at that time also by the eloquence of a representative of Massachusetts.
Mr. Webster showed the nature of the Panama Congress, defended its objects
and the policy of the administration, and made a full and fine exposition
of the intent of the "Monroe doctrine." The speech was an important and
effective one. It exhibited in an exceptional way Mr. Webster's capacity
for discussing large questions of public and constitutional law and foreign
policy, and was of essential service to the cause which he espoused. It was
imbued, too, with that sentiment of national unity which occupied a larger
space in his thoughts with each succeeding year, until it finally pervaded
his whole career as a public man.

At the second session of the same Congress, after a vain effort to confer
upon the country the benefit of a national bankrupt law, Mr. Webster was
again called upon to defend the Executive in a much more heated conflict
than that aroused by the Panama resolution. Georgia was engaged in
oppressing and robbing the Creek Indians, in open contempt of the treaties
and obligations of the United States. Mr. Adams sent in a message reciting
the facts and hinting pretty plainly that he intended to carry out the laws
by force unless Georgia desisted. The message was received with great wrath
by the Southern members. They objected to any reference to a committee, and
Mr. Forsyth of Georgia declared the whole business to be "base and
infamous," while a gentleman from Mississippi announced that Georgia would
act as she pleased. Mr. Webster, having said that she would do so at her
peril, was savagely attacked as the organ of the administration, daring to
menace and insult a sovereign State. This stirred Mr. Webster, although
slow to anger, to a determination to carry through the reference at all
hazards. He said:--

"He would tell the gentleman from Georgia that if there were rights
of the Indians which the United States were bound to protect, that