My first political service was folding and directing these circulars. The Convention was held, and Samuel Hoar presided. It was addressed by men most of whom afterward became eminent in the public service. Among them were Charles Sumner, Charles Francis Adams, Henry Wilson, E. R. Hoar, Edward L. Keyes, Charles Allen, Lewis D. Campbell, of Ohio, and Abraham Payne, of Rhode Island. Richard H. Dana was present, but I think he did not speak. William Lloyd Garrison and Francis Jackson were present, but took no part whatever. I rode to Boston in a freight car after the convention was over, late at night. Garrison and Jackson were sitting together and talking to a group of friends. Garrison seemed much delighted with the day's work, but said he heard too much talk about the likelihood that some of the resolutions would be popular and bring large numbers of votes to the party. He said: "All you should ask is, what is the rightful position? and then take it." Among the resolutions was this:

"That Massachusetts looks to Daniel Webster to declare to the Senate and to uphold before the country the policy of the Free States; that she is relieved to know that he has not endorsed the nomination of General Taylor; and that she invokes him at this crisis to turn a deaf ear to 'optimists' and 'quietists', and to speak and act as his heart and his great mind shall lead him."

Daniel Webster's son Fletcher was present, and heartily in accord with the meeting; and this resolution was passed with his full approval. It met great opposition from the men who had come into the movement from the Liberty Party and from the Democratic Party. The shouts of "No, no; too late" were nearly, if not quite, equal to the expressions of approval. But the president declared that it was passed.

Mr. Webster sulked in his tent during the summer, and at last, September 1, 1848, made a speech at Marshfield, in which he declared the nomination of Taylor not fit to be made, but gave it a half-hearted support. My brother, Judge E. R. Hoar, had been an enthusiastic admirer of Webster, who had treated him with great personal kindness; and, as I have said, he had been associated with Mr. Webster in the famous Wyman trial. Mr. Webster made a speech in the Senate in August, declaring his renewed opposition to the extension of slavery. Mr. Hoar wrote a letter expressing his satisfaction with that speech, and urging him to take his proper place at the head of the Northern Free Soil movement. This is Mr. Webster's reply. It is interesting as the last anti-slavery utterance of Daniel Webster.

MARSHFIELD, August 23, 1848.

My Dear Sir:

I am greatly obliged to you, for your kind and friendly letter. You overrate, I am sure, the value of my speech, it was quite unpremeditated and its merit, if any, consists I presume in its directness and brevity. It mortified me to see that some of the newspaper writers speak of it as the "taking of a position"; as if it contained something new for me to say. You are not one of them, my dear sir, but there are those who will not believe that I am an anti-slavery man unless I repeat the declaration once a week. I expect they will soon require a periodical affidavit. You know, that as early as 1830 in my speech on Foote's resolution, I drew upon me the anger of enemies, and a regret of friends by what I said against slavery, and I hope that from that day to this my conduct has been consistent. But nobody seems to be esteemed to be worthy of confidence who is not a new convert. And if the new convert be as yet but half converted, so much the better. This I confess a little tries one's patience. But I can assure you in my own case, it will not either change my principles or my conduct.

It is utterly impossible for me to support the Buffalo nomination. I have no confidence in Mr. Van Buren, not the slightest. I would much rather trust General Taylor than Mr. Van Buren even on this very question of slavery, for I believe that General Taylor is an honest man and I am sure he is not so much committed on the wrong side, as I know Mr. Van Buren to have been for fifteen years. I cannot concur even with my best friends in giving the lead in a great question to a notorious opponent to the cause. Besides; there are other great interests of the country in which you and I hold Mr. Van Buren to be essentially wrong, and it seems to me that in consenting to form a party under him Whigs must consent to bottom their party on one idea only, and also to adopt as the representative of that idea a head chosen on a strange emergency from among its steadiest opposers. It gives me pain to differ from Whig friends whom I know to be as much attached to universal liberty as I am, and they cannot be more so. I am grieved particularly to be obliged to differ in anything from yourself and your excellent father, for both of whom I have cherished such long and affectionate regards. But I cannot see it to be my duty to join in a secession from the Whig Party for the purpose of putting Mr. Van Buren at the head of the Government. I pray you to assure yourself, my dear Sir, of my continued esteem and attachment, and remember me kindly and cordially to your father.

Yours, etc.,
DANIEL WEBSTER

Honorable E. Rockwood Hoar.