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R E V I E W.
WE  propose to look at some points of Mr.  Webster's latte
speech.
' The best bid that has been made yet for the Presidency'' The shrewdest thing Daniel ever did.' Such are the comments
of the street.  For the present, let us not a?ia1yze niotives, or go
deeper than the print; but try the great Northern statesman by
the record. If any one should aver that this Union can never be
hurt by its enemies, who  could safely gainsay him? since its
friends seem resolved never to allow the chance, but to cut its
throat themselves. We are Disunionists, not from any love for
separate Confederacies, or as ignorant of the thousand evils that
spring from neighboring and quarrelsome States; but we would
get rid of this Union, because experience has shown it to be, in
its character and construction, an insurmountable obstacle to the
H.ARIONY of the nation; and could we once
' Cancel, and tear to pieces, this great boni
Which keeps us pale'
with continual apprehensions, we should get space for such a
structure as would insure the HA.RM3oNY of all the races which
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PHILLIPS' REVIEW OF WEBSTER.
dwell on this continent, and all the States that control it - an empire ocean-bound on every side. With these views, Mr. Webster
has no sympathy. Yet, in our opinion, of all DISUNIONISTS, Mr.
Webster is the most efficient. His eulogy of the Union is not more
eloquent than his policy is fatal to it. According to his own oft-repeated confession, there exists an evil in our midst so serious that
it clouds the whole future of our destiny.  Ile has admitted that
the to-come is so dark, he cares not to attempt to penetrate the
clouds that overshadow it. Yet for twenty years the great statesman has been oftener' checked for silence, than rated for speech.'
Now, however, in the very crisis of our fate, he opens his mouth
-' I have wished only to speakl my sentiments, fully and at large,
being desirous, once for all, to let the Senate know, and to let the
country know, the opinions and sentiments which I entertain on
all these subjects; to disburden my conscience from the bottom
of my heart, and to make known every political sentiment that
therein exists.'  Having got to the' bottom of his heart,' what
do we find there? Hle' expresses no opinion as to the mode of
the extinguishment or amelioration of slavery,'' has nothing to
propose on that subject!' And this is statesmanship! Yes, of the
kind Coleridge describes: -' There are men who never exert
themselves to cure an evil, but seek merely to hold it at arm's
length, careful only that things may last out their day.'
The body politic is affected with a sore disease; if allowed to
have its way, no one can prophesy the result. But there is hope
that, if taken in time, before it has tainted the whole system,
and while the nation lies with submissive confidence in the hands
of its statesmen-doctors, the strength of a good Constitution will
carry the patient through.  The great Doctor has spoken; and
what does he say? 0! nothing about the patient. He has discovered that the disease is not contagious! -there is no danger
of its spreading! But as for the sufferer, hle' has nothing to propose'! And then, laying his hand where his heart ought to be,
he assures us that he has'  disburdened it from the very bottom,'
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PHILLIPS' REVIEWV OF WEBSTER.
and told' every sentiment that exists there'!  Excellent phlyscian!' 0! how much blacker art thou than thy looks! 
Yes, take slavery as it is, staggered by the sentiment of the
civilized world arrayed against it, confined within uneasy limits.
uncertain of the future, and with the great chiefs, Clbhoun, Ben.
ton, Clay, Webster, whom the land still trusts, on the stae, aun
possibly the difficult question of its abolition could be solvec
without danger to the Union.  But MIr. Webster knows that out
of all such crises as this, slavery has always, ley he sag(city of
her leaders, the supieneess of the ioArth, and the chlances of the
times, come forth strengthened and triumphant,  Seeminglry corniered, she has leaped over our heads, only to get a freer fielc
and give more fatal blows.  From the seeming death of 1787.
which deluded our fathers, she was resuscitated bv Cotton and
the Compromises.  Afterwards, smothered by the too close embrace of the Mississippi, the Louisiana Territory came  to her
relief, with new lands for her to wear out, and a market for the
slave-breeders of Virginia and the Carolinas; and when even
all this would not do, and  Dr. John PRandolph thought her
end to be near, came Texas, with the elixir of perpetual youth.
Yes, through the' infernal doors' of Compromi;.se. which  the
Constitution
I Opened, but to shut
Excelled hlier power,'
Under spread ensigns marching,' has the South found always' a
broad and beaten way' to her wishes, and amp!e means to' ternpt
or ptnish' refractory statesmen.
The true friend of the Union would seize this moment, when
the slave-host sways to and fro with anxiety' when, thaks to,
the slandered abolitionists only, all of virtue tlhe North has is
aroused to the importance of the issue, and needs but a ttAN as
leader to dare and do all for Liberty-the true friend of the
Union would seize such a moment, by some grand and compre
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P6HILLIPS' REVIEW OF WEBSTER.
hensive plan of abolition, to insure the future, instead of shutting
his eyes like the ostrich, and imagining that to be hoodwinked is to
be safe. If, in some future struggle, Slavery, gathering its hosts
from the Atlantic to the Pacific,' fleshed with conquests,' shall
do equal battle with this Union, and destroy it, its epitaph will
bee-' Died, because its friends dared not, or were too selfish,
to look danger in the face, and "scotched the snake, not
killed it."'
' Let them care that come behind,' is the motto of the Great
Defender of the Constitution.'Instant in season and out of
season' -' Delenda est Carthago'- are ours.  It is idle to imagine that any ingenuity can compromise this question. It is no
quarrel of lovers, but a thorough contrariety of interests; no
mere friction of the political machine, but an entire misfit of its
parts. The South, the present South, is fixed that the experiment shall be tried of extending slavery.   The North cannot be
said to be fully resolved, but it is deeply interested that slavery
shall cease; and this deep interest will soon issue in a most
sturdy resolution. The battle must be fought. If joined now,
it may be fought within the lists of the Constitution. But if the
combatants grow heated and angered, and the hosts increase for
another fifty years, who shall say that their first onset will not
rend the bond asunder, never to be again united?
One thing more. This speech contains, Mr. Webster tells us,
all he has to say' on these subjects.' His whole' conscience is
disburdened.' If so, then throughout a long and labored argument, embracing a sketch of slavery from the beginning of the
world, and a statement of the views taken of it by many other
nations as well as by our own, not only has the great Northern
statesman found no place for a plan to abolish it, but he has not
been betraved into the hint even of a wish that it mnay ever cease
Not one expression of pity for an enslaved race, not one indig.
nant denunciation of the system, has a decent respect even for
the opinions of mankind won firom this political prater!  Ile de,
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PHILLIPS' REVIEW OF WEBSTER.
scribes, with as many moral bows as Sir Pertinax McSycophant
himself could have made, the' conscientious opinions of the
South' on the question of selling one's neighbors, and then describes the religious scruples of the North, but all with such
judicial coldness, such wary and decorous impartiality between
Liberty and Despotism, between Right and Wrong, that it would
puzzle a jury of Philadelphlia lawyers to tell, bad Nature girven
him a heart, to whichl side it would have leaned.  So obedient
are the pulses of this great man to his -duty or —his interest,
that over the eggs of such a controversy as this, happier than
Erasmus,  he has walked without breaking them; and  may
safely boast that Daniel Webster has spoken three hours on
slavery, and no mortal man can tell whether he loves or hates it.
In the Roman  procession, the most  marked matter was  that
Cato's statue was wanting.  Of this speech, what it fails to express is more remarkable than what it has expressed -and
that is saying a great deal.
Certainly, if this cold, tame, passionless, politic commodity be
all our great man's' conscience' has to say on American slavery
' the vilest the sun ever saw,' according to the great Methodist,
whose sect the republican statesman found time to praise,  when
too much pressed for space, probably, to speak of such a trifle as
stealing a man and selling him!'  if this be all his conscience,
why, then, as Lautncelot says,''tis but a kind of hard conscience,'
after all; though had it cried to him as Launcelot's did,' Budge
not' from the Proviso,'' Scorn rfra7inig with thy heels' firom all
thy recorded principles, it would have served a good purpose,
notwithstanding.
The first point of Mr. Webster's argument is, that Texas and
all Texan territory are inevitably pledged to slavery by the terms
of the Annexation Resolutions, which, being in the nature of a
contract, cannot be broken without a breach of national faitlh
These allow Texas to be carved into, at least, five Statttes, to be
slave or free States, as each shall choose,
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PHILLIPS' REVIEW OF WEBSTER.
To this argument we answer, - The annexation of Texas was,
both in form and substance, confessedly, a gross breach of the
Constitution. The Government has no power to unite the Union
to foreign States. But if this can be done, it must be done by
treaty, which requires a vote of two-thirds of the Senate to ratify
it.  Texas was annexed by Resolutions of both branches, and by
small majorities.  By these, the forn of a contract was given to
it, the more strongly to engage the national faith, and prevent
what was, in reality, merely a law, from being, as it might otherwise have been, repealed by a subsequent one; and Texas,
brought in by one Congress, put out by its successor.
We contend that the fact of Texan annexation is fairly divisibie into two parts; 1st, the annexation of a foreign State; 2d,
certain agreements as to its being, on a future occasion, divided
into five States.
The consent of Congress is necessary to the formation of new
States within the limits of an old one. This consent is usually
given, upon deliberation, at the time of such contemplated division. Here was an attempt to give this consent beforehand, and
thus bind the action of all future Congresses; not leaving this
great boon to the South, of five Texan slave States, with ten
Senators, to the chance of defeat from the whlirligig, of time, and
the growth of anti-slavery sentiment. The whole thing, from
beginning to end, in form and substance, was a trick, a gross
breach of the Constitution. Now, what is to give it validity?
In the case of the acquisition of Louisiana, which was made according to the forms of the Constitution, though in violation, as
many thought, and Jefferson, then President, allowed, of its
real intention and essence, it has been generally held that the
unconstitutional act became valid solely by the acquiescence of
the whole people. See Adams's Texas speech, p. S6. Address
of the Faneuil Hall Texas Convention, dictated (this part) by Air.
TVebster.  Louisiana was annexed by treaty, which is, of course,
a contract even more strictly than the Texas Resolutions
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PHILLIPS' REVIEW, OF WEBSTEE.
In these last, therefore, where the Constitution has been violated both in form and substance, it is still more plain that
nothing but the acquiescence of the nation can make them valid.
How is it to be discovered whether the people acquiesce or not?
By their actions; and LET IT BE ALWVAYS REMEMIBERED ThIAT WE,
THE INJURED MIINORITY, HAVE A RIGHT TO CLAIMI THAT  OUR ENFORCED SUBMIISSION SHALL NOT BE CONSTRUED AS ACQUIESCENCE
ONE JOT OR IOTA BEYOND THAT PORTION  OF THE WICKED CONTRACT TO WHICH WE HAVE BEEN COMIPELLED TO SUCCUMIB.  Texas
is in. her Senators are seated in the Capitol, her ports are covered by our flag, her votes sport with interests of New England.  In so much New Englalnd has acquiesced, so far she is in
honor bound. Pro tanto, as the lawyers say of a will or a deed,
or an agreement, half good and half void, pro tanto (for such
part, fo(r so Imuch,) the contract has been made valid by acquiescence. But the friends of Texas attempted, in their fraudulent
contract, to secure to her and themselves certain other privileges
-to wit, cutting her up, and getting ten slave votes in the Senate. She has taken the first step, that is, entered the nation we have acquiesced -so much is hers. Let her try the second
step, erect a new State within her limits, apply for admission;
and see whether we will acquiesce in that, too. We claim that
the Anti-annexationists have a right to try that question; to that
no national honor is pledged.  The question is open.  When
pliant Websters and traitor Winthrops again betray their constitu cnts, acquiesce in this part of the bargain, and escape cashiering,
then, and not till then, will that part have gained validity.
Suppose Congress, by joint resolution, should annex Cuba, and
insert in the bargain a clause that on every question of a treaty,
the Cuban Senators' votes should count double the vote of any
New England Senator.  Suppose, in pursuance of these resolu tions, Cuba takes her seat in Congress. So far the traitorous
bargain is made valid. After a year or so, the question of rati fying a treaty comes  before the Senate-is New  England
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PHILLIPS' REVIEWV OF WEBSTER.
debarred by honor, or aught else, from resisting the other part of
the fraud; and if she can get enough to vote with her, showing
the South, Cuba and the world, that so far the trick has failed,
and has not been made valid by acquiescence? The unconstitutionality of Texan annexation is cured by submission. Well,
can we submit to that which has never taken place? When
Texas tries to divide herself into five States, and asks admission,
then shall we be able to say whether the nation, represented by
its Congress, acquiesces in that part of the bargain. But, an objector says, then Texas and her friends cannot tell, for a long
time, what her rights in this respect are.  True, and that is the
misfortune of those who venture their fate on such questionable
proceedings as need the acquiescence of others in order to be of
any binding efficacy. Certainly, if the tramplers on the Constitution have to wait long before they know whether they have
succeeded in their fraud, it is no fault of ours.
Again, the objector may urge, a bargain is a bargain - it fails
entirely, or stands in all its parts. True; that is the case when
each party understands and freely assents to it. But when one
knocks the other down, and infers his assent from his silence and
his conduct, the injured party has a right to claim that his
silence and submission shall not be construed into an assent one
jot further than it must inevitably be so interpreted: and if, when
he gets his mouth open, any thing yet remains to be assented to,
against that he may with honor protest, and resist it to the utmost
of his power. If this be not sound, constitutional, and honorable
doctrine, then a temporary majority in Congress may, by adroitly
tacking to some not unpopular measure a list of future agreements, claim from the acquiescence to, and hence the constitutionality of, the first - the acquiescence to and constitutionality
of the whole, and debar all honorable actors under the Constitution from all future resistance when the cases occur.
A man enters your house, knocks you down, takes your watch,
and makes you promise to give him a hundred dollars the next
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morning. The morning comes, he presents himself, and claims the
performance of your promise. Are you bound in honor to fulfil
it? The friends of Texas, in utter defiance of our constitutional
rights, force her upon us, and promise for us, that when she
wants other favors, we will tender them.  When the time comes,
we will see how far we are inclined to acquiesce and honor their
bills.
It appears to us that the fact of Texan annexation may thus
fairly be divided; and as in favor of the Constitution, Right and
Liberty, we are justified in going to extreme limits, and to claim
that if the' scale do turn but in the estimation of a hair,' on our
side, the verdict shall be ours; and as, Mr. Webster himself
being judge, at Springfield,'we are to use the first and last and
every occasion which offers to oppose the extension of the slave
power,' we claim that he wield over Texas also' his own thunder,' the Wilmot Proviso.
Pompously protesting as the Whigs, with Webster at their
head, did, that the whole of Texas annexation was unconstitutional, no one of them ever acted as if he believed it.  The
true course would have been, when Texan Senators and Representatives appeared at Washington, to dispute their right to take
their seats.  If voted dowin, protest, and warn Texas and the
world that each future step towards ratifying or carrying out the
iniquitous bargain would be resisted, and that her friends would
have to fight their way to the validity of their contracts over an
acquiescence which would be refused and disputed at every step.
This should have been done; men in earnest in their love of
liberty would so have acted. But its omission works no harm to
the people's right still to resist. The assent of the people is what
is needed, not the assent of members of Congress.  Members of
Congress are not sent to Washington to give their assent' to un constitutional laws or treaties.  When they do so, they go beyond
their province; and though, if the people omit to rebuke or
cashier them, such omission will be taken as proof of acquies.
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PHILLIPS' REVIEWV OF WVEBSTER.
cence in what they have done; it can be rightly so interpreted
only to the extent that such act of theirs necessarily, and inevitably, and unequivocally gocs, and no further.  Mr. Webster, in
the Texas Address, clainms even beyond this; he says -
I It is idle to say that the asse t,:f the people of a State, in a great
ard fundamental question like this, is to be proved by, or inferred from,
any vote of its Pepresentatives in Congress.  ~No member of Congress is
sent there for thtt purpose, or clothed with any such authority.'
Let it be remembered, that assent to an unconstitutional pro ceeding is never to be presumed: it is to be proced: and  the
burden of proof rests on the offending, that is, in this case, the
slave party.  It is clear the great fact of Texan  annexation
admits of such a division as we have suggested.  If it admits of
division, then, in behalf of liberty and the Constitution, the lovers
of both are bound to make it.  In such a case, even a technical
objection mounts to the dignity of an argument.   While contending for such glorious rights as Liberty and Justice, we are to
yield only inch by inch. In their behalf, we may honorably
' cavil (wih Hotspu) on the ninth part of a hlair.'  To fight
the battle of right against wroing within the girth of such a Constitution as ours is hard enough, especially when Slavery lays its
plans and deals its blows wholly unshackled by any regard to constitultional ress, ictions~ and resistance, according to Mr. Webster,
is to be made by men fettered and chained by a most conscientioIus awe for all its provisions.  Such a struggle hardly deserves
the name of fight.  It is simply being baited, like a bear muzzled
and chained, while his assailants are free and armed.  The
Dutch dykes which usually keep out the ocean, whence once the
inundation has passed over, only make the matter worse- by
restraining the waters' retreat.   Let us jealously guard and
scrupulously insist on every iota that is fairly ours, since there is
no use of contending at all on the basis of such a fainthearted
and wholesale surrender as Mr. Webster's is; according to whom,
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PHILLIPS' REVIEW OF WEBSTER.
Despotism is to be allowed to do every thing illegally, and Liberty nothing at all, according to law!
In conclusion: If the Texas annexation be a contract, or treaty,
and our refusal to admit her five slave States be a breach of the
contract, the remedy is in the hands of Texas. If we refuse to
pay this, the rich price at which we bought the great favor and
blessing of her joining us, the door is open; she can retire, annul the contract, and all things then stand as before. No great
harm is done, and she can have no good cause of complaint; for
Massachusetts was but speaking the voice of many free States
when she placed on record her resolve, that she' denies the validity of any compromise whatsoever, that may have been, or
that hereafter may be, entered into by persons in the government
of the Union, intended to preclude the future application of such
a condition [as Wilmot's] by the people acting through their rep.
resentatives in the Congress of the United States.'
Let us look a moment at Mr. Webster's personal sincerity in
this Texas matter.  In the Texas Address, which he dictated, in
1845, MIr. Webster pronounced that act'a plain violation of the
Constitution, both in form and substance.' In 1848, at Marsh.
field, he said,' I take it that the most important event in our time,
tending to the extension of slavery and its everlasting establishment on this continent, was the annexation of Texas in 1845.'
In 1847, at Springfield, he told us,' We are to use the first, last,
and every occasion which offers, to oppose the extension of the
Slave Power.' On the 10th of August, 1848, after New Mexico
and California were acquired, he said in the Senate:
'M- opposition to the increase of slavery in this country, or to the
increase of slave representation, is general and universal.  It his no
reference to the lines of latitude or points of the compass.   I sALL,
OPPOSE ALL SUCH EXTENSION AT ALL TIMES AND UNDER ALL CIRCUMSTANCES,
EVEN AGAINST ALL INDUCEMENTS, AGAINST  ALL SUPPOSED  LIMIITATION
OF GREAT INTERESTS, AGAINST ALL COMBINATIONS, AGAINST ALL COMPROMISES.'
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PHILLIPS' REVIEW OF WEBSTER.
Here, then, was a crisis worthy, himself being judge, of his
utmost exertion. Dignus vindice nodus - a knot which justified
the interference of a god. It was' unconstitutional'; it was' most
important'; it tended to make slavery'everlasting'; he felt
pledged to oppose it every where and by all means.
In view of all this, what and how much has Daniel Webster
ever done to prevent the annexation? And when, by the unconstitutional action of a temporary majority, the deed was in some
sense attempted or done, what did he do to prevent its acquiring
the validity of law?
He made a few speeches, one in particular, at Niblo's Garden,
New York; but when so mighty an injustice as this was in progress, was it enough to speak merely? When did he ever throw
his dreaded gauntlet into the lists, and challenge every comer?
When did he ever put gallantly at hazard his name, fame and influence, throw intrepidly into the scale of anti-Texas all that he
had and all that he was? Did he rally the country? Did he try
to animate and marshal even the Whig party? Did he counsel a
temporary suspension of attending to minor points, and a concentration of the vigilance of the country on this, the Thermopyle and Gibraltar of the North? Did he summon the States,
whose relative weight, as such, was being wickedly and illegally
taken from them, to protest and exert themselves? For the ten
years that the Texas project was afoot, he, and with some truth
we may say, he alone, was competent to any or all of these
things. But none of them did he attempt. In a great measure,
his lukewarmness and indifference were the one great obstacle in
the way of any other Northern man's doing either of them.
True, he got others to call a Convention, in 1845, in Faneuil
Hall, and when he had felt the pulse of Boston, and found the
meeting unpopular, he never came within its walls, but ran away
to New York.  He dictated the constitutional part of that Convention's Address, and then forbade them to divulge the fact!
How much in all this of' high purpose and dauntless spirit'?
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PHILLIPS' REVIEW OF WEBSTER.
But in December, 1S45, while he sat in the Senate,' the final
law doing the d(eed of annexation' was passed.  I-e' expressed
his opinion,' he tells us,'  and recorded his vote in the negative,
and there that vote stands'!  And was that all?  Hle stood and
saw his loved temple of Liberty fired,'expressed his opinion,
and voted against it'!  He saw the Constitution violated-the
balance  of the States utterly destroyed -saw a deed accomplished in attempting to portray the fatal consequence of which
even his eloquence labors, and contented himself with a speech
and a vote! Does Mr. Webster mean to say, that if a majority in
the Senate voted Maine out of that body, or established an order
of nobles, he should content himself with an' opinion and vote'?
When  a ruthless mrnajority tramples on  the  form and substance of the Constitution, of course there must be some constitutional way of opposing them of preventing their acts acquiring validity As a profound constitutional lawyer, Mr. Webster
could not but know these ways and means of constitutional opposition. In such a crisis, he was bound to find or to make one.
Did he attempt it? Did he contest the right to their seats of men
who appeared on that floor, under that'plain violation of the
Constitution'? He never opened his mouth! Did he, like the
Scottish chieftain of old, send the burnt cross throughout New
England, and reminding her of what he had dictated, in 1845' It is idle to say that the cassent of the people of a State, in a great
and fundamental question like this, is to be proved by, or inferred from, any vote of its representatives in Congress'! conjure
them to assemble in Convention, and swear never to ratify by
acquiescence this act' which tended to make slavery everlasting
on the continent'? Nothing of the kind.
Did hle, if he thought it too late to undertake this, place on solemn
record at Washington, and add his influence to, the' denial' of
the Massachusetts Legislature of the validity' of any compro mise, intended to preclude the future application of such a condition' [as Wilmnot's]?
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PHILLIPS' REVIEW OF WEBSTER.
Instead of this, he assures Mr. Bell, of Tennessee, (page 18,)
that' he knows no form of legislation which can strengthen' this
'plain violation of the Constitution'-' no recognition that can
add a tittle of weight to it'!' Any additional recognition would
weaken the force of it' —' Government is pledTged BY LAW and
contract.' (p. 26.) And he surrenders, gives up the game, prom ises to quintuple the weight of Texas when asked. Is this
what he calls using'the first, last, and every occasion to resist
the slave power'? -  is this opposition' at all times, under all cir cumstances, against all inducements, against ALL COMPROMISES'?
Daniel Webster has spoken some and well against Texas.  He has
yet to do the first ACT to resist her annexation, or prevent the fatal
effects of that measure.  His present position either confesses
that his boasted Constitution is all a sham, so weak that it leaves
its friends no means of resisting the unconstitutional acts of a
ruthless majority, or that his whole opposition to Texas, judged
by his public acts, was a sham.
The next point in Mr. Webster's speech is, his entire surrender
K of the Wilmot Proviso, so far as any territory at present be longing to the country is concerned, on the ground of its being
utterly unnecessary. As to California and New Mexico, he holds
slavery to be excluded from those territories by the law of nature
and physical geography -' I will not take pains to re-affirmn an
ordinance of nature, or re-enact the will of God -would not
wound even the irrational pride of the South.' pp. 23, 24. He
confesses his repeated and most solemn pledges to the principle
of the Proviso, and promises to stand by them when shown to
be necessary.
This sudden, and for his official prospects most opportune, dis covery of the uselessness of the Proviso, wears a mostsuspi cious face.   Mr. Webster  doubtless remembers'the pregnant
commentary on Strafford's taking sides with Charles I.  There are some changes of opinion so suspicious, that it needs
a life of most unequivocal sincerity ever after to convince man kind that they were the results of honest conviction.'
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PHILLIPS' REVIEW OF WEBSTER.
But we beg the reader to remember that they were not simply
pledges which Mr. Webster gave at Springfield and elsewhere to
the Wilmot Proviso.  He  used his and the Whigs' professed
attachment to this Proviso as an argument throughout the whole
Presidential campaign to undervalue the Free Soil movement as
unnecessary -to defeat Cass,- a man now shown to be as
sound as himself, to all practicable purposes, on this question,and to elect Taylor; and unless he can convince the community
that he has got new light on the character of' nature and physical geography' in New Mex'co, &c., since September, 1847, and
September, 1848, he stands before the world convicted out of his
own mouth of having swindled those who trusted him out of
their confidence and votes by false pretences.
Listen to him at Springfield, September, 1847:
'I am not a prophet, nor the son of a prophet; but if I were to
prophesy, the very last subject on which I would venture a prediction
would be the course of the Northern Democracy on this subject of slavery extension. The prediction of the Almanac respecting the state
of the weather would be just as reliable as any I could make of their
probable proceedings. I hope there are some among them, and I am
glad to believe there are many of them, who would go with us in support
of the sentiment of the Wilmot Proviso; but when we come to the real
question, the vote, who and how many can we rely on to support us?
' It was scouted out of the assemblage of the Democraey of Massachusetts at Worcester.  Are we quite certain the Democratic members
of Congress from Maine and New Hampshire will abandon the administration, and support the Proviso against the Slave Power?'
Again at Marshfield, September, 1848: -
' And now I venture to say, gentlemen, two things: the first well
known to you, that Gen. Cass is in favor of what is called the Compromnise Line; and is of opinion that the Wilmot Proviso, or the Ordinance of
1787, which excludes slavery from territories, ought not to be applied to
territories lying south of 36 deg. 30 min. Hlie announced this before he
was nominated, and if he had not announced it, he would have been
thirty-six degrees thirty minutes farther off from being nominated.  In
2*
17 
PHILLIPS' REVIEW OF WEBSTER.
the next place, he will do all he can to establish that compromise line 
and lastly, which is a matter of opinion, in my  conscientious belief, lihe
will establish it.
' I verily believe, that unless there is a renewed strength, an augmented
strength of WNhig votes in Congress, he will accomplish his purpose.'
' Augmented  strength of Whig  votes'!  How  many  Whig
votes, his own and R. C. Winthrop's, for instance, will it take to
support the Proviso?  Like the Scotchman's acres, the more you
have of them, the poorer you will be.
We turn aside a moment to remark, that it was in this speech
at MIarshfield that Alr. Webster confessed, what the abolitionists
have so often asserted -
'We  talk of the North.  There has been no North. I think the
North Star is at last discovered; I think there will be a North: but up to
the recent session of Congress, there has been no North. What I mean
to say is, if I am to understand a geographical section of the country, in
which there has been a strong, conscientious, and united opposition to
slavery, no such North has existed.'
And if' no such North has existed,' at whose door lies the
fault?  We  say plainly, at his;'one blast upon whose bugle
horn, any time these twenty years, had been worth a thousand
mnen.' His fiat could at any moment have called this new world
into existence. His influence against it has been one of the greatest obstacles to its creation. When Wellington taunts Canning,
that he did not earlier emancipate the Catholics - when Peel
taunts Cobden, that the Corn laws were not sooner repealed
whenBenedictArnold taunts Washington, that the Colonies did not
sooner triumph; then, at their side, let Webster taunt the North
for want of strength, energy and unanimity in its oppomion to
slavery; he, whose boast has been, who has claimed it as a merit
with his Southern friends, that he never infraduced the question
in any shape into Congress.
' The  North Star is at last discovered.'  Who told him  so.
18 
PHILLIPS' REVIEW OF WEBSTER.
For only by report could he know it, having had no hand in the
grand discovery. Let him modestly betake himself to the company of Harry the Fifth's
I Gentlemen in England, now a-bed
Who hold their manhood cheap when any speaks
Who fought with us upon'
that glorious forlorn hope, the North against the South, in the
slave's cause.
