h a
great speech on laying the foundation of the capitol extension, and makes a
pathetic appeal to the South to maintain the Union. They are not pleasant
to read, these speeches in the Senate and before the people in behalf of
the compromise policy. They are harsh and bitter; they do not ring true.
Daniel Webster knew when he was delivering them that that was not the way
to save the Union, or that, at all events, it was not the right way for him
to do it.

The same peculiarity can be discerned in his letters. The fun and humor
which had hitherto run through his correspondence seems now to fade away as
if blighted. On September 10, 1850, he writes to Mr. Harvey that since
March 7 there has not been an hour in which he has not felt a "crushing
sense of anxiety and responsibility." He couples this with the declaration
that his own part is acted and he is satisfied; but if his anxiety was
solely of a public nature, why did it date from March 7, when, prior to
that time, there was much greater cause for alarm than afterwards. In
everything he said or wrote he continually recurs to the slavery question
and always in a defensive tone, usually with a sneer or a fling at the
abolitionists and anti-slavery party. The spirit of unrest had seized him.
He was disturbed and ill at ease. He never admitted it, even to himself,
but his mind was not at peace, and he could not conceal the fact. Posterity
can see the evidences of it plainly enough, and a man of his intellect and
fame knew that with posterity the final reckoning must be made. No man can
say that Mr. Webster anticipated the unfavorable judgment which his
countrymen have passed upon his conduct, but that in his heart he feared
such a judgment cannot be doubted.

It is impossible to determine with perfect accuracy any man's motives in
what he says or does. They are so complex, they are so often undefined,
even in the mind of the man himself, that no one can pretend to make an
absolutely correct analysis. There have been many theories as to the
motives which led Mr. Webster to make the 7th of March speech. In the heat
of contemporary strife his enemies set it down as a mere bid to secure
Southern support for the presidency, but this is a harsh and narrow view.
The longing for the presidency weakened Mr. Webster as a public man from
the time when it first took possession of him after the reply to Hayne. It
undoubtedly had a weakening effect upon him in the winter of 1850, and ha