Part 10 (1/2)

Mr Webstertide at Marshfield with a rampart of sand as to seek to check the anti-slavery reat effect His athered all his forces; his great intellect, his splendid eloquence, his fame which had become one of the treasured possessions of his country,--all were given to the work The blow fell with terrible force, and here, at last, we coht The 7th of March speech deland and the whole North The abolitionists showed by bitter anger the pain, disappointht The Free-Soil party quivered and sank for the moment beneath the shock The whole anti-slavery movement recoiled The conservative reaction which Mr

Webster endeavored to produce came and triumphed Chiefly by his exertions the compromise policy was accepted and sustained by the country The conservative elements everywhere rallied to his support, and by his ability and eloquence it seeht the people over to his opinions It was a wonderful tribute to his power and influence, but the triumph was hollow and short-lived He had atte could kill the principles of human liberty, not even a speech by Daniel Webster, backed by all his intellect and knowledge, his eloquence and his renown The anti-slavery movement was checked for the time, and pro-slavery dened supre party, and the evanescent success of the Native Ahts revived; and when it rose again, taught by the trials and th which Mr Webster had never dreamed of, and, in 1856, polled nearly a million and a half of votes for Fremont The rise and final triumph of the Republican party was the condemnation of the 7th of March speech and of the policy which put the government of the country in the hands of Franklin Pierce and James Buchanan When the war came, inspiration was not found in the 7th of March speech In that dark hour, men remembered the Daniel Webster who replied to Hayne, and turned away froreat compromise of Henry Clay

The disapprobation and disappointment which were manifested in the North after the 7th of March speech could not be overlooked Men thought and said that Mr Webster had spoken in behalf of the South and of slavery Whatever his intentions may have been, this hat the speech seemed to mean and this was its effect, and the North saw it more and ed in personal attacks, but at the sae of co pleasant things to his opponents in the Senate reeable courtesy In this direction, as in its opposite, he usually maintained a cold silence But on the 7th of March he elaborately coinia and Mr Mason personally This struck close observers with surprise, but it was the real purpose of the speech which went home to the people of the North He had advocated ether what the South wanted, and the South so understood it On the 30th of March Mr Morehead wrote to Mr Crittenden that Mr Webster's appointment as Secretary of State would now be very acceptable to the South No more bitter commentary could have been made

The people were blinded and dazzled at first, but they gradually awoke and perceived the error that had been co from outside to inform him as to his conduct and its results At the bottom of his heart and in the depths of his conscience he knew that he had made a dreadful mistake He did not flinch He went on in his new path without apparent faltering His speech on the compromise measures went farther than that of the 7th of March But if we study his speeches and letters between 1850 and the day of his death, we can detect changes in theh that the writer was not at ease, that he was not master of that real conscience of which he boasted

His friends, after the first shock of surprise, rallied to his support, and he spoke frequently at unionimmense efforts, to convince the country that the coht and necessary, and that the doctrines of the 7th of March speech ought to be sustained In pursuance of this object, during the winter of 1850 and the su year, he wrote several public letters on the cos on various occasions, in New England, New York, and as far south as Virginia We are at once struck by a e in the character and tone of these speeches, which produced a great effect in establishi+ng the compromise policy It had never been Mr Webster's habit to misrepresent or abuse his opponents Now he confounded the extreme separatism of the abolitionists and the constitutional opposition of the Free-Soil party, and involved all opponents of slavery in a common condemnation It ilful misrepresentation to talk of the Free-Soilers as if they were identical with the abolitionists, and no one knew better than Mr Webster the distinction between the two, one being ready to secede to get rid of slavery, the other offering only a constitutional resistance to its extension His tone toward his opponents was correspondingly bitter When he first arrived in Boston, after his speech, and spoke to the great crowd in front of the Revere House, he said, ”I shall support no agitations having their foundations in unreal, ghostly abstractions” Slavery had now becoh itvery like a hard fact There were otten the noble words hich Mr

