ADDRESS OF
SENATOR JONES
(OF FLORIDA)
AT THE
Centenary Celebration of the Birth of Daniel
Webster, in Boston, Mass., January
18, 1882.
ThomuB McGill & Co., Law Printers, 'Waahington, D. G.

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ADDRESS OF
SENATOR CHARLES W. JONES,

OF FLORIDA.

Gentlemen of the Marshfield Cldb:
The year which has just closed has been well called a centennial
year ; for if we recur to many of its most imposing and impressive
celebrations it will be found that they commemorated great public
events in our history occurring one hundred years before. York-
town, the Cowpens, Groton Heights, and other historic localities have
had their day, and the sieges and bloody fortunes which distinguish
ed them have been well and justly commemorated. In all that has
been done to keep alive the memories of the past during the year
just terminated, it is impossible to overlook the great prominence
given to the military history of our country, and the great names
connected with it. But the new year opens upon us and' brings to
our minds an event not of a military character, but which for conse
quences the most far-reaching and important to the interests of this
great country is inferior to no event in our annals. The birth of an
individual under ordinary circumstances has but little influence on
the affairs of a great nation. Hundreds of thousands of souls come
in and go out of life whose names and fortunes never interest or con
cern any one outside of their own natural relations. But occasionally
an individual comes among us as if delegated by the power of the
Almighty to exercise a controlling influence and authority over the
fortunes and destinies of men. Under other systems of govern
ment, where rank and caste, independent of individual talent and
character, often give prominence and power, the road to eminence
is not so difficult to travel at times as it is here. There, many men
are born to distinction, and oftentimes the most ordinary powers and
abilities are, without effort or exertion, placed in control of the
highest offices in the State. The genius of our Government has
wisely and justly f)rovided for no distinctions among the children of
men, except what they can secure from the people by their own

talents and character. And thevery best commentary that can be
passed upon our institutiJii*; 4m<rthe best claim they can put forth
for the support of the people throjjgh all time, is in the grand oppor
tunities which they aftbrd to all classes of citizens, without discrimi
nation or favor, to share in the highest honors and emoluments of
the State. Whatever may be said against us in other respects, no
candid mind can deny that here in this great land of equal rights,
more than in any other country in the world, individual man has a
fairer, wider, and better fi.eld to develop the powers God has given
hira and secure the highest rewards of industry and talent. I know
very well that our Government has not escaped from the charge of
degeneracy. It is often said, and that, too, by men of character and
reflection, that it is not what it was, and that we are constantly
moving in a direction opposite to the line of true democratic progress.
Changes, I admit, have taken place, but they were natural and regu
lar. Great wealth, a vast mixed population, wonderful inventions,
which have almost annihilated time and space, have within a hun
dred years brought us innovations; and who regrets it? Compare
the condition of the country now with what it was ou the 18th of
January, 1782, the day that Daniel Webster first saw the light of
heaven in his frontier home, and note the contrast. And still every
change has been an improvement — every advanced step has placed
us farther on in the line of true progress, until to-day this great Gov
ernment of the people, for the people, is the pride and admiration
of the world. Do you think that all this has been the result of mere
accident ? Does climate, soil, or the physical state of man on this
continent account for all that has been accomplished ? Far from it.
Other lands have soils as rich as ours. Climates, too, as salubrious
as any a western sun ever shone upon can be found in the midst of
the rankest despotisms of the East.
I feel that I have wandered too far away from my subject. We
are here to-night to honor the memory of a man who did more in
his day and generation to make this country all I have tried to de
scribe it than any other cause. Many may think this is the language
of exaggeration. It is not. No warrior, military or naval, no pub
Uc character of any party or any day, ever accomphshed half that
Webster did to make this great country all that we now find it, or
who has so ineft'aceably impressed his mind, character, and principles
upon the sources of our national life. . You have had great armies
and generals, great legialatoi-s .and judges^ but what did they tight

