in supposing that the movement in New York would bring about the nomination of the former.  His friends had judged rightly.  Taylor was the only man who could defeat Clay, and he was nominated on the fourth ballot.  Massachusetts voted steadily for Webster, but he never approached a nomination.  Even Scott had twice as many votes.  The result of the convention led Mr. Webster to take a very gloomy view of the prospects of the Whigs, and he was strongly inclined to retire to his tent and let them go to deserved ruin.  In private conversation he spoke most disparagingly of the nomination, the Whig party, and the Whig candidate.  His strictures were well deserved, but, as the election drew on, he found or believed it to be impossible to live up to them.  He was not ready to go over to the Free-Soil party, he could not remain silent, yet he could not give Taylor a full support.  In September, 1848, he made his famous speech at Marshfield, in which, after declaring that the “sagacious, wise, far-seeing doctrine of availability lay at the root of the whole matter,” and that “the nomination was one not fit to be made,” he said that General Taylor was personally a brave and honorable man, and that, as the choice lay between him and the Democratic candidate, General Cass, he should vote for the former and advised his friends to do the same.  He afterwards made another speech, in a similar but milder strain, in Faneuil Hall.  Mr. Webster’s attitude was not unlike that of Hamilton when he published his celebrated attack on Adams, which ended by advising all men to vote for that objectionable man.  The conclusion was a little impotent in both instances, but in Mr. Webster’s case the results were better.  The politicians and lovers of availability had judged wisely, and Taylor was triumphantly elected.

Before the new President was inaugurated, in the winter of 1848-49, the struggle began in Congress, which led to the delivery of the 7th of March speech by Mr. Webster in the following year.  At this point, therefore, it becomes necessary to turn back and review briefly and rapidly Mr. Webster’s course in regard to the question of slavery.

His first important utterance on this momentous question was in 1819, when the land was distracted with the conflict which had suddenly arisen over the admission of Missouri.  Massachusetts was strongly in favor of the exclusion of slavery from the new States, and utterly averse to any compromise.  A meeting was held in the state-house at Boston, and a committee was appointed to draft a memorial to Congress, on the subject of the prohibition of slavery in the territories.  This memorial,—­which was afterwards adopted,—­was drawn by Mr. Webster, as chairman of the committee.  It set forth, first, the belief of its signers that Congress had the constitutional power “to make such a prohibition a condition on the admission of a new State into the Union, and that it is just and proper that they should exercise that power.”