free trade as an abstract general principle, and there is no reason to suppose that he ever abandoned his belief on this point.  But he had too clear a mind ever to be run away with by the extreme vagaries of the Manchester school.  He knew that there was no morality, no immutable right and wrong, in an impost or a free list.  It has been the fashion to refer to Mr. Disraeli’s declaration that free trade was “a mere question of expediency” as a proof of that gentleman’s cynical indifference to moral principles.  That the late Earl of Beaconsfield had no deep convictions on any subject may be readily admitted, but in this instance he uttered a very plain and simple truth, which all the talk in the world about free trade as the harbinger and foundation of universal peace on earth, cannot disguise.

Mr. Webster never at any time treated the question of free trade or protection as anything but one of expediency.  Under the lead of Mr. Calhoun, in 1816, the South and West initiated a protective policy, and after twelve years it had become firmly established and New England had adapted herself to it.  Mr. Webster, as a New England representative, resisted the protective policy at the outset as against her interests, but when she had conformed to the new conditions, he came over to its support simply on the ground of expediency.  He rested the defence of his new position upon the doctrine which he had always consistently preached, that uniformity and permanency were the essential and sound conditions of any policy, whether of free trade or protection.  In 1828, neither at the dinner in Boston nor in the Senate, did he enter into any discussion of general principles or constitutional theories.  He merely said, in substance, You have chosen to make protection necessary to New England, and therefore I am now forced to vote for it.  This was the position which he continued to hold to the end of his life.  As he was called upon, year after year, to defend protection, and as New England became more and more wedded to the tariff, he elaborated his arguments on many points, but the essence of all he said afterwards is to be found in the speech of 1828.  On the constitutional point he was obliged to make a more violent change.  He held, of course, to his opinion that, under the revenue power, protection could be incidental only, because from that doctrine there was no escape.  But he dropped the condemnation expressed in 1814 and the doubts uttered in 1820 as to the theory that it was within the direct power of Congress to enact a protective tariff, and assumed that they had this right as one of the general powers in the Constitution, or that at all events they had exercised it, and that therefore the question was henceforward to be considered as res adjudicata.  The speech of 1828 marks the separation of Mr. Webster from the opinions of the old school of New England Federalism.  Thereafter he stood forth as the champion of the tariff and of the “American system” of Henry Clay.