For myself, I believe there is no limit fit to be assigned to it by the human mind, because I find at work everywhere, on both sides of the Atlantic, under various forms and degrees of restriction on the one hand, and under various degrees of motive and stimulus on the other hand, in these branches of a common race, the great principle of the freedom of human thought, and the respectability of individual character.  I find everywhere an elevation of the character of man as man, an elevation of the individual as a component part of society.  I find everywhere a rebuke of the idea, that the many are made for the few, or that government is any thing but an agency for mankind.  And I care not beneath what zone, frozen, temperate, or torrid; I care not of what complexion, white or brown; I care not under what circumstances of climate or cultivation,—­if I can find a race of men on an inhabitable spot of earth whose general sentiment it is, and whose general feeling it is, that government is made for man,—­man, as a religious, moral, and social being,—­and not man for government, there I know that I shall find prosperity and happiness.

Gentlemen, I forbear from these remarks.  I recur with pleasure to the sentiment which I expressed at the commencement of my observations.  I repeat the gratification which I feel at having been referred to on this occasion by a distinguished member of the mercantile profession; and without detaining you further, I beg to offer as a sentiment,—­

“The mercantile interest of the United States, always and everywhere friendly to a united and free government.”

     Mr. Webster sat down amid loud and repeated applause; and
     immediately after, at the request of the President, rose and
said:—­#/

Gentlemen, I have the permission of the President to call your attention to the circumstance that a distinguished foreigner is at the table to-night, Mr. Aldham; a gentleman, I am happy to say, of my own hard-working profession, and a member of the English Parliament from the great city of Leeds.  A traveller in the United States, in the most unostentatious manner, he has done us the honor, at the request of the Society, to be present to-night.  I rise, Gentlemen, to propose his health.  He is of that Old England of which I have been speaking; of that Old England with whom we had some fifty years ago rather a serious family quarrel,—­terminated in a manner, I believe, not particularly disadvantageous to either of us.  He will find in this, his first visit to our country, many things to remind him of his own home, and the pursuits in which he is engaged in that home.  If he will go into our courts of law, he will find those who practise there referring to the same books of authority, acknowledging the same principles, discussing the same subjects which he left under discussion in Westminster Hall.  If he go into our public assemblies, he will find the same rules of procedure—­possibly