to ourselves, as we turned to leave the scene, “This man is not sincere in this:  he is a humbug.”  And when, some years later, we saw him present himself before a large audience in a state not far removed from intoxication, and mumble incoherence for ten minutes, and when, in the course of the evening, we saw him make a great show of approval whenever the clergy were complimented, the impression was renewed that the man had expended his sincerity, and that nothing was real to him any more except wine and office.  And even then such were the might and majesty of his presence, that he seemed to fill and satisfy the people by merely sitting there in an arm-chair, like Jupiter, in a spacious yellow waistcoat with two bottles of Madeira under it.

All this gradual, unseen deterioration of mind and character was revealed to the country on the 7th of March, 1850.  What a downfall was there!  That shameful speech reads worse in 1867 than it did in 1850, and still exerts perverting power over timid and unformed minds.  It was the very time for him to have broken finally with the “irreconcilable” faction, who, after having made President Tyler snub Daniel Webster from his dearly loved office of Secretary of State, had consummated the scheme which gave us Texas at the cost of war with Mexico, and California as one of the incidents of peace.  California was not down in their programme; and now, while claiming the right to make four slave States out of Texas, they refused to admit California to freedom. Then was it that Daniel Webster of Massachusetts rose in the Senate of the United States and said in substance this:  These fine Southern brethren of ours have now stolen all the land there is to steal.  Let us, therefore, put no obstacle in the way of their peaceable enjoyment of the plunder.

And the spirit of the speech was worse even than its doctrine.  He went down upon the knees of his soul, and paid base homage to his own and his country’s irreconcilable foes.  Who knew better than Daniel Webster that John C. Calhoun and his followers had first created and then systematically fomented the hostile feeling which then existed between the North and the South?  How those men must have chuckled among themselves when they witnessed the willing degradation of the man who should have arraigned them before the country as the conscious enemies of its peace!  How was it that no one laughed outright at such billing and cooing as this?

* * * * *

Mr. Webster.—­“An honorable member [Calhoun], whose health does not allow him to be here to-day—­”

A Senator,—­“He is here.”

Mr. Webster.—­“I am very happy to hear that he is; may he long be here, and in the enjoyment of health to serve his country!”

And this:—­

Mr. Webster.—­“The honorable member did not disguise his conduct or his motives.”

Mr. Calhoun.—­“Never, never.”