In private conversation he spoke most disparagingly of
the nomination, the Whig party, and the Whig candidate. His strictures were
well deserved, but, as the election drew on, he found or believed it to be
impossible to live up to them. He was not ready to go over to the Free-Soil
party, he could not remain silent, yet he could not give Taylor a full
support. In September, 1848, he made his famous speech at Marshfield, in
which, after declaring that the "sagacious, wise, far-seeing doctrine of
_availability_ lay at the root of the whole matter," and that "the
nomination was one not fit to be made," he said that General Taylor was
personally a brave and honorable man, and that, as the choice lay between
him and the Democratic candidate, General Cass, he should vote for the
former and advised his friends to do the same. He afterwards made another
speech, in a similar but milder strain, in Faneuil Hall. Mr. Webster's
attitude was not unlike that of Hamilton when he published his celebrated
attack on Adams, which ended by advising all men to vote for that
objectionable man.
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