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HOW PBOTECTIOIST FARED AT THE AUDIT DINN...
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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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immense power as a public speaker , with a retentive and a ready memory , a tongue at once vigorous and disengaged , Mr . Webster has here tofore been , in the eye of the world at least , the ablest statesman of the Union . Clay might have more statesmanlike views , and exercise a higher moral influence ; Seward might be more independent and more unmistakably generous in his public conduct ; James Buchanan might be more practised in the routine of office . But the ablest man to undertake a task , and to push it forward in JFaneuil Hall , in Congress , and in bureau , was Daniel Webster . In these respects he may be considered to have been , in a certain sense , the Yankee counterpart of our own Peel .
But the comparison only holds good in respect to the individual power so remarkably sustained on various fields . To guarantee the absolute disinterestedness of Peel ' s character , it needed , either the happy circumstance of his great independent fortune , or a much more poetical and religious exaltation of mind than either Peel or Webster could boast ; and Webster has never had Peel ' s fortune . An habitual disinterestedness , from whatsoever cause , is almost
necessary to sustain the statesman agaiust the temptations to sympathize too closely with enterprises which promise an immediate advantage , but militate against high principles . Over confident , perhaps , in his great powertrusting to the admiration which that excites in a community that perhaps inordinately admires individual power—Daniel Webster has suffered himself at times to drift away from high
principle . His conduct in the * affair of the Lobos Islands exemplifies what we mean . In the first instance , when a leading question was put to him , manifestly to extract an official admission that the Americans had a right of access to the Lobos Islands , he so couched his reply as to speak of their " discovery" by an American in 1823 ! Any schoolboy could have niched upon the materials to refute him . The Americans themselves
had frequented the Islands before that date ; and when that fact came officially before Mr . Webster , he had the face to speak of it in juxtaposition with the claim of discovery in 1823 , almost as if the two representations were reciprocally corroborative . Acting on tlie views sanctioned by him , that the Americans have a right of access to the islands , Captain Jewett fits out an expedition to make good that access by force , and formally notifies to Mr . Webster ' s department that the expedition is about to sail . Peru had prepared to resist ; England was understood to maintain
the right of Peru ; the public law of the civilized world equally maintains that right ; and without havingespecially consulted the pages of Wheaton , we are convinced that the American version of the public law could only be cited to cast discredit on the position taken up by Mr . Webster . But worse than all that anticipation of adverse influences must have been the prospect , that neither official colleagues nor public opinion could sustain him . He was now forced to write a second letter , citing the claims of Peru against his own rash and hasty assertion of individual claims which it would be an abuse of terms to
call American ; and notifying to Captain Jewett that resistance to the authorities of Peru would bo an act of private war , which could never receive any countenance from the government of the United Statew . The necessity of addressing such a letter with his own hand to the same person who had received from him the previous letter , would have been regarded by any English statesman as impossible : resignation would bo the preferable alternative . The- rashness which could indite the first hitler , lending a state authenticity to a baseless claim , is painfully reflected in the nonchalance with which the writer takes up the
other Hide . Our ardent , and , we will venture to say , our tried attachment to the United Slates , calls upon iih to submit to our friends in that country , in the most explicit terms , the considerations which wo have set forth . Home people in this country shrug their shoulders , and exclaim , " this , then , is the favourite type in a Yankee statesman !" Others , more charitable , ask if Mr . Webster ' s faculties are not declining with his advancing years . A third party , still more candid , holds that Mr . Webster belongs to a past general ion of statesmen—they think that the spoilt child of Americanism hns been indulged beyond bounds
in his eccentric sallies ; but that the public gladiator—the champion of Yankeeism—the man who combines popular power with official experience—the red-tape rifleman of the Union , belongs to a generation which is passing away , to a system which is going out of fashion , to be succeeded by a much more earnest and really powerful race . . Meanwhile , he is licensed to commit the present Government at -Washington by very inconvenient sallies ; for if New Brunswick has its Pakington , the statue of Webster may stand on the highest map o ? the Lobos islands as on a pedestal , a mark of the shoals which true statesmanship will avoid .
948 _ F He Mader- . J$A<Tv±B&R,
948 _ f HE MADER- . J $ A < tv ± b & r ,
How Pbotectioist Fared At The Audit Dinn...
HOW PBOTECTIOIST FARED AT THE AUDIT DINNER . Men who live on the broad highway of this nineteenth century , in the very storm and press of the onward march , know too little of that great inert mass of the population who consume the fruits of the earth in country towns and rural districts miles away from this seething centre of the world . Let any one of our readers who exults in the conquests of thought and science , whose political hopes are in the advent of that democracy which even Lord John Hussell hails from a secure Whig eminence , whose
social faith grasps the realization of problems only now discussed in the more advanced coteries , and whose religious convictions pierce beyond the horizon of respectable theologies—let such a-man take counsel of this insufferable epoch of the London year , to forsake the haunts of thinking and articulate men , and to plunge into the thick vegetation of provincial existence . We promise him that within one week he will have begun to realize , we do not say his own utter insignificance , but the insignificance of all that he has been accustomed to hold most worth
the living for . He will find that the men , and the thoughts , and the activities , whether intellectual , social , or political , of which by daily conversance he may have become a part , and which he knows to be upheaving the nations , are nothing more than the feverish follies of a town life , which country air and acquaintance with squires and turnips will healthily dissipate . "Go down , " we say , to the ardent lover of humanity , whose heart is with Hungary oppressed and
Italy trampled , who dreams of a social economy more humane , of a Church more catholic , and of a Government more national , than are yet deposited in the ark of the British constitution , —go down into some snug country village , and know thyself ! Against that village the tempests of this great heaving century strike in vain . Absorbed in local politics , worshipping local " lions , " immersed in local small-talk , that village accepts you as an outlandish stranger , or patronizes you as a subdued and silent guest .
