soon after accepted the
other alternative and changed his opinions.

His course once taken, he made the best of it, and delivered a speech in
Faneuil Hall, in which it is painful to see the effort to push aside
slavery and bring forward the tariff and the sub-treasury. He scoffed at
this absorption in "one idea," and strove to thrust it away. It was the
cry of "peace, peace," when there was no peace, and when Daniel Webster
knew there could be none until the momentous question had been met and
settled. Like the great composer who heard in the first notes of his
symphony "the hand of Fate knocking at the door," the great New England
statesman heard the same warning in the hoarse murmur against slavery, but
he shut his ears to the dread sound and passed on.

When Mr. Webster returned to Washington, after the election of General
Taylor, the strife had already begun over our Mexican conquests. The South
had got the territory, and the next point was to fasten slavery upon it.
The North was resolved to prevent the further spread of slavery, but was by
no means so determined or so clear in its views as its opponent. President
Polk urged in his message that Congress should not legislate on the
question of slavery in the territories, but that if they did, the right of
slave-holders to carry their slaves with them to the new lands should be
recognized, and that the best arrangement was to extend the line of the
Missouri Compromise to the Pacific. For the originator and promoter of the
Mexican war this was a very natural solution, and was a fit conclusion to
one of the worst presidential careers this country has ever seen. The plan
had only one defect. It would not work. One scheme after another was
brought before the Senate, only to fail. Finally, Mr. Webster introduced
his own, which was merely to authorize military government and the
maintenance of existing laws in the Mexican cessions, and a consequent
postponement of the question. The proposition was reasonable and sensible,
but it fared little better than the others. The Southerners found, as they
always did sooner or later, that facts were against them. The people of New
Mexico petitioned for a territorial government and for the exclusion of
slavery. Mr. Calhoun pronounced this action "insolent." Slavery was not
only to be permitted, but the United States government was to be made to
force it upon the people of the territories. Finally, a resolution was
offered "to extend t