re, and supplemented it
by another against the interference of Spain in South America. A stormy
debate followed, vivified by the flings and taunts of John Randolph, but
the unwillingness to take action was so great that Mr. Webster did not
press his resolution to a vote. He had at the outset looked for a practical
result from his resolution, and had desired the appointment of Mr. Everett
as commissioner, a plan in which he had been encouraged by Mr. Calhoun, who
had given him to understand that the Executive regarded the Greek mission
with favor. Before he delivered his speech he became aware that Calhoun had
misled him, that Mr. Adams, the Secretary of State, considered Everett too
much of a partisan, and that the administration was wholly averse to any
action in the premises. This destroyed all hope of a practical result, and
made an adverse vote certain. The only course was to avoid a decision and
trust to what he said for an effect on public opinion. The real purpose of
the speech, however, was achieved. Mr. Webster had exposed and denounced
the Holy Alliance as hostile to the liberties of mankind, and had declared
the unalterable enmity of the United States to its reactionary doctrines.
The speech was widely read, not only wherever English was spoken, but it
was translated into all the languages of Europe, and was circulated
throughout South America. It increased Mr. Webster's fame at home and laid
the foundation of his reputation abroad. Above all, it stamped him as a
statesman of a broad and national cast of mind.

He now settled down to hard and continuous labor at the routine business
of the House, and it was not until the end of March that he had occasion to
make another elaborate and important speech. At that time Mr. Clay took up
the bill for laying certain protective duties and advocated it strenuously
as part of a general and steady policy which he then christened with the
name of "the American system." Against this bill, known as the tariff of
1824, Mr. Webster made, as Mr. Adams wrote in his diary at the time, "an
able and powerful speech," which can be more properly considered when we
come to his change of position on this question a few years later.

As chairman of the Judiciary Committee, the affairs of the national courts
were his particular care. Western expansion demanded an increased number of
judges for the circuits, but, unfortunately, decisions in certain recent
cases had offended the sensibilit