tment. The affair is of
interest now merely as showing how deeply rooted was Mr. Webster's habitual
carelessness in money matters, even when it was liable to expose him to
very grave imputations, and what a very dangerous man he was to arouse and
put on the defensive.

Mr. Webster was absent when the intrigue and scheming of Mr. Polk
culminated in war with Mexico, and so his vote was not given either for or
against it. He opposed the volunteer system as a mongrel contrivance, and
resisted it as he had the conscription bill in the war of 1812, as
unconstitutional. He also opposed the continued prosecution of the war,
and, when it drew toward a close, was most earnest against the acquisition
of new territory. In the summer of 1847 he made an extended tour through
the Southern States, and was received there, as he had been in the West,
with every expression of interest and admiration.

The Mexican war, however, cost Mr. Webster far more than the anxiety and
disappointment which it brought to him as a public man. His second son,
Major Edward Webster, died near the City of Mexico, from disease contracted
by exposure on the march. This melancholy news reached Mr. Webster when
important matters which demanded his attention were pending in Congress.
Measures to continue the war were before the Senate even after they had
ratified the peace. These measures Mr. Webster strongly resisted, and he
also opposed, in a speech of great power, the acquisition of new
territories by conquest, as threatening the very existence of the nation,
the principles of the Constitution, and the Constitution itself. The
increase of senators, which was, of course, the object of the South in
annexing Texas and in the proposed additions from Mexico, he regarded as
destroying the balance of the government, and therefore he denounced the
plan of acquisition by conquest in the strongest terms. The course about to
be adopted, he said, will turn the Constitution into a deformity, into a
curse rather than a blessing; it will make a frame of government founded on
the grossest inequality, and will imperil the existence of the Union. With
this solemn warning he closed his speech, and immediately left Washington
for Boston, where his daughter, Mrs. Appleton, was sinking in consumption.
She died on April 28th and was buried on May 1st. Three days later, Mr.
Webster followed to the grave the body of his son Edward, which had been
brought from Mexico. Two such terribl