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immense power as a public speaker , with a retentive and a ready memory , a tongue at once vigorous and disengaged , Mr . Webster has here tof ' been , in the eye of the world at least , the ablest statesman of the TJnion . Clay might have more statesmanlike views , and exercise a higher moral influence ; Seward might be more independent and more unmistakably generous in his public conduct ; James Buchanan might be more practised in the routine of office . But the ablest man to undertake a task , and to push it forward in Fancuil Hall , in Congress , and in bureau , was Daniel Webster . In these respects he may be considered to have been , in a certain sense , the Yankee counterpart of our own ~ Peel .
But the comparison only holds good in respect to the individual power so remarkably sustained on various fields . To guarantee the absolute disinterestedness of Peel ' s character , it needed , cither the happy circumstance of his great independent fortune , or a much more poetical and religious exaltation of mind than either Peel or Webster could boast ; and Webster has never had Peel ' s fortune . An habitual disinterestedness , from whatsoever cause , is almost necessary to sustain the statesman agaiust
the temptations to sympathize too closely with enterprises which promise an immediate advantage , but militate against high principles . Over confident , perhaps , in his great powertrusting to the admiration which that excites in a community that perhaps inordinately admires individual power—Daniel Webster has suffered himself at times to drift away from high principle . His conduct in the affair of the Lobos Islands exemplifies what we mean . In the first instance , when a leading question was put to him ,
manifestly to extract an official admission that the Americans had a right of access to the Lobos Islands , he so couched Ms reply ns to speak of their " discovery" by aii American in 1823 ! Any schoolboy could have pitched upon the materials to refute him . The Americans themselves had frequented the Islands before that date ; and when that fact came officially before Mr . Webster , he had the face to speak of it in juxtaposition with the claim of discovery in 1823 , almost as if the tAvo representations were reciprocally corroborative .
Acting on the views sanctioned by him , that the Americans have a right of access to the islands , Captain Jewett fits out an expedition to make good that access by force , and formally notifies to Mr . Webster ' s department that the expedition is about to sail . Peru had prepared fo resist ; England was understood to maintain Ihc right of Peru ; the public law of the civilized world equally maintains that right ; and without havingespeeially consulted the pages of Whcaton , avo are convinced that the American version of
the public law could only bo cited to cast discredit on the position taken up by Mr . Webster . . But worse than all that anticipation of adverse influences must have been the prospect , thai neither official colleagues nor public opinion could . sustain him . He was now forced to write a . se cond letter , citing the claims of Peru against his own rash and hasly assertion of individual claims which it would he an abuse of terms to call American ; and notifying lo Captain Jewel . t that resistance to the authorities of . Peru would
be an act of private war , which could never receive any countenance from the government of the United States . Tins necessity of addressing such a , letter with his own hand to the name person who bad received from him the previous letter , would have been regarded by any English statesman as impossible : resignation would bo the preferable alternative . The rush ness which could indite the first letter , lending n slate authenticity f . o a baseless claim , is painfully reflected in I he nonchalance with which the writer taken up the other side .
Our ardent , and , we will venture to say , our // vVy / attach men I , to the " United States , calls upon us to submit f . o our friends in that country , in the most explicit terms , the considerations which we have set forth . Homo people in this country shrug their shoulders , and exclaim , " this , then , is the favourite type in a . Yankee sfatesmau !" Others , more charitable , ask if Mr . Webster ' s faculties are not declining with his advancing years . A third party , still mare candid , holds that Mr . Wcbsler belongs to a , past general ion of statesmen — they think I lint I he spoilt child of Aiueiieanituu has boon , indulged beyond bounds
in his eccentric sallies ; but that the public gladiator—the champion of Yankeeism—the man who combines popular power with official experience—the red-tape rifleman of the Union , belongs to a generation which is passing away , to a system which is going out of fashion , to be succeeded by a much more earnest and really powerful , race . Meanwhile , he is licensed to commit the present Government at Washington by very inconvenient sallies ; for if JSTew Brunswick has its Pakington , the statue of Webster may stand on the highest map of the Lobos islands as on a pedestal , a mark of the shoals which true statesmanship will avoid .
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HOW PROTECTION FARED AT THE AUDIT DINNER , Men who live on the broad highway of this nineteenth century , in the very storm and press of the onward march , know too little of that great inert mass of the population who consume the fruits of the earth in country towns and rural districts miles away from this seething centre of the world . Let any one of our readers who exults in the conquests of thought and science , whose political hopes are in the advent of that democracy which even Lord John Hussell hails from a secure Whig eminence , whose social faith grasps the realization of problems only now discussed in the more advanced
coteries , and whose religious convictions pierce beyond the horizon of respectable theologies—let such a man take counsel of this insufferable epoch of the London year , to forsake the haunts of thinking and articulate men , and to plunge into the thick vegetation of provincial existence . We promise him that within one week he will have begun to realize , we do not say his own utter insignificance , but the insignificance of all that he has been accustomed to hold most worth the living for . He will find that the men , and the thoughts , and the activities , whether intellectual , social , or political , of which by daily conversance he may have become a part , and which he knows to be upheaving the nations , are nothing more than the feverish follies of a town
life , which country air and acquaintance with squires and turnips will healthily dissipate . '' Go down , " we say , to the ardent lover of humanity , whose heart is with Hungary oppressed and Italy trampled , who dreams of a social economy more humane , of a Church more catholic , and of a Government more national , than arc yet dep osited in the ark of the British constitution , —go down , into some snug country village , and-know thyself ! Against that village the tempests of this great heaving century strike in vain . Absorbed in local politics , worshipping local "lions , " immersed in local small-talk , that village accepts you as an outlandish stranger , or patronizes you as a subdued and silent guest .
