extend the operation of the protective system. In this speech Mr. Webster found fault with the phrase “American policy,” as applied by Mr. Clay to the system of high protective duties. “If names are thought necessary,” said Mr. Webster, “it would be well enough, one would think, that the name should be in some measure descriptive of the thing; and since Mr. Speaker denominates the policy which he recommends a 'new policy in this country'; since he speaks of the present measure as a new era in our legislation; since he professes to invite us to depart from our accustomed course, to instruct ourselves by the wisdom of others, and to adopt the policy of the most distinguished foreign states — one is a little curious to know with what propriety of speech this imitation of other nations is denominated an 'American policy,' while, on the contrary, a preference for our own established System, as it now actually exists and always has existed, is called a 'foreign policy.' This favorite American policy is what America has never tried; and this odious foreign policy is what, as we are told, foreign states have never pursued. Sir, that is the truest American policy which shall most usefully employ American capital and American labor.” After this exordium, Mr. Webster went on to give a masterly exposition of some of the elementary theorems of political economy and a survey, at once comprehensive and accurate, of the condition of American industry at the time. He not only attacked Mr. Clay's policy on broad national grounds, but also showed more specifically that it was likely to prove injurious to the maritime commerce in which the New England states had so long taken the lead; and he concluded by characterizing that policy as “so burdensome and so dangerous to the interest which has steadily enriched, gallantly defended, and proudly distinguished us, that nothing can prevail upon me to give it my support.” Upon this last clause of his speech he was afterward enabled to rest a partial justification of his change of attitude toward the tariff. The other chief incidents in his career in the house of representatives were his advocacy of a national bankrupt law, his defence of William H. Crawford, secretary of the treasury, against sundry charges brought against him by Ninian Edwards (q. v.) lately senator from Illinois, and his defence of President Adams's policy in the matter of Georgia and the Creek Indians.
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In politics Mr. Webster occupied at this time an independent position. The old Federalist party, to which he had formerly belonged, was completely broken down, and the new National Republican party, with its inheritance of many of the principles, motives, and methods of the Federalists, was just beginning to take shape under the leadership of Adams and Clay. Between these eminent statesmen and Mr. Webster the state of feeling was not such as to insure cordial co-operation, but in their views of government there was similarity enough to bring them together in opposition to the new Democratic party represented by Jackson, Benton, and Van Buren. With the extreme southern views of Crawford and Calhoun it was impossible that he should sympathize, although his personal relations with those leaders were quite friendly, and after the death of Calhoun, the noblest eulogium upon his character and motives was made by Mr. Webster. There is a sense in which all American statesmen may be said to be intellectually the descendants and disciples either of Jefferson or of Hamilton, and as a representative follower of Hamilton, Mr. Webster was sure to be drawn rather toward Clay than toward Jackson. The course of industrial events in New England was such as to involve changes of opinion in that part of the country, which were soon reflected in a complete reversal of Mr. Webster's attitude toward the tariff. In 1827 he was elected to the U. S. senate. In that year an agitation was begun by the woollen-manufacturers, which soon developed into a promiscuous scramble among different industries for aid from government, and finally resulted in the tariff of 1828. That act, which was generally known at the time as “the tariff of abominations,” was the first extreme application of the protective system in our Federal legislation. When the bill was pending before the senate in April, 1828, Mr. Webster made a memorable speech, in which he completely abandoned the position he had held in 1824, and from this time forth he was a supporter of the policy of Mr. Clay and the protectionists. For this change of attitude he was naturally praised by his new allies, who were glad to interpret it as a powerful argument in favor of their views. By every one else he was blamed, and this speech has often been cited, together with that of 7 March, 1850, as proving that Mr. Webster was governed by unworthy motives and wanting in political principle. The two cases, as we shall see, are not altogether parallel. Probably neither admits of entire justification, but in neither case did Mr. Webster attempt to conceal or disguise his real motives. In 1828 he frankly admitted that the policy of protection to manufactures by means of tariff duties was a policy of which he had disapproved, whether as a political economist or as a representative of the interests of New England. Against his own opposition and that of New England, the act of 1824 had passed. “What, then, was New England to do? . . . Was she to hold out forever against the course of the government, and see herself losing on one side and yet make no effort to sustain herself on the other? No, sir. Nothing was left for New England but to conform herself to the will of others. Nothing was left to her but to consider that the government had fixed and determined its own policy; and that policy was protection.” In other words, the tariff policy adopted at Washington, while threatening the commercial interests of New England, had favored the investment of capital in manufactures there, and it was not becoming in a representative of New England to take part in disturbing the new arrangement of things. This argument, if pushed far enough, would end in the doctrine — now apparently obsolete, though it has often been attacked and defended — that a senator is simply the minister of his state in congress. With Mr. Webster it went so far as to modify essentially his expressions of opinion as to the constitutionality of protective legislation. He had formerly been inclined to interpret the constitution strictly upon this point, but in 1828 and afterward his position was that of the loose constructionists. Here the strong Federalist bias combined with that temperament which has sometimes been called “opportunism” to override his convictions upon the economic
merits of the question.
