“Let us concede to Mr. Webster’s worshippers that he has heretofore given proof enough of a great intellect, and let us demand of him now that he make use of, perhaps, his last chance to become a great _Man_. Of what profit are the hands of a giant in the picking up of pins? Let him leave Banks and Tariffs to more slender fingers. If ever a man was intended for a shepherd of the people, Daniel Webster is. The people are fast awakening to great principles: what they want is a great man to concentrate and intensify their diffuse enthusiasm. And it is not every sort of greatness that will serve for the occasion. Webster, if he would only let himself go, has every qualification for a popular leader. The use of such a man would be that of a conductor to gather, from every part of the cloud of popular indignation, the scattered electricity which would waste itself in heat lightnings, and grasping it into one huge thunderbolt, let it fall like the messenger of an angry god among the triflers in the Capitol. “Let Mr. Webster give over at last the futile task of sowing the barren seashore of the present, and devote himself to the Future, the only legitimate seed-field of great minds. Slimmer and glibber men will slip through the labyrinth of politics more easily than he. He will always be outstripped and outwitted. Politics are in their nature transitory. He who writes his name on them, be the letters never so large, writes it on the sand. The next wind of shifting opinion puffs it out forever. It is never too late to do a wise or great action. We do not yet wholly despair of hearing the voice of our Daniel reading the _Mene, Mene_, written on the wall of our political fabric.” The Buffalo Convention indorsed the nomination of Martin Van Buren, by the Barnburners, or anti-slavery wing of the Democratic party, with the result that the disaffected Whigs came to the support of General Taylor, and Webster rather tardily came forward and cast in his influence on that side. Lowell had been watching for his action, and at once wrote one of his bantering yet serious articles.