Part 10 (1/2)

At the second session, bills were introduced into the Senate for erecting California and New Mexico into States; the question of slavery to be left to the people of the States respectively These bills, however, did not pass the Senate A few days before the close of the session, Mr Walker of Wisconsin eneral appropriation bill for the support of govern for the extension of the revenue laws of the United States over California and New Mexico; to extend the provisions of the Constitution of the United States to these territories, together with all the laws applicable to the authority to the President to appoint the officers necessary to carry these provisions into effect This amendment prevailed in the Senate, but was further a to it the ”Wilmot Proviso” The Senate refused to accede to this aht to the verge of a disagreeeneral appropriation bill, and stopped the wheels of government The debates in the Senate were of the most impassioned kind, and were protracted till five o'clock of Sunday estion of Mr Webster, disagreed to the amendment of the House relative to California, and at the same tieneral appropriation bill, as it originally came from the House All provision for the territories was necessarily sacrificed by this course; but a bill which had previously passed the House, extending the revenue laws of the United States to California, was passed by the Senate, and rescued the people of California froovernment on behalf of the United States The Senate on this occasion was, for the first tie of disorganization; and it was felt throughout the day and night, that it was saved fro into that condition mainly by the parliamentary tact and personal influence of Mr Webster This tribute was paid to Mr Webster's arduous exertions on that occasion by a ress warmly opposed to him

Not the least important consequence of the Mexican as the political revolution in the United States of which it was the cause When the policy of invading and conquering Mexico was deterarded by the adthen their party Opponents were likely to expose theenerals were both Whigs, and one of them had been naht that, if they succeeded, the glory would accrue to the administration; if they failed, the discredit would fall upon themselves

If anticipations like these were fornally disappointed A series of the most brilliant triumphs crowned the arms both of General Taylor and General Scott Those of General Taylor were first in time; and as they had been preceded by doubts, anxieties, and, in the case of Buena Vista, by ruer hold of the public mind The no convention It was in effect made at Palto Alto and Monterey, and was confirmed at Buena Vista It was a movement of the people to which resistance was in vain

Statesht well pause for a moment The late experience of the country, under a President elected in consequence of military popularity, was not favorable to a repetition of the experiment; and General Taylor holly unknown in political life At the Whig convention in Philadelphia other distinguished Whigs, General Scott, Mr Clay, and Mr Webster, had divided the votes with General Taylor He was, however, selected by a great majority as the candidate of the party Mr Webster took the view of this noht have been expected from a veteran statesman and a civilian of forty years' experience in the service of the country He had, in co party, in General Jackson's case, opposed the nos who hailed General Taylor's no as Mr

Webster had for the moderation and reserve hich he spoke of it in his Marshfield speech? Few persons, at the present day, will find in that speech any thing, with respect to General Taylor's noress of the canvass, that nomination found no firmer supporter than Mr Webster On his accession to the Presidency, General Taylor found Mr Webster disposed and prepared to give his administration a cordial and efficient support

In the summer and autumn of 1849 events of the ution, left alress, h nearly half of the members ere new-coreed to the prohibition of slavery The constitution prepared by the convention was accepted by the people, and with it they applied for admission to the Union General Riley, who had been appointed by the President to command the forces in that territory, was instructed to facilitate, as far as it was in his power, the asse of a convention; and the course pursued by the convention and the people in the formation of the constitution was understood to be in all respects approved by President Taylor

Other occurrences, however, had in the mean time taken place, whichthe territorial question The subject of slavery had for fifteen or twenty years been agitated with steadily increasing war violence On the acquisition of the Mexican provinces, the representatives of the non-slaveholding States generally deemed it their duty to introduce into the acts passed for their governous to the antislavery proviso of the Ordinance of 1787 Abeen made by Mr

Wilmot of Pennsylvania, by way of a the war, the restriction has obtained the name of the ”Wilmot Proviso” This motion in the House of Representatives was extensively seconded by the press, by popular assehout the non-slaveholding States, and caused a considerable increase of antislavery agitation

The South, of course, took an interest in the question not inferior to that of the North The extension of the United States on the southwestern frontier has long been a cardinal point in the policy of most Southern statesmen The application of an antislavery proviso to territories acquired by conquest in that quarter cas were accordingly held at Washi+ngton during the first session of the Thirtieth Congress, attended by aStates, to take into consideration the s a sub-committee was appointed, of which Mr Calhoun was chairates to their constituents” At a subsequenta substitute for this address was subia, under the title of an address ”to the people of the United States” The original paper was, however, adopted in preference, and received the signatures of forty-eight of theStates Of these all but tere of the Des contributedat the South Nor was the progress of excitement less rapid at the North The no convention, accompanied by the refusal of that convention to countenance the Wilanization of the Free Soil party in the non-slaveholding States In the suates of this party assembled at Buffalo in New York, at which an antislavery platform was adopted, and Mr Van Buren was nominated as a candidate for the Presidency

These occurrences and the state of feeling which they created, or indicated, appeared to Mr Webster to constitute a crisis in the condition of the country of a most formidable description Opinion at the North and South had, in his judg, a point at which the cooperation of the two sections of the country in carrying on the government as coequal members of the Federal Union would cease to be practicable The constitutional opinions and the views on the subject of slavery set forth in Mr Calhoun's address he deemed to be such as could never be acquiesced in by the non-slaveholding States On the other hand, the organization of a party on the basis of antislavery agitation at the North appeared to hi to the Union The professions of attachment to the Union and the Constitution ood faith, did but increase the danger, by their tendency to produce misapprehension and self-deception as to the really irreconcilable nature of the opposite extremes of opinion

