placing them in the grasp of slavery. The consistency which he labored so hard to prove in his speech was hopelessly shattered, and no ingenuity, either then or since, can restore it. [Footnote 1: _Congressional Globe_, 31st Congress, 1st Session, p. 203.] [Footnote 2: Ibid., Appendix, p. 510.] A dispassionate examination of Mr. Webster's previous course on slavery, and a careful comparison of it with the ground taken in the 7th of March speech, shows that he softened his utterances in regard to slavery as a system, and that he changed radically on the policy of compromise and on the question of extending the area of slavery. There is a confused story that in the winter of 1847-48 he had given the anti-slavery leaders to understand that he proposed to come out on their ground in regard to Mexico, and to sustain Corwin in his attack on the Democratic policy, but that he failed to do so. The evidence on this point is entirely insufficient to make it of importance, but there can be no doubt that in the winter of 1850 Mr. Webster talked with Mr. Giddings, and led him, and the other Free-Soil leaders, to believe that he was meditating a strong anti-slavery speech. This fact was clearly shown in the recent newspaper controversy which grew out of the celebration of the centennial anniversary of Webster's birth. It is a little difficult to understand why this incident should have roused such bitter resentment among Mr. Webster's surviving partisans. To suppose that Mr. Webster made the 7th of March speech after long deliberation, without having a moment's hesitation in the matter, is to credit him with a shameless disregard of principle and consistency, of which it is impossible to believe him guilty. He undoubtedly hesitated, and considered deeply whether he should assume the attitude of 1833, and stand out unrelentingly against the encroachments of slavery. He talked with Mr. Clay on one side. He talked with Mr. Giddings, and other Free-Soilers, on the other. With the latter the wish was no doubt father to the thought, and they may well have imagined that Mr. Webster had determined to go with them, when he was still in doubt and merely trying the various positions. There is no need, however, to linger over matters of this sort. The change made by Mr. Webster can be learned best by careful study of his own utterances, and of his whole career. Yet, at the same time, the greatest trouble lies not in the shifting and inconsistency revealed by an examination of the specific points which have just been discussed, but in the speech as a whole. In that speech Mr. Webster failed quite as much by omissions as by the opinions which he actually announced. He was silent when he should have spoken, and he spoke when he should have held his peace. The speech, if exactly defined, is, in reality, a powerful effort, not for compromise or for the Fugitive Slave Law, or any other one thing, but to arrest the whole anti-slavery movement,