the papers south of New England. They were either strangely forgotten, or not deemed of sufficient importance, or they were left out by design. They were, however, interlined, in his own handwriting, in a revised copy of his speech, and sent by the hand of his intimate friend, Peter Harvey, to General William Schouler, then editor of the Boston "Atlas," in which paper the speech, as amended, first appeared.

After an eloquent portrayal of the evils of disunion, the impossibility of peaceful secession, and the fearful responsibility resting upon Congress to avert such a calamity, with an expression of his willingness to purchase, at a fair price, a portion of Northern Texas for the organization of a free State, and to vote for an appropriation for the colonization of free persons of color, he closed with one of his grand perorations, resplendent with both thought and diction. It was a speech of masterly power; and it fell heavily on the friends of truth, justice, and freedom, then battling against fearful odds for their maintenance and supremacy. Disappointed and grieved by his sudden defection, thousands who had loved, honored, and followed him as a trusted leader, now with indignant hearts left him in the hands of his new-found friends, who had won to the service of the Slave Power his great name, his exalted position and rare gifts of eloquence, afterward to be ungratefully repaid with neglect and forgetfulness.

In estimating the causes of this sudden and disastrous change in his course, it must be borne in mind that Mr. Webster was among the recognized aspirants for the Presidency. His commanding talents and large public service justified both the desire and the hope that the country would deem him worthy of that elevation. It is known, too, that he had felt keenly his failure to secure the nomination of 1848. He had also the growing conviction, as he mournfully expressed it, that there was "no North," and that the South alone was in earnest. At his time of life, too, he might naturally expect that the coming election would afford him his last chance. In this state of mind, the flattering assurances of Southern men exerted an undue influence, and persuaded him to enter upon a path in a direction contrary to all the teach

ings and practices of his previous life. Reconciling him further to this change were his apprehensions of the disastrous consequences of further disregard of Southern demands. He had become convinced that the South must be pacified. He was a true patriot, he loved the Union, and had gained a national reputation as its sturdy defender. The "great expounder of the Constitution" was the title which he had, by common consent, nobly won and worn. He seemed, too, to have comprehended more fully than most the true construction of the state, gauged more accurately the great and grave dangers which threatened the Republic, and weighed more carefully the fearful consequences which must follow its disruption. "I have not accustomed myself," he said, in the impassioned and impressive peroration of his great reply to Hayne, "to hang over the precipice of disunion, to see whether with my short sight I can fathom the depth below. Beyond that I seek not to penetrate the veil. God grant that in my day, at least, that curtain may not rise! God grant that on my vision never may be opened what lies behind! When my eyes be turned to behold for the last time the sun in heaven, may I not see him shining on the broken and dishonored fragments of a once glorious Union; on States dissevered, discordant, belligerent; on a land rent with civil feuds, or drenched, it may be, with fraternal blood!"

shall

CHAPTER XXI.

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ACTION IN MASSACHUSETTS.

Mr. Wilson's resolutions. Mr. Hillard's resolutions. Mr. Hopkins's resolutions. State mass convention at Faneuil Hall. Address and resolutions reported by Richard H. Dana, Jr. Remarks by Palfrey, Wilson, Hopkins, Webb, Adams, Phillips, and Keyes. - Hopkins's resolutions. - Branning's amendment. Remarks of Schouler, Boutwell, Stone, Lawrence, Wilson, Kimball, and Earle. - Resolutions adopted by the House. Debate in the Senate. Resolutions amended and passed. Meeting in Faneuil Hall. Petitions to instruct Mr. Webster. Mr. Wilson's resolution. - Debate thereon. Resolutions defeated.

