Hoar at
Charleston in connection with this matter, was not delivered, Mr. Giddings
says, but was inserted afterwards and before publication, at the suggestion
of a friend. After this came the fine burst about secession, and a
declaration of faith that the Southern convention called at Nashville would
prove patriotic and conciliatory. The speech concluded with a strong appeal
in behalf of nationality and union.
Mr. Curtis correctly says that a great majority of Mr. Webster's
constituents, if not of the whole North, disapproved this speech. He might
have added that that majority has steadily increased. The popular verdict
has been given against the 7th of March speech, and that verdict has passed
into history. Nothing can now be said or written which will alter the fact
that the people of this country who maintained and saved the Union have
passed judgment upon Mr. Webster and condemned what he said on the 7th of
March, 1850, as wrong in principle and mistaken in policy. This opinion is
not universal,--no opinion is,--but it is held by the great body of mankind
who know or care anything about the subject, and it cannot be changed or
substantially modified, because subsequent events have fixed its place and
worth irrevocably.
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