who shall chance to feel that they would be deeply injured thereby, more especially if the latter party shall suppose itself to possess adequate means of prevention, must inevitably lead to a civil war, more or less serious and protracted. And it is plain that the danger of such a result must be very greatly increased, if, in addition to the influences described, the opinion should be given currency that the antagonism asserted to exist is organic and permanent in its character, not growing out of interests superficial and temporary in their nature, and therefore subject to easy processes of modification and amelioration in one mode or another, but solid, enduring, and "imbedded in the very nature" of "institutions" thus solemnly adjudged to be "heterogeneous." Washington and his illustrious associates of a former age taught no such perilous and visionary doctrine; nor did the great statesmen who succeeded them in the administration of the government for several successive generations at all suspect the existence of any such fatal tendency to discord and domestic feud to be lurking in the very vitals of our civil system. I am not prepared to assert that this "irrepressible conflict" theory originated either in the North or in the South exclusively. I know that a distinguished citizen of the State of New York has been given credit for the first formal promulgation of it; and recent occurrences would seem to indicate that this gentleman still firmly adheres to his well-known declaration on this subject. Certain it is, though, that I have heard this same radical incompatibility of interests between the Northern and Southern states of the Union-between that portion of the republic recognized until recently as the slave

JOHN C. CALHOUN.

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holding one, and that which was non-slaveholding in its character—as earnestly urged, and as elaborately insisted upon also by certain well-known sectional politicians south of Mason and Dixon's line, as it ever could have been by individuals of the most extreme opinions on this subject to the north of that same mystical parallel of latitude. I only assert what I know to be true when I state that, for several years antecedent to his death, John C. Calhoun, one of the most intellectual and pure-minded men that has ever lived, habitually gave expression among his friends to the opinion (which there is no doubt he most conscientiously entertained) that the slaveholding states of the South and the free states of the North would never be able again to live in harmony with each other after the abolition agitation had been for several years in progress, and that the former would soon find it indispensable to the preservation of their own domestic peace and safety to resort to the expedient of separation. Early in the eventful year of 1850 he avowed to me and to certain others, some of whom are yet living, his own painful and firmly-riveted conviction on this subject, and declared, in language of extraordinary emphasis, that he regarded a peaceful withdrawal from the Union as altogether practicable, provided its execution should be attempted under the lead of Maryland and Virginia; making known at the same time that he had already drawn out a Constitution for the new republic which he contemplated, in which the slaveholding principle had been given a predominant influence. Once, while discussing this interesting matter, he grew more enthusiastic than I ever saw him on any other occasion,

and exclaimed in language something like the following: "In looking back upon the history of past ages, I have sometimes been disposed to envy the glory of such men as Brutus, and Cato, and others; but if this project of peaceful separation can be accomplished, and my new Constitution shall be adopted by the people of the South, I shall feel that I too will have done something, in my own day and generation, to deserve the gratitude and veneration of the friends to a well-ordered system of confederative freedom."

The truth is, that between sectional factionists of the North and of the South, however conscientious many of them doubtless have been in the views supported by them, and in the measures from time to time by them propounded, there was oftentimes to be discerned a most singular and striking exhibition of similitude in regard both to general theories of government, and in reference to their action, in and out of Congress, upon several of the most exciting questions which have ever disturbed the public repose. Special evidences in proof of what has now been asserted will be hereafter adduced. I propose at present to bring forward what all America will, I fancy, deem as high an authority as could well be cited. The following memorable words were uttered in my hearing in the national Senate in the month of July, 1850, when the celebrated measures of compromise were under discussion in that body, by one of the wisest and most patriotic statesmen, as well as one of the most consummate orators that the world has known; whose profound and salutary counsels, had they been since that period faithfully observed by those for whose benefit he

then spoke, would have infallibly saved our country from all those scenes of unfraternal strife, and fierce, sanguinary conflict, to avert which was the most cherished wish of his whole long and useful public life. Mr. Webster, upon the occasion referred to, said:

"Sir, this measure is opposed by the North, or some of the North, and by the South, or some of the South; and it has the remarkable misfortune to encounter resistance by persons the most directly opposed to each other in every matter connected with the subject under consideration. There are those (I do not speak, of course, of members of Congress, and I do not desire to be understood as making any allusion whatever, in what I may say, to members of this House or of the other), there are those in the country who say, on the part of the South, that the South by this bill gives up every thing to the North, and that they will fight it to the last; and there are those, on the part of the North, who say that this bill gives up every thing to the South, and that they will fight it to the last. And really, sir, strange as it may seem, this disposition to make battle upon the bill by those who never agreed in any thing before under the light of heaven, has created a sort of fellowship and good feeling between them. One says, Give me your hand, my good fellow; you mean to go against this bill to the death, because it gives up the rights of the South. I mean to go against the bill to the death, because it gives up the rights of the North; let us shake hands, and cry out, 'Down with the bill!' and then unitedly raise theshout,

"A day, an hour of virtuous liberty,

Is worth a whole eternity in bondage!'

such is the consistency of the opposition to this measure."

Having thus incidentally alluded to Mr. Webster, I shall seize the opportunity of expressing frankly my own opinion of this remarkable personage, together with a few of the considerations upon which this opinion is bottomed. It will fall within the scope and compass of this volume to make frequent references to this truly conservative and patriotic statesman; in consideration of which fact, and by reason of the additional fact that one of the most gifted of his numerous admiring friends* has, some years ago, published an analysis of Mr. Webster's life and character, more masterly, perhaps, than any other production of that class which the present age has produced, I shall confine myself at present to a very brief statement of my own recollections of a man who has filled the world with his fame, and the glories connected with whose public career are as imperishable even as those solid granite hills of New England, amid which he came into existence, and in sight of which it was his fortune to be afterward nurtured in all the arts of true greatness. I saw Mr. Webster for the first time in the summer of 1825, while he was sojourning for a few days at the celebrated Saratoga Springs, on his way to the Falls of Niagara, which stupendous wonder of Nature he was then about to visit for the first time, and in company with his esteemed and life-long friend Justice Story. An acquaintance of mine, Colonel White, then a representative in Congress from Florida, did me the honor of presenting me to Mr. Webster a few days after the publication, in

*Mr. Choate.