Thus the negotiation closed. The only serious objection to its results was that the interests of Maine were sacrificed perhaps unduly,--as a recent discussion of that point seems to show. But such a sacrifice was fully justified by what was achieved. A war was averted, a long standing and menacing dispute was settled, and a treaty was concluded which was creditable and honorable to all concerned. By his successful introduction of the extradition clause, Mr. Webster rendered a great service to civilization and to the suppression and punishment of crime. Mr. Webster was greatly aided throughout--both in his arguments, and in the construction of the treaty itself--by the learned and valuable a.s.sistance freely given by Judge Story. But he conducted the whole negotiation with great ability and in the spirit of a liberal and enlightened statesman. He displayed the highest tact and dexterity in reconciling so many clashing interests, and avoiding so many perilous side issues, until he had brought the main problem to a solution. In all that he did and said he showed a dignity and an entire sufficiency, which make this negotiation one of the most creditable--so far as its conduct was concerned--in which the United States was ever engaged.
While the negotiation was in progress there was a constant murmur among the Whigs about Mr. Webster"s remaining in the cabinet, and as soon as the treaty was actually signed a loud clamor began--both among the politicians and in the newspapers--for his resignation. In the midst of this outcry the Senate met and ratified the treaty by a vote of thirty-nine to nine,--a great triumph for its author. But the debate disclosed a vigorous opposition, Benton and Buchanan both a.s.sailing Mr. Webster for neglecting and sacrificing American, and particularly Southern, interests. At the same time the controversy which Mr. Webster called "the battle of the maps," and which was made a great deal of in England, began to show itself. A map of 1783, which Mr. Webster obtained, had been discovered in Paris, sustaining the English view, while another was afterwards found in London, supporting the American claim. Neither was of the least consequence, as the new line was conventional and arbitrary; but the discoveries caused a great deal of unreasonable excitement. Mr. Webster saw very plainly that the treaty was not yet secure. It was exposed to attacks both at home and abroad, and had still to pa.s.s Parliament. Until it was entirely safe, Mr. Webster determined to remain at his post. The clamor continued about his resignation, and rose round him at his home in Marshfield, whither he had gone for rest. At the same time the Whig convention of Ma.s.sachusetts declared formally a complete separation from the President. In the language of to-day, they "read Mr. Tyler out of the party." There was a variety of motives for this action. One was to force Mr. Webster out of the cabinet, another to advance the fortunes of Mr. Clay, in favor of whose presidential candidacy movements had begun in Ma.s.sachusetts, even among Mr. Webster"s personal friends, as well as elsewhere. Mr. Webster had just declined a public dinner, but he now decided to meet his friends in Faneuil Hall. An immense audience gathered to hear him, many of them strongly disapproving his course, but after he had spoken a few moments, he had them completely under control. He reviewed the negotiation; he discussed fully the differences in the party; he deplored, and he did not hesitate strongly to condemn these quarrels, because by them the fruits of victory were lost, and Whig policy abandoned. With boldness and dignity he denied the right of the convention to declare a separation from the President, and the implied attempt to coerce himself and others. "I am, gentlemen, a little hard to coax," he said, "but as to being driven, that is out of the question. If I choose to remain in the President"s councils, do these gentlemen mean to say that I cease to be a Ma.s.sachusetts Whig? I am quite ready to put that question to the people of Ma.s.sachusetts." He was well aware that he was losing party strength by his action; he knew that behind all these resolutions was the intention to raise his great rival to the presidency; but he did not shrink from avowing his independence and his intention of doing what he believed to be right, and what posterity admits to have been so. Mr. Webster never appeared to better advantage, and he never made a more manly speech than on this occasion, when, without any bravado, he quietly set the influence and the threats of his party at defiance.
He was not mistaken in thinking that the treaty was not yet in smooth water. It was again attacked in the Senate, and it had a still more severe ordeal to go through in Parliament. The opposition, headed by Lord Palmerston, a.s.sailed the treaty and Lord Ashburton himself, with the greatest virulence, denouncing the one as a capitulation, and the other as a grossly unfit appointment. Moreover, the language of the President"s message led England to believe that we claimed that the right of search had been abandoned. After much correspondence, this misunderstanding drew forth an able letter from Mr. Webster, stating that the right of search had not been included in the treaty, but that the "cruising convention" had rendered the question unimportant. Finally, all complications were dispersed, and the treaty ratified; and then came an attack from an unexpected quarter. General Ca.s.s--our minister at Paris--undertook to protest against the treaty, denounce it, and leave his post on account of it. This wholly gratuitous a.s.sault led to a public correspondence, in which General Ca.s.s, on his own confession, was completely overthrown and broken down by the Secretary of State. This was the last difficulty, and the work was finally accepted and complete.
