to stand together. Of all those who have condemned the views of Mr. Webster, who has gone further than he, in the speech of the 7th of March, 1850, to furnish such a basis? Or rather, we may ask, who of those that have been loudest in condemnation of his course has taken a single step towards effecting this paramount object? Mr. Webster's thoughts are known to have been earnestly and profoundly employed on this subject from the commencement of the session. He saw beforehand the difficulties and the dangers incident to the step which he adopted, but he believed that, unless some such step was taken in the North, the separation of the States was inevitable. The known state of opinion of leading members of Congress led him to look for little support from them. He opened the matter to some of his political friends, but they did not encourage him in the course he felt bound to pursue. He found that he could not expect the co-operation of the members of Congress from his own State, nor that of many of the members from the other Northern States. He gave up all attempt to rally beforehand a party which would sustain him. His own description of his feelings at the time was, "that he had made up his mind to embark alone on what he was aware would prove a stormy sea, because, in that case, should final disaster ensue, there would be but one life lost." But he believed that the step which he was about to take would be sanctioned by the mass of the people, and in that reliance he went forward. The speech of the 7th of March was not the only elaborate and thoughtful contribution made by Mr. Webster to the compromise debate. Besides many valuable suggestions from time to time, especially a bill offered as an amendment to the Fugitive Slave Law and containing provisions for a trial by jury, he delivered on the 17th of July a speech analyzing the compromise measure as he proposed to vote for it, showing how much both North and South would positively gain, and how little they could be supposed to lose by its passage. At the close of what he had cause to think was his last speech in the Senate, he pronounced a few words of encomium on his own State, which for prophetic beauty do not yield to those in the reply to Hayne: "I believe, Sir, that if commotion shall shake the country there will be one rock for ever, as solid as her granite hills, for the Union to repose upon. I believe that if disaster arise, bringing clouds which shall obscure the ensign over her and over us, there will be one star that will but burn the brighter amid the darkness of that night; and I believe that if in the remotest ages (I trust they will be infinitely remote) an occasion shall occur when the sternest duties of patriotism are demanded and to be performed, Massachusetts will imitate her own example, and that, as at the breaking out of the Revolution she was the first to offer the outpouring of her blood and her treasure in the struggle for liberty, so she will be hereafter ready, when the emergency arises, to repeat and renew that offer, with a thousand times as many warm hearts, and a thousand times as many strong hands." His concluding words were these: "For myself, I propose, Sir, to abide by the principles and purposes which I have avowed. I shall stand by the Union, and by all who stand by it. I shall do justice to the whole country, according to the best of my ability, in all I say, and act for the good of the whole country in all I do. I mean to stand upon the Constitution. I need no other platform. I shall know but one country. The ends I aim at shall be my country's, my God's, and Truth's. I was born an American; I will live an American; I shall die an American; and I intend to perform the duties incumbent on me in that character to the end of my career. I mean to do this with absolute disregard of personal consequences. What are personal consequences? What is the individual man, with all the good and evil that may betide him, in comparison with the good or evil which may befall a great country in a crisis like this, and in the midst of great transactions which concern that country's fate? Let the consequences be what they will, I am careless. No man can suffer too much, and no man can fall too soon, if he suffer or if he fall, in defence of the liberties and constitution of his country." This speech was delivered within a week after the lamented death of President Taylor. Four days after its delivery Mr. Webster was invited by the new President, Mr. Fillmore, to return to the Secretaryship of State; and the rest of his lifeabout two years and three months was passed in that office. |