rights of others, and the obligations, civil, social, and political, due to others from him. Such a pretence saps the foundation of all government, and is of itself a perfect absurdity; and while all are bound to yield obedience to the laws, wise and welldisposed citizens will forbear from renewing past agitation, and rekindling the flames of useless and dangerous controversy.

If we would continue one people, we must acquiesce in the will of the majority, constitutionally expressed, and he who does not mean to do that means to disturb the public peace, and do what he can to overturn the government.

Gentlemen, I am led to the adoption of your last resolution, in an especial and emphatic manner, by every dictate of my understanding, and I embrace it with full purpose of heart and hand. Its sentiment is my sentiment. With you, I declare that I "range myself under the banners of that party whose principles and practice are most calculated to uphold the Constitution and to perpetuate our glorious Union."

Gentlemen, I am here to recruit my health, enfeebled as it has been by ten months' excessive labor and indescribable anxiety. The air of these my native hills renews my strength and my spirits. I feel its invigorating influences while I am writing these few lines; and I shall return shortly to my post, to discharge its duties as well as I can, and resolved, in all events, that, so far as depends on me, our Union shall pass through this fiery trial without the smell of smoke upon its garments.

I am, Gentlemen, with very sincere regard, your obliged fellow-citizen and obedient servant,

DANIEL WEBSTER.

To Messrs. William Kinney and others, of Staunton, Virginia. Washington, November 23, 1850.

GENTLEMEN,- On my arrival in this city last evening, I had the pleasure of receiving your communication of the 7th instant. It is a refreshing, an encouraging, and a patriotic letter. You speak the sentiments which become the people of the great and ancient Commonwealth of Virginia. You speak as Wythe and Pendleton, Jefferson, Marshall, and Madison would speak were

they yet among us. You speak of the union of these States; and what idea can suggest more lively emotion in the minds of the American people, of present prosperity, past renown, and future hopes? Gladly would I be with you, Gentlemen, on the proposed occasion, and, as one of your countrymen and fellowcitizens, assure you of my hearty sympathy with you in the 'opinions which you express, and my unchangeable purpose to cooperate with you and other good men in upholding the honor of the States and the Constitution of the government. How happy should I be to present myself in Virginia, west of the Blue Ridge, and there to pledge mutual faith with the men of Augusta and Rockbridge, Bath, Alleghany, and Pocahontas, Highland, Pendleton, and Rockingham, that, while we live, the institutions of our wise and patriotic sires shall not want supporters, and that, so far as may depend on us, the civilized world shall never be shocked by beholding such a prodigy as the voluntary dismemberment of this glorious republic. No, Gentlemen, never, never! If it shall come to that, political martyrdom is preferable to such a sight. It is better to die while the honor of the country is untarnished, and the flag of the Union still flying over our heads, than to live to behold that honor gone for ever, and that flag prostrate in the dust. Gentlemen, I speak warmly, because I feel warmly, and because I know that I speak to men whose hearts are as warm as my own, in support of the country and the Union.

I am lately from the North, where I have mixed extensively with men of all classes and all parties, and I assure you, Gentlemen, through the masses of the Northern people the general feeling and the great cry is for the Union, and for its preservation. There are, it is true, men to be found, some of perverse purposes, and some of bewildered imaginations, who affect to suppose that some possible, but undefined good would arise from a dissolution of the ties which bind these United States together. But be assured the number of these men is small; the eminent leaders of all parties rebuke them, and while there prevails a general purpose to maintain the Union as it is, that purpose embraces, as its just and necessary means, a firm resolution of supporting the rights of all the States precisely as they stand guarantied and secured by the Constitution. And you may depend upon it, that every provision in that instrument in favor

of the rights of Virginia, and the other Southern States, and every constitutional act of Congress passed to uphold and enforce those rights, will be upheld and maintained, not only by the power of the law, but also by the prevailing influence of public opinion.

Accidents may occur to defeat the execution of a law in a particular instance; misguided men may, it is possible, sometimes enable others to elude the claims of justice and the rights founded in solemn constitutional compact; but on the whole, and in the end, the law will be executed and obeyed. The South will see that there is principle and patriotism, good sense and honesty, in the general mind of the North, and that, among the great mass of intelligent citizens in that quarter, the prevailing disposition to ask for justice is not stronger than the disposition to grant it to others.

