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Show 130 NOTES ON greatness, that its pangs and struggles arc as bare to the public eye as its energies and achievements. There is not a man who docs not know tha.t the great statesman of the country is as indifferent to money as he is devoted to the higher cares of the public weal. ~rhcre is not n. man, perhaps, (except my colleague, and some of thos_e who. thi~k with him,) who does not wish that the order ~·htch rc1gns m that vast understanding, and reduces to thetr elements tho most complicated national questions, were equally exemplified in every detail of his personal expenditure. But it is not so. llis .devotion to the public has left him neither time nor disposition to take care of himself; and this well~ kn6wn fact leO\·es the question simply whether the public, in exigent crises, shall be deprived of his scniccs, or whether friends shall aid him. Nor is this case, however sad, a rare one. If the views of my colleague could prevail, neither Burke, nor Pitt, nor Canning, in the Old World, nor I think Jefferson, or lla.dison, or :Monroe, in the New, but would have been disqualifietl by their poverty, and that very untlt>·ift which devotion to great thoughts p>·oduces, from lending their great powers to their country's service. * * * * If there is anything in my colleague's position, it i~ this: that the fact that Mr. Webster has been embarrassed in his pecuniary affairs, and has received pecuniary favors, would disqualify him from serving his country as a. statesman. lias my collengue been so much more fortunate than most other men as to haYe utterly escaped such emb:trra~sments? lias the black ox never !rode on his foot? If so, I congratul"te him that that bitterest drop has never been 'idded to his cup of misery. "But if it should be true, of which I know nothing, that he, too, like perhaps the majority of mankind, has known the agonies of the proud man subjected to the calls of the imperious creditor- if he too has 'served for a term in that ' UNCLE TOM'S CADIN. 131 leprous nrma.. d a' of debt, entanglement, and evasion-and if in happier and 'more prosperous hours he forgets the sufferings of earlier years, and is prompt to urge against others a state of embarrassment ns a reason of disqualifica~ tion-why, what then? It is but a. modern illustration of the savage line of the Roman annalist, eo inmu'tior quia tolcrat•crat, 'all the more pitiless because he, too, had suffered,' and all that need be ·said is, that the people among whom be lives have dealt and will deal with him more sparingly and kindly than he is inclined to deal with others." {pp. 3 and 5.) I may add, that this is the last charge that t~hould be· brought agninst another by such men as were assembled at tbe late "Hale dinner," one of whom, at least, and that one still high in the confidence of the rest has notoriously "served" for more than one "term in 'that leprous nrmada of Jebt, entanglement and e\'asion." Another charge sometimes made, and probably meant to be included in the phrase ''loose, lax morality," above qu?ted, refers to Hr. Webster 's personal habits; but when It IS recollected that most of those who bring tbis charao profess to think it a sin to take a glass of wine on a fcsti;e occasion, (anJ ought, therefore for consistency's sake, to t~m l\Iahomctans at once, instead of claiming to be Christmns, ami at the same time reHcetin« on the character of Christ himself,) an:! that they belong ~o a party who, but a few days ago, gave " public dinner to the lion. John P . liule, bte U. S. Senator from New-Hampshire, the aecusatton may be safely left to pass for what it is worth. 'l'lte tJ"Uth is, not one of these charges would have been !:card of but for the speech of iiiarch 7, 1850. And what was there in that speech to. call down such a storm of obloquy on his devote<! head? Nothing,-absolutely nothing. In that speech, l\Ir. '\rebster is where he always was, (and, [may add, where he continued to his death,) and i1Ir.l\Ian11 |