Menaces of disunion, ominous meetings and conventions, they probably calculated, would effect their purpose and obtain for them what they wanted, and subsequent events proved that they were perfectly right in this opinion.

On February 14 Mr.Webster wrote to Mr.Harvey:-- "I do not partake in any degree in those apprehensions which you say some of our friends entertain of the dissolution of the Union or the breaking up of the government.

I am mortified, it is true, at the violent tone assumed here by many persons, because such violence in debate only leads to irritation, and is, moreover, discreditable to the government and the country.

But there is no serious danger, be assured, and so assure our friends." The next day he wrote to Mr.Furness, a leader of the anti-slavery party, expressing his abhorrence of slavery as an institution, his unwillingness to break up the existing political system to secure its abolition, and his belief that the whole matter must be left with Divine Providence.

It is clear from this letter that he had dismissed any thought of assuming an aggressive attitude toward slavery, but there is nothing to indicate that he thought the Union could be saved from wreck only by substantial concessions to the South.