“This feeling,” he said, “always carefully kept alive, and maintained at too intense a heat to admit discrimination or reflection, is a lever of great power in our political machine.  There is not and never has been a disposition in the North to interfere with these interests of the South.  Such interference has never been supposed to be within the power of government; nor has it been in any way attempted.  The slavery of the South has always been regarded as a matter of domestic policy left with the States themselves, and with which the Federal government had nothing to do.  Certainly, sir, I am and ever have been of that opinion.  The gentleman, indeed, argues that slavery, in the abstract, is no evil.  Most assuredly, I need not say I differ with him altogether and most widely on that point.  I regard domestic slavery as one of the greatest evils, both moral and political.”

His position is here clearly defined.  He admits fully that slavery within the States cannot be interfered with by the general government, under the Constitution.  But he also insists that it is a great evil, and the obvious conclusion is, that its extension, over which the government does have control, must and should be checked.  This is the attitude of the memorial and the oration.  Nothing has yet changed.  There is less fervor in the denunciation of slavery, but that may be fairly attributed to circumstances which made the maintenance of the general government and the enforcement of the revenue laws the main points in issue.

In 1836 the anti-slavery movement, destined to grow to such vast proportions, began to show itself in the Senate.  The first contest came on the reception of petitions for the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia.  Mr. Calhoun moved that these petitions should not be received, but his motion was rejected by a large majority.  The question then came on the petitions themselves, and, by a vote of thirty-four to six, their prayer was rejected, Mr. Webster voting with the minority because he disapproved this method of disposing of the matter.  Soon after, Mr. Webster presented three similar petitions, two from Massachusetts and one from Michigan, and moved their reference to a committee of inquiry.  He stated that, while the government had no power whatever over slavery in the States, it had complete control over slavery in the District, which was a totally distinct affair.  He urged a respectful treatment of the petitions, and defended the right of petition and the motives and characters of the petitioners.  He spoke briefly, and, except when he was charged with placing himself at the head of the petitioners, coldly, and did not touch on the merits of the question, either as to the abolition of slavery in the District or as to slavery itself.