*Craig R. Smith is professor of Communication Studies and Director of the Center for First Amendment Studies at California State University, Long Beach.

Braided Genres in the Anti-Imperialist Rhetoric of Daniel Webster
 American imperialist impulses may have first been sated when President Thomas Jefferson nearly doubled the size of the nation by purchasing the Louisiana Territory from Napoleon.  New ambitions for Canadian territory voiced by the "War Hawks" in Congress were blunted by the war of 1812.  By 1845, however, John O'Sullivan's call in the Democratic Review for America to follow its "manifest destiny" resonated through the newly victorious Democratic Party.  It was a crucial moment in American history.  If the march west could be stopped, questions of land use and the spread of slavery might be more easily resolved, California might become an independent nation, the Civil War might be avoided.  President James Knox Polk favored a war of expansion, the first the United States was to fight primarily on foreign soil, and the first to receive extensive media coverage.  However, his ambition did not go unchallenged.  The banner of anti-imperialism was raised by the Whig Party and vociferously championed by one of its most venerable leaders, Senator Daniel Webster of Massachusetts, who made the core of his appeal an attack on the war policy of the President.

The situation provides a definitive case study of anti-war rhetoric from the major out-party which qualifies as a braided genre since it exhibits a unique configuration of deliberative, epideictic, and forensic features that have surfaced throughout American and British public address (Jensen).  Furthermore, scholars have either ignored Webster's speeches on this subject or have mistakenly attributed an imperialist policy to him because they relied on later imperialist speakers who often quoted from Webster or accept certain southern characterizations of Webster as a Northern imperialist.  (Mills; Smith, 1989; Howell and Hudson).

 Consequently, this study has two purposes: to illustrate Webster's use of braided genres in his anti-war rhetoric, and to examine Webster's attack on the expansionist policy of President James K. Polk.  This analysis argues that Webster's credibility was enhanced during this period because of his past record of anti-imperialism.  Thus, to establish a context for the analysis of campaign of against the war with Mexico, it traces the roots of Webster's anti-imperialism in his public career.  Third, it analyzes four speeches delivered just before, during, and after the war with Mexico.  This study concludes by analyzing the matrix of genre and themes of Webster's campaign of persuasion to generate an assessment of this rhetorical technique.

Generic Analysis
For the purpose of analyzing rhetoric, this study accepts Aristotle's view that there are three major genre for public speeches, deliberative, epideictic, and forensic.  The Rhetoric demonstrates that each genre is defined by the role of the audience, the subject matter, the ends, and the time.  All three forms may appear in one speech or, as Aristotle notes, one form may mask another (1367b37-1368a10, 1368b10-20).  Centuries later the Rhetorica ad Herennium picks up the same theme when it notes that "in judicial and deliberative causes extensive sections are often devoted to praise or censure" (III.viii.15).  This sophisticated understanding of form has become a hallmark of rhetorical studies (see Conley; Dow and Tonn; Fisher; Lucas; Leff; Campbell and Jamieson; Simons and Aghazarian).

Another advance in genre studies came with the construction of various hybrids from various forms.  The apologia usually consists of both forensic and epideictic elements; apologists defend themselves while blaming others and sometimes praising themselves (Downey).  Sermons may condemn sin, praise the virtuous life, and call for a conversion in the future.  More relevant to this study, pro-war rhetoric has been characterized as generic (Reid; Ivie, 1974, 1972).  After the ensuing analysis, this study will conclude by speculating on the characteristics of an anti-war braided genre.
 Roots of Webster's Anti-War Rhetoric.

Webster's admiration for George Washington's admonition against foreign entanglements served Webster politically when Congress declared war on Great Britain on June 18, 1812.  On July 4, 1812 at Rockingham, Congressional candidate Daniel Webster spoke before a group of leading Federalists to protest United States' foreign policy.  On August 5, 1812, Webster delivered a forensic revision of the oration in which he censured the administration's prosecution of the war.  Within the month, Webster, in his role as delegate to the Federalist county convention, had developed his speech into a "memorial" to President Madison.  Soon after Webster was swept into the House of Representatives on a tide favorable to those who attacked "Mr. Madison's War."
  Webster continued his "peace-ticket" drum beat during the winter of 1813-14.  By September, 1814 America's morale hit bottom when the English fleet blockaded many prominent ports.  In October the Massachusetts General Court accepted Harrison Otis' call for a convention of New England states in Hartford, a convention which Webster supported on the floor of Congress.  Once in Hartford he marshalled support for a doctrine of interposition derived from Jefferson's and Madison's Virginia and Kentucky Resolves of 1798 and 99.  When Andrew Jackson scored a post-armistice victory over the British in New Orleans and strengthened the President's hand at the negotiating table, peace was achieved.  Republican-Democrats seized on the triumph and ridiculed the Hartford Convention.

