AN ANNIVERSARY ADDRESS DELIVERED BY DANIEL
WEBSTER BEFORE THE FEDERAL GENTLEMEN OF
CONCORD AND ITS VICINITY, JULY 4th, 1803.[1]
THIS country exhibits an interesting spectacle. She is the last of the little family of Republics. She hath survived all her friends, and now exists, in the midst of an envious world, without the society of one nation with which she is associated by similarity of government and character. Whether it be possible to preserve this republican unit in existence and health, is the great question which perpetually fastens on the mind. This inquiry is paramount to all others. Whether this or that political party shall rise or fall; whether this or that administration possess most talents and experience; whether the sentiments of one or another chief magistrate are most favorable to the progress of the nation's population and wealth. These questions, important in many respects, are important to the last degree, so far, and so far only, as they affect the integrity of the Constitution.
To this point every good man's heart and hands are turned. It is the object of his most ardent wishes, and his most active exertions. I cannot on this occasion seduce my own attention, nor would I wish to divert yours from the consideration of this great subject. Is our existing constitution worth preserving? Is it, as hath been said, the last hope of desponding human nature? Is it the brazen serpent to which we turn our eyes, when worried by the fiery serpents of false patriotism and false politics? Guard it then, as you would guard the seat of life, guard it not only against the blows of open violence, but also against that spirit of change, which, like a deadly mortification, begins at the extremities, and with swift and fatal progress approaches to the heart. Do you deem it imperishable? Can no crime destroy, no folly forfeit it? Is it the Rock of Gibraltar, against which the waves of faction may beat for ages, without moving it from its bed? Beware! I dare not assert that, in this place, sacred as it is to truth, and unacustomed to all language but that of conviction. Men are subject to men's misfortunes.
If an angel should be winged from heaven on an errand of mercy to our country, the first accents which would glow on celestial lips would be, "Beware! Be cautious! Be wise! You have every thing to lose; you have nothing to gain!" We live under the only government that ever existed, which was formed by the deliberate consultations of the people. Miracles do not cluster. That which has happened but once in six thousand years, cannot be expected to happen often. Such a government, once destroyed, would have a void to be filled, perhaps for centuries, with evolution and tumult, riot and despotism.
When we speak of preserving the Constitution, we mean not the paper on which it is written, but the spirit which dwells in it. Government may love all its real character, its genius, its temper, without losing its apparance. Republicanism, unless you guard it, will creep out of its case of parchment like a snake out of its skin. You may have a Despotism under the name of a Republic. You may look on a government, and see it possesses all the external modes of freedom, and yet find nothing of the essence, the vitality of freedom in it; just as you may contemplate an embalmed body, where art hath preserved proportion and form, amidst nerves without motion, and veins void
- ↑ From the press of George Hough, Concord, N. H., 1806.
