[75] Writings and Speeches, XVI. 580-581.

[76] Seward, Works, III. 111-116.

[77] Writings and Speeches, X. 57, 97.

[78] Ibid., XIII. 595; X. 65.


IV.

The earlier accounts of Webster's losing his friends as a
result of his speech are at variance with the facts. Cautious
Northerners naturally hesitated to support him and face both the
popular convictions on fugitive slaves and the rasping
vituperation that exhausted sacred and profane history in the
epithets current in that "era of warm journalistic manners";
Abolitionists and Free Soilers congratulated one another that
they had "killed Webster". In Congress no Northern man save
Ashmun of Massachusetts supported him in any speech for months.
On the other hand, Webster did retain the friendship and
confidence of leaders and common men North and South, and the
tremendous influence of his personality and "unanswerable"
arguments eventually swung the North for the Compromise. From
Boston came prompt expressions of "entire concurrence" in his
speech by 800 representative men, including George Ticknor,
William H. Prescott, Rufus Choate, Josiah Quincy, President
Sparks and Professor Felton of Harvard, Professors Woods, Stuart,
and Emerson of Andover, and other leading professional, literary,