only ones relating to details of policy which have the slightest permanent value. In fact, his position in Congress, as a member of a very small band of Federalists who had no hope of regaining power, was the next thing to being independent, and he made an excellent use of his advantage. That Bank of the United States, for example, of which, in 1832, he was the ablest defender, and for a renewal of which he strove for ten years, he voted _against_ in 1816; and for reasons which neither he nor any other man ever refuted. His speeches criticising the various bank schemes of 1815 and 1816 were serviceable to the public, and made the bank, as finally established, less harmful than it might have been. So of the tariff. On this subject, too, he always followed,--never led. So long as there was a Federal party, he, as a member of it, opposed Mr. Clay's protective, or (as Mr. Clay delighted to term it) "American system." When, in 1825, the few Federalists in the House voted for Mr. Adams, and were merged in the "conservative wing" of the Republican party, which became, in time, the Whig party, then, and from that time forward to the end of his life, he was a protectionist. His anti-protection speech of 1824 is wholly in the modern spirit, and takes precisely the ground since taken by Ricardo, John Stuart Mill, and others of the new school. It is so excellent a statement of the true policy of the United States with regard to protection, that we have often wondered it has been allowed to sleep so long in the tomb of his works. And, oh! from what evils might we have been spared,--nullification, surplus-revenue embarrassments, hot-bed manufactures, clothing three times its natural price,--if the protective legislation of Congress had been inspired by the Webster of 1824, instead of the Clay! Unimportant as this great speech may now seem, as it lies uncut in the third volume of its author's speeches, its unturned leaves sticking together, yet we can say of it, that the whole course of American history had been different if its counsels had been followed. The essence of the speech is contained in two of its phrases: "Freedom of trade, the general principle; restriction, the exception." Free trade, the object to be aimed at; protection, a temporary expedient. Free trade, the interest of all nations; protection, the occasional necessity of one. Free trade, the final and universal good; protection, the sometimes necessary evil. Free trade, as soon as possible and as complete as possible; protection, as little as possible and as short as possible. The speech was delivered in reply to Mr. Clay; and, viewed merely _as_ a reply, it is difficult to conceive of one more triumphant. Mr. Webster was particularly happy in turning Mr. Clay's historical illustrations against him, especially those drawn from the history of the English silk manufacture, and the Spanish system of restriction and prohibition. Admitting fully that