404 DANIEL WEBSTER 



far greater than the rapidly growing antislavery senti- 

 ment in the Northern states would readily tolerate. 

 No doubt Mr. Webster's policy in 1848 pointed logi- 

 cally toward his last great speech, March 7, 1850, in 

 which he supported Mr. Clay's elaborate compromises 

 for disposing of the difficulties which had grown out 

 of the vast extension of territory consequent upon the 

 Mexican War. This speech aroused intense indigna- 

 tion at the North, and especially in Massachusetts. It 

 was regarded by many people as a deliberate sacrifice 

 of principle to policy. In order to secure the admis- 

 sion of California to the Union as a free state, it had 

 been thought necessary to make some grave conces- 

 sions to the Southerners, and among these concessions 

 was the fugitive slave law, to which Mr. Webster, out 

 of his overmastering desire to serve the Union and 

 avoid Civil War, felt himself obliged to yield a reluc- 

 tant consent. It was the saddest moment in his 

 career, and covered him with obloquy such as has 

 sufficed in many minds to dim and obscure his great 

 fame. For ordinary men to succumb under the stress 

 of Southern bluster and dictation might seem pardon- 

 able ; but it was felt that Daniel Webster should have 

 been capable of better things. The swelling tide of 

 popular sentiment in Massachusetts found expression 

 in the pathetic but terrible sermon of Theodore 

 Parker, preached just after Webster's death. Let us 

 listen, after these fifty years, to the words of the 

 preacher. " Do men now mourn for him, the great 

 man eloquent? I put on sackcloth long ago. I 

 mourned when he spoke the speech of the Seventh 

 of March. I mourned for him when the fugitive 

 slave bill passed Congress, . . . when the kidnap- 



