Mr.Webster would not have hesitated to have struck hard at any body of men or any State which ventured to assail the Union.

But he also believed that the true way to prevent any overt act on the part of the South was by concession, and that was precisely the object which the Southern leaders sought to obtain.

We may grant all the patriotism and all the sincere devotion to the cause of the Constitution which is claimed for him, but nothing can acquit Mr.Webster of error in the methods which he chose to adopt for the maintenance of peace and the preservation of the Union.

If the 7th of March speech was right, then all that had gone before was false and wrong.

In that speech he broke from his past, from his own principles and from the principles of New England, and closed his splendid public career with a terrible mistake..