Edition" of Webster's Writings and Speeches (1903). These two
editions contain, for 1850 alone, 57 inedited letters.

Manuscript collections and newspapers, comparatively unknown to
earlier writers, have been utilized in monographs dealing with
the situation in 1850 in South Carolina, Mississippi, Georgia,
Alabama, North Carolina, Louisiana, and Tennessee, published by.
universities or historical societies.

The cooler and matured judgments of men who knew Webster
personally--Foote, Stephens, Wilson, Seward, and Whittier, in the
last century; Hoar, Hale, Fisher, Hosmer, and Wheeler in recent
years-modify their partizan political judgments of 1850. The new
printed evidence is confirmed by manuscript material: 2,500
letters of the Greenough Collection available since the
publication of the recent editions of Webster's letters and
apparently unused by Webster's biographers; and Hundreds of still
inedited Webster Papers in the New Hampshire Historical Society,
and scattered in minor collections.[2] This mass of new material
makes possible and desirable a re-examination of the evidence as
to (1) the danger from the secession movement in 1850; (2)
Webster's change in attitude toward the disunion danger in
February, 1850; (3) the purpose and character of his 7th of March
speech; (4) the effects of his speech and attitude upon the
secession movement.

[2] In the preparation of this article, manuscripts have been
used from the following collections: the Greenough, Hammond, and
Clayton (Library of Congress); Winthrop and Appleton (Mass.
Hist. Soc.); Garrison (Boston Public Library); N.H. Hist.