that it had any foundation, although he considered that some of the steps taken by Mr. Clay in repelling it were not well judged.

There was one interview, and I believe but one, between Mr. Adams and Mr. Webster, on the subject of this election, which places in a very striking light the objects which Mr. Webster sought from Mr. Adams, in case of his election, and the extent of the whole understanding between them respecting Mr. Adams's course. Mr. Webster desired to see an administration of the Government that would not seek to revive or perpetuate the old party distinctions by a distribution of offices of trust among men called by one party denomination. He thought that the welfare of the country required this abnegation of party, and that it could be sufficiently signified by one clear and distinct case of an appointment of a Federalist to office, which would show that the having been of that party was not to operate as a cause of exclusion. The result would be, that the Administration would be left free to call to the public service the best ability and the purest character. Entertaining these opinions, Mr. Webster, on the 3d of February, received a letter from Mr. Warfield, one of the Representatives from Maryland, who had been a Federalist, and whose political friends at home feared that Mr. Adams would build up again the old landmarks of party distinction. Oppressed with the responsibility of his position in his own delegation-since his vote might decide the vote of his State-this gentleman desired Mr. Webster's opinion as to the mode in which he ought to act. Two days afterward, Mr. Webster returned him the following answer:

[MR. WEBSTER TO MR. WARFIELD.]

"HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, February 5, 1825.

"MY DEAR SIR: I have received your note of yesterday, and reflected on its contents, and am very willing to answer it, as far as I can, without incurring the danger of misleading you in the discharge of the delicate and important trust belonging to your present situation.

"I must remark, in the first place, that my acquaintance with Mr. Adams, although friendly and respectful, I hope, on both sides—certainly so on mine is not particular. I can say nothing, therefore, on the present occasion by any authority derived from him.

"Being in a situation, however, not altogether unlike your own, I have naturally been anxious, like yourself, to form an opinion as to what would be the course of his Administration in regard to the subject alluded to by you. For myself, I am satisfied, and shall give him my vote cheerfully and steadily. And I am ready to say that I should not do so if I did not believe that he would administer the Government on liberal principles, not excluding Federalists, as such, from his regard and confidence.

"I entertain this feeling, not because I wish to see any number of offices, or any particular office, given to those who have been called Federalists; nor because there is a number of such, or, any one, that I particularly desire to see employed in the public service; but because the time is come, in my opinion, when we have a right to know whether a particular political name, in reference to former parties, is, of itself, to be regarded as cause of exclusion.

"I wish to see nothing like a portioning, parcelling out, or distributing offices of trust among men called by different denominations. Such a proceeding would be to acknowledge and to regard the existence of distinctions; whereas my wish is, that distinctions should be disregarded. What I think just and reasonable to be expected is, that, by some one clear and distinct case, it may be shown that the distinction above alluded to does not operate as cause of exclusion. Some such case will doubtless present itself, and may be embraced probably in proper time and manner, if thought expedient to embrace it, without prejudice to the pretensions or claims of individuals. The Government will then be left at liberty to call to the public service the best ability and the purest character. It will then be understood that the field is open, and that men are to stand according to their individual merits. So far as this, I think it just to expect the next Administration to go. At any rate, it is natural to wish to know what may probably be expected in this regard.

"While with these sentiments, which, my dear sir, are as strong in my breast as they can be in yours, I am willing to support Mr. Adams, and to give him my vote and influence, I must again remind you that my judgment is made up, not from any understanding or communication with him, but from general considerations; from what I think I know of his liberal feelings, from his good sense and judgment, and from the force of circumstances. I assure you, very sincerely, that I have a full confidence that Mr. Adams's Administration will be just and liberal toward Federalists as toward others; and I need not say that there is no individual who would feel more pain than myself, if you and the rest of our friends should ever find reason to doubt the solidity of the foundation on which this confidence rests.

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NOTE.-I read this, precisely as it now stands here, to Mr. Adams, on the evening of February 4th. He said, when I had got through, that the letter expressed his general sentiments, and such as he was willing to have understood as his sentiments. There was one particular, however, on

which he wished to make a remark. The letter seemed to require him, or expect him, to place one Federalist in the administration. Here I interrupted him, and told him he had misinterpreted the writer's meaning. That the letter did not speak of those appointments called Cabinet appointments particularly, but of appointments generally. With that understanding he said the letter contained his opinions, and he should feel it his duty, by some such appointment, to mark his desire of disregarding party distinctions. He thought either of them, if elected, must necessarily act liberally in this respect. In consequence of this conversation, I interlined, in this letter, the words 'in proper time and manner.' I made no other alteration in it."

