General Harrison, as soon as he was elected,
turned to the two great chiefs of his party to invite them to become the
pillars of his administration. Mr. Clay declined any cabinet office, but
Mr. Webster, after some hesitation, accepted the secretaryship of state. He
resigned his seat in the Senate February 22, 1841, and on March 4 following
took his place in the cabinet, and entered upon a new field of public
service.
CHAPTER VIII.
SECRETARY OF STATE.--THE ASHBURTON TREATY.
There is one feature in the history, or rather in the historic scenery of
this period, which we are apt to overlook. The political questions, the
debates, the eloquence of that day, give us no idea of the city in which
the history was made, or of the life led by the men who figured in that
history. Their speeches might have been delivered in any great centre of
civilization, and in the midst of a brilliant and luxurious society. But
the Washington of 1841, when Mr. Webster took the post which is officially
the first in the society of the capital and of the country, was a very odd
sort of place, and widely different from what it is to-day.
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