d
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 Massachusetts.
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 passed 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 principal events of Mr. Polk's administration belong to or grow out of
the slavery agitation, then beginning to assume 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 fort