Town Hall Meeting: Daniel Webster

 My name is Daniel Webster, I am a lawyer, a statesman, and a Former United States Secretary of State. I was born in New Hampshire in 1782 and after moving to Boston, Massachusetts, in 1823, I became a U.S. Representative. I served as a U.S. representative for four years and then became a U.S. senator in 1827. After my fourteen years as a senator, I served as both the 14th and 19th U.S. secretary of state under Presidents John Tyler, William Henry Harrison, and Millard Fillmore. My persuasive arguments helped shape a large number of important decisions regarding federal power.  I was known to be the greatest public speaker of my time and was a founder of the Whig Party. However, before I was involved in politics, I was a salesman. After learning more about the economics of our country and seeing the different walks of life, I was convinced by my wealthy clients to get involved with the law. So after joining the Massachusetts bar practicing the law for several years in my home state of New Hampshire, I finally won political office in 1813.

 In one of the most famous cases that I was present in, McCulloch vs. Maryland (1824), John Marshall accepted my view that under the Constitution, Congress had the jurisdiction to "make all laws which shall be necessary and proper," including the chartering of the United States Bank, and that states such as Maryland could not tax any branches of that bank or any other institution under the federal government. Marshall even used one of my quotes to help support the defense of the bank. This quote being, "the power to tax involves the power to destroy." Hence suggesting that if we allow the states to have taxing power over any part of the federal government, we would inevitably be giving them the power to destroy it.

Slavery is a matter of historical reality not a moral principle. The issue of slavery's existence was settled long ago when Congress prohibited slavery in the territories in the Northwest Ordinance of 1787 and when the regions were divided into free states and slave states in 1820 through the Missouri Compromise. Although I agree that the free states should remain free, I believe that the slave states should be allowed to maintain the continuation of slavery. I also agree with the enforcement of the 1850 Fugitive Slave Act. In order to uphold the legitimacy of the Missouri Compromise, those who are in the free states should be expected to return any fugitive slaves back to the slave states. If both the free states and the slave states cannot work together to support both sides of the compromise, then is it really even worth having? If we cannot count on the states to do their parts then the only solution is to allow the federal government to have control over all of them and ensure national unity. "Liberty and Union, now and forever, one and inseparable."