tory had been a bond of union in the days of the Confederation, had left its stamp upon the disposition of the States formed from it. The North and the West could not conceive of the right of a State to destroy the Union, as Nullification and Secession would inevitably have destroyed it. Hence came the well-nigh universal response with which the noble argument of Webster was met throughout these sections. Webster's attitude with regard to the Bank was but another indication of his general position, one more evidence of his general stand with respect to the powers of the national government.1 Though Webster had stood with Jackson in sustaining the Union against the destructive doctrine of Nullification, he could not join him in what he deemed a foolish, if not a criminal, attack on the United States Bank. Webster felt no scruple as to the constitutionality of the Bank and was convinced of its value to the country; Jackson's antagonism to it he regarded in the light of a personal hatred, aroused by the belief that the Bank was a political machine in the hands of his enemies, and his action in reference to it as a gross violation of the Constitution. Webster joined in passing the Resolution of Censure, the expunging of which from the records of the Senate became the most ardent desire of all Jackson men. From the days of Nullification to the day of Webster's death, the great issue before the country was slavery.2 In the very year that Webster made 1 For Webster's speeches on the Bank, see Works, vi., vii., and viii. 2 Cf. A. B. Hart, Slavery and Abolition, 1831-1841. his reply to Calhoun, the National Anti-Slavery Society was established and Abolition became an active principle. Webster was in no sense an abolitionist. In his fiercest condemnations of slavery, there is never a hint of abolition. Against the slave trade, against the extension of slavery, against the institution of slavery itself, he might hurl his most savage attacks, but never without recognition of the position that had been assured it by the Constitution. The desire to uphold the Union and the Constitution was as strong in Webster on March 17, 1850, as on February 16, 1833, but his idea as to the means had changed. In 1833 he was bitterly opposed to the compromise mediated by Clay and declared "that the time had come to test the strength of the Constitution and the government." 1 In 1850, facing a united and menacing slave power, the strongest political force in the country, he deemed it wise to yield to its demands and not forbid slavery in the new Territories. Such a concession seemed to offer the only hope of preserving the Union. To forbid slavery, moreover, in these Territories was useless, and he "would not take pains uselessly to reaffirm an ordinance of nature, nor to re-enact the will of God." 2 Early and late he sought to guard against Secession and war; in 1833 he was willing to put South Carolina to the test, but in 1850 he would set the threatening agitation at rest and ensure a final and conclusive settlement by yielding. But peace was not to be secured through an attempt to silence the agitation; the narcotic of constitutional guarantees 1 Quoted in Lodge, op. cit., p. 222. 2 Writings, X., 84. was no longer effective in deadening the moral conscience, and a decade later, the men of the North remembered only the Webster of the earlier daysthe man who voiced a nation's cry for life; the man to whom Liberty meant Union and Union meant Liberty, "one and inseparable, now and forever!" |