ure, even that to which he had been somewhat opposed, a fair trial, rather than suddenly to reverse it; and sometimes, as in the case before us, he came to look upon a measure already established as so much better than none at all, or such as could be afterwards secured, that he became the friend and supporter of what he at first did not perfectly approve.

On the 26th of April, 1816, Mr. Webster introduced to the house a series of resolutions, three in number, respecting the collection of the public revenue. For those resolutions, and the speech delivered in advocacy of their passage, the whole country, and particularly New England, owe, and will forever owe, to Mr. Webster a deep debt of gratitude. This one act should be enough to give him a lasting reputation as a statesman and a patriot. The war had been carried through with funds borrowed from the various banking institutions of the several states; and these institutions, encouraged by the clamoring necessities of the government greatly to extend their issues, had so flooded the country with their paper, that, after the peace, there had been a general suspension of specie pay. ments by the banks out of the New England states. The administration, however, with an improper partiality, or a still more improper carelessness, had been able to establish the policy, that the revenue collected in any state might be paid in the bills of the banks of that state, but not in the bills of any other state. New England, for example, could pay her cus toms only in New England bills, which were every where as good as gold; while the other states were permitted to pay in the bills of their respective banks, which, by the suspension, had depreciated on an average nearly twenty-five per cent. In other words, New England paid about twenty-five per cer more on all goods imported by her-and she was the chief im. porter-than the other states did on goods which they im ported. In addition to the exceeding inequality and injustice cf this course, it deranged the exchanges of the whole country

HIS SPECIE RESOLUTION.

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by giving manifest support to a system of corrupt and fraudulent banking; and there never could have been, under this state of things, such a currency as should inspire confidence, or satisfy the demands of business. Business itself goes down, or becomes hopelessly embarrassed, under such cir umstances. It was for this general purpose, therefore, of restoring the currency of the country, and of defending the rights of New En gland in particular, that Mr. Webster offered his three resolutions on the subject. Two of the resolutions, which simply contained declarations of principles, were withdrawn at the suggestion of those, who, though friends to the object, could not agree with Mr. Webster on the abstract grounds of action. The third resolution put into the hands of the secretary of the treasury power to adopt any measures by him deemed expedient, to cause all sums due to the United States "to be collected and paid in the legal currency of the United States, or treasury-notes, or notes of the bank of the United States, as by law provided and declared, or in notes of banks which are payable and paid on demand, in the said legal currency of the United States." That is, all debts due to the government were to be paid, in all the states alike, either in gold and silver, or in the bills of such banks as paid specie at their counters. This was known as the "specie resolution ;" and it was the greatest step ever taken by this country to establish, by general law, a` currency uniform in every portion of the Union. It met with unexpected favor. The speech made in its behalf is one of the ablest ever made even by Mr. Webster. The measure was so popular, that it passed "through all the stages of legislation," according to Mr. Everett, on the day it was proposed; and, approved by a two-thirds vote, and signed by bir. Madison four days later, it was at once equally popular outside of congress, and soon regenerated the fallen currency and business of the whole nation.

Thus it happened, that one of the youngest men then in con

gress, following in a path where Calhoun himself had faile 1, suc ceeded, not in securing some trivial grant to some favorite place, or in the passage of some law of local value only, but in establishing a general principle, for all the states of the Union, which has been exerting a most salutary influence upon every citizen from that day forward, and which will exert it, if per mitted to remain, so long as the United States shall continue to be a country. Such, even then, was the character of the youthful representative. His mind was not satisfied with efforts of limited importance. He looked over the whole land with a broad and comprehensive vision. He looked through the future, and sought to set up influences that should be felt in coming times. "Cases are dead things," said Burke, “but principles are living and productive;" and this, even at the opening of his career, seemed to be the leading maxim of that remarkable young congressman, whom the world began now to know under the name of Daniel Webster.

CHAPTER VII.

A LAWYER IN MASSACHUSETTS.

“WHATEVER else concerning him has been controverted by anybody," says Mr. Seward, a rival and yet a friend of Webster, "the fifty thousand lawyers of the United States, interested to deny his pretensions, conceded to him an unapproachable supremacy at the bar." This, certainly, is a eulogy sufficient for the ambition of any man; but it is a eulogy which had been anticipated, and repeated by the ablest jurists, civilians, barristers and attorneys of this country, for the last thirty years. All of them, without an exception, when comparing him with the most distinguished of his profession, have aocorded to him this preeminence:

"Quantum lenta solent inter viburna cupressi."

With all the honors and triumphs of his public life, which, for a man so young, surpassed all precedent on this side of the Atlantic, Daniel Webster still looked to the scenes he had left behind him, and to the profession he so dearly val ued, with desire, with ambition, and with hope. "I am sick," said William Wirt, in a letter to his intimate friend, Dr. Rice, "of public life. My skin is too thin for the business. A politician should have the hide of a rhinoceros to bear the thrusts of the folly, ignorance and meanness of those, who are disposed to mount into momentary consequence by questioning their betters if I may be excused the expression, after pro fessing my modesty. "There's nought but care on every hand

-all, all is vanity and vexation of spirit, save religion, friend. ship and literature." Not for the same reason, for no thrusts had been made at Webster, but for his love of retirement and of domestic tranquillity, he longed to return, after this brief trial of himself before the country, to his books, to his private business, and to that dignified and yet easy way of life, divided between work and recreation, which had always been to him the ideal of existence. By natural taste, he was rather a literary man, than a politician; but his studies, his profession, his position in society, compelled him to be, in spite of his strong est resolutions, and wherever he placed himself, a man of the public. A star of the first magnitude, created for a luminary and a blessing, might as well hold its position in the zenith, as on the verge of the horizon; for, hide itself where it might, its own brilliancy would betray it; and men would climb moun tains, or descend into pits and caverns, to witness and ad mire it.

It was thus with Daniel Webster in the retirement he sought, at the close of the fourteenth congress, in Boston. His posi tion in New Hampshire, though highly honorable, had not been sufficiently lucrative for a man of his generosity of character, with an increasing family. Though he had no great love of money, scarcely enough for the ordinary purposes of life, he had felt that he was doing too little for himself in Portsmouth, and that he must establish himself at a point where he would be likely to find a larger amount of practice. He had thought of several localities, but chiefly of Bostor. and Albany, in both of which, as the reader will remember, he had made valuabie acquaintances in his younger days. Albany, at that time, was not only, as it is now, the capital of the most populous of the states, but a city of greater commercial importance, comparatively, than it is at present. Boston, however, was the capital of Massachusetts, and the metropolis of New England; and Mr. Webster's affection for his native country, added to the