He evinced the greatest familiarity with
the subject; and the greatest efforts of his last years in the
senate had direct reference to this movement. His eagle eye
watched every new development connected with it; and he was ever
prompt to inform the south of every important step in its
progress. He never allowed himself to make light of it; but
always spoke of it and treated it as a matter of grave import;
and in this he showed himself a master of the mental, moral, and
religious constitution of human society. Daniel Webster, too, in
the better days of his life, before he gave his assent to the
fugitive slave bill, and trampled upon all his earlier and better
convictions--when his eye was yet single--he clearly comprehended
the nature of the elements involved in this movement; and in his
own majestic eloquence, warned the south, and the country, to
have a care how they attempted to put it down. He is an
illustration that it is easier to give, than to take, good
advice. To these two men--the greatest men to whom the nation
has yet given birth--may be traced the two great facts of the
present--the south triumphant, and the north humbled.
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