We have already observed, that, as early as 1806, Mr. Webster had expressed himself in favor of the protection of our commerce against the aggressions of both the belligerents. Some years later, before the war was declared, but when it was visibly impending, he had put forth some vigorous articles to the same effect. In an oration delivered in 1812, he had said: "A navy sufficient for the defence of our coasts and harbors, for the convoy of important branches of our trade, and sufficient also to give our enemies to understand, when they injure us, that they too are vulnerable, and that we have the power of retaliation as well as of defence, seems to be the plain, necessary, indispensable policy of the nation. It is the dictate of nature and common sense, that means of defence shall have relation to the danger." In accordance with these views, first announced by Mr. Webster a considerable time before Hull, Decatur, and Bainbridge had broken the spell of British naval supremacy, he used the following language in his speech on encouraging enlistments in 1814:

"The humble aid which it would be in my power to render to measures of government shall be given cheerfully, if government will pursue measures which I can conscientiously support. If even now, failing in an honest and sincere attempt to procure an honorable peace, it will return to measures of defence and protection, such as reason and common sense and the public opinion all call for, my vote shall not be withholden from the means. Give up your futile projects of invasion. Extinguish the fires which blaze on your inland frontiers. Establish perfect safety and defence there by adequate force. Let every man that sleeps on your soil sleep in security. Stop the blood that flows from the veins of unarmed yeomanry, and women and children. Give to the living time to bury and lament their dead, in the quietness of private sorrow. Having performed this work of beneficence and mercy on your inland border, turn and look with the eye of justice and compassion on your vast population along the coast. Unclench the iron grasp of your embargo. Take measures for that end before another sun sets upon you. With all the war of the enemy on your commerce, if you would cease to make war upon it yourselves, you would still have some commerce. That commerce would give you some revenue. Apply that revenue to the augmentation of your navy. That navy in turn will protect your commerce. Let it no longer be said, that not one ship of force, built by your hands since the war, yet floats upon the ocean. Turn the current of your efforts into the channel which national

sentiment has already worn broad and deep to receive it. A naval force competent to defend your coasts against considerable armaments, to convoy your trade, and perhaps raise the blockade of your rivers, is not a chimera. It may be realized. If then the war must continue, go to the ocean. If you are seriously contending for maritime rights, go to the theatre where alone those rights can be defended. Thither every indication of your fortune points you. There the united wishes and exertions of the nation will go with you. Even our party divisions, acrimonious as they are, cease at the water's edge. They are lost in attachment to the national character, on the element where that char acter is made respectable. In protecting naval interests by naval means, you will arm yourselves with the whole power of national sentiment, and may command the whole abundance of the national resources. In time you may be able to redress injuries in the place where they may be offered; and, if need be, to accompany your own flag throughout the world with the protection of your own cannon."

The principal subjects on which Mr. Webster addressed the House during the Thirteenth Congress were his own resolutions, the increase of the navy, the repeal of the embargo, and an appeal from the decision of the chair on a motion for the previous question. His speeches on those questions raised him to the front rank of debaters. He manifested upon his entrance into public life that variety of knowledge, familiarity with the history and traditions of the government, and self-possession on the floor, which in most cases are acquired by time and long experience. They gained for him the reputation indicated by the well-known remark of Mr. Lowndes, that "the North had not his equal, nor the South his superior." It was not the least conspicuous of the strongly marked qualities of his character as a public man, disclosed at this early period, and uniformly preserved throughout his career, that, at a time when party spirit went to great lengths, he never permitted himself to be infected with its contagion. His opinions were firmly maintained and boldly expressed; but without bitterness toward those who differed from him. He cultivated friendly relations on both sides of the House, and gained the personal respect even of those with whom he most differed.

In August, 1814, Mr. Webster was reëlected to Congress. The treaty of Ghent, as is well known, was signed in Decem ber, 1814, and the prospect of peace, universally welcomed by the country, opened on the Thirteenth Congress toward the close

