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cluded by wishing me, in the name of all, an affectionate farewell. It has been published, years ago, that I was dumbfounded by this extraordinary address. I shall not say whether this is altogether true or not; but certainly, if I uttered any thing in response, it is all now lost to my memory in the overwhelming recollection of this most stupendous display of genius on the part of the wonderful personage of whom I have been speaking. "Daniel Webster still lives," and ever will continue to live, in the admiration and affection of the wise, the patriotic, and the virtuous!!

How surprised and indignant must the intelligent and magnanimous of other generations inevitably be on learning, as they will unfortunately do, that even such a man as this, compounded as he was of all the nobler and more gracious elements of our nature, was not permitted to escape the rough and heartless assaults of cold-blooded and mercenary calumniators when living, nor, even after death, suffered to remain quietly inurned, without being subjected to the objurgatory malevolence of some who knew him familiarly while still lingering in the realms of mortality, and whose most pleasant duty it should have been to keep his august and sacred name forever bright and untarnished, and continually to scatter laurels of unfading honor over and around that sequestered tomb which holds all that now remains of the most grandly and variously gifted man that has ever yet borne the proud name of American!

CHAPTER XI.

Excited Struggle in Congress over the Kansas-Nebraska Bill.-Manly but ineffectual Opposition to that Bill in Congress.-Regret expressed at the Disappearance from the public Scene of Mr. Clay, Mr. Webster, and Mr. Calhoun.-Confident Opinion expressed as to what would have been Mr. Calhoun's Course had he survived up to our Times.-Fearful awakening of sectional Excitement both in the South and in the North under the Influence of the Kansas-Nebraska Bill.-Multiplied Scenes of Blood and Violence in the Territory of Kansas.-Mr. Pierce and his Cabinet lose the Confidence of all Men of true Nationality of Sentiment. -Mr. Pierce defeated in the Cincinnati Democratic Convention by Mr. Buchanan, who is afterward elected to the Presidency by a plurality Vote over Fremont and Fillmore.—Mr. Buchanan delivers an Inaugural Address as President, replete with national Sentiment, which attracts to him the Support of the American Party, and his Administration grows overwhelmingly popular.—He afterward treacherously violates all his Promises to the Country under the Threats of Southern Secession Leaders, and his Administration suddenly becomes both odious and contemptible.-The Democratic Party of the North completely crushed and broken down by the fatal Lecompton Issue, and the way surely paved for the Election of a Republican President in 1860.-Review of the State of Parties at that Period.-Some Notice of the American Party and its particular Tenets.-Great Mistake of the Southern People in not yielding their Support to Mr. Fillmore in 1856.-Some Notice of the Republican Candidates for President and Vice-President in 1856, and of certain curious Scenes which took place during the short period of General Fremont's official Connection with that Body. -Sketch of General Baker, one of the earliest Victims of the War, and a recital of certain romantic Occurrences connected with his Residence in California and Oregon.-Signal Triumph of his extraordinary oratorical Powers over popular Excitement and Prejudice.

So was it with our country in the latter part of Mr.

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Pierce's administration. Clay, Webster, and Calhoun were no longer upon the arena of public action. Those who had taken their places possessed but little of the wisdom with which these great statesmen had showed themselves to be endowed. General Cass, one of the few men at that time in Congress that had either sufficient power as a parliamentary speaker, or sufficient weight of character to render innocuous the elements of mischief then at work, was, at this particular moment, neither so active nor observant as usual, by reason of a severe domestic misfortune which had just fallen upon him, and which I personally know to have much depressed his spirits and enfeebled his energies. Others there were in the national councils from whom a far wiser and more conservative course was to have been expected at this crisis, but who had, in the Kansas-Nebraska struggle, strangely disappointed the public hopes. Mr. Badger, of North Carolina, honest, enlightened, and patriotic, a learned jurist, a calm and methodical debater, who had been, during all his antecedent life, remarkable for his moderation and forbearance, had for a moment joined the extremists of the South in giving his high sanction to a rupture of the compact of 1850; while Mr. Bell, of Tennessee, always able, but most generally, from a certain modesty of temperament, a little slow and indecisive in his movements, had at this time been seen to exert more than his habitual energy, had both zealously and manfully confronted all who showed themselves to be inclined to measure swords with him, and had fearlessly and vigorously essayed to throttle the monster I

of sectionalism on the floor of the Senate, ere yet, like Eolus, he should succeed in unchaining all the winds of heaven once more, which had been now for nearly four years quietly sleeping in their caves. But Mr. Toombs was there, that Mirabeau of the South, fervid, impassioned, eloquent, bold, defiant, arrogant, high-souled, and generous, but self-reliant, dogmatical, and reckless-better fitted than any man I have yet seen to conjure up a sudden storm of popular excitement, but sadly deficient in that calmness of soul so indispensable to the attainment of nearly all great public ends; and beside him stood others, who, though perchance not possessed altogether of equal power in discussion or equal audacity of spirit, were yet able to lend considerable aid in such a confused struggle as was then going forward.

I have alluded to Mr. Calhoun as one of those whose decease had deprived the public councils of a man who would not at this conjuncture, had he been living, have lent his great powers, and, if possible, still greater personal weight and influence, to the side of agitation and discord. I feel that I speak advisedly on this subject. A few months subsequent to the death of this extraordinary man in 1850, General James Hamilton, of South Carolina, one of his most trusted friends, and who had much familiar conversation with Mr. Calhoun a few days only before he ceased to live, published, about twelve months thereafter, a long and interesting letter, in which he emphatically denied that Mr. Calhoun, had he continued alive, would have yielded his sanction to that scheme of rebellion against the national government which others

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were at the very moment of the publication of this important letter so indiscreetly and causelessly attempting; and I can not but believe that Mr. Calhoun, who never claimed for the South aught but that she "should be let alone," who had even refused his assent to the proposition made by General Jackson, during his last official term, to interfere to some extent with the freedom of mail communications, avowedly with a view to preventing the circulation through the slaveholding regions of incendiary documents, would neither have given his sanction to the infamous Lecompton Constitution, fastened, or rather attempted to be fastened, upon the necks of a free people, without their consent and in undeniable opposition to their wishes; nor would so sober-minded and circumspect a man as Mr. Calhoun have been found, in 1861, co-operating with those inconsiderate and ill-judging Southern members of Congress who abandoned their seats merely because a presidential election had taken place, for the result of which they had made themselves chiefly responsible, before even any overt act violative of the rights of the South had been either perpetrated or been even distinctly menaced; when they knew that President Lincoln had been elected only by a plurality of popular votes; when they were also bound to know that they had it in their power, by acting faithfully and cordially with their Northern political allies, infallibly to defeat all hostile legislation which might be attempted against them or those whom they represented for the four years which were next to pass away ere another presidential election would occur; and that it was almost morally certain that in 1860 the reins of authority would be placed in the