of personal government, where right constitutional principles would
cease to have existence, as well as cease to have authority.

There is one passage in his oration at the completion of the Bunker Hill
Monument, which may be quoted as an illustration of his power of compact
statement, and which, at the same time, may save readers from the
trouble of reading many excellent histories of the origin and progress
of the Spanish dominion in America, condensing, as it does, all which
such histories can tell us in a few smiting sentences. "Spain," he says,
"stooped on South America, like a vulture on its prey. Every thing was
force. Territories were acquired by fire and sword. Cities were
destroyed by fire and sword. Hundreds of thousands of human beings fell
by fire and sword. Even conversion to Christianity was attempted by fire
and sword." One is reminded, in this passage, of Macaulay's method of
giving vividness to his confident generalization of facts by emphatic
repetitions of the same form of words. The repetition of "fire and
sword," in this series of short, sharp sentences, ends in forcing the
reality of what the words mean on the dullest imagination; and the
climax is capped by affirming that "fire and sword" were the means by
which the religion of peace was recommended to idolaters, whose
heathenism was more benignant, and more intrinsically Christian, than
the military Christianity which was forced upon them.

And then, again, how easily Webster's imagination slips in, at the end
of a comparatively bald enumeration of the benefits of a good
government, to vitalize the statements of his understanding!
"Everywhere," he says, "there is order, everywhere there is security.
Everywhere the law reaches to the highest, and reaches to the lowest, to
protect all in their rights, and to restrain all from wrong; and over
all hovers liberty,--that liberty for which our fathers fought and fell