Shall I compare Mr. Webster with Thomas Wentworth, the great Earl of Strafford, a man "whose doubtful character and memorable end have made him the most conspicuous character of a reign so fertile in recollections?" He, like Webster, was a man of large powers, and once devoted them to noble uses. Did Wentworth defend the "Petition of Right?" So did Webster many times defend the great cause of liberty. But it was written of Strafford, that "in his self-interested and ambitious mind," patriotism "was the seed sown among thorns!" "If we reflect upon this man's cold-blooded apostasy on the first lure to his ambition, and on his splendid abilities, which enhanced the guilt of that desertion, we must feel some indignation at those who have palliated all his iniquities, and embalmed his memory with the attributes of patriot heroism. Great he surely was, since that epithet can never be denied without paradox to so much comprehension of mind, such ardor and energy, such courage and eloquence, those commanding qualities of soul, which, impressed upon his dark and stern countenance, struck his contemporaries with mingled awe and hate ... But it may be reckoned a sufficient ground for distrusting any one's attachment to the English Constitution, that he reveres the name of Strafford." His measures for stifling liberty in England, which he and his contemporaries significantly called "Thorough" in the reign of Charles I., were not more atrocious, than the measures which Daniel Webster proposes himself, or proposes to support "to the fullest extent." But Strafford paid the forfeit--tasting the sharp and bitter edge of the remorseless axe. Let his awful shade pass by. I mourn at the parallel between him and the mighty son of our own New England. Would God it were not thus! For a sadder parallel, I shall turn off from the sour features of that great British politician, and find another man in our own fair land. This name carries us back to "the times that tried men's souls," when also there were souls that could not stand the rack. It calls me back to "The famous year of '80;" to the little American army in the highlands of New York; to the time when the torch of American liberty which now sends its blaze far up to heaven, at the same time lighting the northern lakes and the Mexique Bay, tinging with welcome radiance the eastern and the western sea, was a feeble flame flickering about a thin and hungry wick, and one hand was raised to quench in darkness, and put out forever, that feeble and uncertain flame. Gentlemen, I hate to speak thus. I honor the majestic talents of this great man. I hate to couple his name with that other, which few Americans care to pronounce. But I know no deed in American history, done by a son of New England, to which I can compare this, but the act of Benedict Arnold!