n and vindication of
Northern sentiment upon the compromise measures, especially the
fugitive-slave bill. If this was true, he was doubtless induced
to "change front" by pledges of Southern support for the Presidency;
but he is reported by Theodore Parker as having said to a fellow
Senator, on the morning of the 7th of March, "I have my doubts that
the speech I am going to make will ruin me." He should have
remembered that he himself said of the Emperor Napoleon, "His
victories and his triumphs crumbled to atoms, and moldered to dry
ashes in his grasp, because he violated the general sense of justice
of mankind."

At this time Webster's far-seeing mind was doubtless troubled by
the prospects of a bloody civil war, with the breaking up of the
Union he loved so well. He stood by the old compromises rather
than bring on a sectional conflict, and in his opinion there was
no sacrifice too great to avert a fratricidal contest. "I speak
to-day," said he, "for the preservation of the Union!" His words
were in after years the key-notes of many appeals for the protection
and the preservation of the United States.

Mr. Calhoun's health had gradually failed, and at last he was
supported into the Senate Chamber wrapped in flannels, like the
great Chatham, and requested that his friend, Senator Mason, might
read some remarks which he had prepared. The request was, of
course, granted, and while Mr. Mason read the defiant pronunciamento
its author sat wrapped in his cloak, his eyes glowing with meteor-
like brilliancy as he glanced at Senators upon whom he desired to
have certain passages make an impression. When Mr. Mason had
concluded, Mr. Calhoun was supported from the Senate and went back
to his lodgings at Mr. Hill's boarding-house, afterward known as
the Old Capitol, to die.

Mr. Jefferson Davis aspired to the leadership of the South after
the death of Mr. Calhoun, and talked openly of disunion. "Let the
sections," said he, in the Senate Chamber, "part, like the patriarchs
of old, and let peace and good-will subsist among their descendants.
Let no wound be inflicted which time cannot heal. Let the flag of
our Union be folded up entire, the thirteen stripes recording the
original size of our family, untorn by the unholy struggles of
civil war, its constellation to remain undimmed, and speaking to
those who come after us of the growth and prosperity of the family
whilst it remained united. Unmutilated, let it lie amo