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of its third session. Earlier in the season a project for a Bank of the United States was introduced into the House of Representatives on the recommendation of Mr. Dallas, Secretary of the Treasury. The charter of the first incorporated bank of the United States had expired in 1811. No general complaints of mismanagement or abuse had been raised against this institution; but the opinions entertained by what has been called the Virginia School" of politicians, against the constitutionality of a national bank, prevented the renewal of the charter. The want of such an institution was severely felt in the war of 1812, although it is probable that the amount of assistance which it could have afforded the financial operations of the government was greatly overrated. Be this as it may, both the Treasury Department and Congress were now strongly disposed to create a bank. Its capital was to consist of forty-five millions of the public stocks and five millions of specie, and it was to be under obligation to lend the government thirty millions of dollars on demand. To enable it to exist under these conditions, it was relieved from the necessity of redeeming its notes in specie. In other words, it was an arrangement for the issue of an irredeemable paper currency. It was opposed mainly on this ground by Mr. Calhoun, Mr. Webster, Mr. Lowndes, and others of the ablest men on both sides of the House, as a project not only unsound in its principles, but sure to increase the derangement of the currency already existing. The speech of Mr. Webster against the bill will be found in one of these volumes, and it will be generally admitted to display a mastery of the some. what difficult subjects of banking and finance, rarely to be found in the debates in Congress. The project was supported as an administration measure, but the leading members from South Carolina and their friends united with the regular opposition against it, and it was lost by the casting vote of the Speaker, Mr. Cheves. It was revived by reconsideration, on motion of Mr. Webster, and such amendments introduced that it passed the House by a large majority. It was carried through the Senate in this amended form with difficulty, but it was negatived by Mr. Madison, being one of the two cases in which he exercised the veto power during his eight years' administration.

On the 8th of January of the year 1815, the victory at d*

New Orleans was gained by General Jackson. No occurrence on land, in the course of the war, was of equal immediate interest, or destined to have so abiding an influence on the future. Besides averting the indescribable calamity of the sack of a populous and flourishing city, it showed the immense military power of the volunteer force of the country, when commanded with energy and skill. The praises of General Jackson were on every tongue throughout the land, and Congress responded to the grateful feelings of the country. A vote of thanks was unanimously passed by the Senate and House of Representatives.

In the interval between the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Congresses (March- December, 1815), Mr. Webster was busily engaged at home in the practice of the law. He had begun at this time to consider the expediency of removing his residence to a wider professional field. Though receiving a full share of the best business of New Hampshire, it ceased to yield an adequate support for his increasing family, and still more failed to afford any thing like the just reward of his legal attainment and labors. The destruction of his house, furniture, library, and many important manuscript collections, in "the great fire" at Portsmouth, in December, 1813, had entailed upon him the loss of the entire fruits of his professional industry up to that time, and made it necessary for him to look around him for the means of a considerably increased income. He hesitated between Albany and Boston; and, in consequence of this indecision, the execution of his purpose was for the present postponed.

The Fourteenth Congress assembled in December, 1815. An order of things in a great degree new presented itself. After a momentary pause, the country rose with an elastic bound from the pressure of the war. Old party dissensions had lost much of their interest. The condition of Europe had undergone a great change. The power of the French emperor was annihilated; and with the return of general peace, all occasions for belligerent encroachments on neutral rights had ceased. Two thirds of our domestic feuds had turned on foreign questions, and there was a spontaneous feeling throughout the country in favor of healing the wounds which these feuds had inflicted upon its social and political harmony. Nor was this all. New

relations and interests had arisen. The public debt had been swelled by the war expenditure to a large amount, and its interest was to be paid. Domestic manufactures had, in some of the States, grown up into importance through the operation of the restrictive system and the war, and asked for protection. The West began to fill up with unexampled rapidity, and required new facilities of communication with the Atlantic coast. The navy had fought itself into favor, and the war with Algiers, in 1816, forbade its reduction below the recent war establishment. The necessity of a system of coast defences had made itself felt. With all these loud calls for increased expenditure, the public finances were embarrassed and the currency was in extreme disorder. In a word, there were new and great wants and interests at home and abroad, throwing former topics of dissension into the shade, and calling for the highest efforts of statesmanship and a patriotism embracing the whole country.

Among those who responded with the greatest cordiality and promptness to the new demand were the distinguished statesmen of the preceding Congress, and conspicuous among them Clay, Calhoun, Webster, Lowndes, and Cheves. It will excite some surprise at the present day, in consideration of the political history of the last thirty years, to find how little difference as to leading measures existed in 1816 between these distinguished statesmen. No line of general party difference separated the members of the first Congress after the peace. The great measures brought forward were a national bank, internal improvement, and a protective tariff. On these various subjects members divided, not in accordance with any party organization, but from individual convictions, supposed sectional interests, and general public grounds. On the two first-named subjects no systematic difference of views disclosed itself between the great Northern and Southern leaders; on the third alone there was diversity of opinion. In the Northern States considerable advances had been made in manufacturing industry, in different places, especially at Waltham (Mass.); but a great manufacturing interest had not yet grown up. The strength of this interest as yet lay mainly in Pennsylvania. Navigation and foreign trade were the leading pursuits of the North; and these interests, it was feared, would suffer from the attempt to build up manufactures by a protective tariff. It is accordingly a