the country,
and the exact fulfillment of the prophecies he had made. The argument and
the conclusion were alike irresistible, but Mr. Webster showed, in handling
his subject, not only the variety, richness, and force which he had
displayed in the Senate, but the capacity of presenting it in a way
thoroughly adapted to the popular mind, and yet, at the same time, of
preserving the impressive tone of a dignified statesman, without any
degeneration into mere stump oratory. This wonderful series of speeches
produced the greatest possible effect. They were heard by thousands and
read by tens of thousands. They fell, of course, upon willing ears. The
people, smarting under bankruptcy, poverty, and business depression, were
wild for a change; but nothing did so much to swell the volume of public
resentment against the policy of the ruling party as these speeches of Mr.
Webster, which gave character and form to the whole movement. Jackson had
sown the wind, and his unlucky successor was engaged in the agreeable task
of reaping the proverbial crop. There was a political revolution. The Whigs
swept the country by an immense majority, the great Democratic party was
crushed to the earth, and the ignorant misgovernment of Andrew Jackson
found at last its fit reward. General Harrison, as soon as he was elected,
turned to the two great chiefs of his party to invite them to become the
pillars of his administration. Mr. Clay declined any cabinet office, but
Mr. Webster, after some hesitation, accepted the secretaryship of state. He
resigned his seat in the Senate February 22, 1841, and on March 4 following
took his place in the cabinet, and entered upon a new field of public
service.

CHAPTER VIII.

SECRETARY OF STATE.--THE ASHBURTON TREATY.

There is one feature in the history, or rather in the historic scenery of
this period, which we are apt to overlook. The political questions, the
debates, the eloquence of that day, give us no idea of the city in which
the history was made, or of the life led by the men who figured in that
history. Their speeches might have been delivered in any great centre of
civilization, and in the midst of a brilliant and luxurious society. But
the Washington of 1841, when Mr. Webster took the post which is officially
the first in the society of the capital and of the country, was a very odd
sort of place, and widely different from what it is to-day. It was not a
village, neither was it a city. It h