se itself. No necessity can be more
urgent and imperious, than that of avoiding anarchy. It is the same as
that which makes government indispensable to preserve society; and is
not less imperative than that which compels obedience to superior
force. Traced to this source, the voice of a people,--uttered under the
necessity of avoiding the greatest of calamities, through the organs of
a government so constructed as to suppress the expression of all partial
and selfish interests, and to give a full and faithful utterance to the
sense of the whole community, in reference to its common welfare,--may
without impiety, be called _the voice of God_. To call any other so,
would be impious.

* * * * *

=_Daniel Webster, 1782-1852._= (Manual, pp. 478, 486.)

From the "Reply to Hayne, in the United States Senate."

=_85._= INESTIMABLE VALUE OF THE FEDERAL UNION.

I cannot, even now, persuade myself to relinquish it, without expressing
once more my deep conviction, that, since it respects nothing less than
the union of the states, it is of most vital and essential importance
to the public happiness. I profess, sir, in my career hitherto, to have
kept steadily in view the prosperity and honor of the whole country, and
the preservation of our Federal Union. It is to that Union we owe our
safety at home, and our consideration and dignity abroad. It is to that
Union we are chiefly indebted for whatever makes us most proud of our
country. That Union we reached only by the discipline of our virtues in
the severe school of adversity. It had its origin in the necessities of
disordered finance, prostrate commerce, and ruined credit. Under its
benign influences, these great interests immediately awoke, as from the
dead, and sprang forth with newness of life. Every year of its duration
has teemed with fresh proofs of its utility and its blessings; and
although our territory has stretched out wider and wider, and our
population spread farther and farther, they have not outrun its
protection or its benefits. It has been to us all a copious fountain of
national, social, personal happiness. I have not allowed myself, sir, to
look beyond the Union, to see what might lie hidden in the dark recess
behind. I have not coolly weighed the chances of preserving liberty,
when the bonds that unite us together shall be broken asunder, I have
not accustomed myself to hang over the precipice of disunion, to see
whether, wit