nd
self-forgetting spirit of patriotism" in Webster, "which, if followed,
would save the Union, unite the country and prevent the danger in the
Nashville Convention". Like approval of Webster's "patriotic stand for
the preservation of the Union" was sent from Green County and Greensboro
in Alabama and from Tennessee and Virginia. [81] "The preservation of
the Union is the only safety-valve. On Webster depends the tranquility
of the country", says an anonymous writer from Charleston, a native of
Massachusetts and former pupil of Webster. [82] Poinsett and Francis
Lieber, South Carolina Unionists, expressed like views. [83] The growing
influence of the speech is testified to in letters from all sections.
Linus Child of Lowell finds it modifying his own previous opinions and
believes that "shortly if not at this moment, it will be approved by a
large majority of the people of Massachusetts". [84] "Upon sober second
thought, our people will generally coincide with your views", wrote
ex-Governor and ex-Mayor Armstrong of Boston. [85] "Every day adds to
the number of those who agree with you", is the confirmatory testimony
of Dana, trustee of Andover and former president of Dartmouth. [86]
"The effect of your speech begins to be felt", wrote ex-Mayor Eliot of
Boston. [87] Mayor Huntington of Salem at first felt the speech to be
too Southern; but "subsequent events at North and South have entirely
satisfied me that you were right... and vast numbers of others here in
Massachusetts were wrong." "The change going on in me has been going on
all around me." "You saw farther ahead than the rest or most of us and
had the courage and patriotism to stand upon the true ground." [88] This
significant inedited letter is but a specimen of the change of attitude
manifested in hundreds of letters from "slow and cautious Whigs". [89]
One of these, Edward Everett, unable to accept Webster's attitude on
Texas and the fugitive slave bill, could not "entirely concur" in the
Boston letter of approval. "I think our friend will be able to carry
the weight of it at home, but as much as ever." "It would, as you justly
said," he wrote Winthrop, "have ruined any other man." This probably
gives the position taken at first by a good many moderate anti-slavery
then. Everett's later attitude is likewise typical of a change in New
England. He wrote in 1851 that Webster's speech "more than any other
cause, contributed to avert the catastrophe", and was "a prac