ul severity. With much skill it turned Mr. Madison's own
arguments against himself, and appealed to public opinion by its clear and
convincing reasoning. In one point the memorial differed curiously from the
oration of a month before. The latter pointed to the suffrage as the mode
of redress; the former distinctly hinted at and almost threatened secession
even while it deplored a dissolution of the Union as a possible result of
the administration's policy. In the one case Mr. Webster was expressing his
own views, in the other he was giving utterance to the opinions of the
members of his party among whom he stood. This little incident shows the
susceptibility to outside influences which formed such an odd trait in the
character of a man so imperious by nature. When acting alone, he spoke his
own opinions. When in a situation where public opinion was concentrated
against him, he submitted to modifications of his views with a curious and
indolent indifference.

The immediate result to Mr. Webster of the ability and tact which he
displayed at the Rockingham Convention was his election to the thirteenth
Congress, where he took his seat in May, 1813. There were then many able
men in the House. Mr. Clay was Speaker, and on the floor were John C.
Calhoun, Langdon Cheves and William Lowndes of South Carolina, Forsyth and
Troup of Georgia, Ingersoll of Pennsylvania, Grundy of Tennessee, and
McLean of Ohio, all conspicuous in the young nationalist war party. Macon
and Eppes were representatives of the old Jeffersonian Republicans, while
the Federalists were strong in the possession of such leaders as Pickering
of Massachusetts, Pitkin of Connecticut, Grosvenor and Benson of New York,
Hanson of Maryland, and William Gaston of North Carolina. It was a House in
which any one might have been glad to win distinction. That Mr. Webster was
considered, at the outset, to be a man of great promise is shown by the
fact that he was placed on the Committee on Foreign Relations, of which Mr.
Calhoun was the head, and which, in the war time, was the most important
committee of the House.

Mr. Webster's first act was a characteristic one. Early in June he
introduced a set of resolutions calling upon the President for information
as to the time and mode in which the repeal of the French decrees had been
communicated to our government. His unerring sagacity in singling out the
weak point in his enemy's armor and in choosing his own keenest weapon, w