steamboat, a pleasure trip to Green Bay being planned and executed in the summer of this year. In 1832 a steamboat first appeared at Chicago. At the present time the entire number of steamboats running on the Mississippi and Ohio and their tributaries is more probably over than under six hundred, the aggregate tonnage of which is not short of one hundred and forty thousand; a larger number of steamboats than England can claim, and a greater steam commercial marine than that employed by Great Britain and her dependencies."

And now, fellow-citizens, having stated to you this infallible proof of the growth and prosperity of the nation, I ask you, and I would ask every man, whether the government which has been over us has proved itself an infliction or a curse to the country, or any part of it?

Ye men of the South, of all the original Southern States, what say you to all this? Are you, or any of you, ashamed of this great work of your fathers? Your fathers were not they who storied the prophets and killed them. They were among the prophets; they were of the prophets; they were themselves the prophets.

Ye men of Virginia, what do you say to all this? Ye men of the Potomac, dwelling along the sh.o.r.es of that river on which WASHINGTON lived and died, and where his remains now rest, ye, so many of whom may see the domes of the Capitol from your own homes, what say ye?

Ye men of James River and the Bay, places consecrated by the early settlement of your Commonwealth, what do you say? Do you desire, from the soil of your State, or as you travel to the North, to see these halls vacated, their beauty and ornaments destroyed, and their national usefulness gone for ever?

Ye men beyond the Blue Ridge, many thousands of whom are nearer to this Capitol than to the seat of government of your own State, what do you think of breaking this great a.s.sociation into fragments of States and of people? I know that some of you, and I believe that you all, would be almost as much shocked at the announcement of such a catastrophe, as if you were to be informed that the Blue Ridge itself would soon totter from its base. And ye men of Western Virginia, who occupy the great slope from the top of the Alleghanies to Ohio and Kentucky, what benefit do you propose to yourselves by disunion? If you "secede," what do you "secede" from, and what do you "accede" to? Do you look for the current of the Ohio to change, and to bring you and your commerce to the tidewaters of Eastern rivers? What man in his senses can suppose that you would remain part and parcel of Virginia a month after Virginia should have ceased to be part and parcel of the United States?

The secession of Virginia! The secession of Virginia, whether alone or in company, is most improbable, the greatest of all improbabilities.

Virginia, to her everlasting honor, acted a great part in framing and establishing the present Const.i.tution. She has had her reward and her distinction. Seven of her n.o.ble sons have each filled the Presidency, and enjoyed the highest honors of the country. Dolorous complaints come up to us from the South, that Virginia will not head the march of secession, and lead the other Southern States out of the Union. This, if it should happen, would be something of a marvel, certainly, considering how much pains Virginia took to lead these same States into the Union, and considering, too, that she has partaken as largely of its benefits and its government as any other State.

And ye men of the other Southern States, members of the Old Thirteen; yes, members of the Old Thirteen; that always touches my regard and my sympathies; North Carolina, Georgia, South Carolina! What page in your history, or in the history of any one of you, is brighter than those which have been recorded since the Union was formed? Or through what period has your prosperity been greater, or your peace and happiness better secured? What names even has South Carolina, now so much dissatisfied, what names has she of which her intelligent sons are more proud than those which have been connected with the government of the United States? In Revolutionary times, and in the earliest days of this Const.i.tution, there was no State more honored, or more deserving of honor. Where is she now? And what a fall is there, my countrymen! But I leave her to her own reflections, commending to her, with all my heart, the due consideration of her own example in times now gone by.

Fellow-citizens, there are some diseases of the mind as well as of the body, diseases of communities as well as diseases of individuals, that must be left to their own cure; at least it is wise to leave them so until the last critical moment shall arrive.

I hope it is not irreverent, and certainly it is not intended as reproach, when I say, that I know no stronger expression in our language than that which describes the restoration of the wayward son,--"he came to himself." He had broken away from all the ties of love, family, and friendship. He had forsaken every thing which he had once regarded in his father's house. He had forsworn his natural sympathies, affections, and habits, and taken his journey into a far country. He had gone away from himself and out of himself. But misfortunes overtook him, and famine threatened him with starvation and death. No entreaties from home followed him to beckon him back; no admonition from others warned him of his fate. But the hour of reflection had come, and nature and conscience wrought within him, until at length "_he came to himself_."

And now, ye men of the new States of the South! You are not of the original thirteen. The battle had been fought and won, the Revolution achieved, and the Const.i.tution established, before your States had any existence as States. You came to a prepared banquet, and had seats a.s.signed you at table just as honorable as those which were filled by older guests. You have been and are singularly prosperous; and if any one should deny this, you would at once contradict his a.s.sertion. You have bought vast quant.i.ties of choice and excellent land at the lowest price; and if the public domain has not been lavished upon you, you yourself will admit that it has been appropriated to your own uses by a very liberal hand. And yet in some of these States, not in all, persons are found in favor of a dissolution of the Union, or of secession from it. Such opinions are expressed even where the general prosperity of the community has been the most rapidly advanced. In the flourishing and interesting State of Mississippi, for example, there is a large party which insists that her grievances are intolerable, that the whole body politic is in a state of suffering; and all along, and through her whole extent on the Mississippi, a loud cry rings that her only remedy is "Secession," "Secession." Now, Gentlemen, what infliction does the State of Mississippi suffer under? What oppression prostrates her strength or destroys her happiness? Before we can judge of the proper remedy, we must know something of the disease; and, for my part, I confess that the real evil existing in the case appears to me to be a certain inquietude or uneasiness growing out of a high degree of prosperity and consciousness of wealth and power, which sometimes lead men to be ready for changes, and to push on unreasonably to still higher elevation. If this be the truth of the matter, her political doctors are about right.

