common centre, and
expects them to quit their places, and fly off without convulsion, may
look the next hour to see the heavenly bodies rush from their spheres,
and jostle against each other in the realms of space, without causing
the wreck of the universe."

But he had defended the Fugitive Slave Law!--Therefore Abolitionists
burned Webster in effigy. Wendell Phillips called him a second Judas
Iscariot. Whittier wrote "Ichabod" across his forehead. Horace Mann
described him as a "fallen star--Lucifer descending from heaven!" Every
arrow was barbed and poisoned. Webster suffered like a great eagle with
a dart through its heart, beating its bloody wings upward through the
pathless air.

But now that long time has passed, thoughtful men realize that Webster
had studied the fundamental question more deeply, knew the facts better,
and saw clearer than his detractors. It is true that he erred when he
criticized the Abolitionists on the ground that in the last twenty years
they had "produced nothing good or valuable,"--that his words were
chosen in a way that irritated the North unduly,--and, more important
still, that in his remarks on the Fugitive Slave Law he swerved from the
broad statesmanship which distinguished the rest of the speech. But
twelve years later Abraham Lincoln read Daniel Webster's Seventh of
March Speech, and said Webster was right and Boston was wrong. Lincoln
put Webster's position into his letter to Greeley: "My paramount object
in this struggle is to save the Union, and not either to save or to
destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave, I
would do it; if I could save the Union by freeing all the slaves, I
would do it, and if I could save the Union by freeing some, and leaving
others alone, I would also do that. What I do about slavery I do because
I believe it helps to save the Union; and what I forbear I forbear
because I do not believe it would help to save the Union." And to-day,
after sixty years, our foremost writers are agreeing that "from the
historical view-point Webster's position was one of the highest
statesmanship." But the recognition of Webster unfortunately came too
late.

As time passed Webster felt more and more keenly the injustice done him.
Bitterness poisoned his days, and sorrow shortened his life. When the
autumn came, he made ready for the end, knowing he would not survive
another winter. One October morning Webster said to his physician, "I
shall