At all events, these are not impressions which are put forth by me under the exigencies of the present debate or of the present occasion.  I have never entertained any other opinion.  I was called upon for a particular purpose, of a literary nature, to which I will presently allude more distinctly, shortly after the close of the session of 1850, to draw up a narrative of the events that had taken place relative to the passage of the compromise measures of that year.  I had not, I own, the best sources of information.  I was not a member of Congress, and had not heard the debates, which is almost indispensable to come to a thorough understanding of questions of this nature; but I inquired of those who had heard them, I read the reports, and I had an opportunity of personal intercourse with some who had taken a prominent part in all those measures.  I never formed the idea—­I never received the intimation until I got it from this report of the committee—­that those measures were intended to have any effect beyond the Territories of Utah and New Mexico, for which they were enacted.  I cannot but think that if it was intended that they should have any larger application, if it was intended that they should furnish the rule which is now supposed, it would have been a fact as notorious as the light of day.

* * * * *

And now, sir, having alluded to the speech of Mr. Webster, of the 7th March, 1850, allow me to dwell upon it for a moment.  I was in a position the next year—­having been requested by that great and lamented man to superintend the publication of his works—­to know very particularly the comparative estimate which he placed upon his own parliamentary efforts.  He told me more than once that he thought his second speech on Foot’s resolution was that in which he had best succeeded as a senatorial effort, and as a specimen of parliamentary dialectics; but he added, with an emotion which even he was unable to suppress, “The speech of the 7th of March, 1850, much as I have been reviled for it, when I am dead, will be allowed to be of the greatest importance to the country.”  Sir, he took the greatest interest in that speech.  He wished it to go forth with a specific title; and, after considerable deliberation, it was called, by his own direction, “A Speech for the Constitution and the Union.”  He inscribed it to the people of Massachusetts, in a dedication of the most emphatic tenderness, and he prefixed to it that motto—­which you all remember—­from Livy, the most appropriate and felicitous quotation, perhaps, that was ever made:  “True things rather than pleasant things”—­Vera progratis: and with that he sent it forth to the world.