Daniel Webster for Young Americans: Comprising the greatest speeches of the defender of the ConstitutionWebster, Daniel
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Daniel Webster for Young Americans: Comprising the greatest speeches of the defender of the Constitution
Webster, Daniel
Readers; Speeches, addresses, etc., American
For myself, Sir, I
shall not rake among the rubbish of bygone times to see what I can find,
or whether I cannot find something by which I can fix a blot on the
escutcheon of any State, any party, or any part of the country. General
Washington's administration was steadily and zealously maintained, as we
all know, by New England. It was violently opposed elsewhere. We know in
what quarter he had the most earnest, constant, and persevering support,
in all his great and leading measures. We know where his private and
personal character was held in the highest degree of attachment and
veneration; and we know, too, where his measures were opposed, his
services slighted, and his character vilified. We know, or we might
know, if we turned to the journals, who expressed respect, gratitude,
and regret, when he retired from the chief magistracy, and who refused
to express either respect, gratitude, or regret. I shall not open those
journals. Publications more abusive or scurrilous never saw the light,
than were sent forth against Washington and all his leading measures,
from presses south of New England. But I shall not look them up. I
employ no scavengers; no one is in attendance on me, furnishing such
means of retaliation; and if there were, with an ass's load of them,
with a bulk as huge as that which the gentleman himself has produced, I
would not touch one of them. I see enough of the violence of our own
times, to be no way anxious to rescue from forgetfulness the
extravagances of times past.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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