A common right to Elliott's name,
A freehold in his grave!
1850



ICHABOD

This poem was the outcome of the surprise and grief and forecast of
evil consequences which I felt on reading the seventh of March
speech of Daniel Webster in support of the "compromise," and the
Fugitive Slave Law. No partisan or personal enmity dictated it. On
the contrary my admiration of the splendid personality and
intellectual power of the great Senator was never stronger than
when I laid down his speech, and, in one of the saddest moments of
my life, penned my protest. I saw, as I wrote, with painful
clearness its sure results,--the Slave Power arrogant and defiant,
strengthened and encouraged to carry out its scheme for the
extension of its baleful system, or the dissolution of the Union,
the guaranties of personal liberty in the free States broken down,
and the whole country made the hunting-ground of slave-catchers. In
the horror of such a vision, so soon fearfully fulfilled, if one
spoke at all, he could only speak in tones of stern and sorrowful
rebuke. But death softens all resentments, and the consciousness of
a common inheritance of frailty and weakness modifies the severity
of judgment. Years after, in _The Lost Occasion_ I gave utterance
to an almost universal regret that the great statesman did not live
to see the flag which he loved trampled under the feet of Slavery,
and, in view of this desecration, make his last days glorious in
defence of "Liberty and Union, one and inseparable."