Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2

by George Frisbie Hoar

I do not know what year it was, but probably 1849 or 1850. He had grown old. But I learned more of the fashion of his mental operations than could be learned from his speeches on great occasions, especially after they had been revised for publication. He spoke with much contempt of a petition signed by many of the foremost merchants and business men of Boston. He described with great sarcasm the process of carrying about such petitions, and the relief of the person to whom they were presented on finding he was not asked to give any money. "Oh, yes, I'll sign—I'll sign." He then read out one after another the names of men well known and honored in the city. He threw down the petition with contempt, and the long sheet fell and unrolled upon the floor.

He had a singular habit, which made it wearisome to listen to his ordinary speech, of groping after the most suitable word, and trying one synonym after another till he got that which suited him best. "Why is it, Mr. Chairman, that there has gathered, congregated, this great number of inhabitants, dwellers, here; that these roads, avenues, routes of travel, highways, converge, meet, come together, here? Is it not because we have here a sufficient, ample, safe, secure, convenient, commodious, port, harbor, haven?" Of course when the speech came to be printed all the synonyms but the best one would be left out.

Mr. Webster seemed rather feeble at that time, and called upon his friend Mr. William Dehon to read for him the evidence and extracts from reports with which he had to deal. His tome was the tone of ordinary conversation, and his speech, while it would not be called hesitating, was exceedingly slow and deliberate. I have been told by persons who heard him in the Supreme Court in his later years that the same characteristic marked his arguments there, and that some of his passages made very little impression upon the auditors, although they seemed eloquent and powerful when they came to be read afterward.

His is frequently spoken of as a nervous Saxon style. That is a great mistake, except as to a few passages where he rose to a white heat. If any person will open a volume of his speeches at random, it will be found that the characteristic of his sentences is a somewhat ponderous Latinity.

A considerable number of Democrats joined the Free Soil movement in 1848. Conspicuous among them was Marcus Morton, who had been Governor and one of our ablest Supreme Court judges, and his son, afterward Chief Justice, then just rising into distinction as a lawyer. The members of the Liberty Party also, who had cast votes for Birney in 1844, were ready for the new movement. But the Free Soil Party derived its chief strength, both of numbers and influence, from the Whigs. The Anti-Slavery Whigs clung to Webster almost to the last. He had disappointed them by opposing the resolution they offered at the Whig State Convention, pledging the party to support no candidate not known by his acts or declared opinions to be opposed to the extension of slavery. But he had coupled his opposition with a declaration of his own unalterable opposition to that extension, and had said, speaking of those who were in favor of the declaration: "It is not their thunder."

He declared in the Senate, as late as 1848: "My opposition to the increase of slavery in the country, or to the increase of slave representation in Congress, is general and universal. It has no reference to lines of latitude or points of the compass. I shall oppose all such extension, and all such increase, at all times, under all circumstances, even against all inducements, against all combinations, against all compromises."

So the Anti-Slavery Whigs eagerly supported him as their candidate for the Whig nomination in 1848.

If Mr. Webster had been nominated for the Presidency in 1848, the Free Soil Party would not have come into existence that year. There would have been probably some increase in the numbers of the Liberty Party; yet the Anti-Slavery Whigs of Massachusetts would have trusted him. But the nomination of General Taylor, a Southerner, one of the largest slaveholders in the country, whose laurels had been gained in the odious Mexican War, upon a platform silent upon the engrossing subject of the extension of slavery, could not be borne. The temper of the Whig National Convention was exhibited in a way to irritate the lovers of freedom in Massachusetts. When some allusion was made to her expressed opinions, it was received with groans and cries of "Curse Massachusetts." But, on the whole, the Massachusetts Whigs shared the exultant anticipation of triumph, and of regaining the power from which they had been excluded since the time of John Quincy Adams, except for the month of Harrison's short official life. But as the convention was about to adjourn, intoxicated with hope and triumph, Charles Allen, a delegate from Massachusetts, a man of slender figure, rose, and with a quiet voice declared the Whig Party dissolved. Never was a prediction received with more derision; never was prediction more surely fulfilled. He was reinforced by Henry Wilson, afterward Vice-President of the United States.

Immediately on their return from Philadelphia, a call was circulated for a convention to be held at Worcester of all persons opposed to the nomination of Cass and Taylor. The call was written by E. R. Hoar. My father, Samuel Hoar, was its first signer.

This is the call. It should be preserved in a form more enduring than the leaflet, of which I possess, perhaps, the only copy in existence.