There were men in that crowd, too, who had not forgotten the noble words with which Mr.
Webster in 1837 had defended the character of the opponents of slavery, and the sound of this new gospel from his lips fell strangely on their ears.

So he goes on from one union meeting to another, and in speech after speech there is the same bitter tone which had been so foreign to him in all his previous utterances.

The supporters of the anti-slavery movement he denounces as insane.

He reiterates his opposition to slave extension, and in the same breath argues that the Union must be preserved by giving way to the South.

The feeling is upon him that the old parties are breaking down under the pressure of this "ghostly abstraction," this agitation which he tries to prove to the young men of the country and to his fellow-citizens everywhere is "wholly factitious." The Fugitive Slave Law is not in the form which he wants, but still he defends it and supports it.