Page:Letters of Daniel Webster (1902).djvu/84

 with the present state of things, & the threatening aspect of what is future, should have brought us to a pause. They might have reasonably been expected to induce Congress to review its own measures, & to exercise its great duty of inquiry relative to the conduct of others. If this was too high a pitch of virtue for the multitude of party men, it was at least to have been expected from Gentlemen of influence & character, who ought to be supposed to value something higher than mere party attachment, & to act from motives somewhat nobler than a mere regard to party consistency. All that we have yet suffered will be found light & trifling, in comparison with what is before us, if the Government shall learn nothing from experience but to despise it, & shall grow more & more desperate in its measures, as it grows more & more desperate in its affairs.

It is time for Congress to examine & decide for itself. It has taken things on trust long enough. It has followed Executive recommendation, till there remains no hope of finding safety in that path. What is there, Sir, that makes it the duty of this people now to grant new confidence to the administration, & to surrender their most important rights to its discretion? On what merits of its own does it rest this extraordinary claim? When it calls thus loudly for the treasure & lives of the people, what pledge does it offer that it will not waste all in the same preposterous pursuits, which have hitherto engaged it? In the failure of all past promises, do we see any assurance of future performance? Are we to measure out our confidence in proportion to our disgraces, & now at last to grant away every thing, because all that we have heretofore granted has been wasted or misapplied? What is there in our condition, that bespeaks a wise or an able Government? What is the evidence, that the protection of the country is the object principally regarded? In every quarter, that protection has been more or less abandoned to the States. That every town on the coast is not now in possession of the enemy, or in ashes, is owing to the vigilance & exertions of the States themselves, & to no protection granted to them by those on whom the whole duty of their protection rested.

Or shall we look to the acquisition of the professed objects of the war, & there find grounds for approbation & confidence. The professed objects of the war are abandoned in all due form. The contest for sailors' rights is turned into a negotiation about boundaries & military roads, & the highest hope entertained by