Webster in 1837 had defended the character of the opponents of slavery, and the sound of this new gospel frooes on fro to another, and in speech after speech there is the san to him in all his previous utterances The supporters of the anti-slavery movement he denounces as insane He reiterates his opposition to slave extension, and in the sa way to the South The feeling is upon hi down under the pressure of this ”ghostly abstraction,” this agitation which he tries to prove to the young men of the country and to his fellow-citizens everywhere is ”wholly factitious” The Fugitive Slave Law is not in the form which he wants, but still he defends it and supports it The first fruits of his policy of peace are seen in riots in Boston, and he personally advises with a Boston laho has undertaken the cases against the fugitive slaves It was undoubtedly his duty, as Mr Curtis says, to enforce and support the law as the President's adviser, but his personal attention and interest were not required in slave cases, nor would they have been given a year before The Wilmot Proviso, that doctrine which he clais could not differ, he now calls ”a les to put slavery aside for the tariff, but it will not down at his bidding, and he himself cannot leave it alone Finally he concludes this co the foundation of the capitol extension, and makes a pathetic appeal to the South to maintain the Union They are not pleasant to read, these speeches in the Senate and before the people in behalf of the co true

Daniel Webster knehen he was delivering them that that was not the way to save the Union, or that, at all events, it was not the right way for him to do it

The same peculiarity can be discerned in his letters The fun and huh his correspondence seehted On September 10, 1850, he writes to Mr Harvey that since March 7 there has not been an hour in which he has not felt a ”crushi+ng sense of anxiety and responsibility” He couples this with the declaration that his own part is acted and he is satisfied; but if his anxiety was solely of a public nature, why did it date froreater cause for alar he said or wrote he continually recurs to the slavery question and always in a defensive tone, usually with a sneer or a fling at the abolitionists and anti-slavery party The spirit of unrest had seized him

He was disturbed and ill at ease He never admitted it, even to himself, but his mind was not at peace, and he could not conceal the fact Posterity can see the evidences of it plainly enough, and a man of his intellect and fa must be made No man can say that Mr Webster anticipated the unfavorable judgment which his countrymen have passed upon his conduct, but that in his heart he feared such a judgment cannot be doubted

It is impossible to determine with perfect accuracy any man's motives in what he says or does They are so complex, they are so often undefined, even in the mind of the man himself, that no one can pretend to make an absolutely correct analysis There have been many theories as to the motives which led Mr Webster to make the 7th of March speech In the heat of contemporary strife his enemies set it down as a mere bid to secure Southern support for the presidency, but this is a harsh and narro

The longing for the presidency weakened Mr Webster as a public man from the time when it first took possession of hi effect upon him in the winter of 1850, and had some influence upon the speech of the 7th of March But it is unjust to say that it didoverned solely by the highest and most disinterested patriotism, by the truest wisdooing too far and being too simple His motives were mixed His chief desire was to preserve and reat saviour and pacificator On the one side was the South, coreatest political force in the country On the other was a weak Free-Soil party, and a widely diffused and earnest ible political power Mr Webster concluded that the way to save the Union and the Constitution, and to achieve the success which he desired, was to go with the heaviest battalions He therefore espoused the Southern side, for the compromise was in the Southern interest, and sth He reasoned correctly that peace could co a severe check to one of the two contending parties He erred in atte to arrest the one which all modern history shoas irresistible It is no doubt true, as appears by his cabinet opinion recently printed, that he stood ready to meet the first overt act on the part of the South with force Mr Webster would not have hesitated to have struck hard at any body of men or any State which ventured to assail the Union But he also believed that the true way to prevent any overt act on the part of the South was by concession, and that was precisely the object which the Southern leaders sought to obtain We rant all the patriotism and all the sincere devotion to the cause of the Constitution which is clai can acquit Mr Webster of error in the methods which he chose to adopt for the maintenance of peace and the preservation of the Union If the 7th of March speech was right, then all that had gone before was false and wrong In that speech he broke from his past, froland, and closed his splendid public career with a terrible mistake