Gentlemen, we are brethren; we are descendants of those who labored together with intense anxiety for the establishment of the present Federal Constitution. Let me ask you to teach your young men, into whose hands the power of the country must soon fall, to go back to the close of the Revolutionary war; to contemplate the feebleness and incompetency of the confederation of States then existing; and to trace the steps by which the intelligence and patriotism of the great men of that day led the country to the adoption of the existing Constitution. Teach them to study the proceedings, votes, and reports of committees in the old Congress. Especially draw their attention to the leading part taken by the Assembly of Virginia from 1783 onward. Direct their minds to the convention at Annapolis in 1786; and by the contemplation and study of these events and these efforts, let them see what a mighty thing it was to establish the government under which we have now lived so prosperously and so gloriously for sixty years. But pardon me; I must not write an essay or make a speech. Virginia! true-hearted Virginia! stand by your country, stand by the work of your fathers, stand by the union of the States, and may Almighty God prosper all our efforts in the cause of liberty, and in the cause of that united government which renders this people the happiest people on whom the sun ever shone! I am, Gentlemen, yours truly and faithfully, DANIEL WEBbster.

To J. A. Hamilton Esq., and others, Westchester, New York. Washington, January 27, 1851. GENTLEMEN, -I have to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of the 16th of this month, inviting me to attend a meeting proposed to be holden at Tarrytown on the 30th instant, by the people of Westchester County, without any distinction of party, who approve of the compromise measures of the last session of Congress. My public duties do not allow me to accept this invitation; but you need not doubt that I cordially approve the objects and purposes for which the people of Westchester propose to assemble.

I hope the spirit of disunion may be considered as now, in some degree, checked; but that it has existed, both at the North and the South, and does still exist to a dangerous extent, cannot, as it seems to me, be denied by any honest man.

In the South, the separation of the States is openly proposed, discussed, and recommended, absolutely or conditionally, in legislative halls, and in conventions called together by the authority of law.

In the North, the State governments have not run into such excess, and the purpose of overturning the government shows it self more clearly in resolutions agreed to in voluntary assemblies of individuals, denouncing the laws of the land, and declaring a fixed intent to disobey them.

I notice that in one of these meetings, holden lately in the very heart of New England, and said to have been very numerously attended, the members unanimously resolved, “that, as God is our helper, we will not suffer any person charged with being a fugitive from labor to be taken from among us, and to this resolve we pledge our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor."

If any

These persons do not seem to have been aware that the purpose thus avowed by them is distinctly treasonable. law of the land be resisted, by force of arms or force of numbers, with a declared intent to resist the application of that law, in all cases, this is levying war against the government, within the meaning of the Constitution, and is an act of treason, drawing after it all the consequences of that offence. This is the precise case in which convictions for treason took place in Pennsylva

nia during the elder Mr. Adams's administration. And not only does such a spirit as this manifest itself in heated and violent public assemblies, but it is also defended, encouraged, and commended by a considerable portion of the public press; and, what is still worse, the pulpit has, in too many instances, uttered these tones of opposition to the law, instead of the voice of Christian meekness, repentance, and the fear of God. Indeed, occasions have happened in which men and women have engaged in a sort of rivalry or contest to see whether the laws of society, or the institution of religion and the authority of the Divine Revelation, could be treated with the more contempt.

It is evident that, if this spirit be not checked, it will endanger the government; if it spread far and wide, it will overthrow the government.

you

There are ample pledges, Gentlemen, that with and your fellow-citizens of Westchester no other feeling will be entertained than that of zealous attachment to the Union and the Constitution, and a determination to support both to the last extremity. Among your committee I see the son of a great and an illustrious man, equally distinguished in the revolutionary and the constitutional history of his country. ALEXANDER HAMILTON was one of the twelve commissioners who met at Annapolis in September, 1786, and recommended to the country the establishment of a constitution of government "adequate to the exigencies of the Union." Here was the cradle of that form of government which has so long bound us all together, and made us so prosperous at home and so much respected abroad. Where the blood of Alexander Hamilton fills the veins, or his example and patriotic services are remembered, the language of separation, secession, and disunion will find no utterance, and purposes of violent resistance to the laws no approbation or tolerance.

Gentlemen, the mortal remains of another great man, venerated and loved through the whole course of a long life, repose in the county of Westchester; of course, I mean JOHN JAY. The public life of this illustrious man was almost entirely devoted to the preservation of the union of the States, the establishment of the Constitution, and the administration of the powers conferred by it. No man saw more clearly, or felt more deeply, the evils arising from the existence of States with entire