eclipses, as it gives light to the bodies which revolve around
it. Even David and Peter stumbled. Because Webster professed to know as
much of the interests of the country as the shoemakers of Lynn, and
refused to be instructed in his political duties by Garrison and Wendell
Phillips, does he deserve eternal reprobation? Because he opposed the
public sentiments of his constituents on one point, when perhaps they
were right, is he to be hurled from his lofty pedestal? Are all his
services to be forgotten because he did not lift up his trumpet voice in
favor of immediate emancipation? And even suppose he sought to
conciliate the South when the South was preparing for rebellion,--is
peace-making such a dreadful thing? Go still farther: suppose he wished
to conciliate the South in order to get Southern support for the
presidency--which I grant he wanted, and possibly sought,--is he to be
unforgiven, and his name to be blasted, and he held up to the rising
generation as a fallen man? Does a man fall hopelessly because he
stumbles? Is a man to be dethroned because he is not perfect? When was
Webster's vote ever bought and sold? Who ever sat with more dignity in
the councils of the nation? Would he have voted for "back pay"? Would he
have bought a seat in the Senate, even if he had been as rich as a
bonanza king?

Consider how few errors Webster really committed in a public career of
nearly forty years. Consider the beneficence and wisdom of the measures
which he generally advocated, and which would have been lost but for
his eloquence and power. Consider the greatness and lustre of his
congressional career on the whole. Who has proved a greater benefactor
to this nation, on the floor of Congress, than he? I do not wish to
eulogize, still less to whitewash, so great a man, but only to render
simple justice to his memory and deeds. The time has come to lift the
veil which for thirty years has concealed his noble political services.
The time has come to cry shame on those boys who mocked a prophet, and
said, "Go up, thou bald-head!"--although no bears were found to devour
them. The time has come for this nation to bury the old slanders of an
exciting political warfare, and render thanks for the services performed
by the greatest intellectual giant of the past generation,--services
rendered not on the floor of the Senate alone, not in the national
legislature for thirty years, but in one of the great offices of State,
when he mad