Page:The Collected Works of Theodore Parker Slavery volume 5 .djvu/129

Rh "Call you that backing your friends?" Really, it is too bad, after bis retainers have expressed their "entire concurrence in the sentiments of the speech," for him to back out, to deny that he entertained one of the sentiments already approved of and concurred in! Can it be possible, we ask, that Mr Webster can resort to this device to defend himself, leaving his retainers in the lurch? It does not look like ||him to do such a thing. But the correspondent of the Courier goes on as follows:—

"We are authorized to state, first—That Mr Webster did not revise this portion of his speech, with any view to examine its exact accuracy of phrase; and second—That Mr Webster at the time of the delivery of the speech, had in his desk three emendatory sections, . . . . and one of which provides expressly for the right of trial by jury."

But who is the person "authorized to state" such a thing? Professor Stuart informs the public that it "comes from the hand of a man who might claim a near place to Mr Webster, in respect to talent, integrity, and patriotism."

Still, this recantation is so unlike Mr Webster, that one would almost doubt the testimony of so great an unknown as is the writer in the Courier. But Mr Stuart removes all doubt, and says—"I merely add that Mr Webster himself has personally assured me that his speech was in accordance with the correction here made, and that he has now in his desk the amendments to which the corrector refers." So the retainers must bear the honour, or the shame, whichsoever it may be, of volunteering the advocacy of that remarkable bill.

When Paul was persecuted for righteousness' sake, how easily might "the offence of the cross" have been made to cease, by a mere transposition! Had he pursued that plan, he need not have been let down from the wall in a basket: he might have had a dinner given him by forty scribes, at the first hotel in Jerusalem, and a doctor of the law to defend him in a pamphlet.

But, alas! in Mr Webster's case, admitting the transposition is real, the tran substantiation is not thereby effected; the transfer of the which does not alter the character of the sentence to the requisite degree. The bill, which he volunteers to advocate, contains provisions to this effect: