employment and the achievements of the navy; that arm of national defence which is at once fostered by a great national commerce, and can alone effectually vindicate the rights of a commercial people. Mr. Webster's address before the Washington Society immediately passed through two editions. It led to his appointment as a delegate from the town of Portsmouth to attend an assembly of the people of the county of Rockingham, which was convened in the following August, for the purpose of expressing to the Government, in a direct manner, their opposition to the war, and their opinions respecting the means by which it should be brought to a speedy and honorable termination. This was done in the form of a memorial, addressed to the President of the United States, and signed by a committee representing more than fifteen hundred delegates. The paper adopted for this purpose was written by Mr. Webster, and is the document referred to in his Autobiography, and then and since known as "The Rockingham Memorial." Its length and character, and the character of the assembly-which was what would now be called a mass convention-show that he had been selected to prepare it before the day of the meeting. Many persons of distinction in that part of the State, much older than himself, were named on the committee, but he was placed at its head, and reported the memorial. It was a carefully-written document, reviewing thoroughly the course of policy which had brought about the war; explaining the grounds of opposition to it which the people in whose name it spoke felt themselves justified in assuming; pointing out and remonstrating against its tendency to produce an alliance with France; urging immediate naval preparations, and a reliance on that means of defence; and recommending the adoption of a system that would speedily restore the blessings of peace and commerce. On the subject of fidelity to the Union, it thus stated the principles of those who, in this manner, as citizens of a free republic, addressed themselves to its chief magistrate : "We are, sir, from principle and habit, attached to the Union of the States. But our attachment is to the substance, and not to the form. It is to the good which this Union is capable of producing, and not to the evil which is suffered unnaturally to grow out of it. If the time should ever arrive when this Union shall be holden together by nothing but the authority of law; when its incorporating, vital principle shall become extinct; when its principal exercises shall consist in acts of power and authority, not of protection and beneficence; when it shall lose the strong bond which it hath hitherto had in the public affections; and when, consequently, we shall be one, not in interest and mutual regard, but in name and form only-we, sir, shall look on that hour as the closing scene of our country's prosperity. "We shrink from the separation of the States, as an event fraught with incalculable evils, and it is among our strongest objections to the present course of measures, that they have, in our opinion, a very dangerous and alarming bearing on such an event. If a separation of the States ever should take place, it will be on some occasion when one portion of the country undertakes to control, to regulate, and to sacrifice the interest of another; when a small and heated majority in the Government, taking counsel of their passions, and not of their reason, contemptuously disregarding the interests and perhaps stopping the mouths of a large and respectable minority, shall, by hasty, rash, and ruinous measures, threaten to destroy essential rights, and lay waste the most important interests. "It shall be our most fervent supplication to Heaven to avert both the event and the occasion; and the Government may be assured that the tie that binds us to the Union will never be broken by us." Toward the President himself this memorial was courteous and dignified in its tone. It pressed indeed the argumentum ad hominem, by reminding the President of the opinions which he had frequently expressed, when advocating the adoption of the Constitution, of the necessity for an acquisition of maritime strength, in providing and maintaining a national navy. The neglect into which the navy had been suffered to fall, by those with whom Mr. Madison had politically acted since the Administration of the elder Adams went out of power, fully justified this personal appeal. But it was couched in terms of the utmost respect; and as Mr. Webster soon after entered Congress, and stood at once and always remained in friendly personal relations with Mr. Madison, it is certain that the latter would have concurred in Mr. Webster's own observationmade nearly twenty years afterward-that there was nothing in this paper which the writer ever needed to regret. It marks the character of the opposition which he continued to maintain to the Administration of Mr. Madison, so long and so far as he maintained any. Among the purposes for which the Rockingham convention. was assembled, was the nomination of candidates for the approaching general election. Mr. Webster was nominated as a Representative to the Thirteenth Congress, to which he was subsequently elected, and in which he took his seat on the 24th of May, 1813.' There were several young men in this Congress of high talent, some of whom were afterward known to fame. The two persons were there, with whose names Mr. Webster's has been more associated than with those of any others of his contemporaries, as standing upon the same plane of intellect. Henry Clay was the Speaker of this House, and John C. Calhoun was the leading member upon the floor, both being on the side of the Administration. Among those of lesser mark, but still prominent then and always while they lived, were William Gaston, of North Carolina; John McLean, of Ohio; John Forsyth, and George M. Troup, of Georgia; Charles J. Ingersoll, of Pennsylvania; and Felix Grundy, of Ten nessee. One of the first acts of Mr. Webster, on entering Congress, was, to introduce certain resolutions, calling upon the Executive for information respecting the time and mode in which the repeal of the French Decrees had been communicated to our Government. As this whole matter stood before the public at the time of the declaration of war, it appeared either that our Government had been deceived by the French ministry, or that they were in possession of a repealing decree when the war was declared, and had withheld it; for no such decree had made its appearance until after the declaration of war had passed through Congress. Mr. Webster considered that the reputation of the country was involved in this affair, because the French foreign secretary had declared to the American minister in Paris, on the 1st of May, 1812, that a copy of the repealing decree had been furnished to his predecessor, and that another had been transmitted to the French minister at