After the reply to Hayne in 1830, Mr. Webster became a standing candidate for the presidency, or for the Whig nomination to that office.  From that time forth, the sharp denunciation of slavery and traffic in slaves disappears, although there is no indication that he ever altered his original opinion on these points; but he never ceased, sometimes mildly, sometimes in the most vigorous and sweeping manner, to attack and oppose the extension of slavery to new regions, and the increase of slave territory.  If, then, in the 7th of March speech, he was inconsistent with his past, such inconsistency must appear, if at all, in his general tone in regard to slavery, in his views as to the policy of compromise, and in his attitude toward the extension of slavery, the really crucial question of the time.

As to the first point, there can be no doubt that there is a vast difference between the tone of the Plymouth oration and the Boston memorial toward slavery and the slave-trade, and that of the 7th of March speech in regard to the same subjects.  For many years Mr. Webster had had but little to say against slavery as a system, but in the 7th of March speech, in reviewing the history of slavery, he treats the matter in such a very calm manner, that he not only makes the best case possible for the South, but his tone is almost apologetic when speaking in their behalf.  To the grievances of the South he devotes more than five pages of his speech, to those of the North less than two.  As to the infamy of making the national capital a great slave-mart, he has nothing to say—­although it was a matter which figured as one of the elements in Mr. Clay’s scheme.

But what most shocked the North in this connection were his utterances in regard to the Fugitive Slave Law.  There can be no doubt that under the Constitution the South had a perfect right to claim the extradition of fugitive slaves.  The legal argument in support of that right was excellent, but the Northern people could not feel that it was necessary for Daniel Webster to make it.  The Fugitive Slave Law was in absolute conflict with the awakened conscience and moral sentiment of the North.  To strengthen that law, and urge its enforcement, was a sure way to make the resistance to it still more violent and intolerant.  Constitutions and laws will prevail over much, and allegiance to them is a high duty, but when they come into conflict with a deep-rooted moral sentiment, and with the principles of liberty and humanity, they must be modified, or else they will be broken to pieces.  That this should have been the case in 1850 was no doubt to be regretted, but it was none the less a fact.  To insist upon the constitutional duty of returning fugitive slaves, to upbraid the North with their opposition, and to urge upon them and upon the country the strict enforcement of the extradition law, was certain to embitter and intensify the opposition to it.  The statesmanlike course was to recognize the ground