Year: 1864

The following extracts from the great speech of
DANIEL WEBSTER, delivered in the Senate of the
United States, May z, 1884 on the Presidents Pro-
test should be printed in letters of gold, and hung
up in every house in the land Liberty is in no dam
ger from the people themselves, from their State
Legislatures, or from the Courts but it is in dan.
ger from constantly increasing Executive poper.-
Let the people take warning ere it be too late


Mr. President, the contest, for ages has been
to rescue Liberty from the graspof executive power
whoever has engaged in her sacred cause from the
days of the downfall of those great aristocracies
which had stood between the king and the people,
to the time OF our own independence has struggled
for theaccomphshment Of that single object On
the long list of the champions of human freedom
there Is not one name dimmed by the reproach of
advocating the extension of executive authority:
on the contrary, the uniform and steady purpose of
all such champions has been to limit and restrain it.
To this end the spirit Of liberty growing more and
more enlightened, and more and more vigorous from
age to age has been batterng for centuries against
the solid butments of the feudal system. To this
end all that could be gained from the imprudence
Snatched from the weakness, or wrung from the
necessities, Of crowned heads, has been carefully
gathered up secured and boarded as the rich treas
ures, the very jewels of liberty. To this end, pop
ular and representative right has kept up its war
fare against prerogatiVe, with various success;
sometimes writing the history of whole age in
blood; sometimes witnessing the martyrdOm of
Sidneys and Russells, often bsf1ed and repulsed,
but still gaining, on the whole and holding what it
gained With grasp which nothing but the complete
extinction of its own being could compel it to
hnquSh. At length, the great conquest over exec
utIve power, in the leading western States OF Eu.
rope, has been accomplished. The fcudal system,
like other stupendous fabrics of past ages is known
only by the rubbish which it has left behind it
ynadh hoo haua haan N ,h,,,,k 90
the restraints of law and the PEOPLE, with that in
tellgeHce and that spirit which make their voice
sstesS, have been able to say to preTogative, Thus
far shalt thou come, and no farther" | need hard


y say, sir that into the full enjoyment of all which
Europe has reached only through such slow and
painful steps, we spraDg at once, by the declaration
OF independence and by the establishment of free
representative governments; governments borrowing
less from the models Of other free States but
strengthened, secured, improved IN their symmetry,
and deepened in their foundation, by those great
men OF our own country whose names will be as
familiar to future times as they written on the
arch of the sky. Who he that bellies the blood
and belS the fame of his own ancestors by declaring
that they, with Soemity of form, and force Of man
ner, have invoked the executive power to come to
the protection of libertyp Who is he that thus
charges them with the insanity, the recklessness
OF putting the lamb beneath the lions paw? No,
sir. No, sir. Our security is in our watchfulneSs
of executive power. 1t the constitution of this
department, which was infinitely the most difficult
part in the great work of creating present gov


ernment To gveNto the Executive department
such power as should make it useful, and yet not
such as should render it dangerous; to make 1t ef
fcient independent and strong, and yet to prevent
it from sweeping away every thing by its union of
military and civil authority, by the influence of pa
tronage, and office, and favor this indeed, was
| difficult. They who had the work to do, saw the
difficulty, and we see it; and if we would maintain
our system, We shall act wisely to that end BY pre-
serving every restraint and every guard which the
| Constitution has provided. And when we, and
those who come after US, have done all that we can
do, and all that they do, it will be we'll for US
and for them, if some popular Executive, by the
power of patronage and party, and the power, too,
of that very popularity, shall! not hereafter prove
an oVermatch for all other branches of the govern
| nent"