Stagnation is the state of life , as it is the political creed of " our village" potentates , excopt at the election time , and then it is converted into obstruction , taking all sorts of ugly , brutal , or foolish shapes—riotous , domineering , abusive , by turns . Let tin . suppose ourselves suddenly transplanted into sueh a community , about this very time , when the sad realities of the rent-day audit , with its dreary and ponderous festivities , are calling together those " friends and brothers , " who ran before the squire last summer to the poll , like
sheep to Sinithfield . Our first impression , as we observe' ( hose burly , bovine agriculturists trotting up the street is , I hat Agricultural Distress ban gone ( , o Australia ; at all events , if does not reside in those ruddy apple cheeks and drab great-coats . Clearly , these victims of IVel mn \ CoIhIch are grown fat . whether with grief , as . Knlstaff would say , or with the happy consciousness of a Derby at the helm , we do not stop ( o inquire . Clearly , too , their shoulders are broad enough to bear many " burdens on land . "
Neither arc their faces altogether sad , as become victims although tinged to- < lay with a , shade of seriousness , as of men about to be bled . Wo follow ( Inmii into the room , where , after the surgical operation has been eflecled , the restoratives are applied . Not being admitted lo the bleeding business , we can only report , that through an open door we catch a , glimpse of two gentlemen , the one willi a , jaunty fnrmors ' -friend look , and I he oilier more positive and calm , silently noting clown mysterious quantifies , which are solemnly drugged forth from the recesses of bucolic bags ,
and incredible pockets , not without a frequent groan from the disgorger . It is now two o ' clock and we find ourselves in a long room , divided by a dinner-table plentifully garnished . The squire , the steward , and a visitor or two , have taken their seats : enter the " receivers , " followed discursively by tenants who have " paid up , " and by tenants who have postponed business to pleasure , and intend to dine Jlrst . Grimly humorous " almost sarcastic , is the expression of these honest ' surly fellows , as they take their places , and , after grace , ( from the acting chaplain at the bottom of
the table , whose jokes are as juicy as the meat and as keenly relished by . the present congregation ) , they fall to . Whether the preliminary process has dulled the agricultural appetites or not , we cannot say ; but certain it is , that these massive joints of half-raw meat are soon disposed of , by the aid of melted butter , which appears to be the favourite condiment ; the squire ' s party at the head of the table preferring " chicken " and from time to time pausing to exchange the compliment of a glass of native sherry with some " larger" tenant , who , we suspect , prefers cider or malt—even to champagne .
Now comes the " solemnity . " The cloth is removed ; the chaplain says a second , and a longer grace . The solicitor at the head of the table rises to propose the usual loyal toasts ; then comes the health of the landlord , who is evidently a man of few words , for many reasons ; and presently , " the Steward , " proposed by a principal tenant . This is the toast of the evening ; he is the veritable coq de clocher , and he is going to crow . He alludes , no doubt , in feeling terms , to
the continued distress of the owners and occupiers of land ; to the burdens unjiistly imposed upon them ; to the necessity of i ^ estoring Protection , undiluted and undisguised , as a measure of strict justice to that loyal and deserving class of her Majesty's subjects , the British Farmers ; to the cheering fact that we have at last got a Ministry in power who ha \ e promised to restore Protection , and who will chivalrously perform that promise in spite of the Manchester " destructives , " Sir James Graham , Kossuth , Lord John Russell , Louis Blanc , and the Editor of the Times ; and he winds up a magnificent harangue ¦ w ith a peroration to the effect that , considering all this distress , their generous landlord has grent pleasure in reducing all the rents , as the time
lias comr > wlion . " wo must help oursmvos . Does he say all this ? Not a word of it . There is a time for all things : a time for election speeches , and a time for rent-days . He breathes not a syllable about agricultural distress , nor about Protection to be restored , nor about hard times . How should ho to-day ? He curses Cobden and Bright in very choice . English , anathematizes every man not a Derbyite as a .
Destructive , and portends the deluge that only Lord Derby can avert . Finally , he exhorts his friends to stick by a Conservative Ministry , who will do all they can for I he farmers , and will up hold the institutions of the country against Jews , Turks , heretics , infidels , and Oobdenites . "But I am not afraid , " be says , " as long as we have the honest hearts of . 'English yeomen , " etc . —i" 'j sty le familiar to very old p laygoers . And so ho recovers his seat , while ( he mouths of hin | ' ° "
wihlered and mystified audience are yet gaping at these " real " old English" sentiments : for , il their pockets are empty , at least their stomachs , and their hearts , are full . JJul ; the en tertainment is not yet over : a , rare attraction has been secured for this occasion only—a distinguish * ' ** Spanish 11 idalgo , who ret urns thanks for hw [""" l in a speech manifesting a profound study ol ' j Hritish constitution , and a deep respect l < " " Hritish landlords , whom , lie says , " he shall introduce into his own country on his return . 1
Wo observed , by the way , that when "h steward alluded to " the nexus between land oijj , and tenant , being not simply one of rent , b ut <> affection , the most intelligent of the general company shook their heads with fomical gravity . and mi air of scepticism , which nothing but l" < proceedings of the morning could cxciWSuch is a picture of agricultural distress , an < of agricultural intelligence , taken at qu urtej- ^' V j Such is the political common senso ol K ^ ' y ' . ; who propose to govern England in INW . ( ' ' The sfeam-ship , and tho railway , him I the ie r raph , and the " fl . oughts I hat shake ninnk . m : , are to them a , dead letter . ( \> niincrco is rcgai ' as a , foe ; science a , jugglery ; liberty a , won ^ terror ; und national progrcwH a bugbear an
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946 T H E L E A DER . [ Saturday ,
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), Oct. 2, 1852, page 946, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1954/page/14/
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