His return to Congress was at once signalized by a great speech, which, although of no practical or immediate moment, deserves careful attention from the light which it throws on the workings of his mind and the development of his opinions in regard to his country.  The House had been in session but a few days when Mr. Webster offered a resolution in favor of providing by law for the expenses incident to the appointment of a commissioner to Greece, should the President deem such an appointment expedient.  The Greeks were then in the throes of revolution, and the sympathy for the heirs of so much glory in their struggle for freedom was strong among the American people.  When Mr. Webster rose on January 19, 1824, to move the adoption of the resolution which he had laid upon the table of the House, the chamber was crowded and the galleries were filled by a large and fashionable audience attracted by the reputation of the orator and the interest felt in his subject.  His hearers were disappointed if they expected a great rhetorical display, for which the nature of the subject and the classic memories clustering about it offered such strong temptations.  Mr. Webster did not rise for that purpose, nor to make capital by an appeal to a temporary popular interest.  His speech was for a wholly different purpose.  It was the first expression of that grand conception of the American Union which had vaguely excited his youthful enthusiasm.  This conception had now come to be part of his intellectual being, and then and always stirred his imagination and his affections to their inmost depths.  It embodied the principle from which he never swerved, and led to all that he represents and to all that his influence means in our history.

As the first expression of his conception of the destiny of the United States as a great and united nation, Mr. Webster was, naturally, “more fond of this child” than of any other of his intellectual family.  The speech itself was a noble one, but it was an eloquent essay rather than a great example of the oratory of debate.  This description can in no other case be applied to Mr. Webster’s parliamentary efforts, but in this instance it is correct, because the occasion justified such a form.  Mr. Webster’s purpose was to show that, though the true policy of the United States absolutely debarred them from taking any part in the affairs of Europe, yet they had an important duty to perform in exercising their proper influence on the public opinion of the world.  Europe was then struggling with the monstrous principles of the “Holy Alliance.”  Those principles Mr. Webster reviewed historically.  He showed their pernicious tendency, their hostility to all modern theories of government, and their especial opposition to the principles of American liberty.  If the doctrines of the Congress of Laybach were right and could be made to prevail, then those of America were wrong and the systems of popular government adopted in the United States were doomed.  Against such