his political life; with Webster, only a few of his latter years. Both failed, but each made a permanent name in American history far above that of the average President.

As an orator Webster holds the first place in our history; as a constitutional lawyer he stands without a peer, and he was singularly powerful in developing a constitutional principle. But he was not painstaking; he disliked the routine work of Congress, and one of his lifelong drawbacks was indolence. Webster was not without faults, the most notable of which was a want of thrift. His income from his profession was large, but he had no power to keep out of debt, and his life work would have been thereby weakened but for the aid of some of his rich friends, who now and then came to the rescue. The last years of Webster's life were weakened by his inordinate desire to be President; but he always fell far short of receiving the nomination of his party. He was more popular with the masses than with the politicians, but not even among the people was there any great desire for his candidacy. He had never been a party leader, nor had he proved himself a safe party man; and, as above stated, he appealed to the intellect rather than to the heart. The last great effort of his friends to secure his nomination at Baltimore in 1852 proved a disastrous failure.

Webster's grief and disappointment at this crushing defeat furnish the saddest incident in his great life. The account of his interview with his friend, Rufus Choate, the great Boston lawyer, after the convention had adjourned, is inexpressibly sad, and Choate afterward referred to it as the most mournful experience of his life.1 A few months later the great New England statesman sank down into the grave, denouncing the pursuit of politics as vanity of vanities, and advising his friends to vote for the Democratic candidates. Thus the most brilliant star in the political firmament, after waning from the passing of its zenith, was obscured at its setting by a dark cloud.2

But Webster's final days were days of peace. As he lay at his Marshfield home waiting for the final call, he seemed to have forgotten all about the turmoils of political strife, and his mind soared through the realms of the unknown. He spoke of the wondrous works of God; he requested that on his tombstone be inscribed a statement of his profound belief that the Gospel of Jesus Christ

1 Harvey, quoted by Rhodes, Vol. I, p. 260.

2 See Von Holst, Vol. IV, p. 204.

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said he to 1 ܂

must be a divine reality; he discussed the gradual steps of dissolution with his physician, and said that no man who is not a brute can say that he is not afraid of death. "I shall die to-night," his physician, as the sun rose on the last day of his life. It was on one of those dreamy October days, known as Indian summer, when Nature invites everything that hath breath to love her and to praise the Lord, that the great man cast his eyes for the last time on her changing forms, that he heard for the last time the murmuring waves of the Atlantic through his open window, that he called his family one by one and bade them farewell. At nightfall he sank into a gentle slumber. Waking after midnight, he said, "I still live," his last intelligible words. In the early morning his life went out with the ebbing of the tide."

The mourning for Webster was widespread and sincere. The attitude of the South at the Whig convention had caused a reaction throughout the North. Boston had given him a grand reception in July, and now Massachusetts was heartbroken at the death of her great son.

All human talents and virtues have their limitations. Nature is not uniform in distributing her gifts. When she makes a man great in this or in that line, she often leaves him in other respects, like Samson with the shorn locks, as weak as other men. Webster's life was a great life; but he was weak in some points. Strange that such a man should pine for an office that so many smaller men had filled. Strange, too, that he could not see, as we now see, that the presidency, had he attained it, would not probably have added a jot to his illustrious name in American history. But we must remember Webster, not by the weaknesses of his later years, but for his whole life, especially for the principle of nationality of which he was our greatest exponent, a principle epitomized in his own undying words: "Liberty and Union, now and forever, one and inseparable.”

FALL OF THE WHIG PARTY

We have taken leave of the two great leaders of the Whig party; we must now give a parting word to the party itself. But a few weeks after the death of the great New England statesman at Marshfield the party to which he belonged received a blow at the polls from which it could not recover. This was the last national

1 Curtis's "Life of Webster," Vol. II, p. 696.

2 Ibid., 697-701.

campaign of the Whig party. The structure was tottering to its fall, and ere the return of the next quadrennial election the story of its existence was history. Of the many political organizations in our history the Whig party was one of only four that became so powerful as to secure control of the government; and it differs from the other three in that it has left us no legislation of permanent value, by which to enrich our national life and to distinguish its name in history. During the twenty years of its existence it had but one rival, the Democratic party, and by that party it was beaten in all its great measures. It will be remembered that the compromise measures of 1850 were sectional and not partisan in their nature, and while most of the country seemed disposed to accept them as a finality, they awakened the lasting opposition of many, and the odium had to be borne by the Whig party. Many Democrats had supported the measures, but they were fathered by the great Whig leader and signed by a Whig President, and the resentment they awakened north and south was visited upon that party. On this rock the party became hopelessly divided, and these measures are usually regarded as the cause of its downfall. But there were other

causes.