During this important and absorbing negotiation, other matters of less moment, but still of considerable consequence, had been met by Mr. Webster, and successfully disposed of. He made a treaty with Portugal, respecting duties on wines; he carried on a long correspondence with our minister to Mexico in relation to certain American prisoners; he vindicated the course of the United States in regard to the independence of Texas, teaching M. de Bocanegra, the Mexican Secretary of State, a lesson as to the duties of neutrality, and administering a severe reproof to that gentleman for imputing bad faith to the United States; he conducted the correspondence, and directed the policy of the government in regard to the troubles in Rhode Island; he made an effort to settle the Oregon boundary; and, finally, he set on foot the Chinese mission, which, after being offered to Mr. Everett, was accepted by Mr. Cushing with the best results. But his real work came to an end with the correspondence with General Ca.s.s at the close of 1842, and in May of the following year he resigned the secretaryship. In the two years during which he had been at the head of the cabinet, he had done much. His work added to his fame by the ability which it exhibited in a new field, and has stood the test of time. In a period of difficulty, and even danger, he proved himself singularly well adapted for the conduct of foreign affairs,--a department which is most peculiarly and traditionally the employment and test of a highly-trained statesman. It may be fairly said that no one, with the exception of John Quincy Adams, has ever shown higher qualities, or attained greater success in the administration of the State Department, than Mr. Webster did while in Mr.
Tyler"s cabinet.
On his resignation, he returned at once to private life, and pa.s.sed the next summer on his farm at Marshfield,--now grown into a large estate,--which was a source of constant interest and delight, and where he was able to have beneath his eyes his beloved sea. His private affairs were in disorder, and required his immediate attention. He threw himself into his profession, and his practice at once became active, lucrative, and absorbing. To this period of retirement belong the second Bunker Hill oration and the Girard argument, which made so much noise in its day. He kept himself aloof from politics, but could not wholly withdraw from them.
The feeling against him, on account of his continuance in the cabinet, had subsided, and there was a feeble and somewhat fitful movement to drop Clay, and present Mr. Webster as a candidate for the presidency. Mr. Webster, however, made a speech at Andover, defending his course and advocating Whig principles, and declared that he was not a candidate for office. He also refused to allow New Hampshire to mar party harmony by bringing his name forward. When Mr. Clay was nominated, in May, 1844, Mr. Webster, who had beheld with anxiety the rise of the Liberty party and prophesied the annexation of Texas, decided, although he was dissatisfied with the silence of the Whigs on this subject, to sustain their candidate. This was undoubtedly the wisest course; and, having once enlisted, he gave Mr. Clay a hearty and vigorous support, making a series of powerful speeches, chiefly on the tariff, and second in variety and ability only to those which he had delivered in the Harrison campaign. Mr. Clay was defeated largely by the action of the Liberty party, and the silence of the Whigs about Texas and slavery cost them the election. At the beginning of the year Mr. Webster had declined a reelection to the Senate, but it was impossible for him to remain out of politics, and the pressure to return soon became too strong to be resisted. When Mr. Choate resigned in the winter of 1844-45, Mr. Webster was reelected senator, from Ma.s.sachusetts.
On the first of March the intrigue, to perfect which Mr. Calhoun had accepted the State Department, culminated, and the resolutions for the annexation of Texas pa.s.sed both branches of Congress. Four days later Mr.
Polk"s administration, pledged to the support and continuance of the annexation policy, was in power, and Mr. Webster had taken his seat in the Senate for his last term.
CHAPTER IX.
RETURN TO THE SENATE.--THE SEVENTH OF MARCH SPEECH.
The princ.i.p.al events of Mr. Polk"s administration belong to or grow out of the slavery agitation, then beginning to a.s.sume most terrible proportions.
So far as Mr. Webster is concerned, they form part of the history of his course on the slavery question, which culminated in the famous speech of March 7, 1850. Before approaching that subject, however, it will be necessary to touch very briefly on one or two points of importance in Mr.
Webster"s career, which have no immediate bearing on the question of slavery, and no relation to the final and decisive stand which Mr. Webster took in regard to it.
The Ashburton treaty was open to one just criticism. It did not go far enough. It did not settle the northwestern as it did the northeastern boundary. Mr. Webster, as has been said, made an effort to deal with the former as well as the latter, but he met with no encouragement, and as he was then preparing to retire from office, the matter dropped. In regard to the northwestern boundary Mr. Webster agreed with the opinion of Mr.
Monroe"s cabinet, that the forty-ninth parallel was a fair and proper line; but the British undertook to claim the line of the Columbia River, and this excited corresponding claims on our side. The Democracy for political purposes became especially warlike and patriotic. They declared in their platform that we must have the whole of Oregon and reoccupy it at once. Mr.
