was altogether
inimitable and unsurpassed. In the same speech he showed as little
quarter to the Abolitionists. Turning to Mr. Hale, he said, "They
live by agitation. It is their meat, their bread, the air which
they breathe; and if they saw in its incipient state, a measure
giving them more of that food, and meat, and bread, and air, do
you believe they would oppose themselves to its adoption? Do you
not believe that they would _hail_ [Hale] it as a blessing? * * *
They see their doom as certain as there is a God in heaven, who
sends his providential dispensations to calm the threatening storm,
and to tranquilize agitated men. As certain as God exists in
heaven, your business, your vocation, is gone." His devotion to
the Union was his ruling passion, and in one of his numerous speeches
during this session he held up a fragment of Washington's coffin,
and with much dramatic effect pleaded for reconciliation and peace
between the warring sections.

His scheme of compromise, or "omnibus bill," was the darling child
of his political ambition and old age; and when, after lovingly
nursing it and gallantly fighting for it through seven or eight
weary months, he saw it cruelly dismembered on July 31st, and his
sovereign remedy for our national troubles insulted by the separate
passage of the bill providing a Territorial Government for Utah,
I could not help feeling a profound personal sympathy with him.
Beaten at last on every point, deserted by some senators in whom
he had trusted implicitly, crushed and exhausted by labors which
few young and vigorous men could have endured, he bowed to the
inevitable, and retired from the Senate Chamber. But in the next
morning, prior to his departure for the sea-shore, he was in his
seat; and with lightning in his eye, and figure erect as ever, he
paid his respects to the men whose work of political havoc he
deplored. His impassioned arraignment of the disunionists was
loudly applauded by the galleries, and clearly indicated the part
he would have played in the late Rebellion had his life been spared
to witness that direful event. "So long," said he, "as it pleases
God to give me a voice to express my sentiments, or an arm, weak
and enfeebled as it may be by age, that voice and that arm will be
on the side of my country, for the support of the general authority,
and for the maintenance of the powers of this Union."

I heard the famous "Seventh of March Speech" of Mr. Webster.