BOUNDARIES OF TEXAS.

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On entering the second time the department of state, Mr. Webster had no great amount of labor to perform in looking up the condition of our relations to other countries. All these relations he understood as well as any other citizen of the country; and his predecessor had left no chronic difficulties, such as the secretary had found in the department when in office under Mr. Tyler, to embarrass him in the discharge of his regular duties. The controversy between New Mexico and Texas, in respect to boundary, which Mr. Webster had urged congress to settle by legislation, was still pending; and he had scarcely taken possession of his department, when his attention was called to a letter from the Hon. P. H. Bell, governor of Texas, to President Taylor, asking information in relation to the nature and limits of the military authority, which, by the advice and direction of General Taylor, had been extended over that part of New Mexico claimed by Texas. Had Mr. Webster's advice as a senator been followed, such a question could not have existed; but, it being now on hand, he addresses himself to it with his customary candor and ability. He takes the ground that the authority set up over New Mexico was mili tary, because that province came into our possession by military conquest; that it would continue, of course, only so long as New Mexico should continue to be without a form of government authorized by congress; and that, until such a government should be established, the question of boundaries between the province and the state would remain unchanged, so far as anything done or to be done either by Texas or New Mexico could be supposed to affect the subject. The authority now exercised in New Mexico would be maintained; but in relation to the question of boundary, which was a question for congress to decide, the president had no duty and conse quently no concern.

On the 30th of September, 1850, the Chevalier J. G. Hülse mann, chargé d'affaires of his majesty, the emperor of Austria,

addressed an official note to the secretary of state of the United States, remonstrating, in the name of his government, against the mission of Mr. Dudley Mann, who, at the time of the Hungarian revolution, had been despatched by the American president to proceed to Austria for the purpose of obtaining and remitting to Washington authentic and reliable information, from time to time, in relation to that interesting struggle. Mr. Mann had been so prudent in his movements, while residing and traveling in Austria, that the first intelligence of his having been there at all was received by the imperial government from a message of the American president to his congress. This fact alone should have been sufficient proof, even to Austria, as it must have been to all other governments, that nothing injurious had been done to the authority of the emperor in his dominions; but the object of that mission, the seeking of information with a view to an early recognition of Hungarian independence, especially when honestly avowed by Mr. Fillmore, roused the ire of the imperial Francis Joseph, who, like a youthful Hotspur as he was, demanded an immediate acknowledgment, on our part, with something like a guaranty of better behavior for the future. Not only was the topic of the note of the chargé ridiculous, but the style of it was almost silly; and the whole demand, both as to matter and manner, only excited the risibilities of Mr. Webster.

His answer has been ascribed, at least in the gossip of the day, to Mr. Everett; the newspapers, in fact, have published a claim as set up by that gentleman to the authorship of this performance; but, if there is not a plain mistake somewhere, there is certainly no sufficient proof of any such paternity, or of any just claim to it; while the fact of its having been for four years universally ascribed to Mr. Webster, and even lauded by Mr. Everett as one of Mr. Webster's most happy efforts, leaves no great reason to doubt upon this subject. Were it even true, that Mr. Webster was ill at the time the letter to Mr. Hülse