Polk embodied this view in his message, together with the a.s.sertion that our rights extended to the line of 54 40" north, and a shout of "fifty-four-forty or fight" went through the land from the enthusiastic Democracy. If this att.i.tude meant anything it meant war, inasmuch as our proposal for the forty-ninth parallel, and the free navigation of the Columbia River, made in the autumn of 1845, had been rejected by England, and then withdrawn by us. Under these circ.u.mstances Mr. Webster felt it his duty to come forward and exert all his influence to maintain peace, and to promote a clear comprehension, both in the United States and in Europe, of the points at issue. His speech on this subject and with this aim was delivered in Faneuil Hall. He spoke of the necessity of peace, of the fair adjustment offered by an acceptance of the forty-ninth parallel, and derided the idea of casting two great nations into war for such a question as this. He closed with a forcible and solemn denunciation of the president or minister who should dare to take the responsibility for kindling the flames of war on such a pretext. The speech was widely read. It was translated into nearly all the languages of Europe, and on the continent had a great effect. About a month later he wrote to Mr. MacGregor of Glasgow, suggesting that the British government should offer to accept the forty-ninth parallel, and his letter was shown to Lord Aberdeen, who at once acted upon the advice it contained. While this letter, however, was on its way, certain resolutions were introduced in the Senate relating to the national defences, and to give notice of the termination of the convention for the joint occupation of Oregon, which would of course have been nearly equivalent to a declaration of war. Mr. Webster opposed the resolutions, and insisted that, while the Executive, as he believed, had no real wish for war, this talk was kept up about "all or none," which left nothing to negotiate about. The notice finally pa.s.sed, but before it could be delivered by our minister in London, Lord Aberdeen"s proposition of the forty-ninth parallel, as suggested by Mr. Webster, had been received at Washington, where it was accepted by the truculent administration, agreed to by the Senate, and finally embodied in a treaty. Mr. Webster"s opposition had served its purpose in delaying action and saving bl.u.s.ter from being converted into actual war,--a practical conclusion by no means desired by the dominant party, who had talked so loud that they came very near blundering into hostilities merely as a matter of self-justification.
The declarations of the Democratic convention and of the Democratic President in regard to England were really only sound and fury, although they went so far that the final retreat was noticeable and not very graceful. The Democratic leaders had had no intention of fighting with England when all they could hope to gain would be glory and hard knocks, but they had a very definite idea of attacking without bl.u.s.ter and in good earnest another nation where there was territory to be obtained for slavery.
The Oregon question led, however, to an attack upon Mr. Webster which cannot be wholly pa.s.sed over. He had, of course, his personal enemies in both parties, and his effective opposition to war with England greatly angered some of the most warlike of the Democrats, and especially Mr. C.J.
Ingersoll of Pennsylvania, a bitter Anglophobist. Mr. Ingersoll, in February, made a savage attack upon the Ashburton negotiation, the treaty of Washington, and upon Mr. Webster personally, alleging that as Secretary of State he had been guilty of a variety of grave misdemeanors, including a corrupt use of the public money. Some of these charges, those relating to the payment of McLeod"s counsel by our government, to instructions to the Attorney-General to take charge of McLeod"s defence, and to a threat by Mr. Webster that if McLeod were not released New York would be laid in ashes, were repeated in the Senate by Mr. d.i.c.kinson of New York. Mr.
Webster peremptorily called for all the papers relating to the negotiation of 1842, and on the sixth and seventh of April (1846), he made the elaborate speech in defence of the Ashburton treaty, which is included in his collected works. It is one of the strongest and most virile speeches he ever delivered. He was profoundly indignant, and he had the completest mastery of his subject. In fact, he was so deeply angered by the charges made against him, that he departed from his almost invariable practice, and indulged in a severe personal denunciation of Ingersoll and d.i.c.kinson.
Although he did not employ personal invective in his oratory, it was a weapon which he was capable of using with most terrible effect, and his blows fell with crushing force upon Ingersoll, who writhed under the strokes. Through some inferior officers of the State Department Ingersoll got what he considered proofs, and then introduced resolutions calling for an account of all payments from the secret service fund; for communications made by Mr. Webster to Messrs. Adams and Gushing of the Committee on Foreign Affairs; for all papers relating to McLeod, and for the minutes of the committee on Foreign Affairs, to show that Mr. Webster had expressed an opinion adverse to our claim in the Oregon dispute. Mr. Ingersoll closed his speech by a threat of impeachment as the result and reward of all this evil-doing, and an angry debate followed, in which Mr. Webster was attacked and defended with equal violence. President Polk replied to the call of the House by saying that he could not feel justified, either morally or legally, in revealing the uses of the secret service fund. Meantime a similar resolution was defeated in the Senate by a vote of forty-four to one, Mr. Webster remarking that he was glad that the President had refused the request of the House; that he should have been sorry to have seen an important principle violated, and that he was not in the least concerned at being thus left without an explanation; he needed no defence, he said, against such attacks.
Mr. Ingersoll, rebuffed by the President, then made a personal explanation, alleging specifically that Mr. Webster had made an unlawful use of the secret service money, that he had employed it to corrupt the press, and that he was a defaulter. Mr. Ashmun of Ma.s.sachusetts replied with great bitterness, and the charges were referred to a committee. It appeared, on investigation, that Mr. Webster had been extremely careless in his accounts, and had delayed in making them up and in rendering vouchers, faults to which he was naturally p.r.o.ne; but it also appeared that the money had been properly spent, that the accounts had ultimately been made up, and that there was no evidence of improper use. The committee"s report was laid upon the table, the charges came to nothing, and Mr. Ingersoll was left in a very unpleasant position with regard to the manner in which he had obtained his information from the State Department. The affair is of interest now merely as showing how deeply rooted was Mr. Webster"s habitual carelessness in money matters, even when it was liable to expose him to very grave imputations, and what a very dangerous man he was to arouse and put on the defensive.
Mr. Webster was absent when the intrigue and scheming of Mr. Polk culminated in war with Mexico, and so his vote was not given either for or against it. He opposed the volunteer system as a mongrel contrivance, and resisted it as he had the conscription bill in the war of 1812, as unconst.i.tutional. He also opposed the continued prosecution of the war, and, when it drew toward a close, was most earnest against the acquisition of new territory. In the summer of 1847 he made an extended tour through the Southern States, and was received there, as he had been in the West, with every expression of interest and admiration.
The Mexican war, however, cost Mr. Webster far more than the anxiety and disappointment which it brought to him as a public man. His second son, Major Edward Webster, died near the City of Mexico, from disease contracted by exposure on the march. This melancholy news reached Mr. Webster when important matters which demanded his attention were pending in Congress.
Measures to continue the war were before the Senate even after they had ratified the peace. These measures Mr. Webster strongly resisted, and he also opposed, in a speech of great power, the acquisition of new territories by conquest, as threatening the very existence of the nation, the principles of the Const.i.tution, and the Const.i.tution itself. The increase of senators, which was, of course, the object of the South in annexing Texas and in the proposed additions from Mexico, he regarded as destroying the balance of the government, and therefore he denounced the plan of acquisition by conquest in the strongest terms. The course about to be adopted, he said, will turn the Const.i.tution into a deformity, into a curse rather than a blessing; it will make a frame of government founded on the grossest inequality, and will imperil the existence of the Union. With this solemn warning he closed his speech, and immediately left Washington for Boston, where his daughter, Mrs. Appleton, was sinking in consumption.
She died on April 28th and was buried on May 1st. Three days later, Mr.
Webster followed to the grave the body of his son Edward, which had been brought from Mexico. Two such terrible blows, coming so near together, need no comment. They tell their own sad story. One child only remained to him of all who had gathered about his knees in the happy days at Portsmouth and Boston, and his mind turned to thoughts of death as he prepared at Marshfield a final resting-place for himself and those he had loved.
Whatever successes or defeats were still in store for him, the heavy cloud of domestic sorrow could never be dispersed in the years that remained, nor could the gaps which had been made be filled or forgotten.
But the sting of personal disappointment and of frustrated ambition, trivial enough in comparison with such griefs as these, was now added to this heavy burden of domestic affliction. The success of General Taylor in Mexico rendered him a most tempting candidate for the Whigs to nominate.
His military services and his personal popularity promised victory, and the fact that no one knew Taylor"s political principles, or even whether he was a Whig or a Democrat, seemed rather to increase than diminish his attractions in the eyes of the politicians. A movement was set on foot to bring about this nomination, and its managers planned to make Mr. Webster Vice-President on the ticket with the victorious soldier. Such an offer was a melancholy commentary on his ambitious hopes. He spurned the proposition as a personal indignity, and, disapproving always of the selection of military men for the presidency, openly refused to give his a.s.sent to Taylor"s nomination. Other trials, however, were still in store for him.
Mr. Clay was a candidate for the nomination, and many Whigs, feeling that his success meant another party defeat, turned to Taylor as the only instrument to prevent this danger. In February, 1848, a call was issued in New York for a public meeting to advance General Taylor"s candidacy, which was signed by many of Mr. Webster"s personal and political friends. Mr.
Webster was surprised and grieved, and bitterly resented this action. His biographer, Mr. Curtis, speaks of it as a blunder which rendered Mr.
Webster"s nomination hopeless. The truth is, that it was a most significant ill.u.s.tration of the utter futility of Mr. Webster"s presidential aspirations. These friends in New York, who no doubt honestly desired his nomination, were so well satisfied that it was perfectly impracticable, that they turned to General Taylor to avoid the disaster threatened, as they believed, by Mr. Clay"s success. Mr. Webster predicted truly that Clay and Taylor would be the leading candidates before the convention, but he was wholly mistaken in supposing that the movement in New York would bring about the nomination of the former. His friends had judged rightly. Taylor was the only man who could defeat Clay, and he was nominated on the fourth ballot. Ma.s.sachusetts voted steadily for Webster, but he never approached a nomination. Even Scott had twice as many votes. The result of the convention led Mr. Webster to take a very gloomy view of the prospects of the Whigs, and he was strongly inclined to retire to his tent and let them go to deserved ruin. In private conversation he spoke most disparagingly of the nomination, the Whig party, and the Whig candidate. His strictures were well deserved, but, as the election drew on, he found or believed it to be impossible to live up to them. He was not ready to go over to the Free-Soil party, he could not remain silent, yet he could not give Taylor a full support. In September, 1848, he made his famous speech at Marshfield, in which, after declaring that the "sagacious, wise, far-seeing doctrine of _availability_ lay at the root of the whole matter," and that "the nomination was one not fit to be made," he said that General Taylor was personally a brave and honorable man, and that, as the choice lay between him and the Democratic candidate, General Ca.s.s, he should vote for the former and advised his friends to do the same. He afterwards made another speech, in a similar but milder strain, in Faneuil Hall. Mr. Webster"s att.i.tude was not unlike that of Hamilton when he published his celebrated attack on Adams, which ended by advising all men to vote for that objectionable man. The conclusion was a little impotent in both instances, but in Mr. Webster"s case the results were better. The politicians and lovers of availability had judged wisely, and Taylor was triumphantly elected.
Before the new President was inaugurated, in the winter of 1848-49, the struggle began in Congress, which led to the delivery of the 7th of March speech by Mr. Webster in the following year. At this point, therefore, it becomes necessary to turn back and review briefly and rapidly Mr. Webster"s course in regard to the question of slavery.
His first important utterance on this momentous question was in 1819, when the land was distracted with the conflict which had suddenly arisen over the admission of Missouri. Ma.s.sachusetts was strongly in favor of the exclusion of slavery from the new States, and utterly averse to any compromise. A meeting was held in the state-house at Boston, and a committee was appointed to draft a memorial to Congress, on the subject of the prohibition of slavery in the territories. This memorial,--which was afterwards adopted,--was drawn by Mr. Webster, as chairman of the committee. It set forth, first, the belief of its signers that Congress had the const.i.tutional power "to make such a prohibition a condition on the admission of a new State into the Union, and that it is just and proper that they should exercise that power." Then came an argument on the const.i.tutional question, and then the reasons for the exercise of the power as a general policy. The first point was that it would prevent further inequality of representation, such as existed under the Const.i.tution in the old States, but which could not be increased without danger. The next argument went straight to the merits of the question, as involved in slavery as a system. After pointing out the value of the ordinance of 1787 to the Northwest, the memorial continued:--
"We appeal to the justice and the wisdom of the national councils to prevent the further progress of a great and serious evil. We appeal to those who look forward to the remote consequences of their measures, and who cannot balance a temporary or trifling convenience, if there were such, against a permanent growing and desolating evil.
"... The Missouri territory is a new country. If its extensive and fertile fields shall be opened as a market for slaves, the government will seem to become a party to a traffic, which in so many acts, through so many years, it has denounced as impolitic, unchristian, and inhuman.... The laws of the United States have denounced heavy penalties against the traffic in slaves, because such traffic is deemed unjust and inhuman. We appeal to the spirit of these laws; we appeal to this justice and humanity; we ask whether they ought not to operate, on the present occasion, with all their force? We have a strong feeling of the injustice of any toleration of slavery. Circ.u.mstances have entailed it on a portion of our community, which cannot be immediately relieved from it without consequences more injurious than the suffering of the evil.
But to permit it in a new country, where yet no habits are formed which render it indispensable, what is it but to encourage that rapacity and fraud and violence against which we have so long pointed the denunciation of our penal code? What is it but to tarnish the proud fame of the country? What is it but to render questionable all its professions of regard for the rights of humanity and the liberties of mankind."
A year later Mr. Webster again spoke on one portion of this subject, and in the same tone of deep hostility and reproach. This second instance was that famous and much quoted pa.s.sage of his Plymouth oration in which he denounced the African slave-trade. Every one remembers the ringing words:--
"I hear the sound of the hammer, I see the smoke of the furnaces where manacles and fetters are still forged for human limbs. I see the visages of those who, by stealth and at midnight, labor in this work of h.e.l.l,--foul and dark as may become the artificers of such instruments of misery and torture. Let that spot be purified, or let it cease to be of New England. Let it be purified, or let it be set aside from the Christian world; let it be put out of the circle of human sympathies and human regards, and let civilized man henceforth have no communion with it."
This is directed against the African slave-trade, the most hideous feature, perhaps, in the system. But there was no real distinction between slavers plying from one American port to another and those which crossed the ocean for the same purpose. There was no essential difference between slaves raised for the market in Virginia--whence they were exported and sold--and those kidnapped for the same object on the Guinea coast. The physical suffering of a land journey might be less than that of a long sea-voyage, but the anguish of separation between mother and child was the same in all cases. The chains which clanked on the limbs of the wretched creatures, driven from the auction block along the road which pa.s.sed beneath the national capitol, and the fetters of the captured fugitive were no softer or lighter than those forged for the cargo of the slave-ships. Yet the man who so magnificently denounced the one in 1820, found no cause to repeat the denunciation in 1850, when only domestic traffic was in question. The memorial of 1819 and the oration of 1820 place the African slave-trade and the domestic branch of the business on precisely the same ground of infamy and cruelty. In 1850 Mr. Webster seems to have discovered that there was a wide gulf fixed between them, for the latter wholly failed to excite the stern condemnation poured forth by the memorialist of 1819 and the orator of 1820. The Fugitive Slave Law, more inhuman than either of the forms of traffic, was defended in 1850 on good const.i.tutional grounds; but the eloquent invective of the early days against an evil which const.i.tutions might necessitate but could not alter or justify, does not go hand in hand with the legal argument.
The next occasion after the Missouri Compromise, on which slavery made its influence strongly felt at Washington, was when Mr. Adams"s scheme of the Panama mission aroused such bitter and unexpected resistance in Congress.
Mr. Webster defended the policy of the President with great ability, but he confined himself to the international and const.i.tutional questions which it involved, and did not discuss the underlying motive and true source of the opposition. The debate on Foote"s resolution in 1830, in the wide range which it took, of course included slavery, and Mr. Hayne had a good deal to say on that subject, which lay at the bottom of the tariff agitation, as it did at that of every Southern movement of any real importance. In his reply, Mr. Webster said that he had made no attack upon this sensitive inst.i.tution, that he had simply stated that the Northwest had been greatly benefited by the exclusion of slavery, and that it would have been better for Kentucky if she had come within the scope of the ordinance of 1787. The weight of his remarks was directed to showing that the complaint of Northern attacks on slavery as existing in the Southern States, or of Northern schemes to compel the abolition of slavery, was utterly groundless and fallacious. At the same time he pointed out the way in which slavery was continually used to unite the South against the North.
"This feeling," he said, "always carefully kept alive, and maintained at too intense a heat to admit discrimination or reflection, is a lever of great power in our political machine.
There is not and never has been a disposition in the North to interfere with these interests of the South. Such interference has never been supposed to be within the power of government; nor has it been in any way attempted. The slavery of the South has always been regarded as a matter of domestic policy left with the States themselves, and with which the Federal government had nothing to do. Certainly, sir, I am and ever have been of that opinion. The gentleman, indeed, argues that slavery, in the abstract, is no evil. Most a.s.suredly, I need not say I differ with him altogether and most widely on that point. I regard domestic slavery as one of the greatest evils, both moral and political."
His position is here clearly defined. He admits fully that slavery within the States cannot be interfered with by the general government, under the Const.i.tution. But he also insists that it is a great evil, and the obvious conclusion is, that its extension, over which the government does have control, must and should be checked. This is the att.i.tude of the memorial and the oration. Nothing has yet changed. There is less fervor in the denunciation of slavery, but that may be fairly attributed to circ.u.mstances which made the maintenance of the general government and the enforcement of the revenue laws the main points in issue.
In 1836 the anti-slavery movement, destined to grow to such vast proportions, began to show itself in the Senate. The first contest came on the reception of pet.i.tions for the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia. Mr. Calhoun moved that these pet.i.tions should not be received, but his motion was rejected by a large majority. The question then came on the pet.i.tions themselves, and, by a vote of thirty-four to six, their prayer was rejected, Mr. Webster voting with the minority because he disapproved this method of disposing of the matter. Soon after, Mr. Webster presented three similar pet.i.tions, two from Ma.s.sachusetts and one from Michigan, and moved their reference to a committee of inquiry. He stated that, while the government had no power whatever over slavery in the States, it had complete control over slavery in the District, which was a totally distinct affair. He urged a respectful treatment of the pet.i.tions, and defended the right of pet.i.tion and the motives and characters of the pet.i.tioners. He spoke briefly, and, except when he was charged with placing himself at the head of the pet.i.tioners, coldly, and did not touch on the merits of the question, either as to the abolition of slavery in the District or as to slavery itself.
The Southerners, especially the extremists and the nullifiers, were always more ready than any one else to strain the powers of the central government to the last point, and use them most tyrannically and illegally in their own interest and in that of their pet inst.i.tution. The session of 1836 furnished a striking example of this characteristic quality. Mr. Calhoun at that time introduced his monstrous bill to control the United States mails in the interests of slavery, by authorizing postmasters to seize and suppress all anti-slavery doc.u.ments. Against this measure Mr. Webster spoke and voted, resting his opposition on general grounds, and sustaining it by a strong and effective argument. In the following year, on his way to the North, after the inauguration of Mr. Van Buren, a great public reception was given to him in New York, and on that occasion he made the speech in Niblo"s Garden, where he defined the Whig principles, arraigned so powerfully the policy of Jackson, and laid the foundation for the triumphs of the Harrison campaign. In the course of that speech he referred to Texas, and strongly expressed his belief that it should remain independent and should not be annexed. This led him to touch upon slavery. He said:--
"I frankly avow my entire unwillingness to do anything that shall extend the slavery of the African race on this continent, or add other slave-holding States to the Union. When I say that I regard slavery in itself as a great moral, social, and political evil, I only use the language which has been adopted by distinguished men, themselves citizens of slave-holding States. I shall do nothing, therefore, to favor or encourage its further extension. We have slavery already amongst us. The Const.i.tution found it in the Union, it recognized it, and gave it solemn guaranties. To the full extent of the guaranties we are all bound in honor, in justice, and by the Const.i.tution.... But when we come to speak of admitting new States, the subject a.s.sumes an entirely different aspect.... In my opinion, the people of the United States will not consent to bring into the Union a new, vastly extensive, and slave-holding country, large enough for half a dozen or a dozen States. In my opinion, they ought not to consent to it.... On the general question of slavery a great portion of the community is already strongly excited. The subject has not only attracted attention as a question of politics, but it has struck a far deeper-toned chord. It has arrested the religious feeling of the country; it has taken strong hold on the consciences of men. He is a rash man, indeed, and little conversant with human nature, and especially has he a very erroneous estimate of the character of the people of this country, who supposes that a feeling of this kind is to be trifled with or despised. It will a.s.suredly cause itself to be respected. It may be reasoned with, it may be made willing--I believe it is entirely willing--to fulfil all existing engagements and all existing duties, to uphold and defend the Const.i.tution as it is established, with whatever regrets about some provisions which it does actually contain. But to coerce it into silence, to endeavor to restrain its free expression, to seek to compress and confine it, warm as it is and more heated as such endeavors would inevitably render it,--should this be attempted, I know nothing, even in the Const.i.tution or in the Union itself, which would not be endangered by the explosion which might follow."
Thus Mr. Webster spoke on slavery and upon the agitation against it, in 1837. The tone was the same as in 1820, and there was the same ring of dignified courage and unyielding opposition to the extension and perpetuation of a crying evil.
In the session of Congress preceding the speech at Niblo"s Garden, numerous pet.i.tions for the abolition of slavery in the District had been offered.
Mr. Webster reiterated his views as to the proper disposition to be made of them; but announced that he had no intention of expressing an opinion as to the merits of the question. Objections were made to the reception of the pet.i.tions, the question was stated on the reception, and the whole matter was laid on the table. The Senate, under the lead of Calhoun, was trying to shut the door against the pet.i.tioners, and stifle the right of pet.i.tion; and there was no John Quincy Adams among them to do desperate battle against this infamous scheme.
In the following year came more pet.i.tions, and Mr. Calhoun now attempted to stop the agitation in another fashion. He introduced a resolution to the effect that these pet.i.tions were a direct and dangerous attack on the "inst.i.tution" of the slave-holding States. This Mr. Clay improved in a subst.i.tute, which stated that any act or measure of Congress looking to the abolition of slavery in the District would be a violation of the faith implied in the cession by Virginia and Maryland,--a just cause of alarm to the South, and having a direct tendency to disturb and endanger the Union.
Mr. Webster wrote to a friend that this was an attempt to make a new Const.i.tution, and that the proceedings of the Senate, when they pa.s.sed the resolutions, drew a line which could never be obliterated. Mr. Webster also spoke briefly against the resolutions, confining himself strictly to demonstrating the absurdity of Mr. Clay"s doctrine of "plighted faith." He disclaimed carefully, and even anxiously, any intention of expressing an opinion on the merits of the question; although he mentioned one or two reasonable arguments against abolition. The resolutions were adopted by a large majority, Mr. Webster voting against them on the grounds set forth in his speech. Whether the approaching presidential election had any connection with his careful avoidance of everything except the const.i.tutional point, which contrasted so strongly with his recent utterances at Niblo"s Garden, it is, of course, impossible to determine.
John Quincy Adams, who had no love for Mr. Webster, and who was then in the midst of his desperate struggle for the right of pet.i.tion, says, in his diary, in March, 1838, speaking of the delegation from Ma.s.sachusetts:--
"Their policy is dalliance with the South; and they care no more for the right of pet.i.tion than is absolutely necessary to satisfy the feeling of their const.i.tuents. They are jealous of Cushing, who, they think, is playing a double game. They are envious of my position as the supporter of the right of pet.i.tion; and they truckle to the South to court their favor for Webster. He is now himself tampering with the South on the slavery and the Texas question."
This harsh judgment may or may not be correct, but it shows very plainly that Mr. Webster"s caution in dealing with these topics was noticed and criticised at this period. The annexation of Texas, moreover, which he had so warmly opposed, seemed to him, at this juncture, and not without reason, to be less threatening, owing to the course of events in the young republic. Mr. Adams did not, however, stand alone in thinking that Mr.
Webster, at this time, was lukewarm on the subject. In 1839 Mr. Giddings says "that it was impossible for any man, who submitted so quietly to the dictation of slavery as Mr. Webster, to command that influence which was necessary to const.i.tute a successful politician." How much Mr. Webster"s att.i.tude had weakened, just at this period, is shown better by his own action than by anything Mr. Giddings could say. The ship Enterprise, engaged in the domestic slave-trade from Virginia to New Orleans, had been driven into Port Hamilton, and the slaves had escaped. Great Britain refused compensation. Thereupon, early in 1840, Mr. Calhoun introduced resolutions declaratory of international law on this point, and setting forth that England had no right to interfere with, or to permit, the escape of slaves from vessels driven into her ports. The resolutions were idle, because they could effect nothing, and mischievous because they represented that the sentiment of the Senate was in favor of protecting the slave-trade. Upon these resolutions, absurd in character and barbarous in principle, Mr. Webster did not even vote. There is a strange contrast here between the splendid denunciation of the Plymouth oration and this utter lack of opinion, upon resolutions designed to create a sentiment favorable to the protection of slave-ships engaged in the domestic traffic. Soon afterwards, when Mr. Webster was Secretary of State, he advanced much the same doctrine in the discussion of the Creole case, and his letter was approved by Calhoun. There may be merit in the legal argument, but the character of the cargo, which it was sought to protect, put it beyond the reach of law. We have no need to go farther than the Plymouth oration to find the true character of the trade in human beings as carried on upon the high seas.
After leaving the cabinet, and resuming his law practice, Mr. Webster, of course, continued to watch with attention the progress of events. The formation of the Liberty party, in the summer of 1843, appeared to him a very grave circ.u.mstance. He had always understood the force of the anti-slavery movement at the North, and it was with much anxiety that he now saw it take definite shape, and a.s.sume extreme grounds of opposition.
This feeling of anxiety was heightened when he discovered, in the following winter, while in attendance upon the Supreme Court at Washington, the intention of the administration to bring about the annexation of Texas, and spring the scheme suddenly upon the country. This policy, with its consequence of an enormous extension of slave territory, Mr. Webster had always vigorously and consistently opposed, and he was now thoroughly alarmed. He saw what an effect the annexation would produce upon the anti-slavery movement, and he dreaded the results. He therefore procured the introduction of a resolution in Congress against annexation; wrote some articles in the newspapers against it himself; stirred up his friends in Washington and New York to do the same, and endeavored to start public meetings in Ma.s.sachusetts. His friends in Boston and elsewhere, and the Whigs generally, were disposed to think his alarm ill-founded. They were absorbed in the coming presidential election, and were too ready to do Mr.
Webster the injustice of supposing that his views upon the probability of annexation sprang from jealousy of Mr. Clay. The suspicion was unfounded and unfair. Mr. Webster was wholly right and perfectly sincere. He did a good deal in an attempt to rouse the North. The only criticism to be made is that he did not do more. One public meeting would have been enough, if he had spoken frankly, declared that he knew, no matter how, that annexation was contemplated, and had then denounced it as he did at Niblo"s Garden. "One blast upon his bugle-horn were worth a thousand men." Such a speech would have been listened to throughout the length and breadth of the land; but perhaps it was too much to expect this of him in view of his delicate relations with Mr. Clay. At a later period, in the course of the campaign, he denounced annexation and the increase of slave territory, but unfortunately it was then too late. The Whigs had preserved silence on the subject at their convention, and it was difficult to deal with it without reflecting on their candidate. Mr. Webster vindicated his own position and his own wisdom, but the mischief could not then be averted. The annexation of Texas after the rejection of the treaty in 1844 was carried through, nearly a year later, by a mixture of trickery and audacity in the last hours of the Tyler administration.
Four days after the consummation of this project Mr. Webster took his seat in the Senate, and on March 11 wrote to his son that, "while we feel as we ought about the annexation of Texas, we ought to keep in view the true grounds of objection to that measure. Those grounds are,--want of const.i.tutional power,--danger of too great an extent of territory, and opposition to the increase of slavery and slave representation. It was properly considered, also, as a measure tending to produce war." He then goes on to argue that Mexico had no good cause for war; but it is evident that he already dreaded just that result. When Congress a.s.sembled again, in the following December, the first matter to engage their attention was the admission of Texas as a State of the Union. It was impossible to prevent the pa.s.sage of the resolution, but Mr. Webster stated his objections to the measure. His speech was brief and very mild in tone, if compared with the language which he had frequently used in regard to the annexation. He expressed his opposition to this method of obtaining new territory by resolution instead of treaty, and to acquisition of territory as foreign to the true spirit of the Republic, and as endangering the Const.i.tution and the Union by increasing the already existing inequality of representation, and extending the area of slavery. He dwelt on the inviolability of slavery in the States, and did not touch upon the evils of the system itself.