Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 13.djvu/344

 "The Republic of Republics." 343

that it was most advantageous, but most unjust. Is it recorded of any other people that they have rejected such a suggestion, for such a reason, unaided by considerations of policy ? If there be a parallel case in history we cannot just now recall it. And yet, if this book had been written at the time of which we speak, it must have changed to some extent the course of events. Daniel Webster himself had some veneration for the truth of history and much respect for vested rights. He had, too, a consciousness of the vast sin of falsifying history, and the infinite mischief of perverting the landmarks of title. In the face of the demonstrations of this book, he could not have uttered before the American people the monstrous perversions of history and prevarications of right, which, after the publication of this history, will be considered to disfigure the speech upon which his fame so largely rests. These mistakes could hardly have been repeated by Story, nor dwelt upon by Curtis as law and history. Indeed, the truth seemed to be breaking in upon Webster even be- fore his death. In reply to Calhoun he answered, not to the points taken by that master intellect, but addressed himself feebly, for him, to his resolutions. The Northern Quarterly Review, edited at Boston, admitted that Calhoun made good his positions, despite its partisan feelings and surroundings. The propositions which he ex- erted so much ability to make good in his contest with Hayne, he seemed even to press, or certainly maintained, with no vigor in his after life, until he finally retracted them in his speech at Capon Springs, which admitted all that the South ever claimed. When Mr. Webster, in the closing years of his life, witnessed the growing bitter- ness of the contest between the sections on the negro question, when he perceived that Massachusetts was gradually substituting such a man as Su inner in his place of lead and precedence, willing to put in his hands the bow which he himself had hardly wielded, without knowing whether he could even bend or draw it ; when, having Webster on hand, she was willing to trump up Sumner; when, in- deed, Boston could refuse to allow his sentiments a place of utterance, or to listen to his voice, which she ever before honored when it spoke in words of peace and forbearance, he must have felt that the day of retribution had come, and, in bitterness of spirit, declared that, "a bargain broken on one side, was broken on all sides," and virtually absolved the South, if she should burst loose her hands from the wythes of a one sided treaty, with which it was vainly sought to bind them. Unhonored and almost forgotten lie his ashes at Marshfield, and neglected there repose his remains, whilst those of Sumner are