One public meeting would have been enough, if he had spoken frankly, declared that he knew, no matter how, that annexation was contemplated, and had then denounced it as he did at Niblo's Garden.

"One blast upon his bugle-horn were worth a thousand men." Such a speech would have been listened to throughout the length and breadth of the land; but perhaps it was too much to expect this of him in view of his delicate relations with Mr.Clay.At a later period, in the course of the campaign, he denounced annexation and the increase of slave territory, but unfortunately it was then too late.

The Whigs had preserved silence on the subject at their convention, and it was difficult to deal with it without reflecting on their candidate.

Mr.Webster vindicated his own position and his own wisdom, but the mischief could not then be averted.

The annexation of Texas after the rejection of the treaty in 1844 was carried through, nearly a year later, by a mixture of trickery and audacity in the last hours of the Tyler administration.
Four days after the consummation of this project Mr.Webster took his seat in the Senate, and on March 11 wrote to his son that, "while we feel as we ought about the annexation of Texas, we ought to keep in view the true grounds of objection to that measure.