antly, but significantly, that
"if he and Mr. Van Buren should meet under the Free-soil flag, the
latter with his accustomed good-nature would laugh." He added,
with a touch of characteristic humor, "that the leader of the Free-
spoil party suddenly becoming the leader of the Free-soil party is
a joke to shake his sides and mine." Distrusting him sincerely on
the anti-slavery issue, Mr. Webster showed that on every other
question Mr. Van Buren was throughly objectionable to the Whigs.

The Marshfield speech, as this effort was popularly known at the
time, had great influence with the Northern Whigs. Mr. Webster
did not conceal his belief that General Taylor's nomination was
"one not fit to be made," but by the clearest of logic he demonstrated
that he was infinitely to be preferred to either of his competitors.
Mr. Webster at that time had the confidence of the anti-slavery
Whigs in a large degree; he had voted for the Wilmot Proviso, and
his public course had been that of a just and conservative expositor
of their advanced opinion. From the day of the Marshfield speech,
the belief was general that Van Buren would draw far more largely
from the Democrats than from the Whigs; that his candidacy would
give the State of New York to Taylor, and thus elect him President.
The loss of Whig votes was not distasteful to Mr. Van Buren after
the prospect of his securing the electors of New York had vanished.
Had he drawn in equal proportion from the two parties, his candidacy
would have had no effect. It would have neutralized itself, and
left the contest between Cass and Taylor as though he had not
entered the race. By a rule of influence, whose working is obvious,
the tenacity of the Democratic adherents of Van Buren increased as
the Whigs withdrew. The contest between Cass and Van Buren finally
became in New York, in very large degree, a struggle between
Democratic factions, in which the anti-slavery profession was an
instrumentality to be temporarily used, and not a principle to be
permanently upheld. As the Whigs left Van Buren, the Democrats
left Cass, and the end of the canvass gave a full measure of
satisfaction, not only to the supporters of Taylor, but to the
followers of Van Buren, who polled a larger vote for him than was
given to Cass. New York, as in 1844, decided the contest. The
friends of Van Buren had not simply beaten Cass at the polls, they
had discredited him as a party leader. In the pithy phrase