Speech of Daniel Webster of Massachusetts, Delivered at the Great Whig Mass Convention, Held at Philadelphia, on the 1st Day of October, 1844 (Classic Reprint)

Excerpt from Speech of Daniel Webster of Massachusetts, Delivered at the Great Whig Mass Convention, Held at Philadelphia, on the 1st Day of October, 1844

Now, gentlemen, what excellent party harmony would be pro duced, if Mr. Polk's two sets of friends could hear him utter these sentiments, at the same time, and in the same room! And yet they are uttered every day, in the same country, and in regard to the same election. The louder Carolina, and other States holding her sentiments, cry out, Polk, and down with the Tariff! The more sturdily does the party press in Pennsylvania raise the Opposite shout. Now, gentlemen, there is an old drama, named, I think, Who's the Dupe? An answer, and here it is an important one, is to be given of, Who is the dupe? And we shall see, in the end, on which party the laugh falls.

New, gentlemen, incidental protection, which some persons, just now, would represent as transcendental protection, what is it? It is no protection at all, and does not deserve the name. It is a result, which comes, if it comes at all, without design, without certainty, and without discrimination. It falls on tea and coffee, as well as on iron and broadcloth. Let-us not be deluded by such a thin and flimsy pretext. It is an insult to our understandings. Gentlemen, I have come here for no purpose of oratory, nor eloquence, nor dis play. This is not the occasion for any thing of that kind. If I ever had any such ambition, it has long since passed away, and I hope now only to be useful to you, useful to the great cause in which we are all engaged; and this, and this only, has brought me here. I shall speak with that plainness and frankness with which a man ought to Speak, directly and earnestly, feeling as a man ought to feel who has at heart the importance of what he says. This service in which we are engaged is no holiday service, no mere display, no passing pageant, but serious and solemn-serious, as far as any thing can be serious in the secular affairs of men. I come here, then, to use no ornaments of speech, no trepe, no metaphor. Honestly and sincerely I come to Speak to you out of the abundance of my heart, and I beg you to receive what I have to say in the spirit with which it is delivered.

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