Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1843,
BY TAPPAN ANd Dennet,

In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of Massachusetts.

PREFACE.

SINCE the publication of the second volume of Mr. Webster's "SPEECHES," his Congressional career has been brought to a close. Having been invited by the lamented HARRISON to take a place in his Cabinet, Mr. Webster resigned his seat in the Senate of the United States, in February, 1841, and, on the 6th of March following, entered on the duties of the Department of State. The ability and success with which he has conducted the foreign affairs of the country, in this new sphere of public service, need no remark, The Treaty between the United States and Great Britain, negotiated by him and Lord Ashburton, has been too recently proclaimed to require to be recalled to any body's remembrance. Ratified, on our side of the ocean, by four fifths of the Senate, without distinction of party, it has been hailed by the whole People as an honorable and highly advantageous settlement of controversies by which the Peace of the Nation had long been endangered. It is the purpose of the Publishers, at a future day, to collect into a volume the State Papers of Mr. Webster on the subject of this Treaty, and on other subjects which he may have been called on to treat in the station which he now occupies. In the mean time, they have thought that they should render an acceptable service to the Public by completing the series of Mr. Webster's "SPEECHES," delivered in the Senate and before the People, previously to his entering upon Exec utive office. With this view, the present volume has been prepared. In submitting it to the Country, the Publishers avail themselves of the opportunity to connect in a permanent form with Mr. Webster's Works, the following just vindication of his political course and character from charges which the wantonness of party warfare has too often arrayed against him: :

MR. WEBSTER AND HIS REVILERS.

[FROM THE NATIONAL INTELLIGENCER OF APRIL 24, 1841.]

It is the practice of demagogues, in all free governments, to seek the direction of public opinion, by keeping alive old prejudices, or exciting new ones. In no country has this artifice been more freely or frequently resorted to than in our own, nor by any party in it so systematically and intolerantly as by that which has sprung up of late years, and assumed to itself the name of Democratic, but which, so far from possessing the elements of true and enlightened democracy, is imbued and guided by the very spirit of despotism. Let any man have labored as long or as signally as he may in support of the rights of his country, of the national prosperity, of the Constitution, and of public liberty, let his whole career have been marked by public usefulness, and his patriotism be as unblemished as the sun, these shall all weigh as nothing in the scale, if he stand in the way of disappointed office-seekers, or of ambitious and aspiring partisans. Can nothing better be found to serve the ends of party rancor, he shall, though he be patriotism and purity personified, be hunted down and sacrificed, without scruple or remorse, to superannuated prejudices, or mere political abstractions. There is not one among the men whose names adorn the annals of our country, who has suffered more from this species of injustice than the present Secretary of State. This eminent citizen, whose name, in the most remote regions of the globe, sheds a lustre on the fame of his country, is at home assailed with all the malevolence of an intolerant faction, on the score of political incidents which took place before one half of our readers were born, and which, whatever were their merit, ought, after such a lapse of time, to be consid ered, upon any fair construction, as barred, by the statute of limitations, from any title to a place in political controversies of the present day. We had occasion to say the same thing not much more than six months ago, when an assault of this sort was made, and justly rebuked by public opinion, on the occasion of Mr. Webster's visit to the city of Richmond. Nor was it any new opinion of ours; for it was, upon an occasion which then offered, expressed with equal confidence six years ago, and has been entertained by us, with the same earnestness of conviction, more than twenty years gone by. It is preposterous to be ripping up any man's life for thirty or forty years, to discover whether, at some time or other, he has not differed in opinion from some other man or men who have long since gone down to the home of all the living.

Not, by any means, that we think that Mr. Webster has any thing to apprehend from a free and fair inquiry into the whole of his political life. On the contrary, we have no doubt he would court it. But what we do most decidedly object to is the falsification of history, the misstatement of facts, and the distorting and blurring of the face of such facts as are not wholly misrepresented.

These remarks are suggested by an article which we find in the New York Express of Wednesday last, the writer of which has taken the trouble to meet, and absolutely extinguish, the latest of these incendiary attempts upon the reputation of Mr. Webster. We have a very sensible pleasure in transferring the whole article to our columns. Here it is:

FROM THE NEW YORK EXPRESS OF APRIL 21.

MR. WEBSTER AND THE LAST WAR.

During the struggles of the last election, some parties appear to have explored the Journals of Congress, during the war with England, to find matter of accusation against Mr. Webster.

A letter was published [hereto subjoined] appearing to furnish the result of such examination. Whether this was fair or not, few people could judge, as few have either the means or the leisure of going through so many volumes of public proceedings, and seeing whether the real truth has been extracted or not.

But a friend of ours, in this city, having leisure sufficient, in these dull times, has prepared a statement, in answer to the charges in the letter aforesaid.

We now publish the letter and the statement, and, at the request of the writer, we publish part of Mr. Webster's speech, in reply to Mr. Calhoun, March 22, 1838.

We commend the consideration of these papers not only to the friends of the last Administration generally, but in an especial manner to Governor Polk, of Tennessee, who, by newspaper accounts, is already "on the stump," as the Western phrase is, for the next August election.

Instead of discussing subjects of present interest, the worthy and venerable Governor seems to rejoice in discussions relating to by-gone times. There appear to be two objects which most attract his Excellency's attention; one, to abuse Mr. Clay, who supported the war, and the other to abuse Mr. Webster, who, he says, opposed it.

We hope his Excellency will not omit some notice of the Berlin and Milan decrees, the affair of the Chesapeake, and that he will even take some notice of the quasi war with France.

The venerable Governor will see how important it is to enter into these matters, when the questions before the American people are, whether an