for, legislate for, or judge for? Behind and beyond them all were
principles that had to be establisf?i^4 and-^Jn^pressed upon the public
heart before either the warrior, thelegislator, or the judge could
bring into operation the skill and tteining of his profession. Web
ster furnished material, without which you would have had neither
warriors, legislators, nor judges. After all, most of the conspicuous
characters in life are only imitators and followers. It is the pride
and boast of his fame that he occupies a like relation to those who
have succeeded him that the God of Nations does to those who apply
their petty contrivances to the mysterious products which His wisdom
has given for the happiness and comfort of the human race. Our
Constitution was an experiment. Brought into life amid severe con
flicts of opinion respecting the best system of government for this
new people, it is far from perfect. But those who are most ready to
condemn its imperfections can have little idea of the difficulties that
were to be overcome in order to estabhsh it. Local jealousies, in
spired by local interests ; extreme love of liberty, the result of long
years of oppression ; attachments for State or colonial governments
and dread of all central authority — these and other opinions less
numerous and popular, of an opposite character, gave us a Constitu
tion made up of concession and compromise, and which contained
the seminal principles of sectional and party strife. The advocates
of power professed to find in it the source of unlimited, almost impe
rial, authority. The friend of liberty would see nothing in it but the
delegation of a few simple powers, suited to the wants of a poor and
sparsely populated country. Who was to settle and adjust the con.
tentions sure to arise from such an organic law ? Who was to give
life and energy to this new system ; reconcile the love of liberty with
the love of pftwer ; teach the people to be conflding and trustful in
their own institutions ; point out the difference in consequences and
dangers between those repositories of public power which emanate
froni and hold their authority by the consent of the people, and
those self-constituted rulers who justify their tyranny by pretensions
of authority coming from on High ? This was a work that had to
be done by some one if this frame of government was to last. And
it seemed to be the pleasure of Divine Providence, in order to render
the work the more enduring aud acceptable, to raise up a man from
araong the lowly and humble and give him godlike powers to per
form this more than task. Gentlemen, the limits which must bound
any effort like this, prevent me from doing more than glancing at

the labors of Daniel Webster for the good and glory of his country.
Springing as he did froi^tXe^^ftis of the people, without wealth,
rank, or station, and living at a time when these things were more
potent than they ever were, h^^ad to struggle against poverty and
obscurity for long years before the greatness of his intellect obtained
for him his proper station in the great battlefield of life. Naturally
of a delicate constitution, the weakness of his body led to the exer
tions and sacrifices of his noble father to develop and cultivate his
mind. Unable to perform the hard labor which was the lot of his
family, every expedient of economy, every resource of frontier fru
gality, were resorted to in order to save him from the hard decree
of fate which seemed to mark him for the condition of a son of sweat
and toil. Upon him the pride ofthe family soon became concentra
ted, and it was reserved for an obscure, laborious, but honest New
England farmer to raise up in an humble home, far away from the
centres of wealth, refinement, aud luxury, the grandest intellect that
ever adorned a Senate or distinguished a nation. The profession of
law — ever the gateway to fame under a government like this — was
the calling he selected. And I say here to-night that if all the short
comings of that profession and its followers frora the time of Coke
to the present day were massed together they woflld be tenfold over
balanced by the benefit it has conferred upon mankind and the world
in bringing out the powers and developing the usefulness of Daniel
Webster. He declared at a Bar dinner in Charleston that all he
was he owed to the legal profession, and his labors in the Supreme
Court will forever remain the proudest monuments of his genius
and learning. Well may Massachusetts and well may Boston take
pride in honoring this distinguished man. Here it was that he
received encouragement and support when his great powers began to
open upon the country. Erora here, under the pressing solicitations
of a confiding and intelligent constituency, he went forth to the
councils of the nation to perform the great work for which Go* had
designed him. Abandoning his great practice and his sure prospects
of an ample fortune, at the call of Boston he dedicated himself to
the service and glory of his country. And if there is a spot on earth
that can, with more propriety than another, do honor to his memory
and his fame, it is the one on -w'hich we stand to-night, which he
loved and served so well. Methinks his genius hovers over us here
to-night. Aud I doubt not, that if it were permitted his great spii'it
to speak to us from his habitation in the skies, he would yet incul-