The old Federal party had been overthrown because it was too aristocratic and centralizing in its tendencies, because it differed too widely from its Democratic rival. The Whig party's downfall was due in part to the opposite reason it had become too Democratic. It had yielded to the Democrats on all the great issues between them the bank, the independent treasury, the tariff, and at length the issues of the Mexican War. Not one of these did the Whigs attempt to disturb when they regained power in 1848; and the only other great question before the country, slavery, was sectional and not partisan. After 1850, therefore, the two great parties stood on common ground. No longer were there principles to fight for only spoils. And since, as before stated, in the world of politics two of a kind cannot exist together, one of these two parties must disappear.

But the Democratic party was no better than the Whig. Why then did it survive while its rival perished? Because, first, its traditions and history, almost coexistent with the government, appealed to the sentiment of its adherents; second, it had held a steady course while the Whigs had yielded every important issue

1 See Schouler, Vol. IV, p. 261.

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between them; and third, it escaped the odium of the compromise. Thus, from various causes, the Whig party passed into history, and by so doing it made way for another that was soon to be born, one destined to do a mighty work for the nation which the old party could not have done.

Millard Fillmore, the last of the Whig Presidents, was a man of sincere and honest motives. The odium of signing the Fugitive Slave Law he could not outlive; but, as before stated, there is little doubt that he meant it for the best, and it is difficult to see how he could have done otherwise without bringing disaster on the country. He was the victim of conditions that he could not control.

THE KANSAS-NEBRASKA BILL

Franklin Pierce was the youngest man ever made President up to that time. His inaugural address was generally well received; but the statement that new territory should be acquired (and this meant Cuba) confirmed the belief that in the great controversy that had convulsed the country the sympathies of the new President were with the South. And so it proved; whenever it became the duty of this northern President to show his hand on the slavery question, he invariably decided with the slaveholder.

The Cabinet.

In his cabinet we find three men of national fame. Marcy of New York, who had served in Polk's cabinet, became secretary of state; Jefferson Davis of Mississippi, secretary of war; and Caleb Cushing of Massachusetts, attorney-general. Marcy had for many years been a leader in New York, had been governor of the state and senator in Congress. His famous phrase "To the victors belong the spoils," has been quoted by unnumbered millions at first as a happy statement of a policy accepted by all; now, only to be condemned. Davis had risen rapidly in public life after the Mexican War, in which he had proved himself a brave and skillful officer. But his strange career was only begun, and we leave a further account of him to a later page. Cushing was one of the most learned men ever in public life in America. He had been a Whig in ante-Tyler days, had performed a most useful service as commissioner to China, and on his return had

1 Mr. King, who had gone to Cuba for his health, was there sworn into office as Vice President. He returned to his Alabama home a few weeks later, and died on April 18.

joined the little Tyler party; but on its collapse he refused to return to the Whig fold, and joined the Democrats. It was said that Cushing's linguistic knowledge was so extensive that he could converse with every foreign minister at Washington in the latter's own language. The other members of the Cabinet were inconspicuous, and even their names would not interest the reader. This Cabinet is the only one, even to this day, that remained unbroken during an entire presidential term.

Not long had Pierce been President when his popularity began to wane, and so it continued steadily to the end of his term. It was evident that he lacked executive ability and firmness. He received every office seeker with suavity of manner, and led him to believe that he would receive the desired appointment. But many had to be disappointed, and this failing gave the President much trouble and made him many enemies. But with all his vacillating he was constant in one thing - his desire to please the South and to crush the Abolitionists.1 To annex Cuba was the first great aim of the administration. To further this end Buchanan was selected as minister to England, Mason to France, and Soulé to Spain; all of whom were determined advocates of the project. These three ministers, directed by the President to meet at a convenient place to consider the subject, met at Ostend, a little town in Belgium, and issued an address, known as the Ostend Manifesto. In this they urged the transfer of Cuba to the United States, by purchase if possible, by force if necessary. This was not acted on by the administration.

Ostend Manifesto, 1854.

In his inaugural address President Pierce had promised the country a rest from the distracting slavery question, and this promise he renewed in more emphatic words in his first annual message to Congress. And the people were pleased; the compromise as a final settlement was taking a firmer hold upon the public mind. The North had even become quiescent on the Fugitive Slave Law. The country

1 Cushing, who was, in an extreme sense, a northern man with southern principles, stated in a letter that the administration was determined to crush out abolitionism in every form. Cushing, as well as Pierce, came to sympathize with secession in the sixties.

2 Our filibusters had awakened apprehension in Europe, and in 1852 England and Franco had proposed a tripartite agreement with the United States to disclaim all intention to get possession of Cuba; but the United States declined to enter the agreement.

3 Sumner had made a powerful speech in the Senate, calling for the repeal of the law (July, 1852); but the effect of this had largely subsided.