But let us look at the statement itself, that the Wilmot Proviso
is unnecessary for New Mexico and California.
1. This was the same argument so commonly used in 1844 to
smooth the way for Texan annexation -' It never can be a slave
country -naturally unfit for it,' &c. &c. Upon this slaveholders
and dough-faces were perpetually harping. We hear nothing of
it, now Texas is safely in the Union. Here is one first reason
for looking upon such statements as suspicious. It is hardly respectful to hope to catch the world with the sanme kind of chaff.
2. What does Mr. Webster know about this vast region, this
undiscovered country from which so few travellers have returned? so immense,' a bird cannot fly over it in a week'!
He'Isupposes' there is no slave of the real American type
(observe, when he wants the worst kind of slavery, he has
to exemplify it as it exists among American Christians!) in
California. He supposes! Ah, earnest men want more than a
politician's'suppose' for a surety against injustice and wrong.
He' understands'  that peonism, a sort of penal servitude, or
rather, a sort of voluntary sale of a man and  his OFFSPRING,
for debt, exists in some part of California and New Mexico.'
Peonisnim! what a pretty name!' A lie may keep its throne
a whole age longer, if it shall skulk behind the shield of some
fair seeming name.'  Voluntary sale of a man's  offspring for
his debt! a trifle! not slavery, in the Websterian sense!  The
Roman jurists called it so, (see page 9,) but they were pagans.
19 
PHIILLIPS' REVIEW OF W'EBSTER.
We will not quarrel on a name; but while fathers sell their children, for indefinite periods, use boys and girls as a basis of the
currency, if Mr. Webster' cannot take the pains to re-affirm the
ordinance of Nature and re-enact the will of God,'* or even the
*'This law, moreover, must have been enacted by the Creator since
1824, or its operation must have been previously suspended in deference
to the Spanish government; for under that government, negro slavery
did exist in New Mexico and California, and it ceased in 1824, not by
the law of " plhy sical geography," but by a Mexican edict.  Thousands of
slaves arc employed in the mines of Brazil, and Mr. Webster does not
explain how his law forbids their employment in the mines of California.  Mr. W-ebster ridicules the application of the proviso to Canada, in
ease of annexation.  I neither see nor feel the point of his wit - slavery
is already prohibited by the local law of Canada, but were it not, most
certainly it ought to be prohibited as a condition of annexation.  New
York adjoins Canada, and Mr. Webster probably regards the prohibition
of slavery in our recent constitution as the height of absurdity.  Ini 1790,
there were 21,000 slaves in New York, and on the 4th of July, 1827,
about 10,000 slaves were emancipated, not by Mr. Webster's law, but by
act of the Legislature, and the number would have been much greater, had not laws for their gradual emancipation been in operation since
1796.  For a long period, slavery flourished in New  York undisturbed
by abolitionists. The absence of all anti-slavery agitation was as perfect
as.Mr. WAebster's heart could desire.  Stray negroes were caught with
almost as much ease as stray pigs. Neither pulpit nor press ruffled the
happy serenity of the slaveholders. But this blissful repose was suddenly broken in 1741, by rumors of an intentded insurrection. Courts and
executioners were immediately put into requisition, and in pursuance of
judical sentences, thirteen slaves were burnzt alive at the stake int the city of
New Yo)rk, eighteen were hanged, and seventy-one were exported to foreign markets.'- JAY'S I, ETTEP.
' IMr. Webster supported, as has been se:n, the Oregon bill, wvith a prohibition of slavery, although no portion of it falls below forty-two degrees
of north latitude. The territory acquired from Mexico, on the other
hand, extends from that parallel south to the 32d - the latitude of Savannah. And it is deserving of particular notice, that these territories
20 
PHILLIPS' REVIEW OF WEBSTER.
ordinance of 1787, for such a country, we would be exceedingly
obliged to him if he would come quietly home, and give place to
some more active  man, who has a microscopic eye for such
triftcs.
Seriously, we hold that in this confession, M,r. Webster surrenders his whole ground.   Any' servitude other than for crime of
which the party has been duly convicted' was hateful to the men
of 1787, and ought to be to those of 1850. It is the great
Saxon race that goes forth to take possession of this noble inher
had been already acquired when Mr. Webster pronounced himself against
slavery "irrespective of lines and points of latitude," and "against any
compromise of the question."  When Mr. Webster voted for a prohibition of slavery in Oregon, and in the very territory he now refuses to restrict, he could not have studied, with his accustomed severity of application, "the law of the formation of the earth."  Indeed, it may be fairly
questioned whether, at that period, he had even commenced his researches in "physical geography."
' On the 28th of February, 1849, while the question of providing governments for the territories acquired from Mexico was under discussion,
Mr. Dix said:
"' Slaves have been carried, and always will be carried, wherever they
are not prohibited. Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and Missouri, are in the same
range of States. The fortieth parallel of latitude divides them all. The
influence of soil and climate are much the same in each. From the first
three, slavery has been excluded by the ordinance of 1787.  The last has
been overrun with slavery Ibr want of a prohibition."
' In the same speech, he referred to a fact which fully sustains his positioni.  After the adoption of the ordinance of 1787, prohibiting slavery
in the territorv northwest of the Ohio, the inhabitants of that portion of
it which now constitutes the States of Indiana and Illinois, repeatedly petitionedcl Congress to suspend the operation of the ordinance, and allow
them to introduce slaves from the States. It is hardly necessary' to add,
that these applications were steadily refused. In every instance, in the
first settlement of a State, in which the question of slavery has been left
to be determined by natural causes, human cupidity has proved too strong
for Mr. Webster's law of physical geography.' - New York Eve2inlg Post,
21 
PHILLIPS' REVIEWV OF WEBSTEPR.
itance.  True to the glorious ORDINANCE, let us cut up, root and
branch, all the vile institutions of other races, even if they be
not quite so atrocious as our own pet sin at home.
But slavery is as impossible in New Mexico as in Canada, says
Bir. Webster.   Where's  the proof?   How  little we  know of
those countries is evident from this very speech; for he tells us
that the discovery of California gold mines was laughed at, only
two years ago, as an idle tale; yet that coast had been visited
and settled for many years. Who, when the liberty of a race
hangs on a decision, will after that undertake to hazard any thing
on the accuracy or sufficiency of our knowledge of the almost
untrodden regions that lie south and east of California?  What
man vain and hard-hearted enough to risk a great question like
this on the tales of a few travellers, who have now and then lost
themselves in that region, so immense that, as Neal once said, all
the nations of Europe might be hidden there from each other?
The Texan plot just achieved, which commenced with the
same song, and resulted in such strength and extension of slavery, surely we mnay rightly suppose that the men who played
that game  are masters  of their trade.   What say  they on
this  point?   Calhoun  and  all the South  cling with frantic
desperation to the right of carrying their slaves into this Territory.   The prestige of their late triumphant success goes before
them. This is not the moment for Mr. Webster to boast either
his statesmanship or his sagacity.  He has just been outwitted.
The last game of Texas has been played so well, we begin to
respect at least the ability of the winners.  I~e sutor ultra
crepidam, which means here, Let Mr. Webster confine himself
to shooting snipes at Marshfeld.  We want to know  Calhoun's
opinion on a slave question.  It is prudent to watch the enemy's
game.   Mr. Calhoun, the arch-slaveholder, approves Mr. Webster's principle.  Hie likes'no artificial line;' he only wants
slavery' where it would naturally go.' That is enough for us.
It is not only right but prudent to learn of the foe.
22 
PHILLIPS' REVIEW OF WEBSTER.
Slavery not possible in the California territory!  Why, then,
did the late California Convention, of which sixteen members
were from the South,  with entire unanimity,' as he tell us, insert a prohibition against it? They were on the spot, interested
in the question, fully informed, and 16 out of 48 were from the
South; yet with entire unanimity, well knowing the storm at
home, they took the pains to' re-affirm the ordinance of Nature
and re-enact the will of God.' One fact is worth a dozen systems. Among all the inquiries he made and books he read,
(p. 26,) did Mr. Webster give its due weight to thisfact in making up his opinion on the' physical geography' of the neighboring region to the South of this new State?
But' physical geography,' forsooth! Where has winter been
grim enough to fright slavery away? In Russia? Where has
labor been hard enough to tempt a man to work for himself, and
make him hate to force another to work for him? In mines?
How many mines of various kinds may yet be discovered in that
country, to be wrought like the Indian and Brazilian, by slaves? *
One might as well undertake'to prophesy,' to use Mr. Webster's
words at Springfield, what Whig principles will be next fall, as
to say what will be the character of the country or society in
New Mexico and California fifty years hence: and he who, with
* The Southern members of Congress, says the NV. Y. Eve?izg Post, understand this matter, and do not disguise their understanding of it. All
they ask is the non-interference, for which Mr. Webster has pronounced
himself. On the 23d of February, 1849, Mr. Foote, of Mississippi, said:
' No one, acquainted with the vast mineral resources of California and
New Mexico, and who is aware of the peculiar adaptedness of slave-labor
to the development of mineral treasures, can doubt for a moment, that
were slaves introduced into California and New Mexico, for the purpose
of being employed in the mining operations there ill progress, and hereafter, perhaps, to be carried on to an extent conjectured by few, their
labor would result in the acquisition of pecuniary profits not heretofore
realized by the most successful cotton and sugar planters of the country.'
-ArrENrNDIX TO CONG. GLOBE, p. 262.