It was his profound and anxious sense of the dangers of the Union, in this crisis of affairs, which reconciled Mr Webster to the nomination of General Taylor He saw in his position as a citizen of a Southern State and a slaveholder the basis of support to his administration from that quarter of the Union; while his connection with the Whig party, the known moderation of his vieith his declared sentiments on the subject of the Presidential veto, were a sufficient ground for the confidence of the North In fact, in the existing state of things, it was soon apparent that there was no other candidate of either party so well calculated to allay sectional differences, and guide the vessel of state over the storitation

But whatever reliance ht justly have been placed upon the character and disposition of General Taylor, the prospect of affairs was sufficiently dark and inauspicious Thoughtful persons looked forward to a struggle on the territorial question, at the first session of the Thirty-first Congress, which would convulse the country In this state of things the event which we have already alluded to took place, and California presented herself for ad slavery As California was the only portion of the Mexican territory in reference to which the question was of practical importance, Mr Webster derived froleam of hope It removed a topic of controversy in reference to which it had seemed hopeless to propose any terms of compromise; and it opened, as it were providentially, the door for an understanding on other points, on the basis of carrying into execution existing compacts and constitutional provisions on the one hand, and not strenuously insisting, on the other hand, upon applying the antislavery proviso where, as in Utah and New Mexico, he was persuaded it could be of no practical importance

On these principles, and with this object in view, Mr Webster reat speech of the 7th of March, 1850

It would be too much to expect, in reference to a subject of so much difficulty, and one on which the public reatly excited, that a speech of this description should find universal favor in any part of the country It is believed, however, that by thecitizens in every part of the United States, while on single topics thereout a practical basis for the adjustone far to dissolve the Union, and could not bethat result If those who have ly expressed their dissent from the doctrines of the speech (we do not, of course, allude to the mere clamor of political or personal enemies) will pause from the work of denunciation, and make the attempt thereat controversy can in fact be settled, and the union of the States perpetuated, they will not find it so hard to censure what is done by others as to do better themselves It is quite easy to construct a Southern platform or a Northern platform; the difficulty is to find a basis on which South and North will be able and _willing_ to stand together Of all those who have condeone further than he, in the speech of the 7th of March, 1850, to furnish such a basis? Or rather, we may ask, who of those that have been loudest in condele step towards effecting this parahts are known to have been earnestly and profoundly employed on this subject from the commencement of the session He saw beforehand the difficulties and the dangers incident to the step which he adopted, but he believed that, unless some such step was taken in the North, the separation of the States was inevitable The known state of opinion of leading ress led him to look for little support from them He opened the matter to soe him in the course he felt bound to pursue He found that he could not expect the cooperation of the ress from his own State, nor that of ave up all attempt to rally beforehand a party which would sustain his at the time was, ”that he had made up his mind to embark alone on what he ould prove a stormy sea, because, in that case, should final disaster ensue, there would be but one life lost” But he believed that the step which he was about to take would be sanctioned by the mass of the people, and in that reliance he went forward

While the coress, about h office by death In the reorganization of the executive occasioned by this event, Mr Webster, to the general satisfaction of the country, was placed by President Fillmore at the head of the administration

Subsequent events are too recent to need to be described The correspondence with the Austrian Charge d'Affaires is the worthy complement, after an interval of a quarter of a century, to the profound discussion of international politics contained in the speech of January, 1824, on the revolution in Greece, and that of 1826, on the Congress of Panama We have before us a translation of this correspondence furtively published in Gerhout the Austrian empire The fervid appeals to the patriotism of the people, hich Mr Webster has electrified the Union on various occasions during the last nine reat work of sectional conciliation; and his last noble effort, on laying the corner-stone of the Capitol, will be read with ad as the Capitol itself shall last

Such, in a brief and imperfect narrative, is the public life of Mr

Webster, extending over a period of forty years, reat importance It has been the airapher fro too much influenced by the partiality of the friend Should he seem to the candid not wholly to have escaped that error, (which, however, he trusts will not be the case,) he ventures to hope that it will be forgiven to an intimacy which commenced in the youth of one of the parties and the boyhood of the other, and which has subsisted for nearly half a century It will be admitted, he thinks, by every one, that this career, however inadequately delineated, has been one of singular e upon public life at the close of the first epoch in the political history of the United States under the present Constitution, Mr Webster has stood below none of the distinguished men who have impressed their character on the second

There is a class of public questions in reference to which the opinions of reatly influenced by prejudices founded in natural temperament, early association, and real or supposed local interest As far as such questions are concerned, it is too h party excitement, full justice will be done to prominent statesmen by those of their contereatly err, however, if candid men of all parties, and in all parts of the country, do not accord to Mr Webster the praise of having forenerous view of the character of an A adopted the loftiest standard of public conduct They will agree that he has conceived, in all its ireat faovernenerally conceded, that, reposing less than most public men on a party basis, it has been the reat work of the constitutional fathers of the last generation

By their wisdoht we are blessed with a systeht into a union so admirably composed and balanced,--both complicated and kept distinct with such skill,--as to seem less a work of human prudence than of Providential interposition[31] Mr Webster has at all times been fully aware of the evils of anarchy, discord, and civil war at honificance abroad, from which the formation of the Union saved us

He has been not less sensible to the obstacles to be overcos to be borne, before this wonderful fraovernment could be established And he has been firmly persuaded that, if once destroyed, it can never be reconstructed With these views, his political life has been consecrated to the th of the principles on which the Constitution rests, and to the support of the systeovernment created by it