ations of Mr. Webster had much in them that could be
agreeable only to Federalists. He was an occasional speaker, too, in
those years, at meetings of Federalists, where his power as an orator
was sometimes exerted most effectively. No speaker could be better
adapted to a New England audience, accustomed from of old to weighty,
argumentative sermons, delivered with deliberate, unimpassioned
earnestness. There are many indications that a speech by Daniel
Webster in Portsmouth in 1810 excited as much expectation and comment
as a speech by the same person in the Senate twenty years after. But
he was a mere Federalist partisan,--no more. It does not appear that
he had anything to offer to his countrymen beyond the stately
expression of party issues; and it was as a Federalist, pure and
simple, that he was elected, in 1812, a member of the House of
Representatives, after a keenly contested party conflict. His majority
over the Republican candidate was 2,546,--the whole number of voters
being 34,648.

The Federalists, from 1801 to 1825, were useful to the country only as
an Opposition,--just as the present Tory party in England can be only
serviceable in its capacity of critic and holdback. The Federalists
under John Adams had sinned past forgiveness; while the Republican
party, strong in being right, in the ability of its chiefs, in its
alliance with Southern aristocrats, and in having possession of the
government, was strong also in the odium and inconsistencies of its
opponents. Nothing could shake the confidence of the people in the
administration of Thomas Jefferson. But the stronger a party is, the
more it needs an Opposition,--as we saw last winter in Washington,
when the minority was too insignificant in numbers and ability to keep
the too powerful majority from doing itself such harm as might have
been fatal to it but for the President's well-timed antics. Next to a
sound and able majority, the great need of a free country is a
vigorous, vigilant, audacious, numerous minority. Better a factious
and unscrupulous minority than none at all. The Federalists, who could
justly claim to have among them a very large proportion of the rich
men and the educated men of the country, performed the humble but
useful service of keeping an eye upon, the measures of the
administration, and finding fault with every one of them. Daniel
Webster, however, was wont to handle only the large topics. While Mr.
Jefferson was struggling to kee