gress, into what he expected would prove a lasting compromise,
he moved their reference to a select committee of thirteen, with
instructions to report them in one bill. The Committee was
authorized, but not without opposition, and Mr. Webster's vote
secured for Mr. Clay the chairmanship. A general compromise bill
was speedily prepared, and the "battle of the giants" was recommenced,
Clay, Webster, and Calhoun engaging for the last time in a gladitorial
strife, which exhibited the off-hand genial eloquence of the
Kentuckian, the ponderous strength of the Massachusetts Senator,
and the concentrated energies of South Carolina's favorite son.
Mr. Clay was the leader in the debate, which extended over seven
months, and during that time he was ever on the alert, sometimes
delivering a long argument, sometimes eloquently replying to other
Senators, and sometimes suggesting points to some one who was to
speak on his side. Indignant at the treatment which he had received
from the Whig party he stood unsubdued, and so far from retreating
from those who had deserted him, he intended to make the Taylor
Administration recall its pledges, break its promises, and become
national, or pro-slavery, Whigs.

Mr. Webster was equally grieved and saddened by the faithlessness
of Massachusetts men who had in years past professed friendship
for him, but of whose machinations against him he had obtained
proof during the preceding autumn. He also ascertained that, to
use the words of Mr. Choate, "the attention of the public mind
began to be drawn a little more directly to the great question of
human freedom and human slavery." If he responded to the beatings
of the New England heart, and resisted the aggressions and usurpations
of the slave power, he would have to follow the lead of the
Abolitionists, for whom he had always expressed a profound contempt.
Dejected and depressed, Mr. Webster would at that time have been
glad to take the mission to England, and thus terminate his career
of public service; but he was defeated by the claims of Mr. Abbott
Lawrence, who, having been recently disappointed in not receiving
the appointment of Secretary of the Treasury, refused to be comforted
unless he could be the successor of George Bancroft at the Court
of St. James.

Thaddeus Stevens and Joshua R. Giddings asserted, after the decease
of Mr. Webster, that he prepared a speech, the manuscript of which
they had read, which was a powerful expositio