23 
PHILLIPS' REVIEW OF WEBSTER.
the recent unexpected and most marvellous developments as to
gold mines there, undertakes such a task, deserves to have the
world laugh at him.  But the man or the statesman who will risk
the liberty of human beings on such cobweb speculations, deserves other rebuke than ridicule. His folly changes to crimrne.
Even without mines,' tillable land,' or cotton plantations,
slavery might still exist in the house, and in many forms of
domestic employment, as it did in New England previous to
1780, and thus not only sacrifice the rights of some hundreds of
thousands, which, however trifling they may appear to great
statesmen, are worth taking pains for, even at the risk of' wounding the irrational pride of slaveholders:' but further still, such a
state of society would inevitably throw that whole region, as the
same cause does now throw Maryland and Delaware, into the
slave ranks, and thus help the scale of Freedom to kick the
beam on every trial.
Mr. Webster says (page 8) in his revised speech,'Slavery
existed in the earliest periods of history in the Oriental nations.
What does he say on the 26th page?' California and New
Mexico are'- what?' Asiatic in their formation and scenery!'
If they are so, what prevents slavery from existing there in
the latest periods, as it did in the Oriental nations in the
earliest?
' There was slavery among the Greeks,' says Mr. Webster.
What was Greece?' I-ron-bound and sterile,' says Edward
Everett; with an unproductive soil, importing her own corn.
What is the description Mr. Webster gives of New Mexico?
Such as Greece was, with her little mountain fastnesses, with
vast ridges of mountains of enormous height, broken ridges and
deep valleys.' Slavery existed in Greece, without much' tilable
land,' without cotton or tobacco. Why cannot it exist in our
mountains at the present day?
Suppose there be no' tillable lands,' no cotton plantations, is
slavery therefore impossible?  As we have before remarked,
24 
PHILLIPS' REVIEW OF WEBSTER.
thrice has it heretofore been supposed in this country that slavery
was on the point of ceasing. First, it was believed, in 1789, that the
prohibition of the trade in 1808 would abolish it; so Mr. Webster
avows. Cotton came in, and that fond hope of our fathers
proved illusive. Randolph thought, thirty years ago, the system
was dying; and so the North deluded itself at the time of the
Missouri Compromise. The internal slave trade, and the opening of virgin lands in the southwest, saved it. Of late, half dead,
and fearing the future, Texas came in to give it a new lease of
life and vigor. So many times, one thing after another, undreamed of by the wise ones, has chanced to save it. The
sagacity of its friends has been keener than that of a Pope of
Rome to seize the tide at the flood, and guide it on to safety.
' Outgeneralled' (it is Mr. Webster's alternative phrase) so often,
shall we leave any thing to chance? What did Massachusetts
tell her representatives in 1S49?' To enforce the prohibition, to
"the end that slavery may be perpetually excluded therefrom,
beyond every chance and uncertainty."'' Would you have a
serpent sting you TWICE?'  No! this time we'11' take a bond
of fate, and make assurance doubly sure.'
We look upon all Mr. Webster's pretended grounds for this sud
den change of position as made up for the occasion.* He is cvi
* In 1819, Mr. WIebster, as one of the Committee, submitted to a Boston meeting two resolutions, viz.: -' That the Congress of the United
States possess the constitutional power, upon the admission of any new
State created beyond the limits of the original territory of the United
States, to make the prohibition of the further extension of slavery or involuntary servitude in such new State a condition of its admission;' and
that'it is just and expedient that this power should  be exercised by
Congiess upon the admission of ALL new States erected beyond the oeginal limits of the United States.'- JAY's LETTER.
'When Northern members of Congress voted for the Missouri Compromise, against the known will of their constittents, they were called
3
25
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kl 
PHILLIPS' REVIEW OF WEBSTER.
dently ill at ease, pleading a cause, not stating his real opinion.
And it is strange that he should be ill at ease in such work,
since, in our opinion, Mr. Webster has never been a statesman
but once in his life, and that was in his conflict with Hayne. On
all other occasions, he has been, and has seemed to be, even in
the Senate, a mere advocate- now of a tariff, now of a bank,
now of this great interest, now of that; and if he was not feed
for his arguments, he ought to have been, and seemed to expect to be.
His total surrender of what he so vain-gloriously called, at
Springfield,' his thunder,' and' the Whig ground,' is flat apostacy, nothing else. Somewhere, in this speech, he finds fault
with us as impatient -' too impatient to wait for the slow progress of moral causes in the improvement of mankind.' If from
1847 to 1850 be a fair specimen of his snail-like progress backward, impatience is no great crime in any spectator.   In the
streets, they link his name with Arnold and such humble traitors;
but his crime is greater. Nothing, as has been well said by
Charles Sumner, resembles it but the deliberate and calculating
apostacy of Strafford. It is not, as in Arnold, the surrender of a
fort, or the desertion of a single man. Here the proper, and bv
" Dough Faces."  I am  afraid, fellow citizens, that the generation of
" dough faces" will be as perpetual as the generation of men."-  Webster at iarlishield, 1848.
There seem to be  well grounded reasons for this fear!  For, in answer to a question from Mir. Webster, Mr. Hlale said, in the Senate, March
2.5, 1850:
' The honorable Senator asks me why I did not vote to keep territory
out? I call upon the Senate to mark what I am about to say. A motion was made by the Senator from Connecticut to insert in the tmeaty
[of peace with Mexico] a provision keeping slavery out of the whole
country that we should acquire, and upon that vote any name stands recorded in favor of the proposition, and upon that vote the name of the
honorable Senator from Massachusetts does not appear at all, although it
appears that he was in the Senate five minutes before and five minutes
after the vote was taken.'
26 
PHILLIPS' REVIEW OF WEBSTER.
some younglings the expected, leader of the North, not only
leaves the camp, but sets himself, like Strafford, to corrupt with
his glozing sophistry the consciences and hoodwink the eyes of
his countrymen, yields up the safety of one race, and uses the
influence, too generously given him, to mould the other into supple and unconscious tools of a Despotism which he is all the
while affecting to abhor. If Slavery sets her foot on the strand of
the Pacific, let her thank our Strafford. MIirabeau was bought
with gold, but Death took him before he could earn it; Strafford
with a peerage, but Puritanism winnowed him and his plots on
its inexorable threshing-floor, the scaffold. There is a spirit
awake at the North as inexorable as Puritanism or Death; and
now, as formerly, God gives to Liberty nothing but victories.
Let no one suppose, from our lengthened criticism of the Wilmot Proviso surrender, that we place any reliance on that Proviso
as an efficient barrier against slavery. We recognize the utility,
for various reasons, of contending for it; but above all, we wish
to criticise this speech, not as Disunionists, but from Mr. Webster's standpoint.
We come next to Mr. Webster's admission of there being just
grounds of Southern complaint against the North.   And here is
another of those suspicious and sudden changes of opinion.
How busy the distinguished gentleman must have been the last
twelvemonth!  How  much he has learned!  It is just a year
since he dared Mr. Butler to bring against Massachusetts any
charge of transgression of the Constitution, and proclaimed his
readiness to defend her.   Since then, either his valor has oozed
away, or he has got melancholy information of the truth of lMr.
Butler's charges!
As long ago as when he defended the Constitution against
Hayne, in 1830, he said,' I am resolved not to submit, in silence,
to accusations either against myself individually, or against the
North, wholly unfounded and unjust; accusations which impute
to us a disposition to evade the Constitutional Compact, and to
27
i
II
i
II
19 
PHILLIPS' REVIEW OF WEBSTER.
extend the power of the Government over the internal laws
and domestic condition of the States.'  In March, 1850 — Eheu
quantum mutatus ab illo! -he has nothing to say on the subject!
except to accuse his constituents.
The free States have never passed a law which  their best
lawyers did not deem consistent with the Constitution; and the
moment the Federal Court, most unexpectedly, in the Prigg case,
announced a new view of the relations of the States to this question, they conformed their legislation exactly to its decision.
Northern courts have, with a fidelity which we think cruel, carried out the edicts of the central Judiciary. Individuals, it is true,
to their honor be it said, have (with here and there a few base
exceptions, to which we now add the name of Daniel Webster)
refused to'bewray him that wandereth.'  Yet against Courts
and Legislatures, as well as private citizens, SIr. Webster endorses this wholesale slander, which lacks only truth to be a
compliment.
The only point in this part of the speech that interests us, is
the unutterable baseness of the slave hunt pledge. It is indeed
true, as we have always argued, that all who swear to support
the Constitution are bound not only to submit to the return of
fugitive slaves, but to aid in it, if necessary. All honor to Mr.
Webster's consistency on this point; and as he exhibits none on
any other, and very little here, we are the more scrupulous to
pay him his due credit, to the uttermost farthing. The difference
of conduct of different men on this point of surrendering fugitive
slaves has been quite remarkable. Some, with Adams and
Channing, cut the Gordian knot, by frankly declaring that, though
sworn to the Constitution, this they will not do; a course defensible neither in a court of law, nor one of morals. Others, with
Giddings and his friends, evade the question, and, while admitting the general constitutional obligation, are very shy of telling
us what they themselves would do in the matter. Thanks to
Mr. Webster for his plain, unvarnished villany.  Villain, gentle
28 
PHILLIPS' REVIEW OF WEBSTER.
reader, is none too harsh a name for a man who professes his
readiness to return fugitive slaves.   Our glorious old tongue
was made for use, not to be laid up in dictionaries. It is rich
indeed in its capacity for rebuking sin, but alas! the Saxon race
far outdoes it in its capacity for sinning.
