Daniel Webster to Messrs. Richards and others, March 21, 1851

Washington, March 21, 1851.

GENTLEMEN,—On the receipt of letter of the 14th of February, I deemed it advisable to postpone an answer until the carriage, harness, and horses should arrive here. They came on, and were received, all sound and in good order, in the early part of this month. Unfortunately, I failed as well at my own house as at other places, in various attempts to see Mr. Wood, who brought on the carriage, so that I only had one short interview with him; and the pressure of affairs at the breaking up of Congress, and until the final adjournment of the Senate, has obliged me to put off until to-morrow, every thing not absolutely necessary to be done to-day.

And now, gentlemen, I have to thank you for your costly and handsome present. The carriage itself is thought to be as elegant as any ever seen in the country. It appears to be of exquisite workmanship, and is rich without being gaudy. It is very commodious, and its motion pleasant and agreeable.

The horses attached to the carriage are, I think, quite worthy of it. They are certainly uncommonly handsome, and their travelling and action very fine. On the whole, gentlemen, I rather fear that this equipage is too splendid and superb for a plain farmer of Marshfield; but as it has been your pleasure to make me so very valuable a gift, I accept it with all thankfulness, and shall always regard it as the measure, not of my merit, but of your bounty and munificence.

But, gentlemen, I am more deeply your debtor for the estimation in which you are pleased to hold my public services in the counsels of the country. If I have attempted to expound the Constitution, I have attempted to expound that which I have studied with diligence and veneration from my early manhood to the present day. If I have endeavored to defend and uphold the Union of the States, it is because my fixed judgment and my unalterable affections have impelled me, and still impel me, to regard that Union as the only security for general prosperity and national glory. Yes, gentlemen, the Constitution and the Union! I place them together. If they stand, they must stand together; if they fall they must fall together. They are the images which present to every American his surest reliance, and his brightest hopes. If they perish in my day or afterwards, I shall still leave, in the history of the times, my own deep, heartfelt and engrossing conviction that they are among the greatest political blessings ever bestowed by Providence on man; and that if, in any course of disastrous events, such as may happen to all human institutions, they should become severed and broken, even their history and their memories will constitute a track of light, upon which all lovers of human liberty, in after

times, may gaze with admiration. Yes, gentlemen! Union and the Constitution!

"Fortunati ambo! Si quid mea carmina possunt

Nulla dies unquam memori vos eximet ævo.

Dum domus Æneæ Capitoli immobile saxum

Accolet, imperiumque pater Romanus habebit."

I was not unaware, gentlemen, on the morning of the 7th of March last year, that I was entering upon a duty which, as you suggest, might bring into peril that favor which has been long shown me by that political party whose general principles I had for a long time steadily maintained. A crisis had arrived in which it did not become me, as I thought, to be indifferent and to do nothing. Still less did it become me to act a part which should inflame sectional animosities and tend to destroy all genuine American feeling, and shake the fabric of the government to its foundation. I was willing to trust and am still willing to trust for the vindication of my motives, to the intelligent men of my party and of all parties. I should indeed have been wholly unworthy of that character, which it is my highest ambition to maintain among my countrymen, if I had allowed any personal peril to bear with the weight of a feather against my profound sense of public duty. Whatever may now happen, I shall meet it with a clear conscience, and a fixed purpose; and while acting in full coöperation with the great mass of our fellow citizens, who hold the same sentiments that you hold, I shall fear nothing.

I am, gentlemen, your obliged friend and fellow-citizen,

DANIEL WEBSTER.

Messrs. WM. M. RICHARDS, SAMUEL C. SPROULLS, CHARLES A. STETSON, CHARLES W. A. ROGERS.

SOURCE: Fletcher Webster, Editor, The Private Correspondence of Daniel Webster, Vol. 2, p. 423-5