e viciousness of the
spoils system, but no advocate of civil service reform has attacked the
full-grown system of party rewards with any more vigor than Webster
showed at the beginning of the system. "No, sir!" he exclaims
indignantly, "no individual or party has a _claim_ or _right_ to any
office whatever;" and he shows with exceeding clearness the tendency of
such a doctrine. In his subsequent occasional addresses one finds
frequently the note of alarm here struck. Webster was a fervid
Federalist, and the accession of the democratic party to power was a
shock to his confidence in the perpetuity of the Union from which he
never wholly recovered. When the election for President occurred in
1832, and it was clear that Jackson would be returned, Webster refused
to go to the polls; he sent away the carriage which came for him. Of
what use was it to vote? But the next year, when his son-in-law, Judge
Ellsworth, was a candidate for the governor's place, his faith revived a
little, and he found it possible to vote.

Webster's federalism had one significant expression in the preliminary
measures which led to the Hartford Convention. In January, 1814, Judge
Joseph Lyman, of Northampton, wrote to him at Amherst, where he was then
living, and proposed a meeting of the most discreet and intelligent
inhabitants of the county of Hampshire, for the purpose of a free and
dispassionate discussion respecting public concerns. A meeting was held
in Northampton, January 19th, at which Webster proposed that the several
towns in the vicinity should call a convention of delegates from the
legislatures of the Northern States, to agree upon and urge certain
amendments to the Constitution for the restoration of the equilibrium
between the North and the South. He and two others were appointed to
draft a circular letter, and this circular, written by Webster, was sent
out under Judge Lyman's name. In consequence of the appeal, a number of
towns sent petitions to the General Court of Massachusetts asking for
such a convention. It was not judged expedient to call one at that
session; but in October of the same year Harrison Gray Otis
reintroduced the measure, and Mr. Webster, then a member of the
legislature, supported it in a speech. The Hartford Convention thereupon
was called, and while Mr. Webster was not a member of it, he was so far
involved in its organization that he afterward published a sketch of
these earlier steps, though he did not ther