cate and teach us the same great lessons of love, patriotism, and duty
which he delighted to impress upon hift^oujatO'^^" during his so
journ on earth. Never since Washington live'^ was there a public
man in this country more universalUjrioved and respected than Mr.
Webster. His great head and heart thought and felt for the entire
country and all of its people. No narrow idea of State or sectional
policy — no local attachments or party ties — no promptings of indi
vidual ambition were ever permitted to stand between him and the
most unbounded love and devotion for every part of this great re
public. To the union of these States he was wedded by a principle
of uncompromising loyalty ; to the Constitution which created it he
gave the full support of his unrivaled talents and the unstinted alle
giance of his liberty-loving heart. While others discovered blem
ishes upon it and condemned them, he nobly declared that with all
its defects it was too full of blessings for this people to be disobeyed.
While possessiug talents and genius that would have done honor to
the Presideutial office, and beyond any other man justly entitled to
it, he never, under the temptation of power, swerved a hair's breadth
from the principles which controlled his public conduct in order to
swell his popularity or increase his fame.
During the entire period of his public life he stood as a grand sen
tinel on the ramparts ofthe republic and watched every movement,
great or small, which threatened the integrity of the Union. And
if that Union has survived the shocks of battle, and is to-day the
source of hope and freedom and life to millions of our race, to him
whose memory we honor to-night, more than to your generals or
your admirals, are you indebted for the freedom and blessings it
affords. His intense love for the Union and the Constitution was
not the result of party attachment or sectional interest. It was
based upon a principle higher and nobler than that. It sprang from
a deep, inborn, disinterested, unchangeable devotion to free institu
tions, and every attribute of genuine republican liberty, for which
there could be no hope here or elsewhere without the Union and the
Constitution. In the warmth of debate it was said he was a lover
of power. No man ever loved it less or freedom more. Nothing is
so conspicuous in his speeches and writings than the fervor and
clearness with which he expressed his attachment for the great prin
ciples of liberty which inspired every movement looking to the
liberation and freedom of mankind. Who among the statesmen of
this country understood or appreciated the great popular movements

in Europe like Mr. Webster? And who was more outspoken than
he in support of evev/' /^(-iSv^e and principle which tended to lighten
the shackles and increase tbeprivileges of the oppressed people
there ? The principles of th^^^ngUsh revolution of 1688 he never
tired of applauding. The orde'rly and conservative manner in which
that great movement was brought about and consummated gave
him confidence in the people, and while he was at all times the m,08t
advanced advocate of popular rights, he thought that they suffered
at times from those violent and sudden shocks to society which came
frora ill-timed and bloody revolutions. His great argument in the
Ehode Island case shows how averse he was to all attempts at inno
vation which were not in accordance with regular republican
methods. If he loved liberty, it was not the wild, unregulated
license of the mob, but it was the well-tempered and self-control-
ing freedom of the Constitution which gives to haan every rational
right and enjoyment essential to his happiness and welfare, while it
respects and enjoins acquiescence in the settled rules of property
and equality of privileges among all classes of citizens. Gentlemen,
I feel that I am trespassing upon your indulgence to-night. But
the magnitude of the theme, the greatness and glory of the man we
honor, constitutes my only apology. Coming as I do from the far
South, and speaking in the centre of the intelligence and greatness
of New England, I feel that the ground on which I tread this night
is as much a part of my country as that on which my own home is
erected. I feel that here in Boston, speaking to the memory of the
great Webster, that the spot on which we stand — that every foot of
soil over whiph floats the noble ensign of the republic — has been
consecrated by his genius to the full freedom and equal enjoyment
of every American citizen. YOur kindness and hospitality have.
done much to make me feel that I am not a stranger among you,
and to relieve me frora the embarrassraent which one always finds
when he addresses those who live at great distances from him.
But the great man who infused into the public heart of this
great republic the undying principle of nationality — who during his
whole life taught his countrymen nothing but lessons of love and
devotion for their whole country, who could say that the fame of the
Eutleges, the Pincknej's, the Marions and Suniters were the same to
him as the fame of Adams. Warren and Ames has done even
more than you have to make me feel that I can speak to you with free
dom as common brethren, bound by every tie and interest to the

