of the Blue Ridge, and there to pledge mutual faith with the men of Augusta and Rockbridge, Bath, Alleghany, and Pocahontas, Highland, Pendleton, and Rockingham, that, while we live, the institutions of our wise and patriotic sires shall not want supporters, and that, so far as may depend on us, the civilized world shall never be shocked by beholding such a prodigy as the voluntary dismemberment of this glorious republic. No, Gentlemen, never, never! If it shall come to that, political martyrdom is preferable to such a sight. It is better to die while the honor of the country is untarnished, and the flag of the Union still flying over our heads, than to live to behold that honor gone for ever, and that flag prostrate in the dust. Gentlemen, I speak warmly, because I feel warmly, and because I know that I speak to men whose hearts are as warm as my own, in support of the country and the Union.

I am lately from the North, where I have mixed extensively with men of all classes and all parties, and I assure you, Gentlemen, through the masses of the Northern people the general feeling and the great cry is for the Union, and for its preservation. There are, it is true, men to be found, some of perverse purposes, and some of bewildered imaginations, who affect to suppose that some possible, but undefined good would arise from a dissolution of the ties which bind these United States together. But be assured the number of these men is small; the eminent leaders of all parties rebuke them, and while there prevails a general purpose to maintain the Union as it is, that purpose embraces, as its just and necessary means, a firm resolution of supporting the rights of all the States precisely as they stand guarantied and secured by the Constitution. And you may depend upon it, that every provision in that instrument in favor of the rights of Virginia, and the other Southern States, and every constitutional act of Congress passed to uphold and enforce those rights, will be upheld and maintained, not only by the power of the law, but also by the prevailing influence of public opinion.

Accidents may occur to defeat the execution of a law in a particular instance; misguided men may, it is possible,

sometimes enable others to elude the claims of justice and the rights founded in solemn constitutional compact; but on the whole, and in the end, the law will be executed and obeyed. The South will see that there is principle and patriotism, good sense and honesty, in the general mind of the North, and that, among the great mass of intelligent citizens in that quarter, the prevailing disposition to ask for justice is not stronger than the disposition to grant it to others.

Gentlemen, we are brethren; we are descendants of those who labored together with intense anxiety for the establishment of the present Federal Constitution. Let me ask you to teach your young men, into whose hands the power of the country must soon fall, to go back to the close of the Revolutionary war; to contemplate the feebleness and incompetency of the confederation of States then existing; and to trace the steps by which the intelligence and patriotism of the great men of that day led the country to the adoption of the existing Constitution. Teach them to study the proceedings, votes, and reports of committees in the old Congress. Especially draw their attention to the leading part taken by the Assembly of Virginia from 1783 onward. Direct their minds to the convention at Annapolis in 1786; and by the contemplation and study of these events and these efforts, let them see what a mighty thing it was to establish the government under which we have now lived so prosperously and so gloriously for sixty years. But, pardon me; I must not write an essay or make a speech. ginia! true-hearted Virginia! stand by your country, stand by the work of your fathers, stand by the union of the States, and may Almighty God prosper all our efforts in the cause of liberty, and in the cause of that united government which renders this people the happiest people on whom the sun ever shone !

I am, Gentlemen, yours truly and faithfully,

Vir

DANIEL WEBSTER.

TO THE NEW YORK COMMITTEE FOR THE CELEBRATION OF THE BIRTH DAY OF WASHINGTON.

Washington, February 20, 1851.

GENTLEMEN, -It is a source of deep regret to me, that my public duties absolutely prohibit me from having the pleasure of accepting your invitation, in behalf of the Union Safety Committee, to attend a public dinner on the twentysecond, in honor of that auspicious day. Auspicious indeed! All good influences, all omens of independence, liberty, free government, the creation of a nation, its prosperity, happiness, and glory, hung over the hour when the eyes of Washington first opened to the light.

You say truly, Gentlemen, that the present moment admonishes us to rally in support of his principles, to express anew our admiration of his character, and our gratitude for his parting lessons of patriotism and wisdom.

