apers, like that of their
readers, was to support Webster's logical position. [102]

Exaggerated though some of these expressions of approval may have been,
they balance the exaggerated vituperation of Webster in the anti-slavery
press; and the extremes of approval and disapproval both concur in
recognizing the widespread effect of the speech. "No speech ever
delivered in Congress produced... so beneficial a change of opinion. The
change of, feeling and temperament wrought in Congress by this speech is
miraculous." [103]

The contemporary testimony to Webster's checking of disunion is
substantiated by the conclusions of Petigru of South Carolina, Cobb of
Georgia in 1852, Allen of Pennsylvania in 1853, and by Stephens's mature
judgment of "the profound sensation upon the public mind throughout the
Union made by Webster's 7th of March speech. The friends of the Union
under the Constitution were strengthened in their hopes and inspired
with renewed energies." [104] In 1866 Foote wrote, "The speech produced
beneficial effects everywhere." "His statement of facts was generally
looked upon as unanswerable; his argumentative conclusions appeared to
be inevitable; his conciliatory tone.. . softened the sensibilities
of all patriots." [105] "He seems to have gauged more accurately [than
most] the grave dangers which threatened the republic and... the fearful
consequences which must follow its disruption", was Henry Wilson's later
and wiser judgment. [106] "The general judgment," said Senator Hoar in
1899, "seems to be coming to the conclusion that Webster differed from
the friends of freedom of his time not in a weaker moral sense, but only
in a larger, and profounder prophetic vision." "He saw what no other man
saw, the certainty of civil war. I was one of those who... judged him
severely, but I have learned better." "I think of him now... as the
orator who bound fast with indissoluble strength the bonds of union."
[107]

Modern writers, North and South-Garrison, Chadwick, T. C. Smith,
Merriam, for instance [108]--now recognize the menace of disunion in
1850 and the service of Webster in defending the Union. Rhodes, though
condemning Webster's support of the fugitive slave bill, recognizes that
the speech was one of the few that really altered public opinion and won
necessary Northern support for the Compromise. "We see now that in
the War of the Rebellion his principles were mightier than those of
Garrison." "It was not the