The Middlebury register. [volume] (Middlebury, Vt.) 1850-1882, 1853-04-13
The Westminster Review on Mr..
Webster,


late foreign reviews give great prom
inence to American subjects, and
seem disposed to discuss them in a
liberal spirit. We have derived par
ticular qualification from the candid
and enlightened tone in which they
have thought fit to remark on the char
acters of two of our distinguished pub
lie men; a jurist and a statesman
whose places are not likely soon to be
filled by their equals, hardly, we fear,
by their seconds. The last number Of
the London Quarterly, and the last but
one of the Edinburgh RevietO, has
each a paper on the Life and Writ
ings of Judge STORY" so just and ap.
preciativc, that they must give great
satisfaction to every patriotic Ameri-
can who cherishes a reasonable pride
in the fame of our great men. The
last Westminster has a clever article
on Mr.. WEBSTER, written. we under
stand, by Mr.. WHIrrLE, the Boston
essayist, but altered and %interpolated
by the editors of the Westminster to
suit their own views. The general es.
innate which it gives of his abilities,
character and statemanship, is not
perhaps open to any very strong OBJ
lection; but there is an occasional
paragraph which seems to betray Ell
Their a want of information or want of
candor. Of this character is the pas
sage on which we propose to remark,
which runs, as follows =" Two of
WEDsTER's most celebrated speeches,
his reply to HAYNE and his reply to
CALHOUN, relate to this matter (the
tariff though their chief Importance
is due to their powerful influence in
settling a disputed question of consti-
tutional law. So far as they relate to
this question, the speeches are worthy
of their fame +; but they are at the
same time a record of what to us is
the strange anomaly-that a mind of
such rare breadth and penetration as
WEBsTER's, should have enlisted it.
self in the cause of protection, on the
ground of a confessedly sectional in
terest :"
While We propose to show that Mr..
WEBSTER did not advocate protection
on any such ground" as is here as
serted, we are obliged in candor to
confess that his writings will not allow
us to claim that he wei defended the
proprety of protection as an abstract
principle of political economy. In his
anti-tarif speech of 1924 he quotes,
with evident appreciation, the senti-
mcnts of several English statesmen in
favor of free trade principles, but adj
mfting the impracticability of their
immediate adoption in that country.
Great interests had been fostered into
being under the restrictive system,
though wrong in itself, and government
had no right to disappoint the faith
that has been reposed in it, and over
whelm with ruin branches of business
in which immense capital had been in.
vested by its own encouragement. And
Mr.. WEBSTER made the difficulties and
inconvenience of changing a wrong
policy after it has been once adopted,
and great interests have grown up un
der it, an argument against the adop-
ton of a protective policy by oul
government. But, in OPT o ition tt
his vote and his arguments, the
tariff of 1924 WIS adopted, anC
seemed to settle the policy of the coun
try in favor Of protection. New Eng
land, which, up to that period, had op
posed it, could do no otherwise than
acquiesce, and accordingly made larg'
investments in buildings and machin
cry, and attempted to avail itself of tn
advantages which a denser population
greater realized wealth, and abundal
water power gave it for the prosecution
of manufactures. After this grea
change in the investment Of capital an
Tie direction of industry had take
place, Mr.. WEBSTER, in perfect COZ
sistency with the views he had exprei
scd in his anti tariff speech, was OF
posed to a policy which would involy
in ruin the interests thus created {; an
on this ground became a projections
In his speech of the Odd of Marc,l
1000, ia WY " MIR. CALHOUN,
sets this forth with his accustomt
~pcrspicuity ;-''In 1916 1 voted
gainst the tariff law which then passe
In 1924 again voted against the tar
law which was then proposed, al
which passed. The policy was esta'
lished I; New England acquiesced in
conformed her business and pursu
to it ; embarked her capital and e
ployed her labor in manufactures, a
/ certainly admit hat from that tim,
have felt bound to support the interei
thus called into being and into imp
lance, by the settled policy Of the G'
ernment."
But he did this in no narrow, part
Or sectional spirit. He saw in the mi
ufactures of New England a mari
for southern cotton and corn, and
western grain-a market sure, stea
and reliable, independent of the fl
tuating policy Of foreign governmer
and tending by a reciprocity of int
ests, and a mutually beneficial int
chanoe nf commodities IN cament