they were, men of respectability, men of substance, men capable and willing to live independently and honestly, and hospitably too-for who so parsimonious as the prodigal who has nothing to give?-what have we become? A nation of sharks, preying on one another through the instrumentality of this paper system, which, if Lycurgus had known of it, he would unquestionably have adopted, in preference to his iron money, if his object had been to make the Spartans the most accomplished knaves as well as to keep them poor. I had more to say, Mr. Speaker, could I have said it, on this subject. But I cannot sit down without asking those, who were once my brethren of the church, the elders of the young family of this good old republic of the thirteen states, if they can consent to rivet upon us this system, from which no benefit can possibly result to themselves. I put it to them as descendants of the renowned colony of Virginia; as children sprung from her loins; if for the sake of all the benefits, with which this bill is pretended to be freighted to them, granting such to be the fact for argument's sake, they could consent to do such an act of violence to the unanimous opinion, feelings, preju dices, if you will, of the whole Southern States, as to pass it? I go farther. I ask of them what is there in the condition of the nation at this time, that calls for the immediate adoption of this measure? Are the Gauls at the gate of the capitol? If they are, the cacklings of the Capitoline geese will hardly save it. What is there to induce us to plunge into the vortex of those evils so severely felt in Europe from this very manufacturing and paper policy? For it is evident that, if we go into this system of policy, we must adopt the European institutions also. We have very good materials to work with; we have only to make our elective king president for life, in the first place, and then to make the succession hereditary in the family of the first that shall happen to have a promising son. For a king we can be at no lossex quovis ligno-any block will do for him. The senate may, perhaps, be transmuted into a house of peers, although we should meet with more difficulty than in the other case; for Bonaparte himself was not more hardly put to it, to recruit the ranks of his mushroom nobility, than we should be to furnish a house of peers. As for us, we are the faithful commons, ready made to hand; but with all our loyalty, I congratulate the house-I congratulate the nation The manufacturer of the east may carry his woolens or his cottons, or his coffins, to what market he pleases-I do not buy of him. Self-defence is the first law of nature. You drive us into it. You create heats and animosities among this great family, who ought to live like brothers; and, after you have got this temper of mind roused among the southern people, do you expect to come among us to trade, and expect us to buy your wares? Sir, not only shall we not buy them, but we shall take such measures (I will not enter into the detail of them now) as shall render it impossible for you to sell them. Whatever may be said here of the "misguided counsels," as they have been termed, "of the theorists of Virginia," they have, so far as regards this question, the confidence of united Virginia. We are asked-Does the south lose any thing by this bill-why do you cry out? I put it, sir, to any man from any part of the country, from the gulf of Mexico, from the Balize, to the eastern shore of Maryland-which, I thank Heaven, is not yet under the government of Baltimore, and will not be, unless certain theories should come into play in that state, which we have lately heard of, and a majority of men, told by the head, should govern-whether the whole country between the points I have named, is not unanimous in opposition to this bill. Would it not be unexampled, that we should thus complain, protest, resist, and that all the while nothing should be the matter? Are our understandings (however low mine that, although this body is daily degraded may be rated, much sounder than mine are by the sight of members of Congress manuengaged in this resistance), to be rated so factured into placemen, we have not yet low, as that we are to be made to believe reached such a point of degradation as to that we are children affrighted by a bug-suffer executive minions to be manufacbear? We are asked, however, why do tured into members of congress. We have you cry out? it is all for your good. Sir, shut that door; I wish we could shut the this reminds me of the mistresses of George other also. I wish we could have a perII., who, when they were insulted by the petual call of the house in this view, and populace on arriving in London (as all suffer no one to get out from its closed such creatures deserve to be, by every doors. The time is peculiarly inauspicious mob), put their heads out of the window, for the change in our policy which is proand said to them in their broken English, posed by this bill. We are on the eve of "Goot people, we be come for your goots;" an election that promises to be the most to which one of the mob rejoined "Yes, distracted that this nation has ever yet and for our chattels too, I fancy." Just so undergone. It may turn out to be a Polish it is with the oppressive exactions proposed election. At such a time, ought any measure to be brought forward which is | nished the example, have been witnessed supposed to be capable of being demon- in the southern portion of our hemisphere. strated to be extremely injurious to one Sunk to the last point of colonial degradagreat portion of this country, and beneficial in proportion to another? Sufficient for the day is the evil thereof. There are firebrands enough in the land, without this apple of discord being cast into this assembly. Suppose