“He would tell the gentleman from Georgia that if there were rights of the Indians which the United States were bound to protect, that there were those in the House and in the country who would take their part.  If we have bound ourselves by any treaty to do certain things, we must fulfil such obligation.  High words will not terrify us, loud declamation will not deter us from the discharge of that duty.  In my own course in this matter I shall not be dictated to by any State or the representative of any State on this floor.  I shall not be frightened from my purpose nor will I suffer harsh language to produce any reaction on my mind.  I will examine with great and equal care all the rights of both parties....  I have made these few remarks to give the gentleman from Georgia to understand that it was not by bold denunciation nor by bold assumption that the members of this House are to be influenced in the decision of high public concerns.”

When Mr. Webster was thoroughly roused and indignant there was a darkness in his face and a gleam of dusky light in his deep-set eyes which were not altogether pleasant to contemplate.  How well Mr. Forsyth and his friends bore the words and look of Mr. Webster we have no means of knowing, but the message was referred to a select committee without a division.  The interest to us in all this is the spirit in which Mr. Webster spoke.  He loved the Union as intensely then as at any period of his life, but he was still far distant from the frame of mind which induced him to think that his devotion to the Union would be best expressed and the cause of the Union best served by mildness toward the South and rebuke to the North.  He believed in 1826 that dignified courage and firm language were the surest means of keeping the peace.  He was quite right then, and he would have been always right if he had adhered to the plain words and determined manner to which he treated Mr. Forsyth and his friends.

This session was crowded with work of varying importance, but the close of Mr. Webster’s career in the lower House was near at hand.  The failing health of Mr. E.H.  Mills made it certain that Massachusetts would soon have a vacant seat in the Senate, and every one turned to Mr. Webster as the person above all others entitled to this high office.  He himself was by no means so quick in determining to accept the position.  He would not even think of it until the impossibility of Mr. Mills’s return was assured, and then he had to meet the opposition of the administration and all its friends, who regarded with alarm the prospect of losing such a tower of strength in the House.  Mr. Webster, indeed, felt that he could render the best service in the lower branch, and urged the senatorship upon Governor Lincoln, who was elected, but declined.  After this there seemed to be no escape from a manifest destiny.  Despite the opposition of his friends in Washington, and his own reluctance, he finally accepted the office of United States senator, which was conferred upon him by the Legislature of Massachusetts in June, 1827.