on with the
Southern civilization, based upon ignorant slave labour, and there were
upheavals and political outbreaks everywhere. In vain Abraham tried to
house Isaac, the son of the free woman, and Ishmael, the son of the
slave woman, under one and the same roof. Slowly the men in the North
and the manufacturers of England came to feel that slavery was
interfering with the commerce and prosperity, not simply of the people
of this republic, but of Europe also. Slavery was an economic
obstruction, lying directly in the path of progress.

The two men who marked out the lines of struggle and precipitated the
conflict were Daniel Webster and John C. Calhoun. Daniel Webster, the
defender of the Constitution, affirmed that the Union was one and
inseparable, now and forever. John C. Calhoun said, "The State is
sovereign and supreme, and the Union secondary." In effect Webster said,
"The central government is the sun, and the States are planets, moving
round about the central orb." Calhoun answered, "There is no central sun
in our political system, but only planets, each revolving in any orbit
it elects for itself." Webster said, "In the cosmic and political system
alike, it is the central sun that causes the States like planets to move
in order and harmony, without collision, and with rich harvests."
Calhoun answered that every planet should be its own sun, and, if it
choose, be a runaway orb, and collide with whom it will.

Finally, the argument of Webster and Calhoun was submitted to armies.
Grant and Sherman said, "Webster is right; the Union must be
maintained." Lee and Jackson answered, "Calhoun is right; the Union must
go, and the sovereign State remain." At Bull Run, Calhoun's doctrine
seemed to be in the ascendancy; at Gettysburg, Webster's argument seemed
to have the more cogency; at Appomattox Lee withdrew his support from
Calhoun, and allowed Daniel Webster's plea that the Union must abide and
be now and forever, one and inseparable.

The Northern statesman, Daniel Webster, was probably the greatest
political genius our country has produced. He was born in New Hampshire,
in 1782, and was seven years old when his father gave him a copy of the
newly-adopted Constitution, which he soon committed to memory. His
father belonged to the farmer class, who read by night and brooded upon
his reading by day. In an era of privation for the colonists, by stern
denial he put his son through Phillips Exeter Academy and Dartmouth