Six years later, on the 200th anniversary of the founding of Plymouth Colony, Webster gave a speech in which he linked slavery and imperialism arguing that the blight of slavery would prevent America from reaching her destiny.  The braiding of epideictic, forensic and deliberative themes was repeated in speeches over the next ten years as Webster's anti-imperialist stance was vindicated by the machinations of France and Spain in the New World and the Holy Alliance in the Old.  This stance and his speaking over the next two decades reveal Webster to be more of regionalist than many have thought.   An examination of his tariff and land use policy, for example, show him to be the same provincial New Englander he had been in 1812.  His debates with Senators Hayne (1830) and Calhoun (1833) while couched in the rhetoric of "Union, one and in separable" are defenses of policies that benefit New England and damage the South economically.  Only three years later, as we shall see, Webster began attacking plans to annex Texas to the United States.  In short, Webster's anti-imperialism may be seen as a natural result of his isolationist thinking.
More evidence for his anti-imperialism can be found in his tenure as Secretary of State beginning 1841 where he demonstrated his penchant for negotiation over the use of force.  For example, in 1842 he negotiated the Treaty of Washington with Britain that resolved the Maine boundary dispute.  Later Webster tried to interest England, Mexico, and the Administration in a treaty that would settle the Oregon border dispute and cede the port of San Francisco to the United States.  When a renegade American Commodore captured Monterey, Webster forced him to give it back to the Mexicans and then offered to pay reparations to Mexico.  In these instances, Webster was guided by Edmund Burke's admonition, "That use of force alone is but temporary.  It may subdue for a moment, but it does not remove the necessity of subduing again; and a nation is not governed which perpetually must be conquered" (272).

In May of 1843, Webster resigned when he learned of Tyler's plan to annex Texas.  Webster's political stock hit bottom in June, when Tyler deserted the Whigs to return to the Democratic Party.  Webster's rebound began with the "Completion of the Bunker Hill Monument Address," which is important to this study because it features epideictic elements that establish a working definition of Webster's understanding of imperialism.  He touted the Anglo-Saxon race while comparing Latin America to the United States: "In all that vast region there are but one and two million people of European color and . . . blood, while in the United States there are fourteen million who rejoice in their descent from the people of the more northern part of Europe."  He warned the nation that its culture would not mix with that of the natives of the Mexican territories.

In 1845, Webster returned to the Senate while Polk was plotting war with Mexico, which had only been a free republic for a generation.  Webster was wary of imperialism for new reasons, not the least of which was that new states would threaten the delicate balance of power in the Senate thereby threatening New England.  When Mexico turned down money offers for California and New Mexico territory, and refused the Slidell mission, Polk ordered General Zachary Taylor's army to cross the Nueces River on January 13, 1846 and proceed to the Rio Grande.

Whigs argued that crossing the Nueces was violation of Mexican sovereignty.  In the Spring, however, legal technicalities were cast aside when Polk received word that Taylor's troops had come under attack while probing the Rio Grande valley, that some had been captured and seventeen had been killed (Blaine 63).  Polk sent an aggressive message to Congress in early May and launched into a justification for the war (Ivie, 1979).  On May 13, 1846, Webster was absent from the Senate, when it voted to declare war by a vote of 40 to 2.  Many of Webster's Whig compatriots voted for the war fearing that what happened to the Federalists after the War of 1812 would happen to them (Morrison 45).  The Whig-dominated Massachusetts legislature, however, passed a resolution proclaiming the war policy unconstitutional and a product of "slave power".  On February 2, 1848, Ambassador Nicholas Trist completed negotiations on the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo giving Polk most of what he wanted.  As in 1814, Webster found himself on the unpopular side of a war issue, his chances at the presidency damaged by his anti-war position.  Worse yet, Webster received word that his son had died of typhoid fever in Mexico after the treaty had been signed.

In 1848 Webster lost the Whig nomination to Zachary Taylor, one of the heroes of the war with Mexico.  Nonetheless, Webster was able to secure the vice presidential nomination for his protege' Millard Fillmore of New York.  Soon after Taylor's Inaugural, trouble broke out between the President and the Congress.  Like Tyler and Polk, Taylor wanted to solidify the newly expanded Union.  When gold was discovered in California, he sent messages to California and New Mexico territory to prepare for statehood as free states.  Since such questions were the province of the Committee on Territories, the Senate, particularly its Southern wing, was outraged.  As Webster attempted to promote Clay's compromise, he once again revealed his provincial nature, using Massachusetts as his example of the compromise might benefit the North (Arntson & Smith).  The situation became hopelessly deadlocked over the Compromise of 1850 until fate intervened.  The President's predilection for bourbon, cream, and cherries on a hot Fourth of July led to his death on July 9.  Fillmore became President and named Webster Secretary of State.
On July 17th, Webster's farewell to the Senate instructed his colleagues on how to pass the Compromise (Smith, 1985).  As Secretary of State, he drafted memoranda from Fillmore to leading senators, especially Stephen Douglas, who engineered the passage of the Compromise in September of 1850.  This was Webster's last great achievement.  When he was denied the nomination of his party in 1852 for yet another Mexican War general, he went home to Marshfield and died.

The Rhetorical Texts
To unravel the generic threads used to weave Webster's hybrid form of anti-war rhetoric, this study examines four texts drawn from Charles Wiltse's edition (355-476) because he has taken great care to provide authentic texts using footnotes to explain substitutions in various versions of the speeches.  These four speeches are some of the least changed by Webster after delivery because unlike other Webster's speeches, none of these was converted into a pamphlet for wider distribution.  The first concerns the "Admission of Texas," delivered on December 22, 1845.  The second is Webster's "Defense of the Treaty of Washington" of April 6th and 7th, 1846.  The third, delivered on March 1, 1847, focuses on "The Mexican War."  The final speech concerns "Objects of the Mexican War" and was delivered on March 23, 1848.