this measure is not what it is represented to be; that the fears of the south are altogether illusory and visionary; that it will produce all the good predicted of it-an honorable gentleman from Kentucky said yesterday and I was sorry to hear it, for I have great respect for that gentleman, and for other gentlemen from that state that the question was not whether a bare majority should pass the bill, but whether the majority or the minority should rule. The gentleman is wrong, and, if he will consider the matter rightly, he will see it. Is there no difference between the patient and the actor? We are passive: we do not call them to act or to suffer, but we call upon them not so to act as that we must necessarily suffer; and I venture to say, that in any government, properly constituted, this very consideration would operate conclusively, that if the burden is to be laid on 102, it ought not to be laid by 105. We are the eel that is being flayed, while the cook-maid pats us on the head, and cries, with the clown in King Lear, "Down, wantons, down." There is but one portion of the country which can profit by this bill, and from that portion of the country comes this bare majority in favor of it. I bless God that Massachusetts and old Virginia are once again rallying under the same banner, against oppressive and unconstitutional taxation; for, if all the blood be drawn from out the body, I care not whether it be by the British parliament or the American congress; by an emperor or a king abroad, or by a president at home. Under these views, and with feelings of mortification and shame at the very weak opposition I have been able to make to this bill, I entreat gentlemen to consent that it may lie over, at least, until the next session of congress. We have other business to attend to, and our families and affairs need our attention at home; and indeed I, sir, would not give one farthing for any man who prefers being here to being at home; who is a good public man and a bad private one. With these views and feelings, I move you, sir, that the bill be indefinitely postponed. tion, they have risen at once into the It is in this way that we are to fulfil our destiny in the world. The greatest engine of moral power, which human nature knows, is an organized, prosperous state. All that man, in his individual capacity, can do all that he can effect by his fraternities-by his ingenious discoveries and wonders of art,-or by his influence defraying the expense incident to the appointment of an dent shall deem it expedient to make such appointment." agent, or commissioner, to Greece, whenever the Presi MR. CHAIRMAN,-It may be asked, will this resolution do the Greeks any good? Yes, it will do them much good. It will give them courage and spirit, which is better than money. It will assure them of the public sympathy, and will inspire them with fresh constancy. It will teach them that they are not forgotten by the civilized world, and to hope one day to oc over others-is as nothing, compared with the collective, perpetuated influence on human affairs and human happiness of a well constituted, powerful commonwealth. It blesses generations with its sweet influence; even the barren earth seems to pour out its fruits under a system where property is secure, while her fairest gardens are blighted by despotism;-men, thinking, reasoning men, abound beneath its benignant sway;-nature enters into a beautiful accord, a better, purer asiento with man, and guides an industrious citizen cupy, in that world, an honorable station. A farther question remains. Is this to every rood of her smiling wastes;-and measure pacific? It has no other charac we see, at length, that what has been called ter. It simply proposes to make a pecuni a state of nature, has been most falsely, ary provision for a mission, when the precalumniously so denominated; that the na-sident shall deem such mission expedient. ture of man is neither that of a savage, a It is a mere reciprocation to the sentiments hermit, nor a slave; but that of a member of his message; it imposes upon him no of a well-ordered family, that of a good neighbor, a free citizen, a well informed, good man, acting with others like him. This is the lesson which is taught in the charter of our independence; this is the lesson which our example is to teach the world. new duty; it gives him no new power; it does not hasten or urge him forward; it simply provides, in an open and avowed manner, the means of doing, what would else be done out of the contingent fund. It leaves him at the most perfect liberty, and it reposes the whole matter in his sole The epic poet of Rome-the faithful discretion. He might do it without this subject of an absolute prince-in unfold-resolution, as he did in the case of South ing the duties and destinies of his coun- America,-but it merely answers the query, trymen, bids them look down with disdain whether on so great and interesting a queson the polished and intellectual arts of tion as the condition of the Greeks, this Greece, and deem their arts to be To rule the nations with imperial sway; To spare the tribes that yield; fight down the proud; A nobler counsel breathes from the char- Close of the Speech of Daniel Webster On the Greek question, in the House of Representatives of the United States, January, 1824. The house had gone into committee of the whole, Mr. Taylor in the chair, on the resolution offered by Mr. "Resolved, That provision ought to be made by law for house holds no opinion which is worth expressing? But, suppose a commissioner is sent, the measure is pacific still. Where is the breach of neutrality? Where a just cause of offence? And besides, Mr. Chairman, is all the danger in this matter on one side? may we not inquire, whose fleets cover the