The great crisis that broke Mr. Webster's health and perhaps his heart
came through a misunderstanding. In 1850 the discussion over the Wilmot
proviso was stirring the Senate; Henry Clay had brought in his series of
compromise resolutions, based on the sober belief that the Union was in
imminent danger, and that once again the skillful hand that had penned
the Missouri Compromise might turn the country back into the path of
peace and prosperity. Calhoun, the second of the great Triumvirate, was
already within a month of death. Too weak to read his speech, he was
wheeled into the Senate Chamber, to sit with closed eyes while his last
haughty, arrogant defense of the South's rights was read by Senator
Mason. But the greatest of them all was yet to speak. Webster had the
foresight of Civil War, with rivers of blood, and a man on horseback.
Influenced by what we now see was the broadest patriotism, he delivered
his "Seventh of March Speech,"--the opening words of which disclose a
motive and a purpose too often overlooked by his critics. "I speak
to-day for the preservation of the Union. 'Hear me for my cause.'"
Briefly, his position was this:--that the Union was primary, dealing
with the liberties of fifty and later one hundred millions of
people,--white men as well as black,--and that the slavery question was
secondary, involving an artificial, less important and less permanent
institution. He discussed slavery from the view-point of history, with
arguments of the philosopher rather than those of the orator. He
defended the compromise measures, with their clause in favour of strict
enforcement of the Fugitive Slave Law, on the ground that the Government
was solemnly pledged by law and contract, and, indeed, "had been pledged
to it again and again." He closed with that famous paragraph
demonstrating the impossibility of peaceable secession. "Sir, he who
sees these States now revolving in harmony around a common centre, and
expects them to quit their places, and fly off without convulsion, may