"Webster is the only man in the Senate who has a position which
would enable him to present a plan which would be carried", said
Pratt of Maryland.[61] The National Intelligencer, which had
hitherto maintained the safety of the Union, confessed by
February 21 that "the integrity of the Union is at some hazard",
quoting Southern evidence of this. On February 25, Foote, in
proposing to the Senate a committee of thirteen to report some
scheme of compromise, gave it as his conclusion from consultation
with both houses, that unless something were done at once, power
would pass from Congress.

[61] Tribune, Feb. 25.


II.

It was under these highly critical circumstances that Webster, on
Sunday, February 24, the day on which he was accustomed to dine
with his unusually well-informed friends, Stephens, Toombs, Clay
and Hale, wrote to his only surviving son:

I am nearly broken down with labor and anxiety. I know not how to
meet the present emergency, or with what weapons to beat down the
Northern and Southern follies, now raging in equal extremes. If
you can possibly leave home, I want you to be here, a day or two
before I speak . . . I have poor spirits and little courage. Non
sum qualis eram.[62]

[62] Writings and Speeches, XVI. 534.