Webster had first officially opposed the annexation of Texas on the Ides of March, 1837 in a speech at Niblo's Saloon in New York City.  He had resigned as Secretary of State in May, 1843 to protest President Tyler's moves toward annexation of the Republic.  In January of 1844, he had Congressman Winthrop introduce resolutions in the House opposing annexation (Petersen  346).  Ironically, the initial success of Clay, Van Buren, and Webster in stopping the annexation treaty contributed to Van Buren's inability to secure the Democratic nomination later that year.  The genuine "Dark Horse," James Polk, a former Speaker of the House and governor of Tennessee, was selected on the ninth ballot.  The Democratic Party called for the taking of Oregon and the annexation of and statehood for Texas.  This platform inspired the slogan "manifest destiny" widely attributed to John O'Sullivan (Peterson 416).  Webster spoke on behalf of Clay throughout the campaign but was badly embarrassed when Clay's Alabama Letters were published implying that Clay supported Texas statehood.  That crisis plus the drain of votes from Clay to the Liberty Party was enough to provide Polk with a 40,000 vote victory.  Polk pledged and, when elected, succeeded in getting Texas admitted to the Union over Webster's opposition.  Mexico promptly broke off diplomatic relations with the United States.

By December of 1845, though Webster had lost the battle over Texas, he felt compelled to give a brief address reiterating his opposition and warning of the dire consequences to come.  Webster began by establishing that he had been a friend of the Texas Republic but consistently opposed to Texas statehood since 1837.  To reinforce his credibility, he extended three arguments from his earlier speeches.  They provided the columns around which Webster could braid various epideictic, deliberative, and forensic vines in order to honor the resolutions of instruction passed by the Massachusetts legislature (Wiltse 356).  Thus, the speech establishes once again that one of the roots of Webster's anti-imperialism was provincial loyalty.

First, the United States was the proper size in terms of geography for its 20,000,000 inhabitants; tampering with its boundaries threatened the Constitution: "There must be some limit to the extent of our territory, if we would make our institutions permanent" (Wiltse 357).  Webster's conservative plea is Burkian:  Imperialism threatens America's history and social fabric.  Acquisition of the vast Texas territory will undermine the Constitution, the document that organically constituted Webster's transcendent Union (Bartlett 166-67).  Thus, this argument is balanced on praise for and preservation of the Union, epideictic and deliberative themes.  Had Webster relied solely on one or the other, the argument would not be as compelling.

Second, in a shift to the forensic mode, Webster claimed that the "spirit of aggrandizement" would injure America's credibility abroad.  If the United States continued to acquire territory in unjust ways, it would violate its responsibility as a "republic" and suffer the condemnation of the community of nations.  However, this forensic note echoed Pericles' praise of just causes and noble goals in pursuit of deliberative ends.  It connotes both epideictic and deliberative themes.

   With his credibility established and his foes condemned, Webster issued a third argument, the most clearly deliberative and the lengthiest.  Webster opposed the admission of any state that allowed the ownership of slaves: "[T]he State proposing to come in should be required to remove that inequality by abolishing slavery, or take the alternative of being excluded" (Wiltse 358).  What was particularly galling to Webster was that the Texas constitution specifically stated that slavery could not be abolished unless "every master" consented and was compensated (Wiltse 359).  Thus, not only would slavery remain in perpetuity but the admission of a slave state would "derange the balance of the Constitution, and create inequality and unjust advantage against the North" (Wiltse 358).  Webster punctuated his point a few sentences later when he referred to this policy as "manifest inequality" and spoke of those "who have manifested a disposition to add Texas to the Union" (Wiltse 358).  In context hardly a senator could have missed the play on "manifest destiny."  Prescient about the 1850 crisis, Webster predicted that those Northern senators who voted for the admission of Texas would come to regret their action.  He concluded by dissenting for himself and the people of Massachusetts from the annexation and reaffirming his record "during the last eight years" (Wiltse 360).

This morning gun of Webster's campaign against acquisition of new territory put the President and the political establishment on notice that Webster, now returned to the Senate, intended to be a conscience for the Congress.  In that capacity, he would serve as a judge of policy whether that meant issuing epideictic, deliberative or forensic assessments.  More than that, he clearly established an anti-imperialist context for his anti-war rhetoric that would follow.

A little more than three months later, in April of 1846, Webster reinforced that context when he delivered a major apologia in which he wove anti-imperialist threads into his defense while engaging in an ostensibly forensic endeavor.  As Secretary of State under Tyler, Webster had negotiated a treaty with England ending the long and tangled Maine boundary dispute.  While most observers praised him for his work, a few, particularly Congressman Charles Ingersoll of Philadelphia, claimed Webster had given away too much.  Ingersoll initiated this charge in part because Democrats were annoyed by Webster's attacks on Polk with regard to his bellicose Oregon policy.  Webster tried to ignore the petty charges, but when they were re-issued before the House Foreign Affairs and repeated by Senator Daniel Dickinson of New York, Webster was obliged to reply.

The speech, which took up the better part of two days of business, features Webster's forensic prowess which was well known, as was his expertise in admiralty law.  Few, however, could predict wealth of evidence he would bring to this occasion.  Furthermore, given his training under Charles Haddock at Dartmouth, it is not surprising that Webster's defense of the Washington Treaty reflects Cicero's forensic style (Smith, 1989, 2).  Rhetorical questions kept the audience on track, and wit, ad hominem and biting sarcasm relieved the tedious and lengthy arguments.  However, it is Webster's ability to shift among the genres that give the speech its strength.  These shifts not only allow him to move from pragmatic to idealistic appeals but they allow him to generate more arguments than he would had he stuck with one form.  For example, in an epideictic turn, Webster played to the galleries when he attacked his chief accuser:

Sir, this person's mind is so grotesque, so bizarre -- it is rather the caricature of a mind, than a mind. . . .  [W]e sometimes apply to him a phrase borrowed from the mechanics.  We say, there is a screw loose, somewhere.  In this case, the screws are all loose all over.  The whole machine is out of order, disjointed, rickety, crazy, creaking, as often upside down as upside up. . . .(Wiltse 422).
While condemning others, Webster was not above praising himself, even in comparison with past presidents:  "[T]here were difficulties and obstacles in the way of this settlement, which had not been overcome under the administration of Washington, or the elder Adams, or Mr. Jefferson, or Mr. Madison, or Mr. Monroe, or Mr. John Quincy Adams, or General Jackson, or Mr. Van Buren" (Wiltse 385-86).  Webster implied he had succeeded where these noble lights failed.

