Jackson, on the other hand, was a rude soldier, unlettered,
intractable, arbitrary, with a violent temper and a most despotic will. Two
men more utterly incompatible it would have been difficult to find, and
nothing could have been more wildly fantastic than to suppose an alliance
between them, or to imagine that Mr. Webster could ever have done anything
but oppose utterly those mad gyrations of personal government which the
President called his "policy."
Yet at the same time it is perfectly true that just after the passage of
the tariff bill Mr. Webster was at a great crisis in his life. He could not
act with Jackson. That way was shut to him by nature, if by nothing else.
But he could have maintained his position as the independent and unbending
defender of nationality and as the foe of compromise. He might then have
brought Mr. Clay to his side, and remained himself the undisputed head of
the Whig party. The coalition between Clay and Calhoun was a hollow,
ill-omened thing, certain to go violently to pieces, as, in fact, it did,
within a few years, and then Mr.
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