CHAPTER X

THE LAST YEARS

The story of the remainder of Mr Webster's public life, outside of and apart from the slavery question, can be quickly told General Taylor died suddenly on July 9, 1850, and this event led to an ianization of the cabinet Mr Fillmore at once offered the post of Secretary of State to Mr Webster, who accepted it, resigned his seat in the Senate, and, on July 23, assuotiation like that with Lord Ashburton marked this second term of office in the Department of State, but there were a number of important and soed with the wisdonity which h position

The best-known incident of this period was that which gave rise to the faent to Hungary to report upon the condition of the revolutionary govern it if there were sufficient grounds for doing so

When the agent arrived, the revolution was crushed, and he reported to the President against recognition These papers were transmitted to the Senate in March, 1850 Mr Hulsee_, thereupon complained of the action of our administration, and Mr Clayton, then Secretary of State, replied that the ather inforovernment, Mr

Hulsemann rejoined to Mr Clayton, and it fell to Mr Webster to reply, which he did on Decee_ was in a hectoring and highly offensive tone, and Mr Webster felt the necessity of ad a sharp rebuke ”The Hulsely dispatched It set forth strongly the right of the United States and their intention to recognize any _de facto_ revolutionary governuide their action The argument on this point was admirably and forcibly stated, and it was accompanied by a bold vindication of the American policy, and by some severe and wholesome reproof Mr Webster had two objects One was to awaken the people of Europe to a sense of the greatness of this country, the other to touch the national pride at hon representatives learned a lesson which they never forgot, and which opened their eyes to the fact that ere no longer colonies, and the national pride was also aroused Mr Webster admitted that the letter was, in soh This was a fair criticism, and it may be justly said that such a tone was hardly worthy of the author But, on the other hand, Hulsemann's ih do needed It is certain that the letter fully answered Mr Webster's purpose, and excited a great deal of popular enthusiasm The affair did not, however, end here Mr

Hulseain Kossuth and the refugees in Turkey were brought to this country in a United States frigate The Hungarian hero was received with a burst of enthusiasm that induced him to hope for substantial aid, which was, of course, wholly visionary The popular excitement made it difficult for Mr Webster to steer a proper course, but he succeeded, by great tact, in showing his own syovernarian independence and for its leader, without going too far or co any indiscretion which could justify a breach of international relations with Austria Mr Webster's course, including a speech at a dinner in Boston, in which he h carefully guarded, aroused the ire of Mr Hulsenant farewell to the Secretary of State Mr Webster replied, through Mr Hunter, with extreentleman selected by Mr

Hulsemann to represent Austria after the latter's departure

The other affairs which occupied Mr Webster's official attention at this time made less noise than that with Austria, but they were more complicated and some of them far more perilous to the peace of the country Theout of the Clayton-Bulwer treaty in regard to the neutrality of the conteed correspondence about the protectorate of Great Britain in Nicaragua, and to a withdrawal of her clai to observe the influence which Mr Webster at once obtained with Sir Henry Bulwer and the respect in which he was held by that experienced diploland, there was a sharp dispute with Mexico about the right of way over the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, and the troubles on the Texan boundary before Congress had acted upon the subject Then came the Lopez invasion of Cuba, supported by bodies of volunteers enlisted in the United States, which, by its failure and its results, involved our government in a number of difficult questions The most serious was the riot at New Orleans, where the Spanish consulate was sacked by a e without wounding the national pride by apparent hu, however, with a judgnity which prevented ith Spain and yet excited no resentment at ho to an end, the perennial difficulty about the fisheries revived and was added to our Central Aether with the affair of the Lobos Islands, occupied Mr Webster's attention, and drew forth so the summer of 1852, in the last ress to convince the country of the value and justice of the compromise measures and to compel their acceptance, another presidential election drew on It was the signal for the last desperate atte noht as if the party land leader

Mr Clay holly out of the race, and his last hour was near There was absolutely no one who, in fame, ability, public services, and experience could be compared for one h; it awakened all Mr Webster's hopes, and excited the ardor of his friends A foranized movement, such as had never before been orous and earnest address to the people was issued by his friends in Massachusetts

