ents
in debate. He never was in the habit of saying pleasant things to his
opponents in the Senate merely as a matter of agreeable courtesy. In this
direction, as in its opposite, he usually maintained a cold silence. But
on the 7th of March he elaborately complimented Calhoun, and went out of
his way to flatter Virginia and Mr. Mason personally. This struck close
observers with surprise, but it was the real purpose of the speech which
went home to the people of the North. He had advocated measures which with
slight exceptions were altogether what the South wanted, and the South so
understood it. On the 30th of March Mr. Morehead wrote to Mr. Crittenden
that Mr. Webster's appointment as Secretary of State would now be very
acceptable to the South. No more bitter commentary could have been made.
The people were blinded and dazzled at first, but they gradually awoke and
perceived the error that had been committed.

Mr. Webster, however, needed nothing from outside to inform him as to his
conduct and its results. At the bottom of his heart and in the depths of
his conscience he knew that he had made a dreadful mistake. He did not
flinch. He went on in his new path without apparent faltering. His speech
on the compromise measures went farther than that of the 7th of March. But
if we study his speeches and letters between 1850 and the day of his death,
we can detect changes in them, which show plainly enough that the writer
was not at ease, that he was not master of that real conscience of which he
boasted.

His friends, after the first shock of surprise, rallied to his support,
and he spoke frequently at union meetings, and undertook, by making immense
efforts, to convince the country that the compromise measures were right
and necessary, and that the doctrines of the 7th of March speech ought to
be sustained. In pursuance of this object, during the winter of 1850 and
the summer of the following year, he wrote several public letters on the
compromise measures, and he addressed great meetings on various occasions,
in New England, New York, and as far south as Virginia. We are at once
struck by a marked change in the character and tone of these speeches,
which produced a great effect in establishing the compromise policy. It had
never been Mr. Webster's habit to misrepresent or abuse his opponents. Now
he confounded the extreme separatism of the abolitionists and the
constitutional opposition of the Free-Soil party, and invol