Mr. Webster professes his entire readiness to carry out this
provision of the Constitution. He is no common man, whose
pledge will, like himself, be forgotten in a day. His name is to
float down the tide of time. The' terrible memory' of the
abolitionists will fix side by side with that name on the
page of history this shameful confession. If God permits him
to live, he will have ample time to appreciate, as the world advances, the foul blot he has ineffaceably made on the sun of his
fame. It will be but a poor excuse for his biographer to urge
that he squared his morality by the statute book of his time! As
'nice customs curt'sy to great kings,' so truly great men, far
more, truly good ones, refuise to be' confined within the weak
list of a country's fashion.' Besides, he saw the truth clearly
enough when he got beyond the smoke of his own prejudices,
and was looking at Kossuth, and not at a negro. Then he could
summon to his side against Russia,' the threatened indignation
of the whole civilized world.'' Let not any one imagine,' he
said,' that mere force can subdue the general sentiment of mankind. Gentlemen, if the blood of Kossuth is taken by an absolute, unqualified, unjustifiable violation of national law, what will
it appease - what will it pacify? It will mingle with the earth
-it will mix with the waters of the ocean - the whole civilized
world will snuff it in the air, and it will return with awful retribution on the heads of these violators of national law and justice.'
Put the name of Douglass, Brown, or Ellen Crafts in place of
Kossuth, and we commend this fine sentiment to Mr. Webster's
mature consideration. We' appeal from Philip drunk to Philip
sober,' from Mr. Webster at Washington, with the gewgaws of
office tinkling in his ears, to Mr. Webster at home, counting on
3*
29 
PHILLIPS' REVIEW OF WEBSTER.
that honorable fame, the approbation of good men in time to
come; or longing for that self-respect, so valued in one's last
years, when, as Kent says,'we begin to act more from a sense
of duty, and less from any feeling of ambition.' Who can blame
us for detesting that Moloch Constitution to which the fair fame
of our statesman is sacrificed! Is not the very weakest-minded
Charity obliged to confess that its favorite has loved Liberty and
Justice less, and idolized the parchment more?
But there is something further to be urged onil this point. Full
half of the villany is volunteered, utterly gratuitous. Mr. Webster proclaims his readiness to support not only the Constitution,
but the atrocious provisions of Mr. Mason's bill. This proposes
to surrender any colored person claimed as a slave, without requiring any thing but prima facie evidence of his being soadmitting affidavits as well as oral testimony, thus wholly
debarring the victim from any opportunity of cross-examining the
witnesses against him- refuses jury trial, and allows any one of
the forty thousand postmasters in the Union to authorize the
transportation of an inhabitant of Massachusetts to New Orleans,
to have it tried there, friendless, alone, and helpless as he will be,
whether he was born in Massachusetts, or had escaped there! *
All these objectionable features might be removed, and yet the
Constitution faithfully observed. There is nothing in the Constitutional provision which forbids the regulating of the whole process of slave surrender by all the jealous forms of habeas corpus,
jury trial, &c., which the experience of ages shows to be indispensable for the protection of freemen who may be mistaken
for slaves; on the contrary, the Constitution, fairly interpreted,
*The present fugitive slave bill, that of 1792, is justly liable to all
the objections urged against Mason's bill, except that it commits the execution of its provisions to persons of some standing and character, not to
a mass of clerks and postmasters.
30
.1 
PHILLIPS' REVIEW OF WEBSTER.
requires the observance of a trial by jury. Art. 8 of the Amendments says,' In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy
the right to a speedy and public trial by an impartial jury, &c.'
Art. 9th continues,' In suits at common law, where the value in
controversy shall exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury
shall be preserved, &c.' When a fugitive slave is arrested, it is either a civil or a criminal case: it goes into one list or the other, and
the Constitution, therefore, requires a jury trial. But if any one
is hardy enough to deny that such a case is strictly either civil
or criminal, still the spirit of the Constitution, as shown in the
above extracts, would fairly claim a jury trial even in anomalous cases. Without the slightest pretext of legal or constitutional obligation, therefore, without any reason in common sense, Mr. Webster volunteers his support of all these
thoughtless  and  cruel  and  dangerous  regulations.   Our  fa thers thought it high crime enough to put it into the Declara tion of Independence, that George III. intended to transport
the colonists to England for trial. To Hancock or Adams, Eng land was next door, compared with the infinite and hopeless
distance of New Orleans from Boston to any free colored man,
whom this cruel and loose law has. left to be mistakenly or ma liciously carried there, to be melted into the indistinguishable
mass of slaves, and have the question of his Massachusetts
birth tried at some white claimant's leisure!
Wlhere the owner finds lost or stolen property, there he is to
prove his title. Such is the sound rule of the common law, and
it ought to govern in these cases of fugitive slaves. Suppose the
claimant, under Mason's bill, either through malice or careless ness, has taken the wrong person, taken a Massachusetts free man: how shall the victim be righted? Why, it is said, by
appealing to some court in New Orleans, when he arrives. But
the colored people are generally poor. Suppose a colored man,
never out of Boston in his life, is snatched away. How is he to
get friends in New Orleans, where he never was before, to bring
31 
PHILLIPS' REVIEW OF WEBSTER.
his case before a tribunal? Months may pass ere that, and
meanwhile the poor, friendless one is melting fast into the indis tinguishable mass of slaves, and may be sold and passed on fromn
hand to hand, till redress is impossible.
But if some humane person is found, and the case is at last in
some Southern court, where every colored person is presumed to
be a slave until he shows the contrary, - how then is the Boston
boy to prove his Boston birth? We shall be told, let him send for
his mother, father, brothers, uncles, playmates. Send? It costs
money.  Send for their depositions, then?  Court street asks
money to take them; the man is poor. But suppose this obstacle also is surmounted.   His friends have come to him, or sent
their depositions. The laws of the South shut out all this testimony! A colored man must, of course, prove his birth and
residence by colored friends generally; but no colored man can
give evidence, in a Southern court, in any case where a white
man is party.  He must get white persons to swear to his past
life, birth, &c., or he must sink down a slave. In nine hundred
and ninety-nine cases, therefore, out of a thousand, the North.
ern freeman, once mistakenly surrendered under Mason's bill, is
lost for ever. And this is the bill which the Defender of the
Constitution undertakes to support! He knew, or should have
known, that in Maryland, Virginia, the Carolinas, Georgia, Missouri, Alabama, and probably in all the slave States, any person
claiming that he is wrongfully held as a slave may have a jury
trial. But the Massachusetts man mistakenly seized, in Boston,
cannot have this old Saxon privilege! He must be surrendered
whenever any one office-underling is satisfied, on paper evidence,
that the slave claimant is right.
We mention these facts to show that Mr. Webster, when he
surrenders one of his constituents to Mason's bill, surrenders him
to slavery. As long ago as 1827, kidnapping was common in
Pennsylvania. They had only to catch a man, get him over the
line, and mingle him among the slaves, and he could not be found
32 
PHILLIPS' REVIEW OF WEBSTER.
again. It is probably still more common now along the border
States. Mistakes too, where interest is on the side of successful
error, must be common.
MIr. Underwood, of Kentucky, tells us, that the right of trial
by jury is inconsistent with slavery. In the life of that glorious
Baptist missionary, WILLIAMi KNIBB, it is said, that on one occasion, he and his coadjutors came to an agreement with the planters
of Jamaica, that Slavery and Christianity could not exist together;
and there they parted.  The planters said,' We will exterminate
Christianity;' the missionaries rejoined,' IVe will abolish sla.
very.' If the choice is to be made between jury trial and the
convenience of slaveholders, which is to give way, the rights of
freemen, or the convenience of slaveholders?
If a horse be claimed from his owner at Marshfield, it is no
insuperable objection to a jury trial, and the requiring of fair
evidence of ownership on the part of a Southern claimant, that
it will much delay the gentleman! But let one of the chivalry
claim a man, and the old barriers must down, lest he be com pelled to tarry overlong, and be inconvenienced! Does Mr.
Webster remember his conclusive demonstration, years ago, that
the simplest governments were the most despotic? and his en treaty that our countrymen would be patient, and willing to give
time and take trouble; such was the only security for free insti tutions!  The  colored men of the North, whose  rights he is
jeopardizing, whose children cannot play in the streets with such
laws over their heads, beg of him to' reck his own reed,' and be
as tender of liberty now. In 1834, he said:
The spirit of liberty is, indeed, a bold and fearless spirit;  but it is
also a sharp-sighted spirit; it is a cautious, sagacious, discriminating,
far-seeing intelligence; it is jealous of encroachment, jealous of power,
jealous of man.  It demands checks, it seeks for guards, it insists on
securities; it entrenches itself behind strong defences, and fortifies, with
all possible care, against the assaults of ambition and passion.   It
does not trust the amiable weakness of human nature, and therefore
33 
PHILLIPS' REVIEW OF WEBSTER.
it will not permit power to overstep its prescribed limits, though  benevolence, good intent and patriotic purpose come along with it. Neither
does it satisfy itself with flashy and temporary resistance to illegal authority.
Far otherwise. It seeks for duration and permanence. It looks before
and after; and, building on the experience of ages which are past, it
labors diligently for the benefit of ages to come. This is the nature of
constitutional liberty; and this is our liberty, if we will rightly understand and preserve it.'
If his vote is ever given to this law, - which, after all, will not
be worth the paper it is written on, thanks to the abolitionists, let him no longer be painted, as in Harding's full length, in the
grand repose of those majestic proportions, but running, at the
head of forty thousand constitutional hounds, after some hapless
fugitive' guilty of a skin less colored than his own,' and from his
mouth let there issue his own words in the Senate-' The Constitution is beneficent, it has trodden down no man's liberty' -
'Have I not taken an oath to it on the Holy Evangelists of Almighty God!'-' I put it to all conscientious men, all sober and
sound minds, as a question of morals and of conscience, what
right they have, in their legislative capacity, or any other, to
embarrass!! the free exercise of the rights secured by the Constitution to persons whose slaves escape from them? None at
all; none at all; neither in the forum of conscience nor before
the Constitution are they justified, in my opinion! I am sure, if
they consider their constitutional obligations, they will fulfil them
with alacrity!!'
