The intense agitation in political circles did not, however, prevent Mr.Webster from delivering one very important speech, nor from carrying through successfully one of the most important and practically useful measures of his legislative career.

The speech was delivered in the debate on the bill for continuing the national Cumberland road.

Mr.Webster had already, many years before, defined his position on the constitutional question involved in internal improvements.

He now, in response to Mr.McDuffie of South Carolina, who denounced the measure as partial and sectional, not merely defended the principle of internal improvements, but declared that it was a policy to be pursued only with the purest national feeling.

It was not the business of Congress, he said, to legislate for this State or that, or to balance local interests, and because they helped one region to help another, but to act for the benefit of all the States united, and in making improvements to be guided only by their necessity.