But all this failed.  The next resort was to supposed correspondence.  My letters were sought for, to learn if, in the confidence of private friendship, I had ever said any thing which an enemy could make use of.  With this view, the vicinity of my former residence has been searched, as with a lighted candle.  New Hampshire has been explored, from the mouth of the Merrimack to the White Hills.  In one instance a gentleman had left the State, gone five hundred miles off, and died.  His papers were examined; a letter was found, and I have understood it was brought to Washington; a conclave was held to consider it, and the result was, that, if there was nothing else against Mr. Webster, the matter had better be let alone.  Sir, I hope to make everybody of that opinion who brings against me a charge of want of patriotism.  Errors of opinion can be found, doubtless, on many subjects; but as conduct flows from the feelings which animate the heart, I know that no act of my life has had its origin in the want of ardent love of country.

Sir, when I came to Congress, I found the honorable gentleman a leading member of the House of Representatives.  Well, Sir, in what did we differ?  One of the first measures of magnitude, after I came here, was Mr. Dallas’s[1] proposition for a bank.  It was a war measure.  It was urged as being absolutely necessary to enable government to carry on the war.  Government wanted revenue; such a bank, it was hoped, would furnish it; and on that account it was most warmly pressed and urged on Congress.  You remember all this, Mr. President.  You remember how much some persons supposed the success of the war and the salvation of the country depended on carrying that measure.  Yet the honorable member from South Carolina opposed this bill.  He now takes to himself a good deal of merit, none too much, but still a good deal of merit, for having defeated it.  Well, Sir, I agreed with him.  It was a mere paper bank; a machine for fabricating irredeemable paper.  It was a new form for paper money; and instead of benefiting the country, I thought it would plunge it deeper and deeper in difficulty.  I made a speech on the subject; it has often been quoted.  There it is; let whoever pleases read and examine it.  I am not proud of it for any ability it exhibits; on the other hand, I am not ashamed of it for the spirit which it manifests.  But, Sir, I say again that the gentleman himself took the lead against this measure, this darling measure of the administration.  I followed him; if I was seduced into error, or into unjustifiable opposition, there sits my seducer.

What, Sir, were other leading sentiments or leading measures of that day?  On what other subjects did men differ?  The gentleman has adverted to one, and that a most important one; I mean the navy.  He says, and says truly, that at the commencement of the war the navy was unpopular.  It was unpopular with his friends, who then controlled the politics of the country.  But he says he differed with his friends; in this respect he resisted party influence and party connection, and was the friend and advocate of the navy.  Sir, I commend him for it.  He showed his wisdom.  That gallant little navy soon fought itself into favor, and showed that no man who had placed reliance on it had been disappointed.