fairness might have been expected, have not failed to represent me as arguing, or affording ground of argument, against human laws to enforce the moral laws of the Deity. Such persons knew my meaning very well. They chose to pervert and misrepresent it. That is all.

In classical times, there was a set of small, but rapacious critics, denominated captatores verborum, who snatched and caught at particular expressions; expended their strength on the disjecta membra of language; birds of rapine, who preyed on words and syllables, and gorged themselves with feeding on the garbage of phrases chopped, dislocated, and torn asunder, by themselves, as flesh and limbs are by the claws of unclean birds. Such critics are rarely more distinguished for ability in discussion, than for that manly moral feeling which disdains to state an adversary's argument otherwise than fairly and truly, and as he meant to be understood.

But other gentlemen, of much more acquaintance with New Mexico than I can pretend to, have expressed the same opinion as I have done, in respect to the natural causes which must for ever exclude slavery from that country; and it has been thought remarkable that an intelligent field-officer in the American army, in writing a private letter to a friend here, dated at Santa Fé, the capital of New Mexico, two days before my speech was delivered, that is, on the 5th of March, should have used this language:

"We have no papers later than the President's message. I fancy Congress is debating about slavery in New Mexico, where slavery is prohibited by a stronger than all human laws, the law of climate, and production, and self-interest. Not more than a hundredth part of New Mexico could ever be cultivated, if water were ever so plenty, such is the soil, topography, and rock of this land. But in the centre of a vast area, without large bodies of water, the rocky surface sending what little water falls upon it rapidly down to the ocean, under an atmosphere ever thirsty, into which evaporation is marvellously rapid, not more than one part in two hundred and fifty can ever be improved.”

And now, Gentlemen, I have one other consideration to bring to your minds; and that is, that the slavery of the African race does not exist in New Mexico; that it is altogether abolished; that there is not a single African slave to be found among any of its mountains, or in any part of its vast plains. The people

of New Mexico, to a man, are opposed to slavery; their state of society rejects it; the use of cheaper labor rejects it; the opinions, the sentiments, and feelings of the people all reject it, as warmly and decidedly as it is rejected by the people of Maine. And it appears to me just about as probable that African slavery will be introduced into New Mexico, and there established, as it is that it will be established on Mars' Hill, or the side of the White Mountains.

Among the maxims left us by Lord Bacon, one is, that, when seditions or discontents arise in the state, the part of wisdom is to remove, by all means possible, the causes. The surest way to prevent discontents, if the times will bear it, he says, is to take away the matter of them; for if there be fuel prepared, it is hard to tell whence the spark shall come that shall set it on fire. So counsels Lord Bacon; but with us there are other advisers. Although the dispute be obviously altogether unimportant, and although the times will well bear the taking away of the matter of it, their patriotic ardor still admonishes us to continue the contest, to fight it out; if the oyster be gone, still to make fierce battle for the shell; nor give up the warfare till we obtain a joyful victory, or nobly fall.

Gentlemen, I will conclude this letter by a short reference to one other topic. A good deal of complaint has been manifested, as you know, on account of the opinions expressed in my speech respecting Texas, and the legal construction and effect of the resolutions by which she became annexed to the United States. Surprise and astonishment, and all the eloquence of capital letters and notes of admiration, have been summoned to mark the utterance of such new and startling sentiments. The truth is, however, that there is nothing new in the whole matter. The same view, substantially, of the resolutions of annexation had been taken, again and again, by myself and others.

Gentlemen, I voted against the treaty by which these territories were ceded by Mexico to the United States; and in open Senate, in a speech made on the 23d of March, 1848, I referred to Texas and to the resolutions of annexation. The speech was published in the newspapers, and circulated in pamphlet form, and read by every body who chose to read it. In that speech you will find these words:

"Now, Sir, I do not depend on theory. I ask you, and I ask the Senate and the country, to look at facts, to see where we were when we made the departure three years ago, and where we now are, and I shall leave it to imagination to conjecture where we shall be.

"We admitted Texas as one State for the present. But if you will refer to the resolutions providing for the annexation of Texas, you will find a provision that it shall be in the power of Congress hereafter to make four other new States out of Tcxan territory. Present and prospectively, therefore, five new States, sending ten Senators, may come into the Union out of Texas. Three years ago we did that. Now we propose to make two States; for, undoubtedly, if we take what the President recommends, New Mexico and California each will make a State; so that there will be four Senators. We shall have, then, in this new territory, seven States, sending fourteen Senators to this chamber. Now, what will be the relation between the Senate and the people, or the States from which they come?"

