ebster began contributing to the "Connecticut Courant," published in
Hartford, as early as 1780, his first contribution being some remarks on
Benedict Arnold's letter of October 7th to the inhabitants of America.
He wrote again the next week on Arnold's treason, and for the next four
or five years was an occasional contributor upon subjects of finance,
banking, the pay of soldiers, congressional action, events of the war,
and copyright. "In 1783," he writes of himself, "the discontents in
Connecticut, excited by an opposition to the grant of five years' extra
pay to the officers of the army, became alarming, and two thirds of the
towns sent delegates to a convention in Middletown to devise measures to
prevent the resolve of Congress from being carried into execution. I
then commenced my career as a political writer, devoting weeks and
months to support the resolves of Congress.... Of the discontents in
Connecticut in 1783, which threatened a commotion, there is no account
in any of the histories of the United States,--not even in
Marshall's,--except a brief account in my history; the present
generation being entirely ignorant of the events. The history of this
whole period, from the peace of 1783 to the adoption of the
Constitution, is, in all the histories for schools, except mine, a
barren, imperfect account; although it was a period of great anxiety,
when it was doubtful whether anarchy or civil war was to be our
fate."[10]

This was written in 1838, when Webster was eighty years old. The
character of that interregnum of 1783-1789 is more generally recognized
now; and it is interesting to see how an old man, recalling his earliest
entrance into public life, emphasizes the service which he rendered upon
the side of good government. By early associations, and by the
predilections of a mind which inherited a large share of Anglo-Saxon
political sense, Webster was from the first a Federalist in politics. In
1785 he published a pamphlet entitled "Sketches of American Policy,"
which he always claimed was the first public plea for a government to
take the place of the Confederation, under which the war had been
carried on. He held a correspondence with Mr. Madison, in 1805, for the
purpose of substantiating this claim, since it had recently been
asserted that the federal government sprang from Hamilton's thought. Mr.
Madison very temperately and sensibly wrote to Webster:--

"The change in our government, like most other i