Page:The Life of Mary Baker Eddy (Wilbur).djvu/84

50 was now a railroad director and foresaw a future for the little city. The status of the Tilton and Baker families in the community of Central New Hampshire has been indicated. The town in which they lived was not far from Hillsborough, Franklin Pierce’s home, or Boscawen, the early home of Webster. The Bakers and the Tiltons were Democrats, their political predilection was in the marrow of their bones. It has been indicated that influential personages gathered at their homes, and their friendships with leading politicians were strong. It follows that discussion of public affairs as well as of religion and business ventures found place in their daily intercourse, influencing members of the families in their relations toward each other.

This is the period of 1850 to 1853, when public events were rapidly changing the colonial spirit of all Americans. The passage of the Compromise of 1850, devised by Clay, which included the Fugitive Slave Act, was the beginning of a bitter strife in politics. The debates which now waged in Congress were perhaps the most strenuous mental and moral wrestlings that the republic of the United States has known. This wrestling of mind and soul was to end only in the mighty physical conflict which Americans call the Civil War. In 1850 Webster was working with herculean efforts to preserve the Union against the attacks of the extreme pro-slavery men on the one hand and of the abolitionists on the other.

The Southern states hotly resented the agitation of the question of the morality and wisdom of