AND THE SENTIMENT OF UNION 403 



1844 had made many Whigs afraid to take him again 

 as a candidate, Mr. Webster was thought to be al- 

 together too independent, and there was a feeling 

 that General Taylor was the most available candidate 

 and the only one who could supplant Mr. Clay. These 

 circumstances led to Taylor's nomination, which Mr. 

 Webster at first declined to support. He disapproved 

 of soldiers as Presidents, and characterized the nomi- 

 nation as "one not fit to be made." At the same time 

 he was far from ready to support Mr. Van Buren and 

 the Free-soil party, yet in his situation some decided 

 action was necessary. Accordingly, in his speech at 

 Marshfield, September i, 1848, he declared that, as 

 the choice was really between General Taylor and 

 General Cass, he should support the former. It has 

 been contended that in this Mr. Webster made a 

 great mistake, and that his true place in this canvass 

 would have been with the Free-soil party. He had 

 always been opposed to the further extension of 

 slavery ; but it is to be borne in mind that he looked 

 with dread upon the rise of an antislavery party that 

 should be supported only in the Northern states. 

 Whatever tended to array the North and the South in 

 opposition to each other, Mr. Webster wished espe- 

 cially to avoid. The ruling purpose of his life was to 

 do what he could to prevent the outbreak of a con- 

 flict that might end in the disruption of the Union; 

 and it may well have seemed that there was more 

 safety in sustaining the Whig party in electing its 

 candidate by the aid of Southern votes, than in help- 

 ing into life a new party that should be purely sectional. 

 At the same time, this cautious policy soon came to 

 involve an amount of concession to Southern demands 



