their constant recurrence, threatened more and more the stability of the Union. History has shown how wofully mistaken he was in this opinion. The last point to be considered in connection with the 7th of March speech is the ground then taken by Mr. Webster with reference to the extension of slavery. To this question the speech was chiefly directed, and it is the portion which has aroused the most heated discussion. What Mr. Webster's views had always been on the subject of slavery extension every one knew then and knows now. He had been the steady and uncompromising opponent of the Southern policy, and in season and out of season, sometimes vehemently sometimes gently, but always with firmness and clearness, he had declared against it. The only question is, whether he departed from these often-expressed opinions on the 7th of March. In the speech itself he declared that he had not abated one jot in his views in this respect, and he argued at great length to prove his consistency, which, if it were to be easily seen of men, certainly needed neither defence nor explanation. The crucial point was, whether, in organizing the new territories, the principle of the Wilmot Proviso should be adopted as part of the measure. This famous proviso Mr. Webster had declared in 1847 to represent exactly his own views. He had then denied that the idea was the invention of any one man, and scouted the notion that on this doctrine there could be any difference of opinion among Whigs. On March 7 he announced that he would not have the proviso attached to the territorial bills, and should oppose any effort in that direction. The reasons he gave for this apparent change were, that nature had forbidden slavery in the newly-conquered regions, and that the proviso, under such circumstances, would be a useless taunt and wanton insult to the South. The famous sentence in which he said that he "would not take pains uselessly to reaffirm an ordinance of nature, nor to reënact the will of God," was nothing but specious and brilliant rhetoric. It was perfectly easy to employ slaves in California, if the people had not prohibited it, and in New Mexico as well, even if there were no cotton nor sugar nor rice plantations in either, and but little arable land in the latter. There was a classic form of slave-labor possible in those countries. Any school-boy could have reminded Mr. Webster of "Seius whose eight hundred slaves Sicken in Ilva's mines."