What Mr. Webster's opinions were on the subject of internal improvements, and under what circumstances they were formed in 1816, the reader has seen. At this session a very interesting debate took place in the House upon a bill to provide for the continuation of the Cumberland road to Zanesville, in Ohio; a national road, commencing at Baltimore, and then completed as far as Wheeling. The bill was opposed by Mr. McDuffie, of South Carolina, as partial and sectional. He considered that the true course for Congress was to wait until a general system could be devised and put into operation as a whole, with reference to an expenditure graduated somewhat according to the amount of national revenues paid in the particular region to be benefited. Mr. Webster took part in this discussion, and said that, on this subject, as on all others, he wished to bring to the discussion a right feeling, that is, a truly national feeling. It mattered nothing to him who was to be immediately benefited. Tros Tyriusve, whether an inhabitant of the banks of the Merrimac of New Hampshire, or the Merrimac of Missouri, he cared not; provided he be a subject of our legislation, he has claims, said Mr. Webster, on my impartial consideration. If he had been led, since the discussion of 1816, to alter his opinion on any part of the general subject then debated, it was that which respects an equal distribution of the public expenditures through the different parts of the Union according to their population. He doubted extremely the propriety and even the power of Congress to carry on legislation on the principle of balancing the local interests of different sections of the country. If the business of legislation had been committed to Congress at all, the whole subject is in its

power and under its discretion. . . . When Congress legislates at all, it must legislate for a whole, not for twenty-four parts. The idea had been brought forward as being calculated to prevent a merely local legislation; but it was, in truth, itself a local idea. Such a system would rest on a foundation essentially vicious. When going into a system of improvement, the House has simply to inquire, Where is improvement most needed? He cared not whether it was beyond the Alleghanies or beyond the Missouri; wherever it was most needed, there it must first be made.

Mr. Webster further defended the present object, by contending that the opening of these Western roads had a tendency to settle the public lands, which he regarded as a national object. This again called up Mr. McDuffie, who declared himself opposed to the policy of selling the public lands at the minimum price of one dollar and twenty-five cents per acre, when they were fairly worth fifteen dollars per acre, and would sell at that price if the market were not glutted. This policy had the tendency, he said, to drain off the population of the old States, and it was accompanied by an artificial system of grinding tariffs to counteract the effect of reducing the population of those States. He drew a somewhat melancholy picture of the impoverishment of the Southern States; but, so far as that apprehended decay depended upon a tariff policy, he did not allude to the South Carolina origin of that policy. Mr. Webster replied that he was not in favor of selling the public lands at a price that would throw them into the hands of speculators, but he desired to have them offered at rates that would encourage their settlement. He did not regard it as desirable to prevent the laboring classes of the Eastern States from going to any part of our territory where they could better their condition. The emigration was the natural condition of a country densely populated in one part and possessing in another a vast tract of unsettled lands. The plan of the gentleman, he said, went to reverse the order of Nature, vainly expecting to retain men within a small and comparatively unproductive territory, who have "all the world before them where to choose." For his own part, he was in favor of letting population take its own course; he should experience no feeling of mortification if any

of his constituents liked better to settle on the Kansas or the Arkansas, or the Lord knows where, within our territory; let them go and be happier if they could. "The gentleman says our aggregate of wealth would have been greater if our population had been restrained within the limits of the old States; but does he not consider population to be wealth? And has not this been increased by the settlement of a new and fertile country? Such a country presents the most alluring of all prospects to a young and laboring man; it gives him a freehold-it offers to him weight and respectability in society; and, above all, it presents to him a prospect of a permanent provision for his children. Sir, these are inducements which never were resisted, and never will be; and, were the whole extent of country filled with population up to the Rocky Mountains, these inducements would carry that population forward to the shores of the Pacific Ocean. Sir, it is vain to talk; individuals will seek their own good, and not any artificial aggregate of the national wealth; a young, enterprising, and hardy agriculturist can conceive of nothing better to him than plenty of good cheap land.”

How Mr. Webster's course in this Congress was regarded in the West, will appear from the following letter, addressed to him by one of the Representatives of Ohio:

[FROM THE HON. JOSEPH VANCE.]

"URBANA, March 29, 1825.

"DEAR SIR: From the interest you took during the last Congress in favor of some of the important measures of the West, you have not only a claim on the gratitude of this people, but are entitled to know the political feelings of this section of the Union, both as it respects yourself personally, as well as those growing out of the late presidential election.

"On my way home I passed through our State diagonally, and was everywhere met by our citizens with that cordiality and good feeling which spoke in a language not to be misunderstood that our stand in favor of Mr. Adams was not only approved but received with a degree of enthusiasm unequalled in our State since its admission into the Union. This enthusiasm and good feeling was no doubt as much the result of a well-grounded confidence in our political institutions owing to the manner in which the question was settled in the House of Representatives, as it was to that of the elevation of the present incumbent to the chief-magistracy of the nation.

"As it respects yourself, permit me to say, that with our people no man