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mann was composed; that Mr. Everett may have been em
ployed by Mr. Webster to write out a draft of it; and that
that draft, in Mr. Everett's own hand, is still extant—all this
would do but little toward confirming the authorship to Mr.
Everett. Let it be granted, indeed, that the American secre
tary, sick at home, availed himself of the help of his distin-
guished friend; that he talked over the subject, as he was cer-
tainly able and would scarcely fail to do, iten by item, with
him; and that those items, thus matured, were then actually
written down by him, to be afterwards revised and corrected,
as is known to be the fact, by Mr. Webster. If all this ser
vice, and a great deal more, would transfer authorship from
the original mind to an assistant, however distinguished that
assistant might be himself for talents, the world would at once
have to make out a new list of authors, which would dispossess
the greatest geniuses of all times of the titles by which they
have held their fame. Shakspeare, by such a canon, would
cease to be Shakspeare; and, by the same rule, Paradise Lost
would be set down as written, not by Milton, but by Milton's
daughters. But there is no room even for such a supposition,
nor for such an argument. "The correspondence with the
Austrian chargé d'affaires," says Mr. Everett, in his brief but
summary biography of Mr. Webster, "is the worthy comple
ment, after an interval of a quarter of a century, to the pro-
found discussion of international politics contained in the speech
of January, 1824, on the revolution of Greece, and that of 1826,
on the
congress of Panama." This is Mr. Everett's eulogium
on the letter; and he certainly could have uttered no higher
one, as he well knew, than to compare it with either of the two
illustrious speeches, which, for everything constituting master-
pieces, have been but seldom equaled even by Mr. Webster;
nor is it at all supposable, that such a citizen as Edward Eve-
rett, hitherto so disingenuous in all his conduct, at least so
praised for every noble trait of character, would stoop so low

VOL. I.

S

28

as to claim another man's work, or load with eu.ogy an effort of his own.

This reply to Hülsemann, therefore, whatever may have been the circumstances of its composition, must now go down to future generations, as the work, the undoubted work, in every respect really affecting authorship, of Mr. Webster; and it is undeniably, in every way, though not the ablest of his perform. ances, a production worthy of his genius. It was at once greatly celebrated. Not only by the newspapers of the day, but by several historical and authentic publications, the American public had just been put in possession of very perfect information in respect to the origin, progress, and results of the Hungarian revolution; and, on the appearance of the secretary's answer, they were well prepared to understand its arguments and its allusions, whose point would otherwise have been lost upon them. His main position, that the emperor of Austria had no right to complain of this government for being friendly to struggles similar to that by which we had established the liberty and happiness of this country, was as conclusive as it was patriotic; and his retort, that the very complaint, founded on an avowal of the American president to his own congress, of an unjustifiable interference on our part with the internal affairs of a foreign government, was itself just such an act of improper interference, though obvious enough, was of a character to give infinite delight to the masses of our people; but when they read those passages, in which the secretary magni fies his native land, "in comparison with which the possessions of the house of Hapsburg are but as a patch on the earth's surface," which, consequently, could not dream of deterring "either the government or the people of the United States from exercising, at their own discretion, the rights belonging to them as an independent nation, and of forming and expressing their own opinions, freely and at all times," their enthusiasm over passed all ordinary bounds. The whole communication, in

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437

fact, though not to be compared with the secretary's letter to Lord Ashburton on impressment, and to several other of his productions, carried in it the elements of very great popularity, and rose immediately to an extraordinary celebrity, both in this country and in Europe. It was translated into the German language; and thousands of copies of it are said to have been surreptitiously circulated even in the Austrian dominions. In this country, it is really humiliating to add, this simple communication, to which Mr. Webster could have attached no great importance, which was the production of a playful mo ment, and which cost him not half the labor of thought be stowed on some individual pages of his acknowledged masterpieces, was seized upon by superficial people, prior to the suc ceeding presidential nomination, as a chief reason for making him the next president of the republic! An office which had not been gained by a long life of services the most illustrious, but which could be won or offered on terms so cheap and by merit so comparatively shallow, could scarcely be coveted by any high-minded man, and would certainly be beneath the dig nity of such a citizen as Daniel Webster! A people, who could make the choice of their first magistrate rest on such a basis, on the writing of a letter, would be on a par with the nation that should suspend the same interest on the fortune of a battle, and, in either case, would not fail to meet the curse of being ruled by the most unworthy and inferior of their number!

For several years preceding these events, in consequence of the great extension of our country, the capitol at Washington had been felt by congress, and by all visitors, to be too small for the purposes of so great a nation; and, conse quently, on the 30th of September, 1850, an act was passed by both houses, making provision for the enlargement of the edifice according to such plan as might receive the approval of the president. The work was to be undertaken and carried on under his direction; and, therefore, early in his administration,