w days, an important body. Mr.
Webster had an hereditary love for the house of Adams; and the aged
Jefferson himself had personally warned him against Andrew Jackson.
Webster it was who, in an interview with Mr. Adams, obtained such
assurances as determined the Federalists to give their vote for the
New England candidate; and thus terminated the existence of the great
party which Hamilton had founded, with which Washington had
sympathized, which had ruled the country for twelve years, and
maintained a vigorous and useful opposition for a quarter of a
century. Daniel Webster was in opposition no longer. He was a defender
of the administration of Adams and Clay, supported all their important
measures, and voted for, nay, advocated, the Tariff Bill of 1828,
which went far beyond that of 1824 in its protective provisions.
Taunted with such a remarkable and sudden change of opinion, he said
that, New England having been compelled by the act of 1824 to transfer
a large part of her capital from commerce to manufactures, he was
bound, as her representative, to demand the continuance of the system.
Few persons, probably, who heard him give this reason for his
conversion, believed it was the true one; and few will ever believe it
who shall intimately know the transactions of that winter in
Washington. But if it _was_ the true reason, Mr. Webster, in giving
it, ruled himself out of the rank of the Great,--who, in every age and
land, lead, not follow, their generation. In his speech of 1824 he
objects to the protective system on _general_ principles, applicable
to every case not clearly exceptional; and the further Congress was
disposed to carry an erroneous system, the more was he bound to lift
up his voice against it. It seems to us that, when he abandoned the
convictions of his own mind and took service under Mr. Clay, he
descended (to use the fine simile of the author of "Felix Holt") from
the rank of heroes to that of the multitude for whom heroes fight. He
was a protectionist, thenceforth, as long as he lived. If he was right
in 1824, how wrong he was in 1846! In 1824 he pointed to the high
wages of American mechanics as a proof that the protective system was
unnecessary; and he might have quoted Adam Smith to show that, in
1770, wages in the Colonies were just as high, compared with wages in
Europe, as in 1824. In 1846 he attributed high wages in America to the
operation of the protective system. In 1824 free trade was the go