If in the lowest deep, there be a lower deep for profligate
statesmen, let all former apostates stand aside and leave it vacant.
'Hell from beneath is moved for thee, to meet thee at thy corning. All the kings of the earth lie in glory, every one in his
own house; but thou art cast out of thy grave as an abominable
branch, thou shalt not be joined with them in burial, because
thou hast destroyed thy land, and slain thy people.'
Of Mr. Webster's most non-committal (and unspoken) refer
34 
PHILLIPS' REVIEW OF WEBSTER.
ence to the imprisonment of Northern seamen in Southern ports,
what need that we say any thing? Not able, truthfully, to show
one instance in which any Northern Legislature has refused any
part of its duty in regard to fugitive slaves -and Clay himself
having just confessed that no slaveholder had brought his case
before a Northern court without obtaining just judgment and
ample damages-he still includes Legislators in his general
censure, and on the North's want of duty in refusing to surrender slaves, he declaims majestically, all fire and energy, direct
and unmisakeable! Mark the difference when he speaks of
the South, whose private citizens, courts and Legislatures are
all alike implicated in notorious, long continued, and often wanton, violations of the Constitution. Does he arraign Legislatures?
No! Does he allude to laws?  Never! Now, there stand
upon their statute books, laws which they know are unconstitutional, making our seamen liable to be seized and sold. These
statutes they confess to be unconstitutional, because they forbid
their being passed upon and tried by any Federal Court. Side
by side with those statutes, Louisiana and South Carolina have
enacted that if any person, from Massachusetts or elsewhere,
enters those States to make up a case, and try the constitutionality of these laws in the Supreme Court, he shall be punished
by imprisonment in the common jail. Mr. Webster knew all
this; yet from nothing he says would the reader get any just
idea of this whole range of Southern legislation, so confessedly
unconstitutional, and which dares not meet the faces of the
Judges of the Supreme Court of the United States. The difference of manner and language in the two cases betrays the purpose of the speaker. When he is finding fault with the North,
he gives frankly,' my opinion,'' I think,'' wherever I go and
wtenever I speak,' and' I say the South has been injured.'  But
of these many and cruel laws, he ventures no personal opinion,
steps out of the responsibility, and only ventures,' the NVorth
thinks such imprisonments unconstitutional, &c.' Southern
35 
PHILLIPS' REVIEW OF WEBSTER.
men defying the Constitution, killing freemen in unhealthy
jails or chaining them in slave gangs, is'irritating, inconvenient! seems impracticable and oppressive!'  Of Mr. Hoar's
being kicked back,' in Curran's phrase,' into the mass  of
his fellow-slaves,' he only finds time to print, not say, that
'the effort was well intended.'  Not  a word  in defence of
Massachusetts when injured and insulted, unconstitutionally.
All his rhetoric having been spent in comforting Carolina for the
Constitution's not having done for her all she thought it should,
he has only a few tame adjectives left for the acknowledged and
palpably unconstitutional wrongs of his own constituents! Verily, this is oratory' in a monstrous little voice,''roaring as gently
as any sucking dove.' *
We care little for Mr. WVebster's notion about State instructions. But we may as well remark, in passing, that here is
another of those suspicious changes of opinion, since very different was the tone in which he spoke of'one set of public
servants giving instructions to another,' &c., in the well-known
speech wherein he criticised President Jackson's protest against a
resolve of the Senate. Then he could see the' Senate as representing the States, and authorized to lift its voice against any thing
derogatory to the rights of the States.' Then he could sneer at
* In reality, Mr. Webster did not utter even a syllable of this.  His
speech was published in the Intelligencer and Union without a line about
the Northern seamen. But when he was about to send it North, he
puts in six or eight lines on the subject. He says,' This is not only
irritating, (!) but exceedingly inconvenient in practice, (!) and seems
altogether impracticable and oppressive.' (!!) The speech came to the
people of the North in this seeming way;  and a great many of the
Massachusetts newspapers spoke out against its poltrooncry, and only
one or two city papers supported him. What does he say in his second
' authorized edition'?' Seems, madam? nay, it is!'  Now it no longer
is inconvenient! or seems irritating, but'Is r XCEED)INGLY unjustifiable
and oppressive.' Behold how wholesome is public rebuke!
36 
PHILLIPS' PREVIEFV OF WVEBSTER.
one, in that Congress, seen to be instructed by his constituents,
and' refusing to obey, because he did not find on the list the
majority of the party that elected him.' Then he could appreciate and describe the character of a Representative on this wise,
- (we ask Mr. G. S. Hillard's attention) -
' NWe have been taught to regard a representative of the people as a
sentinel on the svatch-tower of liberty.  Is he to be blind, though visible
danger approaches? Is he to be deaf, though sounds of peril fill the air?
Is he to be dumb, while a thousand duties impel him to raise the cry of
alarm? Is he not, rather, to catch the lowest whisper which breathes
'intention or purpose of encroachment on the public liberties, and to give
his voice breath and utterance at the first appearance of danger?  Is not
his eve to traverse the whole horizon, with the keen and eager vision of
an unhooded hawk, detecting, through all its disguises, every enemy
advancing, in any form, towards the citadel wvhich he guards?  Sir, this
watchfulness for public liberty, this duty of foreseeing danger, and proclaiming it, this promptitude and boldness in resisting attacks on the
Constitution from any quarter, this defence of established landmarks,
this fearless resistance of whatever would transcend or remove them, all
belong to the representative character, are  interwoven with its very
nature, and of which it cannot be deprived without converting an active,
intelligent and faithful agent of the people, into an unresisting and passive instrument of power.  A representative body which gives up these
rights and duties, gives itself' up.  It has broken the tie between itself
and its constituents, and henceforth is fit only to be regarded as an inert,
self-sacrificed mass, from which all appropriate principle of vitality has
departed for ever.' *
*'lie now pours contempt on legislative instructions, but on March
1st, 1847, he presented to the Senate a series of resolutions in favor of
the prohibition of slavery, passed by the Legislature of Massachusetts,
and sent to her Senators and Representatives, and responded to the declaration of the State in the following emphatic terms:
' "I THA-NK her for it, and am PROUD of her, for she has denounced the
whole object for which our armies are now traversing the mountains of
MIexico.    *    *    *    *    *  -*    *    *    *
* If any thing is certain, it is that the sentiment of the whole North is
4
37 
PHILLIP'S REVIEW OF WEBSTER.
Abolition Societies Mr. Webster does' not think useful!'  He
'thinks their operations the last twenty years have produced
nothing good or valuable.' That they have produced this speech,
does not, perhaps, in the opinion of many, disprove this assertion.
Yet we think it does; this speech will do more to open the eyes
of the North to the rottenness of politicians, than almost any
thing else could have done. We may, however, remind  Mr.
Webster that Congress has done nothing, this session, but just
the work these despised Abolition Societies have set it; that they
have so wrought as to make the slave question, like Aaron's rod,
swallow up all others on the political arena, - have made his,
and Clay's, and Benton's political life seem mere  boy's play,
compared with the struggle for life and death, which  they are
preparing to force on all sections of the nation; that, prompted
by the example, and sustained by the labors of such Societies,
and gilded with their approbation, the last ten heroic years of
Adams's life, as a mere Representative, not only eclipsed all the
glory of his Diplomatic services, but blotting from popular
recollection an odium such as no other public man ever encountered, changing gall into sweetness, sent him to his grave covered
with love, laments, and blessings, which any public man but
Washington might envy.
Nothing can exceed the tameness and pusillanimity with which
Mr. Webster passes over the great and most just ground of
lutterly opposed to the acquisition of territory to be formed into  new?
slaveholdi2zg States."-Cony. Globe, p. 555.
' The resolutions, which drew from Mr. Webster this public tribute of
thanks were, that the extension of slavery should be UNIFOIRMLY and lARN-ESTLY OPPOSED by all GOOD and PATRIOTIC men throughout the Union;
and a solemn protest against the acquisition of any additional territory,
WITROUT an ExmPRESS PROVISION by Congrcss that there SHIALL BE neither
SLAVERY nor INVOLLUNTAPY SErP~ITUDE in such TERR'ITORY, otherwise than
for the punishment of crime.' — X. yq Eveei" g Post.
38
0 
PHILLIPS' REVIEW OF WVEBSTER.
Northern complaint, the unconstitutional acquisition of so much
Southern territory since 1803, by which the whole character and
destiny of this Union has been changed. * He has again and
again recognized the inestimable importance of this, from the
time he drew the Boston Missouri Memorial in 1819, to when he
dictated part of the Boston Texas Address in 1845; yet now he
quite sinks it out of sight; slurs it, though he calls it the' first and
gravest,' despatches it in twenty lines, and afterwards states that
all these grievances can be' redressed.' WVe should like much to
know how he proposes to redress the downhill and disgraceful history of the last twenty years, whenever this question of slavery
has touched on national politics? Can he blot out the sad record
of Clay's mischievous compromises, or our slave-begging diplomacy in almost every court of Europe? Can he blot out his
own coward silence on the floor of the Senate? Can he even
turn aside the dark shadow that is stealing over the mirror
of the Republic, if slavery ever gets footing in the boundless
WVest?