Archipelago? may we not ask, what would be the result to our trade should Smyrna be blockaded? A commissioner could at least procure for us what we do not now possess—that is, authentic information of the true state of things. The document on your table exhibits a meagre appearance on this point -what does it contain? Letters of Mr. Luriottis and paragraphs from a French paper. My personal opinion is, that an agent ought immediately to be sent; but the resolution I have offered by no means goes so far. Do gentlemen fear the result of this resolution in embroiling us with the Porte? Why, sir, how much is it ahead of the whole nation, or rather let me ask how much is the nation ahead of it? Is not this whole people already in a state of open and avowed excitement on this subject? Does not the land ring from side to side with one common sentiment of sympathy for Greece, and indignation toward her oppressors? nay, more, sir-are we not giving money to this cause? More still, sir-is not the secretary of state in open correspondence with the president of the Greek committee in London? The nation honored with a seat on this floor. They imply, to my apprehension, a total and fundamental change of the policy pursued by this government, ab urbe condita-from the foundation of the republic, to the present day. Are we, sir, to go on a crusade, in another hemisphere, for the propagation of two objects-objects as dear and delightful to my heart as to that of any gentleman in this, or in any other assembly-liberty and religion-and, in the name of these holy words-by this powerful spell, is this nation to be conjured and persuaded out of the highway of heaven out of its present comparatively happy state, into all the disastrous conflicts arising from the policy of European powers, with all the consequences which flow from them? has gone as far as it can go, short of an offi- trines broached in this debate, fraught cial act of hostility. This resolution adds with consequences more disastrous to the nothing beyond what is already done- best interests of this people than any that nor can any of the European governments I have ever heard advanced during the take offence at such a measure. But if five-and-twenty years that I have been they would, should we be withheld from an honest expression of liberal feelings in the cause of freedom, for fear of giving umbrage to some member of the holy alliance? We are not, surely, yet prepared to purchase their smiles by a sacrifice of every manly principle. Dare any Christian prince even ask us not to sympathize with a Christian nation struggling against Tartar tyranny? We do not interfere we break no engagements-we violate no treaties; with the Porte we have none. Mr. Chairman, there are some things which, to be well done, must be promptly done. If we even determine to do the thing that is now proposed, we may do it too late. Sir, I am not of those who are for withholding aid when it is most urgently needed, and when the stress is past, and the aid no longer necessary, overwhelming the sufferers with caresses. I will not stand by and see my fellow man drowning without stretching out a hand to help him, till he has by his own efforts and presence of mind reached the shore in safety, and then encumber him with aid. With suffering Greece now is the crisis of her fate, her great, it may be, her last struggle. Sir, while we sit here deliberating, her destiny may be decided. The Greeks, contending with ruthless oppressors, turn their eyes to us, and invoke us by their ancestors, slaughtered wives and children, by their own blood, poured out like water, by the hecatombs of dead they have heaped up as it were to heaven, they invoke, they implore us for some cheering sound, some look of sympathy, some token of compassionate regard. They look to us as the great republic of the earth-and they ask us by our common faith, whether we can forget that they are struggling, as we once struggled, for what we now so happily enjoy? I cannot say, sir, that they will succeed; that rests with heaven. But for myself, sir, if I should to-morrow hear that they have failed that their last phalanx had sunk beneath the Turkish cimeter, that the flames of their last city had sunk in its ashes, and that naught remained but the wide melancholy waste where Greece once was, I should still reflect, with the most heartfelt satisfaction, that I have asked you in the name of seven millions of freemen, that you would give them at least the cheering of one friendly voice. Liberty and religion, sir! I believe that nothing similar to this proposition is to be found in modern history, unless in the famous decree of the French national assembly, which brought combined Europe against them, with its united strength, and, after repeated struggles, finally effected the downfall of the French power. Sir, I am wrong-there is another example of like doctrine; and you find it among that strange and peculiar people-in that mysterious book, which is of the highest authority with them, (for it is at once their gospel and their law,) the Koran, which enjoins it to be the duty of all good Moslems to propagate its doctrines at the point of the sword-by the edge of the cimeter. The character of that people is a peculiar one: they differ from every other race. It has been said, here, that it is four hundred years since they encamped in Europe. Sir, they were encamped, on the spot where we now find them, before this country was discovered, and their title to the country which they occupy is at least as good as ours. They hold their possessions there by the same title by which all other countries are held possession, obtained at first by a successful employment of force, confirmed by time, usage, prescription-the best of all possible titles. Their policy has been not tortuous, like that of other states of Europe, but straightforward: they had invariably appealed to the sword, and they held by the sword. The Russ had, indeed, made great encroachments on their empire, but the ground had been contested inch by inch; and the acquisitions of Russia on the side of Christian EuropeLivonia, Ingria, Courland-Finland, to the Gulf of Bothnia-Poland!