By their wisdom and patriotic forethought we are blessed with a system in which the several States are brought into a union so admirably composed and balanced,--both complicated and kept distinct with such skill,--as to seem less a work of human prudence than of Providential interposition.[31] Mr. Webster has at all times been fully aware of the evils of anarchy, discord, and civil war at home, and of utter national insignificance abroad, from which the formation of the Union saved us. He has been not less sensible to the obstacles to be overcome the perils to be encountered, and the sufferings to be borne, before this wonderful framework of government could be established. And he has been firmly persuaded that, if once destroyed, it can never be reconstructed. With these views, his political life has been consecrated to the maintenance in all their strength of the principles on which the Constitution rests, and to the support of the system of government created by it. The key to his whole political course is the belief that, when the Union is dissolved, the internal peace, the vigorous growth, and the prosperity of the States, and the welfare of their inhabitants, are blighted for ever, and that, while the Union endures, all else of trial and calamity which can befall a nation may be remedied or borne. So believing, he has pursued a course which has earned for him an honored name among those who have discharged the duty of good citizens with the most distinguished ability, zeal, and benefit to the country. In the relations of civilized life, there is no higher service which man can render to man, than thus to preserve a wise constitution of government in healthful action. Nor does the most eloquent of the statesmen of antiquity content himself with pronouncing this the highest human merit. In that admirable treatise on the Republic, of which some precious chapters have been restored to us after having been lost for ages, he does not hesitate to affirm, that there is nothing in which human virtue approaches nearer the divine, than in establishing and preserving states: "neque enim ulla res est, in qua propius ad deorum numen virtus accedat humana, quam civitates aut condere novas aut conservare jam conditas."[32] FOOTNOTES [30] In compiling this narrative much use has been made of the third volume of the work entitled "The Statesman's Manual," a most useful work of reference. [31] This idea is beautifully expressed in the following passage of a late letter from Mr. Webster, in reply to an invitation from the citizens of Macon, Georgia:-- "The States are united, not consolidated; 'Not, chaos-like, together crashed and bruised, But, like the world, harmoniously confused, Where order in variety we see; And where, though all things differ, all agree.'" [32] M. Tulli Ciceronis de Re Publica quæ supersunt, edente Angelo Maio. Lib. I. § 7.