An administration of the general government, which had been in general highly satisfactory to the country, had now closed.[84] He was not aware that it could with propriety be said, that that administration had been either supported or opposed by any party associations or on any party principles. Certain it was, that, as far as there had been any organized opposition to the administration, it had had nothing to do with former parties. A new administration had now commenced, and he need hardly say that the most liberal and conciliatory principles had been avowed in the Inaugural Address of the newly elected President. It could not be doubted that his administration would conform to those principles. Thus far, he believed, its course had given general satisfaction. After what they all had seen in relation to the gentleman holding the highest appointment in the executive department under the President, he would take this opportunity to say, that, having been a member of the House of Representatives for six years, during the greater part of which time Mr. Clay had presided in that House, he was most happy in being able, in a manner less formal and more explicit than by concurring in the usual vote of thanks, to express his own opinion of his liberality, independence, and honorable feeling. And he would take this occasion also to add, if his opinion could be of any value in such a case, that he thought nothing more unfounded than that that gentleman owed his present situation to any unworthy compromise or arrangement whatever. He owed it to his talent, to his prominent standing in the community, to his course of public service, not now a short one, and to the high estimation in which he stands with that part of the country to which he belongs. Remarks, Mr. Webster proceeded to say, had been made from the chair, very kind and partial, as to the manner in which he had discharged the duties which he owed to his constituents in the House of Representatives. He wished to say, that if he had been able to render any, the humblest services, either to the public or his constituents, in that place, it was owing wholly to the liberal manner in which his efforts there had been received. Having alluded to the Inaugural Address, he did not mean in the slightest degree to detract from its merits, when he now said, that, in his opinion, if either of the other candidates had succeeded in the election, he also would have adopted a liberal course of policy. He had no reason to believe that the sentiments of either of those gentlemen were, in this respect, narrow or contracted. He fully believed the contrary, in regard to both of them; but if they had been otherwise, he thought still that expediency or necessity would have controlled their inclinations.