-had been greater than that of the Mahometans. And, in consequence of this straightfor ward policy to which I before referred, this peculiar people could boast of being the only one of the continental Europe, whose capital had never been insulted by the presence of a foreign military force. It was a curious fact, well worthy of attention, that Constantinople was the only capital in continental Europe-for Moscow was the true capital of Russia-that had never been in possession of an enemy. It is, indeed, true, that the Empress Catharine did inscribe over the gate of one of the cities that she had won in the Krimea, (Cherson, I think,) "the road to Byzantium;" but, sir, it has proved-perhaps too low a word for the subject-but a stumpy road for Russia. Who, at that day, would have been believed, had he foretold to that august (for so she was) and illustrious woman that her Cossacks of the Ukraine, and of the Don, would have encamped in Paris before they reached Constantinople? Who would have been believed, if he had foretold that a French invading forcesuch as the world never saw before, and, I trust, will never again see-would lay Moscow itself in ashes? These are considerations worthy of attention, before we embark in the project proposed by this resolution, the consequences of which no human eye can divine. harmony; the advocates of a fireside policy-for, as had been truly said, as long as all is right at the fireside, there cannot be much wrong elsewhere-whether, I repeat, does not the doctrine of Puffendorf apply as well to the words of the resolution as to the words of the holy alliance? But, sir, we have already done more than this. The president of the United States, the only organ of communication which the people have seen fit to establish between us and foreign powers, has already expressed all, in reference to Greece, that the resolution goes to express actum estit is done-it is finished-there is an end. Not, that I would have the house to infer, that I mean to express any opinion as to the policy of such a declaration-the practice of responding to presidential addresses and messages had gone out for, now, these two or three-and-twenty years. Extract from Mr. Hayne's Speech against the Tariff Bill, in Congress, January, 1832. MR. PRESIDENT,-The plain and seemingly obvious truth, that in a fair and equal exchange of commodities all parties gained, is a noble discovery of modern times. The I would respectfully ask the gentleman contrary principle naturally led to comfrom Massachusetts, whether in his very mercial rivalries, wars, and abuses of all able and masterly argument-and he has sorts. The benefits of commerce being resaid all that could be said upon the sub-garded as a stake to be won, or an advanject, and more than I supposed could be tage to be wrested from others by fraud or said by any man in favor of his resolution by force, governments naturally strove to se-whether he himself has not furnished an cure them to their own subjects; and when answer to his speech-I had not the happi- they once set out in this wrong direction, ness myself to hear his speech, but a friend it was quite natural that they should not has read it to me. In one of the argu-stop short till they ended in binding, in the ments in that speech, toward the conclu- bonds of restriction, not only the whole sion, I think, of his speech, the gentleman country, but all of its parts. Thus we are lays down, from Puffendorf, in reference to the honeyed words and pious professions of the holy alliance, that these are all surplusage, because nations are always supposed to be ready to do what justice and national law require. Well, sir, if this be so, why may not the Greeks presume-why are they not, on this principle, bound to presume, that this government is disposed to do all, in reference to them, that they ought to do, without any formal resolutions to that effect? I ask the gentleman from Massachusetts, whether the doctrine of Puffendorf does not apply as strongly to the resolution as to the declaration of the allies-that is, if the resolution of the gentleman be indeed that almost nothing he would have us suppose, if there be not something behind this nothing which divides this house (not horizontally, as the gentleman has ludicrously said-but vertically) into two unequal parties, one the advocate of a splendid system of crusades, the other the friends of peace and told that England first protected by her restrictive policy, her whole empire against all the world, then Great Britain against the colonies, then the British islands against each other, and ended by vainly attempting to protect all the great interests and employment of the state by balancing them against each other. Sir, such a system, carried fully out, is not confined to rival nations, but protects one town against another, considers villages, and even families as rivals; and cannot stop short of "Robinson Crusoe in his goat skins." It takes but one step further to make every man his own lawyer, doctor, farmer, and shoemaker-and, if I may be allowed an Irishism, his own seamstress and washerwoman. The doctrine of free trade, on the contrary, is founded on the true social system. It looks on all mankind as children of a common parent-and the great family of nations as linked together by mutual interests. Sir, as there is a religion, so I believe there is a politics of nature. Cast your eyes over |