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INTRODUCTORY NOTE.

On his journey from Buffalo to New York, Mr. Webster received, before reaching Albany, the following letter of invitation:

"SIR,-The subscribers, having learned that you will probably pass through our city early in the ensuing week, respectfully request an opportunity for our citizens generally, irrespective of party, and especially the young men of Albany, to testify their admiration of your character and talents as an American statesman, and their high appreciation of your public services in the councils of the nation.

They therefore respectfully invite you to partake with them of a dinner at Congress Hall, on the day of your arrival, or such other day as may suit your convenience.

"They beg leave to add, that, if your health will permit you to address our citizens at the Capitol, it would afford them great gratification to hear your views upon public affairs and the general condition of the country.

"Albany, May 24, 1851."

This letter was signed by a large number of the most respectable citizens of Albany, without distinction of party.

The invitation having been accepted by Mr. Webster, arrangements were made for a public reception on the day of his arrival. A platform was erected near the Capitol, to which, at two o'clock, P. M., on the 28th of May, he was conducted by Messrs. Price and Porter, of the committee of the young men of Albany. Mr. Webster was introduced to the immense assembly by Hon. John C. Spencer, and, after the acclamation with which he was received had subsided, delivered the following speech.

The revised edition of the speech, in a pamphlet form, was introduced by the following

DEDICATION.

то

THE YOUNG MEN OF ALBANY,

THIS SPEECH,

DELIVERED AT THEIR REQUEST,

IS MOST RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED.

"COGITETIS OMNEM DIGNITATEM VESTRAM CUM REPUBLICA CONJUNCTAM ESSE DEBERE, UNA NAVIS EST JAM BONORUM OMNIUM; QUAM QUIDEM NOS DAMUS OPERAM, UT RECTAM TENEAMUS. UTINAM PROSPERO CURSU. SED QUICUNQUE VENTI ERUNT ARS NOSTRA CERTE NON

ABERIT."

SPEECH TO THE YOUNG MEN OF ALBANY.*

FELLOW-CITIZENS,-I owe the honor of this occasion, and I esteem it an uncommon and extraordinary honor, to the young men of this city of Albany, and it is my first duty to express to these young men my grateful thanks for the respect they have manifested towards me. Nevertheless, young men of Albany, I do not mistake you, or your object, or your purpose. I am proud to take to myself whatever may properly belong to me, as a token of personal and political regard on your part. But I know, young men of Albany, it is not I, but the cause; it is not I, but your own generous attachments to your country; it is not I, but the Constitution of the Union, which has bound together your ancestors and mine, and all of us, for more than half a century, it is this that has brought you here to-day, to testify your regard toward one who, to the best of his humble ability, has sustained that cause before the country. Go on, young men of Albany! Go on, young men of the United States! Early manhood is the chief prop and support, the great reliance and hope, for the preservation of public liberty and the institutions of the land. Early manhood is ingenuous, generous, just. It looks forward to a long life of honor or dishonor, and it means that it shall, by the blessing of God, be a life of honor, of usefulness, and success, in all the professions and pursuits of life, and that it shall close, when close it must, with some claim to the gratitude of the country. Go on, then; uphold the institutions under which you were born. You are manly and bold. You fear nothing but to do wrong; dread nothing but to be found recreant to your country.

* Delivered on the 28th of May, 1851, at the Invitation of the Young Men of Albany, in the Public Square of the Capitol in that City.

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Gentlemen, I certainly had no expectation of appearing before such an assemblage as this to-day. It is not probable that, for a long time to come, I may again address any large meeting of my fellow-citizens. If I should not, and if this should be the last, or among the last, of all the occasions on which I am to appear before any great number of the people of the country, I shall not regret that that appearance was here. I find myself in the political capital of the greatest, most commercial, most powerful State of the Union. I find myself here by the invitation of persons of the highest respectability, without distinction of party. I consider the occasion as somewhat august. I know that among those who now listen to me there are some of the wisest, the best, the most patriotic, and the most experienced public and private men in the State of New York. Here are governors and ex-governors, here are judges and ex-judges, of high character and high station; and here are persons from all the walks of professional and private life, distinguished for talent, and virtue, and eminence. Fellow-citizens, before such an assemblage, and on such an invitation, I feel bound to guard every opinion and every expression; to speak with precision such sentiments as I advance, and to be careful in all that I say, that I may not be misapprehended or misrepresented.

I am requested, fellow-citizens, by those who invited me, to express my sentiments on the state of public affairs in this country, and the interesting questions which are before us. This proves, Gentlemen, that in their opinion there are questions sometimes arising which range above all party, and all the influences and considerations and interests of party. It proves more; it proves that, in their judgment, this is a time in which public affairs rise in importance above the range of party, and draw to them an interest paramount to all party considerations. If this be not so, I am here without objeet, and you are listening to me for no purpose whatever.

Then, Gentlemen, what is the condition of public affairs which makes it necessary and proper for men to meet, and confer together on the state of the country? What are the questions which are transcending, subduing, and overwhelming party, inciting honest, well-meaning persons to lay party aside, and to meet and confer for the general weal? I shall, of course, not enter at large into many of these questions, nor into any length

ened discussion of the state of public affairs, but shall endeavor in general to state what that condition is, what those questions are, and to pronounce a conscientious judgment of my own upon the whole.

The last Congress, fellow-citizens, passed laws called adjustment measures, or settlement measures; laws intended to put an end to certain internal and domestic controversies existing in the country, and some of which had existed for a long time. These laws were passed by the constitutional majorities of both houses of Congress. They received the constitutional approbation of the President. They are the laws of the land. To some or all of them, indeed to all of them, at the time of their passage, there existed warm and violent opposition. None of them passed without heated discussion. Government was established in each of the Territories of New Mexico and Utah, but not without opposition. The boundary of Texas was settled by compromise with that State, but not without determined and earnest resistance. These laws all passed, however, and, as they have now become, from the nature of the case, irrepealable, it is not necessary that I should detain you by discussing their merits or demerits. Nevertheless, Gentlemen, I desire, on this and all public occasions, in the clearest and most emphatic manner, to declare, that I hold some of these laws, and especially that which provided for the adjustment of the controversy with Texas, to have been essential to the preservation of the public peace.

I will not now argue that point, nor lay before you at length the circumstances which existed at that time; the peculiar situation of things in so many of the Southern States; the fact that many of those States had adopted measures for the separation of the Union; or the fact that Texas was preparing to assert her claims to territory which New Mexico thought was hers by right, and that hundreds and thousands of men, tired of the ordinary pursuits of private life, were ready to rise and unite in any enterprise that might offer itself to them, even at the risk of a direct conflict with the authority of this government. I say, therefore, without going into the argument with any detail, that in March of 1850, when I found it my duty to address Congress on these important topics, it was my conscientious belief, and it still remains unshaken, that if the controversy with

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