six years which had elapsed since Mr. Webster left Washington had been
a period of political quiet. The old parties had ceased to represent any
distinctive principles, and the Federalists scarcely existed as an
organization. Mr. Webster, during this interval, had remained almost wholly
quiescent in regard to public affairs. He had urged the visit of Mr. Monroe
to the North, which had done so much to hasten the inevitable dissolution
of parties. He had received Mr. Calhoun when that gentleman visited
Boston, and their friendship and apparent intimacy were such that the South
Carolinian was thought to be his host's candidate for the presidency.
Except for this and the part which he took in the Boston opposition to the
Missouri compromise and to the tariff, matters to be noticed in connection
with later events, Mr. Webster had held aloof from political conflict.

When he returned to Washington in 1823, the situation was much altered from
that which he had left in 1817. In reality there were no parties, or only
one; but the all-powerful Republicans who had adopted, under the pressure
of foreign war, most of the Federalist principles so obnoxious to Jefferson
and his school, were split up into as many factions as there were
candidates for the presidency. It was a period of transition in which
personal politics had taken the place of those founded on opposing
principles, and this "era of good feeling" was marked by the intense
bitterness of the conflicts produced by these personal rivalries. In
addition to the factions which were battling for the control of the
Republican party and for the great prize of the presidency, there was still
another faction, composed of the old Federalists, who, although without
organization, still held to their name and their prejudices, and clung
together more as a matter of habit than with any practical object. Mr.
Webster had been one of the Federalist leaders in the old days, and when
he returned to public life with all the distinction which he had won in
other fields, he was at once recognized as the chief and head of all that
now remained of the great party of Washington and Hamilton. No Federalist
could hope to be President, and for this very reason Federalist support was
eagerly sought by all Republican candidates for the presidency. The favor
of Mr. Webster as the head of an independent and necessarily disinterested
faction was, of course, strongly desired in many quarters. His political
p