If the complaint spring from over-wrought prosperity, for that disease I have no doubt that secession would prove a sovereign remedy.

But I return to the leading topic on which I was engaged. In the department of invention there have been wonderful applications of science to arts within the last sixty years. The s.p.a.cious hall of the Patent Office is at once the repository and proof of American inventive art and genius. Their results are seen in the numerous improvements by which human labor is abridged.

Without going into details, it may be sufficient to say, that many of the applications of steam to locomotion and manufactures, of electricity and magnetism to the production of mechanical motion, the electrical telegraph, the registration of astronomical phenomena, the art of multiplying engravings, the introduction and improvement among us of all the important inventions of the Old World, are striking indications of the progress of this country in the useful arts. The net-work of railroads and telegraphic lines by which this vast country is reticulated have not only developed its resources, but united emphatically, in metallic bands, all parts of the Union. The hydraulic works of New York, Philadelphia, and Boston surpa.s.s in extent and importance those of ancient Rome.

But we have not confined our attention to the immediate application of science to the useful arts. We have entered the field of original research, and have enlarged the bounds of scientific knowledge.

Sixty years ago, besides the brilliant discoveries of Franklin in electricity, scarcely any thing had been done among us in the way of original discovery. Our men of science were content with repeating the experiments and diffusing a knowledge of the discoveries of the learned of the Old World, without attempting to add a single new fact or principle to the existing stock. Within the last twenty-five or thirty years a remarkable improvement has taken place in this respect. Our natural history has been explored in all its branches; our geology has been investigated with results of the highest interest to practical and theoretical science. Discoveries have been made in pure chemistry and electricity, which have received the approbation of the world. The advance which has been made in meteorology in this country, within the last twenty years, is equal to that made during the same period in all the world besides.

In 1793 there was not in the United States an instrument with which a good observation of the heavenly bodies could be made. There are now instruments at Washington, Cambridge, and Cincinnati equal to those at the best European observatories, and the original discoveries in astronomy within the last five years, in this country, are among the most brilliant of the age. I can hardly refrain from saying, in this connection, that the "Celestial Mechanics" of La Place has been translated and commented upon by Bowditch.

Our knowledge of the geography and topography of the American continent has been rapidly extended by the labor and science of the officers of the United States army, and discoveries of much interest in distant seas have resulted from the enterprise of the navy.

In 1807, a survey of the coast of the United States was commenced, which at that time it was supposed no American was competent to direct. The work has, however, grown within the last few years, under a native superintendent, in importance and extent, beyond any enterprise of the kind ever before attempted.

These facts conclusively prove that a great advance has been made among us, not only in the application of science to the wants of ordinary life, but in science itself, in its highest branches, in its adaptation to satisfy the cravings of the immortal mind.

In respect to literature, with the exception of some books of elementary education, and some theological treatises, of which scarcely any but those of Jonathan Edwards have any permanent value, and some works on local history and politics, like Hutchinson's Ma.s.sachusetts, Jefferson's Notes on Virginia, the Federalist, Belknap's New Hampshire, and Morse's Geography, and a few others, America had not produced a single work of any repute in literature. We were almost wholly dependent on imported books. Even our Bibles and Testaments were, for the most part, printed abroad. The book trade is now one of the greatest branches of business, and many works of standard value, and of high reputation in Europe as well as at home, have been produced by American authors in every department of literary composition.

While the country has been expanding in dimensions, in numbers, and in wealth, the government has applied a wise forecast in the adoption of measures necessary, when the world shall no longer be at peace, to maintain the national honor, whether by appropriate displays of vigor abroad, or by well-adapted means of defence at home. A navy, which has so often ill.u.s.trated our history by heroic achievements, though in peaceful times restrained in its operations to narrow limits, possesses, in its admirable elements, the means of great and sudden expansion, and is justly looked upon by the nation as the right arm of its power. An army, still smaller, but not less perfect in its detail, has on many a field exhibited the military apt.i.tudes and prowess of the race, and demonstrated the wisdom which has presided over its organization and government.

While the gradual and slow enlargement of these respective military arms has been regulated by a jealous watchfulness over the public treasure, there has, neverthless, been freely given all that was needed to perfect their quality; and each affords the nucleus of any enlargement that the public exigencies may demand, from the millions of brave hearts and strong arms upon the land and water.

The navy is the active and aggressive element of national defence; and, let loose from our own sea-coast, must display its power in the seas and channels of the enemy. To do this, it need not be large; and it can never be large enough to defend by its presence at home all our ports and harbors. But, in the absence of the navy, what can the regular army or the volunteer militia do against the enemy's line-of-battle ships and steamers, falling without notice upon our coast? What will guard our cities from tribute, our merchant-vessels and our navy-yards from conflagration? Here, again, we see a wise forecast in the system of defensive measures which, especially since the close of the war with Great Britain, has been steadily followed by our government.

While the perils from which our great establishments had just escaped were yet fresh in remembrance, a system of fortifications was begun, which now, though not quite complete, fences in our important points with impa.s.sable strength. More than four thousand cannon may at any moment, within strong and permanent works, arranged with all the advantages and appliances that the art affords, be turned to the protection of the sea-coast, and be served by the men whose hearths they shelter. Happy for us that it is so, since these are means of security that time alone can supply, and since the improvements of maritime warfare, by making distant expeditions easy and speedy, have made them more probable, and at the same time more difficult to antic.i.p.ate and provide against. The cost of fortifying all the important points of our coast, as well upon the whole Atlantic as the Gulf of Mexico, will not exceed the amount expended on the fortifications of Paris.

In this connection one most important facility in the defence of the country is not to be overlooked; it is the extreme rapidity with which the soldiers of the army, and any number of the militia corps, may be brought to any point where a hostile attack shall at any time be made or threatened.