Ten years later he stood out to the last, unaffected by defeat, against the principle of compromise which sacrificed the rights and the dignity of the general government to the resistance and threatened secession of a State.
After the reply to Hayne in 1830, Mr.Webster became a standing candidate for the presidency, or for the Whig nomination to that office.

From that time forth, the sharp denunciation of slavery and traffic in slaves disappears, although there is no indication that he ever altered his original opinion on these points; but he never ceased, sometimes mildly, sometimes in the most vigorous and sweeping manner, to attack and oppose the extension of slavery to new regions, and the increase of slave territory.

If, then, in the 7th of March speech, he was inconsistent with his past, such inconsistency must appear, if at all, in his general tone in regard to slavery, in his views as to the policy of compromise, and in his attitude toward the extension of slavery, the really crucial question of the time.
As to the first point, there can be no doubt that there is a vast difference between the tone of the Plymouth oration and the Boston memorial toward slavery and the slave-trade, and that of the 7th of March speech in regard to the same subjects.

For many years Mr.Webster had had but little to say against slavery as a system, but in the 7th of March speech, in reviewing the history of slavery, he treats the matter in such a very calm manner, that he not only makes the best case possible for the South, but his tone is almost apologetic when speaking in their behalf.

To the grievances of the South he devotes more than five pages of his speech, to those of the North less than two.