The Pulpit and Rostrum: Sermons, Orations, Popular Lectures, &C

Excerpt from The Pulpit and Rostrum: Sermons, Orations, Popular Lectures, &C

Law, some of them as novel as they were important, which had reference to the entrance or the attempted entrance of so many new states into the family of nations; in Europe - Greece, Bel gium, Hungary; on this continent, twelve or fourteen new repub lics, great and small, bursting from the ruins of the Spanish colonial em pire - like a group of asteroids from the wreck of an exploded planet; the invitation of the infant American Re ublica to meet them in Congress at Panama; our commercial r ationa with the British Colonies in the West Indies and on this con tinent; demands of several European states for spoliations on our commerce durin the wars of the French Revolution; our secular controversy wi England relative to the boundary of the United States on the N orth-eastern and Pacific frontiers; our relations with Mexico, previous to the war; the immunity of the American flag upon the common jurisdiction of the ocean; and more im portant than all other questions, foreign or domestic, in its influence upon the general politics of the country, the great sectional controversy - not then first commenced, but greatly in creased in warmth and urgency, which connected itself with the organization of the newly acquired Mexican territories.

Such were the chief questions on which it was Mr. Webster's duty to form Opinions; as an influenti lmember of Congress and a political leader to speak and to vote; a member of the Execu tive Government to exercise a powerful, over some of them, a de oisive control. Besides these there was another class of questions of great public importance, which came up for adjudication in the Courts of the United States, which he was called professionally to discuss. Many of the questions of each class now referred to di vided and still divide opinion; excited and still excite the feelings of individuals, of parties, of sections of the country. There are some of them, which, in the course of a long life, under changing circumstances, are likely to be differently viewed at different peri ods by the same individual. I am not here today to rake off the warm ashes from the embers of controversies which have 8 nt their fury and are dying away, or to fan the fires of those w ich still burn. But no one, I think, whether he agreed with Mr. Web ster or differed from him as to any of these questions, will deny that he treated them each and all, as they came up in the Senate, in the Courts, or in negotiations with Foreign powers, in a broad, statesmanlike, and masterly way. There were few who would not confess, when they agreed with him, that he had expressed their Opinions better than they could do it themselves; few, when they differed from him, who would not admit that he had maintained his own views manfully, powerfully, and liberally.

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