greatness and glory of a common country. Short as has been the
period of our national existence, it has been prolifi(3 of great events
and great men. We have had a Hamilton, wise beyond his years,
with a mind stored with the choicesr'^earning and knowledge. He
explored all the learning of the classics, surveyed every political
structure, ancient and modern, and laid upon the altar of his country,
to guide and instruct us, the most profound contributions of philo
sophic thought that were ever presented to a people. We have had a
Marshall, whose capacious judicial intellect was equal to Mansfield's,
who in his calm and patient investigations of the judgment seat could
by the glance of his great mind dissolve and disentangle the most
complicated controversies and separate, with the precision of a mathe
matician, the higher outlines of truth and justice from the dark
shadows of falsehood and error. We have had a Jefferson, whose
inspirations of liberty were drawn frora the purest sources of human
rights, whose great heart was always in sympathy with the wants and
feelings of the people, and whose political philosophy consisted in
drawing every support for government frora the virtue and intelli
gence of those for whom it was created. We have had a Clay,
ardent, eloquent, and practical. He could invest the dullest subject
with the animation and cheerfulness, attractions of his own bright
genius. He lived in the hearts of his devoted followers, but there
was such a vast amount of Promethean fire in his burning words
that it was impossible for them to retain their interest with which he
inspired them after the heat and magnetism of his voice had subsided.
And we had a Calhoun, the master of severe logic, pure and inflexi
ble. His austerity resembled that of Pitt, of whom Grattan has said
that even Majesty itself felt abashed and embarrassed by the pres
ence of his towering superiority. Patriotic and devoted to his own
maxims of government, he was the only real antagonist Mr. Web
ster ever met. The time at last came when the fate of the Consti
tution was to be put to the test of the highest argument under the
searching logic of these great masters of reason. The arena of con
flict was the Senate of the United States.
All the doubts and uncertainties created by nearly half a century
of controversy respecting the true character of the Government were
to be cleared away by this decisive debate. One of the States of the
Union had made an issue with the General Government which in
volved every principle which secured the perpetuity of the Union.
The fate of an empire the most interesting the sun ever shone upon

was trembling in the balance. The immortal Jackson, anxious but
intrepid, was at ^e head of the State. His native State was in
arms against the authority of^tha Union, and upon him devolved the
trying duty of deciding betwt^ the arguments which were to settle
the momentous controversy. The advocates finished their work.
It was performed in a manner that would have reflected honor on
the most renowned orators of antiquity. That debate settled for all
time the character of our Government. Had Jackson adopted the
argument of Mr. Calhoun, no power on earth could have prevented
the disintegration of the Union. But he decided the case in favor
of Mr. Webster and his country. The proclamation of the great
President went forth, and in every line is corapressed the argument
of the great advocate of the Union. The world never furnished
such a spectacle of impartial action. And if we are permitted to
draw inspiration from the great transactions of that da)', let us with
the great examples before us revive the confidence and patriotism
which were exhibited when a Northern Senator plead successfully
the cause of the Union and the Constitution before a Southern Pres
ident. Now that the great controversy to which Mr. Webster de
voted his life has been settled in favor of his argument, both in the
forum of reason and by the bloody wager of battle, and while honor
ing his memory for the great services he rendered his country, let us
banish, as he did, all unworthy feeling of passion and prejudice for
or against any section of our great country, and imitate his example
by the exhibition of a fraternal spirit and our devotion to the Consti
tution and the Union.

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