The speech demonstrates that as Secretary of State Webster was dedicated to the enforcement of international law as part of the character of a decent republic (Wiltse 368).  Webster favored treaties which included arbitration provisions so that armed force would not be necessary when it came to enforcement (Wiltse 375-76, 382).  Webster endorsed the principle of equity as a means to achieve compromise (Wiltse 382).  He negotiated a settlement over the issue of impressing seamen:  "This declaration will stand . . . . because it announces the true principle of public law; because it announces the great doctrine of the equality and independence of nations upon the seas; and because it announces the determination  of the . . . United States to uphold those principles" (Wiltse 431).  And clearly, Webster was willing to give up territory rather than acquire it to achieve peace.  Most important, this treaty's provisions on the slave trade were so admired internationally that they were promptly imitated by France and England under the guidance of Webster (Wiltse 430).

At the end of this speech, those in the Senate chamber knew that Webster's reputation had been enhanced.  A committee investigating the case heard testimony from former President Tyler that he had authorized Webster's use of public funds to drum up support for the Treaty.  The committee exonerated Webster in June of 1846, the same month an Oregon Treaty much to Webster's liking was signed by Polk.

In this case Webster successfully used an apologia to mask other generic themes and to advance his anti-imperialist agenda.  The apologia not only led to his vindication, it reinforced his policy with regard to the Oregon Territory and praised his treaty-making abilities with regard to the Maine boundary dispute.  With his reputation restored, his method of treaty making tacitly endorsed, and his anti-imperialism established, Webster moved to a more specific objective: anti-war rhetoric.
His first opportunity came on March 1, 1847 in a speech that reasserted his resistance to expansion and opposed the war with Mexico.  The moment was made more dramatic by the resurrection of a bill to prohibit slavery in the territories.  With Webster in support from the Senate, the Wilmot Proviso was introduced in August of 1846 in the House as a rider to the President's request for two million dollars with which to negotiate peace.  When it passed, senators suddenly faced a serious dilemma.  Southern senators wanted new territories without restrictions on slavery; Northern senators wanted territories with restrictions.  Voting for the Proviso would drive Southern senators to oppose acquisition of new territories.  Voting against the Proviso would drive Northern senators to oppose acquisition of new territories.  The situation was a precursor to the difficulties the Senate would face during the Compromise of 1850.

Surrounded by senators anxious to end the session, Webster rose to speak at midnight though he was ill and tired.  His condition gave him an excuse to appeal to their sympathy and to shorten his remarks which constitute a powerful combination of forensic condemnation of and deliberative opposition to the war.  Webster began by claiming what almost all of Washington knew to be true: that this distant and pointless war had been provoked by guile.

Sir, we are in the midst of a war, not waged at home in defence of our soil, but waged a thousand miles off, and in the heart of the territories of another government.  Of that war no one yet sees the end, and no one counts the cost.  It is not denied that this war is now prosecuted for the acquisition of territory; at least, if any deny it, others admit it, and all know it to be true (Wiltse 437).
This accusation was followed by an inhospitable picture of the "pestilence" ridden coasts and hot "alien plains" of Mexico.   Next, Webster turned to those senators who had been quibbling over the meaning of these "remonstrances" (state resolutions of instruction), which he claimed were clear.  Reading from the Massachusetts' resolution and again revealing his provincialism, he moved from the war to the future of slavery:

'That the people of Massachusetts will strenuously resist the annexation of any new territory to this Union, in which the institution of slavery is to be tolerated or established. . . .'  Sir, is there any possibility of misunderstanding this? . . . .  For the resolution there were two hundred and thirty-two votes; against them, none (Wiltse 438).
Previewing a tactic he would use in 1850, he expanded the support he had from Massachusetts to the entire North.

Quickly shifting from the deliberative to the epideictic mode allowed Webster to move to the offensive; he attacked Senator Dix of New York and compared him to Senator Butler of South Carolina.  These strange bedfellows were so blinded by their lust for land that they ignored their ideological responsibilities.  They could have escaped the dilemma of either an unhappy North or an unhappy South by endorsing the amendment of Senator Berrien of Georgia which would have forbidden obtaining territory from the war with Mexico.  The amendment, however, had been rejected: "Who has rejected it? . . . .  Sir, it has been lost by the votes of the honorable member from New York and his Northern and Eastern friends.  It has been voted down by the 'Northern Democracy'" (Wiltse 440).  Echoing his attacks on the administration from the fall congressional campaign, Webster explained that Berrien's amendment would have passed if just a handful of Northern Democrats had supported it (Bartlett 230).  Webster condemned the President and his party for abandoning principles in order to acquire new land using apophasis: "I arraign no man and no parties.  I take no judgment into my own hands" (Wiltse 441).  Deftly moving from epideictic to deliberative appeal, Webster asked, "Shall we prosecute this war for the purpose of bringing on a controversy which is likely to shake the government to its centre?" (Wiltse 441).
In the last part of the speech, Webster relied on his standard technique of repeating and extending his themes, as he had done with great effect in the "Eulogy to Adams and Jefferson" and in the "Second Reply to Hayne" (Smith, 1989, 38-39, 47).  In this speech, the fugal form begins with Webster's self praise in terms of his consistency on the admission of Texas within the context of his anti-imperialism: "I have never swerved" (Wiltse 442).  Then, he again prosecuted "Northern Democracy" for allowing the addition of Texas as a slave state:

That history and that record can neither be falsified nor erased. . . .  Texas was brought into this Union, slavery and all, only by means of aid and active cooperation of those who now call themselves the 'Northern Democracy' of the United States. . . . Where were they, I ask?  Were they standing up like men against slaves and slavery?  . . . [They] were counselling and assisting, aiding and abetting, the whole proceeding (Wiltse 442).

