Upon Calhoun, more than upon any other man, rests the responsibility for the civil war. Mr. Webster strove to avert the evils of war, and, although his efforts were in vain, yet his speeches, and especially his speech of 1830, educated a generation of men in the free States to the duty of maintaining the Constitution and the Union under it.

In political sentiment the armies of the South represented Mr. Calhoun, and the armies of the North represented Mr. Webster. It is no doubt true, as to the North, that the physical facts were such that the scheme of the South would have been resisted if Mr. Webster had never spoken; but it is equally true that Mr. Webster infused his spirit. of attachment to the Union into the whole body of thinkers and readers in the Northern section of the country.

When Mr. Webster made his speech of the 7th of March, 1850, he was far along in the sixtyeighth year of his age. He was a candidate for the presidency. His motives may not have been clear, even to himself. Ambition and a sense of duty may have been so blended that he did not realize how far his sense of duty was controlled by his wish to conciliate interests that theretofore had been hostile. As there were bodies of intelligent, patriotic persons in the North who shared his apprehensions and who supported his policy,

it is reasonable to assume that Mr. Webster acted upon his judgment, and without reference to personal considerations.

The settlement of the northeastern boundary dispute, in 1842, was Mr. Webster's work. It was stated by Mr. Webster, in substance, that the President left the business to him, and it is neither unreasonable nor unjust to assume that Mr. Tyler was wholly indifferent to the question of territory, which was the real difficulty in the negotiations. As to Mr. Webster, he had to negotiate with three parties-Great Britain, Maine, and Massachusetts. Maine claimed jurisdiction, and Maine and Massachusetts claimed property in the lands, some of which were ceded to Great Britain.

It can not be said of Mr. Webster that he originated any important public policy, but in ability to maintain a policy that he had embraced he was far superior to his Whig associates. Mr. Webster was a conservative by nature, and hence it came to pass that he opposed the system of protection when commerce was the chief interest of New England; and hence it was that he defended the system of protection when, by the policy of the Government, the capital of New England had been invested in manufactures. He had no respect for the claim that political economy is a cosmopolitan science, and hence he favored such legislation as

promised the best results to the people of the United States. In that he did not err.

The max

im, "Buy where you can buy cheapest and sell where you can sell dearest," is often a fallacy as a measure of public policy. It is the duty of a government to favor that public policy which will secure to the laborer for each day's labor the largest return in the necessaries, conveniences, and comforts of personal and family life. This the policy of protection has done. If we compare the laboring-classes, in their condition, since 1861, with their condition during the previous sixty years, we shall find that there has been a continuous improvement. It can be said, also, that the laboringclasses of Europe have advanced in the last twenty-five years. The remark is true; but the value of the remark is qualified by the fact that the improvement in Europe has been much less than in America, and by the important circumstances that the higher wages and better condition of American laborers have drawn to America large classes of farmers and artisans, thereby improving the condition of those who remained at home.

In diplomatic debate Mr. Webster has not been surpassed by any one who has held the office of Secretary of State, but the questions that he was called to consider were much inferior in impor

tance to those which subsequently engaged the attention of Mr. Seward and Mr. Fish.

Mr. Webster had a successful career, although, in his ambition to become President, he was disappointed. Such failures have been frequent; and as the attainment of the office is not in all cases a success, so the failure to attain it is not in all cases a misfortune. He was at once the head of the American bar, the first English-speaking orator when his powers were at their maturity, and a recognized master in the list of American states

men.

Mr. Webster was one of the last of a long line of American statesmen who, in the presence of slavery, strove to preserve liberty and the Union, and of that long line he was the greatest. For seventy years the thoughtful men of all parties were forced to consider the system of slavery in America, its relations to the Union, and its inherent antagonism to the principles on which the Government was founded. Of all Mr. Webster's contemporaries no one was more susceptible than he to these influences. By nature, by education, and upon his mature judgment, he was opposed to every form of human servitude. In 1820 he anathematized slavery in invectives fierce and strong as any which ever fell from the lips of Clarkson, Wilberforce, Phillips, or Garrison.

No martyr was ever more devoted to his faith than was Mr. Webster to the Union of the States,, and to its service he had contributed the best thoughts of his life and the most brilliant passages of his orations. There can be no reasonable doubt that in 1850, to Mr. Webster's eye, the ways seemed to part. He thought that the Union was in peril, and that the further agitation of the slavery question would add to the peril.

Slavery had given birth to one form of civilization, and freedom had given birth to another, and from the beginning the rule of the continent was the prize for which the parties had contended. Each succeeding census made clear and more clear the truth that time was on the side of liberty, and that a postponement of the struggle would be fatal to slavery. Hence each census from 1820 to 1860, inclusive, with the exception of that of 1840, when the public mind was preoccupied with grave questions of finance, wrought a crisis which menaced the public peace. On two occasions Mr. Webster met the peril and controlled it: First, in 1830, when he chose his place with General Jackson, and won imperishable fame on the floor of the Senate; and again in 1850, when he secured a postponement of the contest, but at the sacrifice of his popularity and the ruin of his political fortunes.

Mr. Webster claimed that the postponement of