THE exacting demands of Southern legislatures and journals, with the purposes and plans disclosed by Southern leaders in Congress, excited grave apprehensions. The friends of freedom saw the necessity of arousing the people to at once stimulate and sustain their representatives in the stern strife in which they found themselves already involved. On the 11th of January, Mr. Wilson of Natick introduced into the legislature of Massachusetts resolutions declaring slavery to be a crime against humanity and a sin against God, and that its immediate abolition was the first and highest duty of every government under which it existed. Slavery was declared a mere local institution; and Congress was invoked to repeal all laws which sanctioned it, and the Massachusetts Senators and Representatives were called upon to vote for all measures that would absolve the people from responsibility for its existence. They were referred to a joint committee. No report being made by that committee, Mr. Wilson, on the 4th of February, introduced an order instructing the Committee on the Judiciary to report forthwith a resolution declaring that Massachusetts was unalterably opposed to any compromise with slavery, and instructing her Senators in Congress to oppose the compromise resolutions, and any other proposition

that gave the sanction of the Federal government to slavery, or made the people of the free States responsible, in any degree, for its existence.

The resolutions gave rise to an animated debate. Among the speakers was Samuel Hoar of Concord, whose character, candor, and cogency of argument, always commanded attention. He specially counselled unity of action. They were advocated, too, by Mr. Barry, author of a history of Massachusetts, in a calm but earnest speech. Mr. Wilson said an emergency had arisen, and prompt action was dcmanded. The looked-for compromise had been introduced into the Senate by Mr. Clay, a compromise in direct hostility to the sentiments of Massachusetts," sentiments recorded in her annals, and enthroned in the hearts of her people." Analyzing the compromise resolutions, Mr. Wilson pronounced them derogatory to the American name and American character, and he declared that now was the time for Massachusetts to utter her indignant No to a scheme which was intended to give further security and protection to slavery, by new contracts, agreements, and adjustments. Onl the 12th of February, Mr. Hillard, chairman of the Joint Special Committee, presented several resolutions. The report declared that the feeling against slavery was universal among the people of the New England States; that, by giving assent to the introduction of slavery into regions now free, "we should feel that we were guilty of a sin before God and man, for which there is no compensation and no equivalent. The sting of self-reproach would make our material prosperity of little value. The consciousness of wrong-doing would pursue us through all the path of life, and impair the flavor of our daily bread. If we are called upon to do wrong or suffer wrong, we prefer to suffer wrong." The report closed with the avowal that "we will not buy temporal blessings with the price of what we deem wrong-doing. We will endure the shadow of sorrow, but not the stain of guilt."

Deeming the resolutions not sufficiently explicit and adapted to the exigencies of the crisis, and declaring that the significance of speaking at that time consisted in "speaking to the

question," Erastus Hopkins of Northampton made a minority report. In it were reaffirmed the oft-proclaimed opin

ions which had received the almost universal assent of the people of the Commonwealth, faithfully characterized the position of the administration, pointed out the wide divergence of the two, and declared that Massachusetts could accept no compromise which involved any abandonment of principles so firmly held and so oft repeated. Although Mr. Hillard's report had received the indorsement of a caucus of the Whig members of the legislature, yet, when it came up for consideration in the House, Myron Lawrence, a leading member, objected to it as being too pointless, while that of the minority was perhaps too pointed; though with slight modifications he preferred the latter. A successful motion to recommit was made; Mr. Hillard's resolutions were abandoned; the resolutions of Mr. Hopkins were, in substance, agreed to by the committee, and reported to the House.

While the subject thus lingered in the legislature, there was a growing uneasiness among the people, lest the golden moment of timely protest and effective action should pass by unimproved, and the voice of Massachusetts be silent, or, at best, speak with bated breath. A call was therefore issued by the Free Soil Central Committee for a mass convention, to be held in Faneuil Hall on the 27th of February. The committee called upon the people to "throng" to the convention from all portions of the State, for they alone, it said, could "avert the timid action of their representatives, and reassure the opponents of slavery extension."

The convention was called to order by Mr. Wilson, chairman of the committee, and Mr. Palfrey was made president. On taking the chair, the latter addressed the convention at length. Referring to the rumor, then rife, that Mr. Webster had prepared a compromise which Southern Senators had approved, he said: "There is no name among contemporaries, there is no name in history, so great, so illustrious, so potent, that it will not wither, like Jonah's gourd, under the influence of such an act as is now supposed to be performed." Recurring to the early history of Massachusetts and to Thomas