The result demonstrated, if demonstration were needed, that Mr Webster had not, even under the most favorable circumstances, the remotest chance for the presidency His friends saw this plainly enough before the convention reat prize as at last surely within his grasp Mr Choate, as to lead the Webster delegates, went to Washi+ngton the day before the convention assembled He called on Mr

Webster and found him so filled with the belief that he should be nominated that it seemed cruel to undeceive him Mr Choate, at all events, had not the heart for the task, and went back to Baltiallant fidelity and with an eloquence as brilliant if not so grand as that of Mr Webster himself A majority[1] of the convention divided their votes very unequally between Mr Fill 133, the latter 29, on the first ballot, while General Scott had 131 Forty-five ballots were taken, without any substantial change, and then General Scott began to increase his strength, and was no 159 votes Most of General Scott's supporters were opposed to resolutions sustaining the compromise measures, while those who voted for Mr Fillmore and Mr Webster favored that policy

General Scott owed his no in the platfor Mr Clay's ates to come to him, an unlikely event when they were so much more numerous than his friends, and, htest inclination to do so They were chiefly from the South, and as they chose to consider Mr Fillmore and not his secretary the representative of coive way The desperate stubbornness of Mr Webster's adherents resulted in the nos should have done so little for Mr Webster after he had done and sacrificed so much to advance and defend their interests But the South was practical In the 7th of March speech they had got from Mr Webster all they could expect or desire It was quite possible, in fact it was highly probable, that, once in the presidency, he could not be controlled or guided by the slave-power or by any other sectional influence Mr

Fillmore, inferior in every way to Mr Webster in intellect, in force, in reputation, would give them a mild, safe administration and be easily influenced by the South Mr Webster had served his turn, and the men whose cause he had advocated and whose interests he had protected cast hireat majority continued to divide their votes between Mr Fillhest number reached by the combined Webster and Fillmore votes, on any one ballot, was 162, three more than was received on the last ballot by General Scott, who, Mr Curtis correctly says, obtained only a ”few votes more than the necessary majority”]

The loss of the nomination was a bitter disappointment to Mr Webster It was the fashi+on in certain quarters to declare that it killed him, but this was manifestly absurd The most that can be said in this respect was, that the excitement and depression caused by his defeat preyed upon his mind and thereby facilitated the inroads of disease, while it added to the clouds which darkened round him in those last days But his course of action after the convention cannot be passed over without coive his adhesion to General Scott's nomination, and he advised his friends to vote for Mr Pierce, because the Whigs were divided, while the Democrats were unanimously deteritation This course was absolutely indefensible If the Whig party was so divided on the slavery question that Mr Webster could not support their nominee, then he had no business to seek a nomination at their hands, for they were as much divided before the convention as afterwards He chose to co perfectly well the divisions of the party, and that the noame, and was in honor bound to abide by the rules He had no right to say ”it is heads I win, and tails you lose” If he had been nonantly and justly denounced a refusal on the part of General Scott and his friends to support him It is the reat a es, and that he owed it to himself to rise above theling party If Mr Webster could no longer act with the Whigs, then his name had no business in that convention at Balti as afterward Great reat to behave honorably; and his refusal to support Scott, after having been his rival for a nomination at the hands of their common party, was neither honorable nor just If Mr Webster had decided to leave the Whigs and act independently, he was in honor bound to do so before the Baltiates that such was his intention in the event of General Scott's noht to stand the hazard of the die, and then refuse to abide by the result The Whig party, in its best estate, was not calculated to excite a very warm enthusiasm in the breast of a dispassionate posterity, and it is perfectly true that it was on the eve of ruin in 1852 But it appeared better then, in the point of self-respect, than four years before In 1848 the Whigs nominated a successful soldier conspicuous only for his availability and without knowing to what party he belonged They reat question of the extension of slavery, and carried on their can on the personal popularity of their candidate Mr Webster was righteously disgusted at their candidate and their negative attitude