You say truly, Gentlemen, that the great duty devolving on us is that of regarding the Union as the foundation of our peace and happiness, and the Constitution as the cement of that Union. So Washington regarded them; so he conjured his fellow-citizens, in all generations, to regard them; and whenever his Farewell Address to his country shall be forgotten, and its admonitions rejected by the people of America, from that time it will become a farewell address to all the bright hopes of human liberty on earth.

Gentlemen, the character of Washington is among the most, cherished contemplations of my life. It is a fixed star in the firmament of great names, shining, without twinkling or obscuration, with clear, steady, beneficent light. It is associated and blended with all our reflections on those things which are near and dear to us. If we think of the independence of our country, we think of him whose efforts were so prominent in achieving it; if we think of the Coustitution which is over us, we think of him who did so much to establish it, and whose administration of its powers is acknowledged to be a model for his successors. If we think of glory in the field, of wisdom in the cabinet, of the purest patriotism, of the highest integrity, public and pri

vate, of morals without a stain, of religious feelings without intolerance and without extravagance, the august figure of Washington presents itself as the personation of all these ideas.

You do well, Gentlemen, at this interesting hour, to invoke his example, to spread over all the land a knowledge of his principles among the rising generation, and fervently to pray Heaven that the spirit which was in him may also

be in us.

When Washington, in behalf of the convention, presented to the old Congress and to the country that Constitution which was the production of their patriotic and assiduous labors, he made this most important declaration: “In all our deliberations upon this subject, we kept steadily in our view, that which appears to us the greatest interest of every true American, the consolidation of our Union, in which is involved our prosperity, felicity, safety, perhaps our national existence. This important consideration, seriously and deeply impressed on our minds, led each State in the convention to be less rigid on points of inferior magnitude than might have been otherwise expected; and thus the Constitution which we now present is the result of a spirit of amity, and of that mutual deference and concession which the peculiarity of our political situation rendered indispensable."

And when his public career was drawing to a close, he left to his country, as his last, best gift, his most earnest and affectionate exhortation, to uphold that Union as the main pillar of independence, and to frown indignantly upon the first dawning of any attempt to dissolve it.

The advice is heeded now, and will be heeded hereafter. But, nevertheless, there are some among us on whom it is no injustice that those frowns of indignation should fall. There are those who are altogether for abandoning the Union, and alienating one portion of the country from the rest. They avow their wishes, they disclose their purposes. They open their hearts, and in those hearts there is found no pulsation for that Union which makes all Americans one people. All is but the ebbing and the flowing of the dark,

unwholesome, troubled current of secession, schism, and separation.

We have seen propositions for secession formally brought forward, and solemnly discussed in the legislatures and conventions of several of the States. Other conventions are soon to be holden, under regular legislative provisions, to consider the same subject. In one important State, recent elections show that there prevails among the people almost an entire unanimity of sentiment in favor of breaking up the Union; and this dissolution of the Union, it is supposed, may not take place without conflict in arms. Munitions of

war are therefore provided, schools of instruction in military tactics established, and an armed air and attitude assumed. These apprehensions of conflict, in case secession be attempted, are not only well founded, but, in my judgment, certain to be realized. Secession cannot be accomplished but by war. I do not believe those who favor it expect any other result. Their hope is, that their cause and its objects may spread; and that other States, by local sympathies, or a supposed common interest, may be led to espouse it; so that the whole country may come to be divided into two great local parties, and as such to contend for the mastery.

But, Providence has not forsaken us. This object, I believe, has been defeated by the measures of adjustment adopted by Congress at the last session, and by the spirit, ability, and success with which the friends of the Union have resisted it in the South. Nor have the efforts of your association, Gentlemen, been either unimportant or unavailing. Your voices have been heard throughout the whole land, and no man can doubt how the great commercial metropolis of the country feels and acts, or hereafter will feel and act, on questions involving public interests of such indescribable magnitude.

We have recently been informed, Gentlemen, of an open act of resistance to law, in the city of Boston; and if the accounts be correct of the circumstances of this occurrence, it is, strictly speaking, a case of treason. If men combine and confederate together, and by force of arms or force of