Select Speeches of Daniel Webster, 1817-1845Webster, Daniel
General
Select Speeches of Daniel Webster, 1817-1845
Webster, Daniel
Speeches, addresses, etc., American
Let us follow up, Sir, this New England opposition to the embargo laws;
let us trace it, till we discern the principle which controlled and
governed New England throughout the whole course of that opposition. We
shall then see what similarity there is between the New England school
of constitutional opinions, and this modern Carolina school. The
gentleman, I think, read a petition from some single individual
addressed to the legislature of Massachusetts, asserting the Carolina
doctrine; that is, the right of State interference to arrest the laws
of the Union. The fate of that petition shows the sentiment of the
legislature. It met no favor. The opinions of Massachusetts were very
different. They had been expressed in 1798, in answer to the
resolutions of Virginia, and she did not depart from them, nor bend
them to the times. Misgoverned, wronged, oppressed, as she felt herself
to be, she still held fast her integrity to the Union. The gentleman
may find in her proceedings much evidence of dissatisfaction with the
measures of government, and great and deep dislike to the embargo; all
this makes the case so much the stronger for her; for, notwithstanding
all this dissatisfaction and dislike, she still claimed no right to
sever the bonds of the Union. There was heat, and there was anger in
her political feeling. Be it so; but neither her heat nor her anger
betrayed, her into infidelity to the government. The gentleman labors
to prove that she disliked the embargo as much as South Carolina
dislikes the tariff, and expressed her dislike as strongly. Be it so;
but did she propose the Carolina remedy? did she threaten to interfere,
by State authority, to annul the laws of the Union? That is the
question for the gentleman's consideration.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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