des 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
pursui