Stagnation is the state of life , as it is the political creed of " our village" potentates , except at the election time , and then it is converted into ohstruction , taking all sorts of ugly , brutal , or foolish shapes—riotous , domineering , abusive , by turns . Let us suppose ourselves suddenly transplanted into such a community , about this very time , when the sad realities of the rent-day audit , with its dreary and ponderous festivities , are calling together those " friends and brothers , " who ran
before I he squire last summer to the poll , like sheep to Smithfiehl . Our first impression , as we observe those burly , bovine agriculturists trotting up the street ; is , that Agricultural Distress luis gone to Australia ; at all events , it does not reside in those ruddy apple cheeks and drab great-coats . Clearly , these victims of Peel and Colulen are grown fat , whether with grief , as . Kalstnif would say , or with tho happy consciousness of a , ' Derby at the helm , we do not stop to inquire . Clearly , too , their shoulders are broad enough to hear many "burdens on land . "
Neither are their faces altogether Had , as become victims—although tinged to-day with a shade of seriousness , n . H of men about to f > o bled . Wo follow them into fhe room , where , after the surgical operation has been effected , the restoratives arc applied . Not being admitted to the bleeding business , we can only report , that through an open door we catch a , glimpse of two gentlemen , the one with a jaunty farmers ' -friend loolf , and the oilier inoro ' positive arid calm , silently noting down mynteriouH quantities , which are noleninly dragged forth from the recesseg of bucolio bags ,
and incredible pockets , not without a freau , * . * groan from the disgorger . It is now two o ^ K and we fand ourselves m a long room divirO by a dinner-table plentifully garnished Th squire , the steward , and a visitor or two h taken their seats : enter the " receivers , " folloVrl discursively by tenants who have " paid up " and by tenants who have postponed business to T » lPf » sure , and intend to dine Jlrst . Grimly humorous * almost sarcastic , is the expression of these honest ' surly fellows , as they take their places , and after grace , ( from the acting chaplain at the bottom of the tablehose
, w . jokes are as juicy as the meat and as keenly relished by the present congreea ' tion ) , they fall to . Whether the preliminarv process has dulled the agricultural appetites or not , we cannot say ; but certain it is , that these massive joints of half-raw meat are soon disposed of , by the aid of melted butter , which appears to be the favourite condiment ; the squire ' s party at the head of the table preferring " chic ken and from time to time pausing to exchange the compliment of a glass of native sherry with some " larger" tenant , who , we suspect , prefers cider or malt—even to champagne .
Now comes the " solemnity . " The cloth is removed ; the chaplain says a second , and a longer grace . The solicitor at the head of the table rises to propose the usual loyal toasts ; then comes the health of the landlord , who is evidently a man of few words , for many reasons ; and presently , " the Steward , " proposed by a principal tenant . This is the toast of the evening ; he is the veritable coq de clocfter , and he is going : to crow . He alludes , no doubt , in feeling terms , to the continued distress of the owners and occupiers
of land ; to the burdens unjustly imposed upon them ; to the necessity of restoring Protection , undiluted and undisguised , as a measure of strict justice to that loyal and deserving class of her Majesty ' s subjects , the British Farmers ; to the cheering fact that we have at last got a Ministry in power who have promised to . restore Protection , and who will chivalrously perform that promise in spite of the Manchester " destructives , " Sir James Graham , Kossuth , Lord John Russell , Louis Blanc , and the Editor of the
Times ; and he winds up a magnificent harangue with a peroration to the effect that , considering alltlvie distroHB , t . lipir f ^ eiieroue lancllnrfl has great pleasure in reducing all the rents , as the time has come when " we must help ourselves . " Does he say all this ? Not a word of it . There is a time for all things : a time for election speeches , and a time for rent-days . He breathes not a syllable about agricultural distress , nor about Protection to be restored , nor about hard
times . How should he to-day ? He curses Cobdcn and Bright in very choice English , anathematizes every man not a Derb y ite as a Destructive , and portends tho deluge that only Lord Derby can avert . Finally , he exhorts his friends to stick by a Conservative Ministry , who will do all they can for the farmers , and will Uphold tho institutions of the country against Jews , Turks , heretics , infidels , and Cobdenites . " But I am not afraid , " ho says , " as long as we have the honest hearts of English yeomen , " etc . —in tli ° style familiar to very old playgoers . And so ho recovers his seat , while tho mouths of his y ° ~
wilderetl and mystified audience aro yet gap >» £ at these " real old English" sentiments : for , » their pockets are empty , at least their stomachs , and their hearts , are full . But the entertainment is not yet over : a rare attraction has been secured for this occasion only—a dintinffinshcu Spanish Hidalgo , who returns thanks for his toast in a speech manifesting a profound study of " British constitution , and a deep respe < -t [ or British landlords , whom , he says , " he shalI introduce into his own country on his return .
We observed , by the way , that when ^ Kj steward alluded to' the nexus between land <> i « and tenant being not simply ono of rent , but <> affection , the most intelligent of tho general company shook their heads with comical gniviii , y , and an air of scepticism , which nothing but tin proceedings of tho morning could excuse . Such is a picture of agricultural distress nmi of agricultural intelligence , taken at < iuart . er- < u . y-Such is the political common sense of KJ y " ; who propose lo govern England in IHfW . ' ' Tho steam-ship , arid the railway , and the u- - graph , and the " thoughts that shake i . iankm < j , are to them a dead letter . Commerce ih regai <• ^ as a foe ; science a jugglery | liberty a worn terror \ and national progrose a bugbear ft «
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), Oct. 2, 1852, page 14, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_02101852/page/14/
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