Mr. Webster can be learned best by careful study of his own utterances, and of his whole career.  Yet, at the same time, the greatest trouble lies not in the shifting and inconsistency revealed by an examination of the specific points which have just been discussed, but in the speech as a whole.  In that speech Mr. Webster failed quite as much by omissions as by the opinions which he actually announced.  He was silent when he should have spoken, and he spoke when he should have held his peace.  The speech, if exactly defined, is, in reality, a powerful effort, not for compromise or for the Fugitive Slave Law, or any other one thing, but to arrest the whole anti-slavery movement, and in that way put an end to the dangers which threatened the Union and restore lasting harmony between the jarring sections.  It was a mad project.  Mr. Webster might as well have attempted to stay the incoming tide at Marshfield with a rampart of sand as to seek to check the anti-slavery movement by a speech.  Nevertheless, he produced a great effect.  His mind once made up, he spared nothing to win the cast.  He gathered all his forces; his great intellect, his splendid eloquence, his fame which had become one of the treasured possessions of his country,—­all were given to the work.  The blow fell with terrible force, and here, at last, we come to the real mischief which was wrought.  The 7th of March speech demoralized New England and the whole North.  The abolitionists showed by bitter anger the pain, disappointment, and dismay which this speech brought.  The Free-Soil party quivered and sank for the moment beneath the shock.  The whole anti-slavery movement recoiled.  The conservative reaction which Mr. Webster endeavored to produce came and triumphed.  Chiefly by his exertions the compromise policy was accepted and sustained by the country.  The conservative elements everywhere rallied to his support, and by his ability and eloquence it seemed as if he had prevailed and brought the people over to his opinions.  It was a wonderful tribute to his power and influence, but the triumph was hollow and short-lived.  He had attempted to compass an impossibility.  Nothing could kill the principles of human liberty, not even a speech by Daniel Webster, backed by all his intellect and knowledge, his eloquence and his renown.  The anti-slavery movement was checked for the time, and pro-slavery democracy, the only other positive political force, reigned supreme.  But amid the falling ruins of the Whig party, and the evanescent success of the Native Americans, the party of human rights revived; and when it rose again, taught by the trials and misfortunes of 1850, it rose with a strength which Mr. Webster had never dreamed of, and, in 1856, polled nearly a million and a half of votes for Fremont.  The rise and final triumph of the Republican party was the condemnation of the 7th of March speech and of the policy which put the government of the country in the hands of Franklin Pierce and James Buchanan.  When the war came, inspiration was not found in the 7th of March speech.  In that dark hour, men remembered the Daniel Webster who replied to Hayne, and turned away from the man who had sought for peace by advocating the great compromise of Henry Clay.