This salvo is followed by a potent use of rhetorical questions which are resolved with complex artistry reminding his audience of Patrick Henry's "Liberty of Death" address: "We remonstrated, we protested, we voted; but the 'Northern Democracy' helped to outvote us, to defeat us, to overwhelm us."  These asyndetonic triples balance one another while summing up the argument.  The right branching periodic phrases cap the call of conscience of one who has lost the battle but not the moral issue.

After this examination of the record, Webster again employed rhetorical questions to reveal his vision of the future:  All I can scan is contention, strife, and agitation. . . .  Will the North consent to a treaty bringing in territory subject to slavery?  Will the South consent to a treaty bringing in territory from which slavery is excluded?  Sir, the future is full of difficulties . . . .  We appear to me to be rushing upon perils headlong, and with our eyes open (Wiltse 443).

Perhaps this speech more than any other examined in this study was helpful in enhancing Webster's credibility during the 1850 compromise debates three years later.  It employed an ingenious triangulation of genre to achieve its braided nature.  The Democrats, and particularly those in the North, are accused of a conspiracy to enter into a war that is unjust and unnecessary.  Webster is praised for his consistency and civic virtue, giving him the credibility to make predictions about the future that would serve him well three years hence.

In his annual message to Congress in December of 1847, Polk asked for ten more regiments and new volunteers for the war.  He believed he could force Mexico to surrender on terms generous to the United States.  On January 8, 1848, however, Ambassador Trist ignored recall orders from the President and negotiated a settlement that reflected the original war aims of the administration.  The United States would pay $15,000,000 for Upper California, the New Mexico Territory, and an agreement that the lower Rio Grande would serve as Texas' southern border.  The draft treaty came to the Senate in late February, 1848; it was quickly ratified on March 10th, signed by the President on March 16th, and sent back to Mexico for approval.  On March 17th, the President's request for ten regiments was approved over Webster's objection.  On March 23rd, when Webster rose to speak on the goals of the war with Mexico, his frustration was evident.

At first the speech appeared deliberative as Webster described an anomalous situation:  On the one hand the Senate had approved a peace treaty; on the other the President had called for more troops and more money for war.  Soon, however, a forensic flavor was evident as Webster condemned the President and defended defenseless Mexico:

[W]e are summoned to fresh warlike operations; to create a new army of thirty thousand men for the further prosecution of the war; to carry the war, in the language of the President, still more dreadfully into the vital parts of the enemy, and to press home, by fire and sword, the claims we make and the grounds which we insist upon, again our fallen, prostrate, I had almost said, our ignoble enemy (Wiltse 449).

Webster was outraged and would return to the President's vile phrase later in the speech.
Few people since the famous debate with Hayne in 1830 could interpret the meaning of the Constitution with more credibility than Webster.  As in 1830, this powerful asset was reinforced by his ability to wither his opposition with ridicule:

In the ordinary transaction of the foreign relations of this and of all other governments, the course has been to negotiate first, and to ratify afterwards. . . .  We have chosen to reverse this order.  We ratify first, and negotiate afterwards.  We set up a treaty, such as we find it and choose to make it, and then send two ministers plenipotentiary to negotiate thereupon in the capital of the enemy . . . .  It strikes me that the course we have adopted is strange, is even grotesque.  So far as I know, it is unprecedented in the history of diplomatic discourse (Wiltse 450).

Perhaps that is why, claimed Webster, that the House of Representatives had passed a resolution condemning the war as unconstitutionally initiated.  The worst fault, however, was not the President's breach of diplomatic etiquette, it was the fact that the treaty was being coerced from "fallen, fallen, fallen Mexico" in the name of acquisition.  Surely this was a grave injustice.

Webster moved back to the deliberative mode when he warned that the President was in danger of losing public support.  The public will not "go for [the war's] heavy expenses; they will not find any gratification in putting the bayonet to the throats of the Mexican people" (Wiltse 452).  Webster then issued an argument common among those opposing a war whether in Mexico, Vietnam, or the Persian Gulf.  Webster resented the fact that his questioning of war aims was considered something that gave "encouragement" to the enemy.  He turned the tables on Senator Cass, who had interrupted him with the charge, by claiming that Cass was part of the cabal trying to scare Mexico into signing the treaty.  Webster's anger and sense of sarcasm was evident:

[Senator Cass] comes forth and tells Mexico that the principal object of the bill is to frighten her!  The words have passed along the wires; they are on the Gulf, and are floating away to Vera Cruz; and when they get there, there will signify to Mexico, 'After all, ye good Mexicans, my principle object is to frighten you; and to the end that you may not be frightened too much, I have given you this indication of my purpose' (Wiltse 453).

Webster asked that if American troop strength in Mexico is at 30,296 men, why would another 30,000 be necessary?  With slashing rhetorical questions, Webster re-asserted his argument that the President's intent was coercion.

