Excerpt from Mr. Webster's Vindication of the Treaty of Washington of 1842: In a Speech Delivered in the Senate of the United States, on the 6th and 7th April, 1846 Mr. Webster rose and said: It is altogether unexpected to me, Mr. President, to find it to be my duty, here, and at this time, to defend the treaty of Washington of 1842, and the correspondence accompanying the negotiation of that treaty. It is a past transaction. Four years have almost elapsed since the treaty received the sanction of the Senate, and became the law of the land. While before the Senate, it was discussed with much earnestness and very great ability. For its ratification, it received the votes of five-sixths of the whole Senate - a greater majority, I believe I may say, than was ever before found for any disputed treaty. From that day to this - although I had had a hand in the negotiation of the treaty, and felt it to be a transaction with which my own reputation was intimately connected, I have been willing to leave it to the judgment of the nation. There were, it is true, sir, some things of which I have not complained, and do not complain, but which, nevertheless, were subjects of regret. The papers accompanying the treaty were voluminous. Their publication was long delayed, waiting for the exchange of ratifications; and, when finally published, they were not distributed to any great extent, or in large numbers. The treaty, meantime, got before the public surreptitiously, and, with the documents, came out by piece-meal. We know that it is unhappily true, that away from the large commercial cities of the Atlantic coast, there are few of the public prints of the country which publish official papers on such an occasion at large. I might have felt a natural desire, that the treaty and the correspondence could have been known and read by every one of my fellow-citizens, from East to West, and from North to South. But it was impossible. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.