Webster could
no longer act with the Whigs, then his name had no business in that
convention at Baltimore, for the conditions were the same before its
meeting as afterward. Great man as he was, he was not too great to behave
honorably; and his refusal to support Scott, after having been his rival
for a nomination at the hands of their common party, was neither honorable
nor just. If Mr. Webster had decided to leave the Whigs and act
independently, he was in honor bound to do so before the Baltimore
convention assembled, or to have warned the delegates that such was his
intention in the event of General Scott's nomination. He had no right to
stand the hazard of the die, and then refuse to abide by the result. The
Whig party, in its best estate, was not calculated to excite a very warm
enthusiasm in the breast of a dispassionate posterity, and it is perfectly
true that it was on the eve of ruin in 1852. But it appeared better then,
in the point of self-respect, than four years before. In 1848 the Whigs
nominated a successful soldier conspicuous only for his availability and
without knowing to what party he belonged.
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