All this gradual, unseen deterioration of mind and character was revealed to the country on the 7th of March, 1850. What a downfall was there! That shameful speech reads worse in 1867 than it did in 1850, and still exerts perverting power over timid and unformed minds. It was the very time for him to have broken finally with the "irreconcilable" faction, who, after having made President Tyler _snub_ Daniel Webster from his dearly loved office of Secretary of State, had consummated the scheme which gave us Texas at the cost of war with Mexico, and California as one of the incidents of peace. California was not down in their programme; and now, while claiming the right to make four slave States out of Texas, they refused to admit California to freedom. _Then_ was it that Daniel Webster of Massachusetts rose in the Senate of the United States and said in substance this: These fine Southern brethren of ours have now stolen all the land there is to steal. Let us, therefore, put no obstacle in the way of their peaceable enjoyment of the plunder. And the spirit of the speech was worse even than its doctrine. He went down upon the knees of his soul, and paid base homage to his own and his country's irreconcilable foes. Who knew better than Daniel Webster that John C. Calhoun and his followers had first created and then systematically fomented the hostile feeling which then existed between the North and the South? How those men must have chuckled among themselves when they witnessed the willing degradation of the man who should have arraigned them before the country as the conscious enemies of its peace! How was it that no one laughed outright at such billing and cooing as this? * * * * * _Mr. Webster_.--"An honorable member [Calhoun], whose health does not allow him to be here to-day--" _A Senator_,--"He is here." _Mr. Webster_.--"I am very happy to hear that he is; may he long be here, and in the enjoyment of health to serve his country!" And this:-- _Mr. Webster_.--"The honorable member did not disguise his conduct or his motives." _Mr. Calhoun_.--"Never, never." _Mr. Webster_.--"What he means he is very apt to say." _Mr. Calhoun_.--"Always, always." _Mr. Webster_.--"And I honor him for it." And this:-- _Mr. Webster_.-- "I see an honorable member of this body [Mason of Virginia] paying me the honor of listening to my remarks; he brings to my mind, Sir, freshly and vividly, what I learned of his great ancestor, so much distinguished in his day and generation, so worthy to be succeeded by so worthy a grandson." And this:-- _Mr. Webster_.--