The last point we shall touch on is the proposal to colonize the
free blacks. And here again is another of those sudden and
suspicious changes of sentiment. Common report long ago
attributed to Mr. Webster the sagacity of having seen through the
humbug of the Colonization scheme, and of having quietly denounced it, as only a trick of the slaveholders to render Their
* The extent of the Louisiana territory and of Florida are well known.
Of that lately acquired, the NT Y. Eveaingg Post says: -' The territories
acquired from Mexico contain between five and six hundred thousand
square miles: California has included less than two hundred thou'sand
in her designation of boundaries; so that nearly three hundred and fifty
thousand (equal to four-fifths of the entire area of the non-slaveholding
States) remain for the application of Mr. WVebster's newly discovered
law of physical geography.'
39 
PI'lILLll'S' RLVIEW  O1F'WEBSTER.
remaining property more quiet, valuable and secure.* We are
not aware that he has ever since been seen on its platform, either
in Washington or elsewhere. But we all live and learn, and the
last twelvemonth has been harvest time to our statesman.
' If Virginia and th3 South see fit to adopt any prol)osition to relieve
themselves from the free people of color among them, or such as may
be made free, they have my free consent that the Government shall pay
them any sum of money out of the proceeds [of the public lands' which
may be adequate to the purpose.'
To our fathers' opinion of transporting men across the ocean
for trial, we have alluded.  Mr. Webster proposes to transport
for kife men as much entitled as he to all the privileges of
American citizens, and whose toil has done as much, in propor
tionl, as his, to increase the wealth of their country, and whose
honest lives have done as much, without any reference toprol)ortion, to preserve its virtue, promote its welfare, and increase its
fame.' FDr if (page 33) it were possible for the debates in Congress to vitiate the principles of the people as much [as its temptations have corrupted its members,] I should cry out, God save the
republic.' There is no fear, though, of any effect upon the public
from this part of the speech. Before the North so far forgets even
political economy, not to say justice and Christianity, as to vote
money to colonize Southern working-men, it will be easy to
carry a law in the Massachusetts Legislature'to relieve ourselves' of wanderers from New  Hampshire,'at any expense
adequate to the purpose.'
* A correspondent of the  Coa)yregationalist, July 6, 1849, says, MIr.
WVebster wsas appointed on a cormmittee, at a public meeting in Boston, in
1822, to draft a Constitution for the Mlassachusetts State Coloi,ation
Society.  After considerable discussion in the committee, AIr. Webster
rose and said:
' I must  leave.  I understand the whlole project.  IT Is A SCIIEMJ  Olo
TIiE SLITENIOLDEIiS TO GDOT ID 01 TILI  TREE NEGIOOS.  I WILL  IAvE
N-OTIIING TO DO AVITII IT.
40 
lPHILLIP'S' REVIEW OF WEBSTER.
In relation to Mr. Webster's melancholy picture of the terrible
effects of' secession,' we take the liberty of telling him that there
are sadder sights than that of' spheres  and heavenly bodies
jostling against each other in the realms of space,'' of a great
Constitution melting away under the influence of a vernal sun,'
or even of'a two-fold war.' Such sights are twenty millions of
people, professedly Christian and republican, of whom  their
oldest and ablest statesman leaves it as his last word, that' slaveholding, slave-breeding and slave-trading, formn the whole foundation of the policy of their government:' a war like that against
Mexico to extend the accursed system:-   a speech like his own,
volunteering to head the forty thousand underlings of such a
government in their hunting of fugitive slaves: three millions of
unhappy men and women compelled to be vile, to live in promiscuous concubinage, reduced to the level of brutes.' I looked,
and there was none to help,' for those mighty intellects which
God had given as leaders of their age, were either cajoled by the
promises or awed by the threats of wicked men, prostimtuting
their gifts' to make the worse appear the better reason;' grind ing voluntarily and gladly in the mills of the Philistines.   Coin pared with such scenes, mere common wars are brave and noble
games. What can be a sadder sight, or a greater evil, than beings
whom God intended to be great, becoming panders to the lowest
vices of others? Nothing, except a nation contented to be led by
such.   Welcome any storm that is necessary to destroy the seeds
of such a pestilence!
He says no word of the Constitutionality of secession. We
introduce the point merely to assure him that Yankee enterprise
means to keep abreast of this stirring world, now that precedents
of Constitutional Law are manufacturing. We intend to try our
hands at the article. The Louisiana treaty, acquiesced in by the
people, settled that wve may acquire territory. The Florida
treatv settled that we may relinquish as well as acquire territory.
The Texas treaty, acquiesced in to some extent, proves we may
41 
PHILLIPS' REVIEWV OF WEBSTER.
acquire States. When the Massachusetts treaty is made, it will
show that the Union can relinquish States also. And surely it
will be a poor return for all our courtesy and acquiescence since
1803, if the lordly Carolinas will not acquiesce in this pet pro ject of ours; which indeed has this advantage, that her great
men, unlike our Websters and Winthrops, will not be forced to
eat their own words, and lick the dust, when they support it in
their Congress.
While on this point, MIr. Webster asks' What is to remain American?' In our opinion, that portion
of the Confederacy which clings to the great American idea of
'taking the pains to re-enact,' ay, and practise. so plain a law of
God as that'ALL MIEN ARE CREATED EQUAL.'
' What am  I [Daniel Webster] to be?'  That will depend
upon where you stand; whether on Plymouth rock, rebuking, at
no great cost of moral courage, the slave trade;-' beneath the
October sun of the Old Dominion,' pandering to her vices in
order to elect Mr. Harrison to the Presidency; -or on the Senate floor,'liberally, kindly, or very weakly out-generalled' on
the slave question, in all its shapes.
' How is each of the thirty States to defend itself?' Massachusetts has none of that population which Mr. Arnold of Tennessee describes'as ready to rise and strike for freedom at the
first tap of the drum'-none of that class, of whom Madison
said,'that every addition to its number only tends to weaken a
State, and render it less capable of self-defence, and which is a
means rather of inviting attack than repelling invasion.' As for
foreign foes, she points to Lexington and Bunker Hill, where she
fought alone, and to all the other battle-fields of the Revolution,
on each of which stood more Massachusetts men than could be
found there from all the then six Southern States together. 
' Shall we dismember this great country, and astonish Europe
with an act of folly such as Europe for two centuries has never
beheld in any government?' Is it not pertinent to reply, why
42 
PIHILLIPS' REVIEWj  OF WE3BSTER.
not as well do so, as to disgust Europe, and outrage the moral
sense of the world, and retard the hopes of the race, by the sight
of a republic,' of which,' as Adams said,' the preservation, propagation and perpetuation of slavery is the vital and animating
spirit?'- by the sight of a slave voyage, like our own to Mexico, to extend and re-establish slavery, a crime,' such as Europe
for two centuries has never beheld in any government'?
'What is to become of the army and navy?'  We  shall at
least need neither to put down slave insurrections, or conquer
new fields for slaveholders.
' What is to become of the public lands?'  They will befree,
beyond the possibility of even Websters and Winthrops to trick
them into being slave States.
' Where is the line to be drawn?' Just there, where men are so
much ashamed of their sins as to be unwilling to stand before
the world responsible for setting up a republic on the basis of
slavery;-just there, where men, unlike Mr. Webster, love
Slavery less, and Union with Massachusetts, Ohio and Liberty
more.
'Where is the flag of the republic to remain? Where is the
eagle still to tower?'  What fustian is all this!' Liberty first,
and Union afterwards,' said Patrick Henry.' Ubi Libertas, ibi
patria,' ('where freedom dwells, there is my country,') was
Franklin's motto.' If this breach in the Constitution cannot be
healed, LET DISCORD REIGN FOR EVER,' said England's Demosthenes, Lord Chatham. Beside these, how poor and tame seem
the idle questions of our Demosthenes!
In conclusion, Mr. Webster indulges in a poetic flight as to the
Union: -' It is a great, popular, constitutional  Government,
guarded by law and by judicature, and defended by the-whole
affections of the people.   No monarchical throne presses these
States together; no iron chain of despotic power encircles them;
they live and stand upon a Government popular in its form, representative in its character  [twenty-five of its Representatijl,e
43
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PHILLIPS' REVIEW OF WEBSTEIR.
represent slaves, who never  lifted hand to choose them:-of
half the Senate he addressed, the same might he said:-three
million out of twenty excluded from all voice in the laws by which
they are bought and sold!]- founded upon principles of equality, [      three million slaves at the South, and the North has never,
he himself says, exercised its rightful majority five times in the
whole history of the Government - very equal!] and calculated,
we hope, to last for ever. In all its history, it has been beneficent; [witness, all Indians, Negroes and Mexicans!]-  it has
trodden down no man's liberty;
['I How full of weight - how clear, how boldThe big round lie, with manly courage told!']
it has crushed no State. Its daily respiration is liberty and patriotism; [' the PROPAGATION, PRESERVATION and PERPETUATION
of slavery is the vital and animating spirit of the National Government'   J. Q. ADAIMS] - its yet youthful veins are full of
enterprise, courage, and honorable love of glory and renown'
[witness the Mexican war!]
And this, then, is the end of the political career of DANIEL
WEBSTER! Thirtyyearsago, hespoke brave words at the Rock
about that'work of hell,' the slave trade, and eulogized the' religious character of our origin'- hoping that he might leave
to those who should come after him,'some proof of his attachment to the cause of good government, and of civil and religious
liberty; some proof of a sincere and ardent desire to promote
every thing which could enlarge the und:tandings and improve
the hearts of men'; -and this is the result! Verily,
' His promises were, as he then was, mighty;
But his performance, as he is now, nothing.'
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