What is the object of bringing these new regiments into the field? . . . .  There is no army to fight. . . .  Mexico is prostrate. . . .  Are we going to cut the throats of her people?  Are we to thrust the sword deeper and deeper into the 'vital parts' of Mexico? (Wiltse 455-56).

Webster drove home his point by repeating the President's unfortunate phrase.
  Continuing to blame the President, he alleged that the President wanted to expand the war for patronage, particularly military promotions.  Dripping with sarcasm, Webster's concluded:  "They have my good wishes and they may find the way for their homes from the Avenue and the Capitol, and from the purlieus [outlying districts] of the President's house. . . . " (Wiltse 456).

This epideictic attack completed, Webster returned to his main deliberative theme:  "I am against all accession of territory to form new States" (Wiltse 457).  In this section of the speech, Webster was his most vehemently anti-imperialistic.  He claimed he opposed adding the territory acquired in the war as much as he opposed adding Canada to the United States.  Either would allow sparsely populated areas to be over-represented in the Senate.  Webster added that expansion would damage the Constitution and throw the Senate into disarray.  He claimed his opponents had confused Americans' natural desire to "emigrate" to new areas and to seek new frontiers with a desire to acquire territory.  He referred to the battle over the Berrien amendment, as he had in his speech of March 1, 1847, to demonstrate how close the Senate came to rejecting territorial acquisition early in the war and argued that vote better reflected public sentiment than the current discussion.  Later in the speech he returned to this argument when he pointed out that in Connecticut four members of the House were thrown out by the public for supporting the President.
Next, Webster refuted the opposition's argument that since the President had taken a stand, he would not be shaken from it.  The argument gave Webster another chance to attack the man he hoped to unseat in the election of 1848.  Webster recalled that the President was adamant about the Oregon boundary, but had backed down on that issue: "He is immovable.  He -- has -- put -- down -- his -- foot!  Well, Sir, he put it down upon 'fifty-four forty,' but it didn't stay" (Wiltse 459-60).  He turned the argument against his opponents by showing that the President's intransigence had been compromised before, by arguing that the Senate has as much right to declare itself unshakable as the President did, and by ridiculing the opposition's position on this issue relying on his victory on the Oregon Treaty as evidence.

Webster clinched the argument on an epideictic note by pointing out that Polk was a lame duck president: "Honored in private life, valued for his private character, respectable, never eminent, in public life, he will, from the moment a new star arises, have just as little influence as you or I. . . ." (Wiltse 460).  Webster poked fun at the next Democratic nominee by claiming that the accolades to "manifest destiny" have already been written (Wiltse 461).  Rather than looking ahead to that celebration, Webster begged his colleagues to test the President's mettle the way General Zachary Taylor tested the enemy's at Buena Vista.

Webster's mood turned somber when he returned to the issue of converting the territories to states.  His attack was lengthy and detailed.  He once again established the consistency of his position on this issue.  Second, he raised a question that would resurface in the 1850 Compromise debates: "Sir, if you refer to the resolutions providing for the annexation of Texas, you find a provision that it shall be in the power of Congress hereafter to make four new States out of Texan territory" (Wiltse 465).  Webster was trying to persuade Northern senators that the South could permanently control the Senate if new territories were converted to states and/or Texas were divided into several states.  Third, unaware that gold had been discovered in California, he argued that if New Mexico and California were admitted to the Union, they would have grotesquely disproportional representation in the Senate due to their sparse population:  "[A]ccording to my conscientious conviction, we are now fixing on the Constitution of the United States, and its frame of government, a monstrosity, a disfiguration, an enormity!" (Wiltse 467).  He attempted to frighten Northern Democrats by demonstrating the harm the addition of two senators from Texas already had done during the voting on the tariff of 1846.  He concluded this line of attack with a prediction: "Sir, in 1850 perhaps a similar question may be agitated here" (Wiltse 468).

In an effort to reduce the ardor for acquisition, Webster moved to a description of what the United States was acquiring: New Mexico and California are "not worth a dollar."  He read from reports that described the territories as "poor, sterile, sandy, and barren" (Webster 470).  Webster reinforced the inartistic proof by pointing out that New Mexico was not exactly the land of enchantment: "It is Asiatic in scenery altogether: enormously high mountains, running up some of them ten thousand feet, with narrow valleys at their bases, through which streams sometimes trickle along" (Wiltse 471).  Some of his epideictic remarks mirror his earlier prejudices: "In seclusion and remoteness, New Mexico may press hard on the character and condition of Typee.  And its people are infinitely less elevated, in morals and condition than the people of the Sandwich Islands" (Wiltse 473).  Raising the image of savage, he claimed the "Indians" of New Mexico were inferior to the Native Americans with whom the nation was more familiar: "Commend me to the Cherokees, to the Choctaws; if you please, speak of the Pawnees, of the Snakes, the Flatfeet, of anything but the Digging Indians, and I will be satisfied not to take the people of New Mexico. . . . [I]t is farcical to talk of such people making a constitution for themselves" (Wiltse 471)  To reinforce his point, Webster quoted at length from a letter by Colonel and Congressman John Hardin, who was killed at the Battle of Buena Vista.  These new territories, claimed Webster, would require the building of distant forts and constant battles with Native Americans.

