rts. It is obvious that Webster, when contending with
all his force for or against some particular measure, has not been
contemplating the probability of being compelled to oppose or defend a
different policy, and, so, choosing his words warily, in reference to
future possibilities of a personal kind: yet when the time has come
that he has been obliged to fight with his face in another direction,
it has always been found that no one principle had been asserted, no
one sentiment displayed, incompatible with his new positions. This
union of consistency with practicability has arisen naturally from
the extent and comprehensiveness of his views, from the breadth and
generality with which the analytical power of his understanding has
always led him to state his principles and define his position. From
the particular scheme or special maxim which his party was insisting
upon, his mind rose to a higher and more general formula of truth.

Owing to the same superior penetration and reach of thought, the gloom
of successive repulses has never been able to paralyze the power
which it has saddened. The constitution has been so often invaded
and trampled upon, that to a common eye it might well seem to have
lost all the resentments of vitality. But Webster has distinguished
between the constitution and its administration. He has seen that the
constitution, though in bondage, is not killed; that the channels
of its life-giving wisdom are stuffed up with rubbish, but not
obliterated. He has been determined that if the rulers of the country
will deny the truth, they shall not debauch it; if they depart from
the constitution, they shall not deprave it. He has been resolved,
that when this tyranny of corruption shall be overpast, and the
constitution draws again its own free breath of virtue, truth and
wisdom, it shall be found perfect of limb and feature, prepared to
rise like a giant refreshed by sleep.

Mr. Griswold, we suppose, is quite right in suggesting that the only
name in modern times to which reference can with any fitness be made
for purposes of analogy or comparison with Webster is that of Burke.
In many respects there is a correspondence between their characters;
in some others they differ widely. As a prophet of the truth of
political morals, as a revealer of those essential elements in the
constitution of life, upon which, or of which, society is constructed
and government evolved, Burke had no peer. In that department h