He never allowed himself to make light of it; but always spoke of it and treated it as a matter of grave import; and in this he showed himself a master of the mental, moral, and religious constitution of human society.

Daniel Webster, too, in the better days of his life, before he gave his assent to the fugitive slave bill, and trampled upon all his earlier and better convictions--when his eye was yet single--he clearly comprehended the nature of the elements involved in this movement; and in his own majestic eloquence, warned the south, and the country, to have a care how they attempted to put it down.

He is an illustration that it is easier to give, than to take, good advice.
To these two men--the greatest men to whom the nation has yet given birth--may be traced the two great facts of the present--the south triumphant, and the north humbled.{364} Their names may stand thus--Calhoun and domination--Webster and degradation.

Yet again.

If to the enemies of liberty this subject is one of engrossing interest, vastly more so should it be such to freedom's friends.