because I am well aware that, for ten years past, infinite paina has been taken to find something, in the range of these topics, which might create prejudice against me in the country. The journals have all been pored over, and the reports ransacked, and scraps of paragraphs and half-sentences have been collected, fraudulently put together, and then made to flare out as if there had been some discovery. But all this failed. The next resort was to supposed correspondence. My letters were sought for, to learn if, in the confidence of private friendship, I had ever said anything which an enemy could make use of. With this view, the vicinity of my former residence has been searched, as with a lighted candle. New Hampshire has been explored from the mouth of the Merrimack to the White Hills. In one instance, a gentleman had left the state, gone five hundred miles off, and died. His papers were examined; a letter was found, and, I have understood, it was brought to Washington; a conclave was held to consider it, and the result was, that, if there was nothing else against Mr. Webster, the matter had better be let alone. Sir, I hope to make everybody of that opinion who brings against me a charge of want of patriotism. Errors of opinion can be found, doubtless, on many subjects; but as conduct flows from the feelings which animate the heart, I know that no act of my life has had its origin in the want of ardent love of country."

Notwithstanding the warmth of this rejoinder, and the warmth of the entire debate between the two great champions of the senate, of the north and of the south, at this time, as at all other times, there was never for a moment, probably, any want of mutual regard and sincere personal esteem between them. Each always spoke of the other as the most formidable of his opponents among all the politicians and statesmen of the country; Mr. Webster always admired Mr. Calhoun for his boldness and ability in avowing and maintaining his opinions; and Mr. Calhoun, it is well known, declared on his death-bed, after

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giving utterance to other high compliments, that, “of all the public men of the day, there was no one, whose political course had been more strongly marked by a strict regard to truth and honor than Mr. Webster's." Indeed, such had been the honesty, the singleness of purpose, as well as the masterly ability of Mr. Webster's political career, from the first, that he had been constantly rising, up to the very time now under consideration, in the honorable esteem, not only of his political friends, but of his political opponents. Setting aside his opinions, in which there will always be more or less difference among men of the greatest eminence, he was now acknowledged, on all hands, as the first of American statesmen, and the pride of the American republic. On nearly every subject, which had not been incorporated into the creeds of the parties, his opinion was about of the same force as a law, to a great majority of his countrymen. The whole country followed him with regard, admiration, and eulogiums. Not a line could fall from his pen, not a word could drop from his lips, that was not caught and received as worthy of repetition and record. Whenever he met his fellow-citizens, on any public occasion, he was thronged by a multitude far greater than could be called together, or had ever been called together, by any man ever upon this continent. His audiences, when no one else was expected to speak, have been estimated, on several occasions, to range from one to two hundred thousand people. In fact, had he taken it into his head to see how a small, quiet, ordinary assembly would appear, out among the people, it would not have been possible for him, for the twenty years preceding this period of his life, to have succeeded in the undertaking. Wherever he came, there the masses of the population would rush together; and, so great was the desire to see him, that anywhere out of Boston and Washington, where he was most familiar, it was almost as impossible for him to enjoy the ordinary rights and im munities of a private citizen. When he wished to walk through

the streets of any of our larger cities, he often found himself blockaded by the greeting multitudes that followed and op posed him; and he was compelled, when he wished to make any husbandry of his time, to go over the shortest distances in his carriage. His fame, too, was now fully established in other countries. He was known about as well in Europe as on this continent; and, in a rapid and brief trip across the Atlantic, made in the spring and summer of 1839, he had occasion to witness, perhaps very much to his own surprise, the length and breadth of his foreign popularity. In England, Scotland, Ireland and France, which were the countries visited, the common people seemed to know him; they followed him, as he was followed at home, in vast multitudes; and the highest of the nobility, forgetting their titles and their ancestral pride, thought it no dishonor to pay their court to so great a man as Mr. Webster. "No traveler from this country," says Mr. Everett, speaking of this visit, "has probably ever been received with equal attention in the highest quarters in England. Courtesies usually paid only to ambassadors and foreign ministers, were extended to him. His table was covered with invitations to the seats of the nobility and gentry; and his company was eagerly sought at the entertainments which took place while he was in the country." He was present, by invitation, at the first triennial celebration of the Royal Agricultural Society of England, at Oxford, where he made an address to the fariners of England, in the shade of the great English university; and, in making reply to a toast offered him from the head of the tables, by Earl Spencer, the president of the society, surrounded by many of the nobility of the kingdom, he seemed to be as much selfpossessed, as much at home, as if he had been speaking to his neighbors and friends in Boston. Attempting, more than once, to take his seat, after he had occupied more time than had been employed by the other speakers, he was forced to go forward with a speech, instead of a few remarks, by the cheers, plaudits

and vociferous demands from every part of the assemblage; and when he sat down, at the conclusion of his extempore address of about thirty minutes, he had said enough to convince every man present, and that entire England, which, in less than three days, had read and admired the speech, that there was no illusion, no fiction, no exaggeration in the American and European fame of the great lawver. statesman, and orator of his and country.

age

CHAPTER X

FIRST TERM AS SECRETARY OF STATE.

THE fate of Mr. Van Buren's administration was sealed long time before its termination. It was doomed, in fact, be fore it had commenced. Burdened by the consequences of the financial experiment of his predecessor, which Mr. Van Buren had in words and in fact assumed, and promising, in his first message, to follow in the footsteps of that predecessor, he found it impossible to carry on the government with any great success, because there was real suffering, and heart-felt complaining, in all parts of the republic. In directing the eyes of the people to the true cause of all their sufferings, and in making them generally believe it to be the cause, Mr. Webster had been the leading agent; he had gone into the canvass of 1840, the most enthusiastic one of our whole history, with great zeal; and the consequence was, at least the result was, the triumphant election of General Harrison.

No sooner was it certain that the election had thus resulted, than the president elect addressed Mr. Webster, and offered him his choice in the new cabinet, though the president desired him to take the treasury department. This preference was founded on the fact, now universally confessed, that Mr. Webster was by far the ablest financier in the country; and, as the currency was in a most deplorable condition, requiring the highest constructive abilities to restore it to its former state of soundness, it was natural enough to look to such a