Clay. The suspicion was unfounded
and unfair. Mr. Webster was wholly right and perfectly sincere. He did a
good deal in an attempt to rouse the North. The only criticism to be made
is that he did not do more. One public meeting would have been enough, if
he had spoken frankly, declared that he knew, no matter how, that
annexation was contemplated, and had then denounced it as he did at Niblo's
Garden. "One blast upon his bugle-horn were worth a thousand men." Such a
speech would have been listened to throughout the length and breadth of the
land; but perhaps it was too much to expect this of him in view of his
delicate relations with Mr. Clay. At a later period, in the course of the
campaign, he denounced annexation and the increase of slave territory, but
unfortunately it was then too late. The Whigs had preserved silence on the
subject at their convention, and it was difficult to deal with it without
reflecting on their candidate. Mr. Webster vindicated his own position and
his own wisdom, but the mischief could not then be averted. The annexation
of Texas after the rejection of the treaty in 1844 was carried through,
nearly a year later, by a mixture of trickery and audacity in the last
hours of the Tyler administration.
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