Washington at the time of its date, which was April 28, 1811. Mr. Webster, therefore, for the purpose of eliciting all the facts, and in order to have them 1 A law of the previous Congress had appointed the next meeting of that body to be held May 24, 1813. The first session of the Thirteenth Congress com menced on that day, and was termi 1813. placed in their true light before the country, so framed his resolutions that, if they were answered at all, the whole matter must be disclosed. The resolutions were introduced by him on the 10th of June, 1813, accompanied by some temperate remarks concerning the doubt in which this matter was then enveloped.' A long and somewhat angry debate ensued, in which Mr. Calhoun led the defence of the Administration with great spirit and warmth. He was at first somewhat disposed to stifle the inquiry. But the House was not in a mood to do this. The war was not at that time so popular that the members could refuse an inquiry into the measures that had led to it. Indeed, the declaration of war had originally passed a House of one hundred and twenty-eight members by a majority of thirty votes only, and a Senate of thirty-two members by a majority of six; while an amendment to include France in the war was negatived in the Senate by the meagre majority of four. The friends of the Administration were now, therefore, in a new Congress, obliged to meet this inquiry, without having at their command such a popular enthusiasm for the war as might have justified their refusal, if such enthusiasm had existed. The debate on the resolutions continued at intervals until the 21st of June, but they were all finally passed as they were introduced, by very large 1 What Mr. Webster said on this occasion strongly attracted the attention of Chief-Justice Marshall. Nearly twenty years afterward, when Mr. Webster's collected speeches were first published, it appears from the following letters that the Chief Justice was disappointed at finding this one omitted from the volume: [FROM CHIEF-JUSTICE MARSHALL.] "January 23, 1831. "DEAR SIR: I have just received the copy of your Speeches and Forensic Arguments,' and am much flattered by this mark of your attention. I beg you to present my compliments to Mrs. Webster; and to say that I think myself, in part, indebted to her for it. At all events, she has, I perceive, had some agency in conferring the favor. "I shall read the volume with pleasure, and preserve it with care. "Will you allow me to say that, on looking over the contents, I felt at the first moment some disappointment at not seeing two speeches delivered by you in the first Congress, I believe, of which you were a mem "With great and respectful esteem, "I am, your obedient, "J. MARSHALL." [FROM JUDGE STORY.] "WASHINGTON, January 23, 1831. "MY DEAR SIR: After the Chief Justice (Marshall) had received the volume of your speeches this morning, he came into my chamber, and told me he had been looking over the index, and noticed two omissions of speeches which he remembered you had made in Congress at an early period of your public life, and which he had then read. One was on some resolutions, calling upon President Madison for the proof of the repeal of the Berlin and Milan Decrees; the other, on the subject of the Previous Question. He observed: I read these speeches with very great pleasure and satisfaction at the time. At the time when the first was delivered, I did not know Mr. Webster; but I was so much struck with it, that I did not hesitate then to state that Mr. Webster was a very able man, and would become one of the very first statesmen in America, and perhaps the very first.' Such praise from such a source ought to be very gratifying. Consider that he is now seventy-five years old, and that he speaks of his recollections of you some eighteen years ago with a freshness which shows you how deeply your reasoning impressed itself on his mind. Keep this in memoriam rei. "Yours very truly, "JOSEPH STORY. "The Hon. Daniel Webster." majorities. Mr. Webster had intended to close the discussion upon them, but he found it unnecessary.1 Mr. Jeremiah Mason had been recently chosen a Senator from New Hampshire, and he arrived and took his seat in the Senate while these resolutions were under discussion in the House. The answer to them was made by the Secretary of State, Mr. Monroe, on the 12th of July. It disclosed the fact that our Government had received no intelligence of the repealing decree of April 28, 1811, until the 13th of July, 1812, nearly a month after the declaration of war against England. It followed, therefore, that our reliance on the action of France was based wholly upon the declaration of August 5, 1810, which, it was argued by Mr. Monroe, had fully satisfied every claim of the British Government according to their own principles, and ought to have been received by them as sufficient cause for a repeal of their Orders in Council. On this point there was of course a great difference of opinion between those who favored the war against England and those who believed that France ought to have been selected as our enemy, or at least that she should have been dealt with in a very different way from that which had been adopted. It is in the highest degree probable that, if there had been no such existing cause of irritation against England as her oppressive pretension of a right to search our vessels for seamen whose allegiance she claimed, there would not have been the same inclination to push matters to an extremity with her, by adopting so untenable a ground in reference to the French Decrees. The French declaration of August 5, 1810, was deceptive, and was intended to be so;' 1 "You have learned the fate of my resolutions. We had a warm time of it for four days, and then the other side declined further discussion. I had prepared myself for a little speech, but the necessity of speaking was prevented. I went with Rhea, of Tennessee, to deliver the resolutions to the President. I found him in his bed, sick of a fever. I gave them to him, and he merely answered that they would be attended to."-Letter to Ezekiel Webster, June 28, 1813.) 2 Mr. Madison had become convinced of this before our declaration of war against England. In a private letter to Mr. Jefferson, written May 25, 1812, he said; "France has done nothing toward adjusting our differences with her. It is understood that the Berlin and Milan Decrees are not in force against the United States, and no contravention of them can be established against her. On the contrary, positive cases rebut the allegation. Still, the manner of the French Government betrays the design of leaving Great Britain a pretext for enforcing her Orders in Council. And in all other respects the grounds of our complaints remain the same. The utmost address has been played off on Mr. Barlow's hopes and wishes," etc.-(Writings of Mr. Madison, vol. ii., p. 535.) This letter |