You will see that here is the same opinion of the meaning of the resolutions of annexation, expressed nearly in the same words, as are contained in my speech of the 7th of March last. And this only two years ago. But nobody then expressed either surprise or astonishment. There was no call to arms, no invocation of the genius of Liberty, to resist a false construction of an act of Congress; there were no stirring and rousing paragraphs in the newspapers, no patriotic appeals to the people, and no insane declarations, such as we now hear, that the Texan resolutions are utterly void.

But, Gentlemen, I will pursue no further a topic of some little interest to myself, but of no great importance to you, or the country. I leave it with the single remark, that what was true in respect to the construction of an act of Congress in 1848, must be true in the same case in 1850, and if an individual, on his own authority, may declare one act of Congress void, he may with equal propriety absolve himself from the obligations imposed on him by all other acts; and his oath binds him only to the observance of such laws as he himself approves. How far such a sentiment is fit to be acted upon by men, or to be instilled into the minds of youth, the country must judge.

But you, and the whole country, Gentlemen, are interested most deeply in knowing what is the prospect of a settlement of existing difficulties. On this point, I am happy to say that

I can speak with hope, if not with confidence. I think I see indications that the public judgment will, ere long, be broug t to bear upon these troublesome and exciting questions, and at the voice of a majority of the people will hush other discordant voices. How soon this will happen I cannot say; but I fully believe that the floods will yet subside, that the troubled waters will return within their banks, and the current of public affairs resume its accustomed and beneficial course.

I am, Gentlemen, your obliged fellow-citizen and obedient servant,

DANIEL Webster.

To the Rev. Ebenezer Price and others, Neighbors of Mr. Webster in New Hampshire

Washington, September 21, 1850. GENTLEMEN,I have received your letter of last month, expressing your approbation of my public political conduct, and especially of my efforts in Congress to settle questions which have long agitated the country and disturbed its peace. Happily, Gentlemen, those questions are now, I trust, disposed of, and better prospects open upon the country.

The thirty-one American States stretch over a vast extent of country running through several degrees of latitude and longitude, and embracing many varieties of soil, climate, institutions, habits, and pursuits; yet over all the Union and the Constitution still stand, everywhere giving protection and security, and everywhere cherished at the present moment with general and warm patriotic regard. The interests of the different parts of the country, though various, are not opposite; flowing, indeed, in diverse channels, but all contributing to swell the great tide of national prosperity. Under the operation of the Constitution, we have now been for sixty years free and happy; civil and religious liberty have stood firm and unshaken; popular education has received a new impulse and a wider spread, and moral and religious instruction has become characteristic of our age; agriculture, commerce, and manufactures have been steadily encouraged and sustained; and, under the blessing of Providence, general competency and satisfactory means of living

have everywhere rewarded the efforts of labor and industry. And in the mean time, Gentlemen, the country has attained to such a degree of honor and renown, that every patriotic man, in addition to his own individual means of enjoyment, derives a positive pleasure from participating in the reputation of his country. Of what other country upon earth can this be said with so much truth?

Who, then, would undermine this Union? Who would raise his hand against this Constitution? Who would scoff at those political and social blessings which Providence has never before seen fit to vouchsafe, in such abundance, to any community of men? Self-love, our hopes for the future, national pride, and gratitude to God, all conspire to prompt us to embrace these institutions of our native land with all the affections of our hearts, and to defend them with all the strength of our hands. In a critical hour, and not without some personal hazard, I have discharged my duty, and freed my conscience, to its very depth, in public efforts to maintain them, limited only by the measure of my ability. And since these efforts are regarded as having contributed something to the adjustment of dangerous controversies, and to the establishment of peace and harmony among fellow-citizens and brothers, I desire no reward but the cheering voices of good men and the approbation of my own conscience.

And now, friends and neighbors, I could pour out my heart in tenderness of feeling for the affectionate letter which comes from you. Approving voices have been heard from other quarters; other commendations have reached me, high enough and warm enough to demand, as they have received, my most grateful acknowledgment and regard. But yours comes from home; it comes from those whom I have known, and who have known me, from my birth. It is like the love of a family circle; its influences fall upon my heart as the dew of Hermon. Those of you who are most advanced in age have known my father and my family, and especially that member of it whose premature death inflicted a wound in my breast which is yet fresh and bleeding. Some of you were my companions in the country schools; with others I have partaken in the sports of youth, the cheerful labor of the field of agriculture, and in the associations and exercises of early manhood. I see on the list