old political parties, the Federalists and the Republicans, became intermingled, when old party issues vanished, and when new questions, or rather old questions in new shapes and relations, caused new groupings of men to be formed. In the confusion of the political and personal conflicts which characterized the so-called “era of good feeling,” and which immediately followed it, Webster became a supporter of the Administration of John Quincy Adams, and, as an old Federalist and conservative, was naturally attracted by that combination of political forces which subsequently organized itself as the Whig party.
In the House of Representatives he attracted the attention of the world abroad by a stinging philippic against the “Holy Alliance,” in a eulogy on the Greek revolution and by a sober exposition of the Monroe doctrine in a speech on the famous Panama mission. But his most remarkable achievement was an argument against Henry Clay's “American system,” tariff protection as a policy— the very policy which was destined to become the corner-stone of the Whig platform. Webster's free-trade speech—for so it may be called—summed up and amplified the views he had already expressed on previous occasions, in a presentation of fundamental principles so broad and clear, with a display of knowledge so rich and accurate and an analysis of facts and theories so keen and thorough, that it stands unsurpassed in our political literature, and may still serve as a text-book to students of economic science. But Clay's tariff was adopted nevertheless, and four years later Webster abandoned many of his own conclusions, on the ground that in the meantime New England, accepting protection as the established policy of the country, had invested much capital in manufacturing enterprises, the success of which depended upon the maintenance of the protective policy, and should therefore not be left in the lurch. For this reason he