This mix of epideictic vituperation and deliberative prophecy characterized this anti-war address.  For example, he concluded his argument by alleging that converting territories to states would undermine the telos of the Constitution, which was "designed to make [us], one people, one in interest, one in character, and one in political feeling" (Wiltse 475).  Webster thus extended his earlier position, that the Constitution established pragmatic guidelines to assure that the Union worked, to claim that the pre-eminent goal of the Constitution is to make Americans one people.  If America abandoned that goal, she would be no different than the most arbitrary governments which sustain rule over disparate peoples: "Russia may rule in the Ukraine and the provinces of the Caucasus and Kamtschatka by different codes, ordinances, or ukases.  We can do no such thing.  [The territories] must be of us, part of us, or else strangers" (Wiltse 476).  This revision of constitutional purpose gives a much more mythological sense to Webster's "Union."  It raises him above his provincialism.  It possesses extended purposes -- pragmatic guide and embodiment of the public -- that would serve him through the debates over the 1850 Compromise.
In his very brief, three paragraph conclusion, Webster returned to his claim that this plan will "disfigure and deform the Constitution" and cause the Union to "fall to pieces" (Wiltse 476).  Even though he did not have enough support to win, Webster would continue to fight the plan because of its dire consequences.  His dramatic close portrays a man on trial:  "I am sustained by a deep and a conscientious sense of duty. . . .  I defy auguries, and ask no omen but my country's cause!" (Wiltse 476).  In this way, Webster ridiculed those who believed "manifest destiny" to be in America's stars while returning to his call of conscience.

Conclusion
The great parliamentarians who opposed imperialism inspired Webster, particularly Edmund Burke "On Conciliation with America," from which Webster quoted a passage to preface the pamphlet based on his July 17th address during the 1850 compromise debates (Wiltse 553n).  The unstable sands of political fortune caused Webster to find himself in a position not unlike Burke's.  In the case studied here, he resigned as a Secretary of State, returned home, and eventually was selected a senator in the minority party.  The analysis of these four speeches given during a time when Webster was out of power and often under attack demonstrates that he had mastered the strategies of partisan, anti-imperialist attack common in the British parliamentary system.  He had no choice but to become a member of the loyal opposition, which inspired his partisan rhetoric replete with anti-war themes for the Whigs in the campaign of 1848.  In the speeches analyzed here, however, Webster is clever enough to integrate non-political themes using forensic, epideictic, and deliberative forms to transcend the partisan.  And he complicates the model by infusing his anti-war speeches with his anti-imperialist record to ground his credibility on the matter.

   By untangling these tactic, we learn that Webster's anti-war rhetoric may have been aimed at advancing his own presidential ambitions.  Anti-war rhetoric is often taken up for partisan political reasons while pro-war rhetoric more often advances a national or bi-partisan agenda (Reid; Ivie, 1980).  Also, as in the case of Eugene McCarthy, a presidential campaign may be launched in order to advance an anti-war agenda.  Thus, the various elements of anti-war rhetoric can take on a political flavor, such as in Webster's epideictic and forensic attacks on Polk.  Such rhetoric may allow the out-party or the in-party dissenter to establish a record to which they can return during an ensuing political campaign.  Since presidents or prime ministers have domain over foreign policy, they usually have ultimate approval for imperialist adventures.  This power provides the out-party or the in-party dissenter with a major opportunity to criticize the in-party and become the call of conscience that raises the debate to a moral plane.  The out-party gambles that a majority of citizens will oppose the imperialist policy, that the policy will fail, and/or that the out-party will be vindicated and benefit politically.  Perhaps that is why anti-war speakers often temper their dour predictions with moral, legal, and pragmatic arguments, and give support to endeavors once troops are committed at least in the initial stages of a war (Murphy).  From 1966 through 1968, Richard Nixon used this strategy to condemn the conduct of the war in Vietnam.  When things went badly for the administration in 1968, he had positioned himself to win the Republican nomination.  In the case at hand, most of the Whigs in Congress including Abraham Lincoln condemned the conduct of the war with Mexico while regularly voting to supply U. S. troops.

By the time of these speeches, Webster had been a member of the House, a senator, and a Secretary of State.  The next step was obvious since many previous Secretaries of State had become president.  An attack on the sitting president could help Webster secure the nomination of his party by demonstrating the president's vulnerability to Webster's attacks.  Webster's personal attacks on Polk, whether they be attack on his word choice, his mind, or his political future, may have been motivated by Webster's ambition.  His rhetorical stance is much more marked by sarcasm, ridicule, cynicism, and refutation than his previous speeches.  Surely, one finds the sarcasm and ridicule in the "Reply to Hayne"; in fact, Hayne is reduced to rubble on his lack of knowledge of Shakespeare alone.  However, one also finds the soaring finale that was memorized by school children for years and became part of America's civil religion.  No such perorations mark these speeches.  They are the speeches of a shadow minister vindicating his policies, calling others to account, and attacking those who have replaced him.  The attacks on the President, in particular, reveal a man claiming he had a better sense of policy than the President.  Because of this ambition, his style is less grand and more bitter than in the periods before and after this interregnum.  The previews are skimpy; the structure is less logical; the conclusions less well developed.  As Smith (1979) has noted, Webster's most elevated addresses were delivered when he was farthest from the possibility of being nominated for president.  This study supports that thesis.

More importantly, this analysis demonstrates that Webster's addresses on the war with Mexico braid the classical forms in such way as to gain credibility from being contextualized in an anti-imperialist frame.  Anti-war rhetoric often raises the issues of racism and moral superiority just as pro-war rhetoric is often ethnocentric (Reid).  Over the ages imperialism has been justified on the ground that the colonized are inferior persons who need to be helped to the fruits of better government, be it the common law of the British or the democratic virtues of the Americans (Jensen).  This forces the anti-war rhetors to demonstrate that those to be colonized do not need the fruits of one's culture, that it is not in the national interest to intervene in their affairs, and/or that they are so inferior or alien in culture that the result will be entrapment in a quagmire.  This moral tone combined with the opposition to change, whether it be expansion or entering a war, gives anti-war rhetoric a conservative cast as it defends the status quo and advances a value laden agenda, which often produces epideictic appeals.  Such appeals are often reinforced using geographic arguments.  That American troops are serving in a place they do not belong is a typical charge of anti-war rhetors whether to condemn the taking of the Philippines or a war in South East Asia.

As we have seen, Webster did embrace a moral and philosophical stance and he reinforced it with graphic geographic portrayals the territory in question.  He sought the moral high ground both with regard to slavery and territorial acquisition in an attempt to become the quintessential Whig civil republican, the modern embodiment of Cicero.  The latter two speeches set out a highly defined anti-war position couched in an over-arching anti-imperialism established by the prior two speech.  Together they reinforce Webster's previous opposition to taking "alien" territories by force and his preference for negotiated settlements.  The merging of epideictic, deliberative, and forensic themes allowed Webster to argue that military acquisition would not only rip the social fabric, it would undermine the workings of the Constitution by destroying the balance in the Senate, and would eviscerate the transcendent telos of the Constitution to make Americans into one people.  These speeches accurately predict the disintegration of the Union if the acquired territories are made into states.

However, unwinding these themes belies an agenda that endorses Anglo-Saxon values and culture, the same agenda that others would later use to defend the very imperialism Webster opposed.  Webster demonstrated that someone who embraces Anglo-Saxon virtues and believes that race to be superior to others may oppose expansion on the same grounds that imperialists use to defend it.  Webster described the Indians and the geography of the region in primitive terms.  He used Polk's chauvinistic view that Mexico was an inferior country with an inferior army to buttress Webster's own claim that acquisition of Mexican territory would pollute American values and politics.  Thus, his rhetoric took on a conservative cast by defending the status quo and claiming moral and political superiority over a primitive enemy.  These elements are revealed by separating out his forensic and epideictic appeals in each of the speeches.

This leads to another characteristic of anti-war speeches that surfaces in this analysis.  The patriotism of those who dissent or oppose the war effort is called into question.  During the congressional campaign of 1966 when asked about Nixon's criticism, President Johnson told a press conference that Nixon was not serving his country well.  In this case, Webster was required to issue forensic apologias on the floor of the Senate adding another layer of form to his speeches.
This study also indicates that anti-war efforts are campaigns of persuasion rather than one set speech.  Webster promoted several successful campaigns of persuasion during his illustrious career.  Before the Supreme Court, Webster often provided the arguments that John Marshall used to put Federalist dicta into place in the early 19th Century (Bartlett 75-81, 129-130).  In epideictic speeches, Webster developed and reinforced Whig virtues, thereby legitimizing the new political party.  In many of these early speeches, he also extolled Anglo-Saxon values which, as we have seen, were employed again in the campaign against acquisition of Mexican territories.  In discourse addressing the 1850 Compromise debates, Webster helped to coalesce the Northern audience with his March Seventh address and then instructed his colleagues on how to pass the Compromise in his July Seventeenth address (Smith, 1989; Arntson and Smith; Smith, 1985; Current, 162-169).  Thus, Webster knew that campaigns of persuasion were often necessary and that the proper manipulation epideictic, deliberative, and forensics elements could be persuasive (Smith, 1989, 40).  It should come as no surprise then that his anti-war campaign embodied these major strategies.  Whether the apparent genre is epideictic, deliberative, or forensic, Webster inserted elements of the other genre to support his persuasive themes.  In an ostensively deliberative speech on the floor of the senate, for example, Webster condemned the President in forensic terms while praising the Union in epideictic terms.  Clearly, he found it efficacious to braid the major genre into his anti-war public address.
Finally, we need ask, did Webster's anti-war rhetoric have a gravity that affected the public record?  Webster's four major speeches contained many substantial arguments that were used during the ensuing campaign by other Whigs to warn about the dangers of the spread of southern political power.  While Webster failed to dissuade his opponents in the immediate sense, he did help to dislodge them a year later.  The Whigs won the election of 1848; they captured the White House and split the Senate and the House.  Furthermore, Webster established a record to which he could return in 1850 to effect a compromise that delayed civil war for a decade.  The success of that campaign owes a good deal to the credibility Webster was able to generate based on his rhetoric against the war with Mexico.  Those who employ anti-war rhetoric are disdained for their dire predictions.  On later occasions, however, they may have the last word, in effect saying, "I told you so."  For Webster this worked both ways: because he had been an anti-imperialist, his anti-war rhetoric was consistent and credible; in 1850, because he had opposed war, his more general anti-imperialist rhetoric was consistent and credible.

Webster's intertwining of the various strands of classical genre is complicated by the contextualization of anti-war themes inside of a larger, consistent, and historical anti-imperialist approach.  An examination of the matrix that Webster built with these four speech is useful in revealing motives which may prove typical of anti-war rhetoric.  Webster failed to prevent Texas admission to the Union and the acquisition of the new territories because the mood of the nation was against him and the Congressional coalition supporting President Polk had too many votes.  The tides of history can lead to political exile or vindication.  Had the war in Mexico gone badly, had the public and his colleagues believed Webster's warnings, trusted his description of the territories, or embraced his view of the Constitution, he might have stopped America's march west.  Instead he was overwhelmed by popular sentiment and presidential determination to connect America from sea to shining sea.  When that union began to come apart, Webster was pressed back into service to forge a compromise that would postpone the ultimate rift for another ten years.

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