Her destructive attack on the private character of Daniel Webster, in 1850, also illustrates her reckless courage and her sagacity. She was in Washington pending the fugitive slave bill. Webster was supporting the measure—a damaging defection from the anti-slavery side, because of his supposed moral as well as intellectual greatness. Mrs. S. discovered “that his whole panoply of moral power was a shell—that his life was full of rottenness. Then I knew why I had come to Washington.” She put the facts into one short paragraph, and published it in her own paper, against the advice of all her friends, and even of such stanch anti-slavery men as Giddings, Julian, and Dr. Snodgrass. They said it was true, and no one would dare to deny it; yet no one had dared to make it public; the publication would ruin her and her influence. She said: “The cause of the slave hangs on the issue in Congress, and Mr. Webster’s influence is against him; his influence would be less if the public knew just what he is. I will publish it and let God take care of the consequences.” Eccentric conduct, surely! It was published, and it did bring ruin—but on Daniel Webster, instead of Jane Grey Swisshelm. It killed Webster’s influence with the conscientious part of the Whig party, and probably gave the _coup de grace_ to his presidential prospects. She was long known as “the woman who killed Webster.” It was in 1847 that Mrs. Swisshelm took the decisive plunge by founding the Pittsburgh _Saturday Visiter_. The sensation created by this unprecedented appearance of politics in petticoats she characteristically describes: It was quite an insignificant looking sheet, but no sooner did the American eagle catch sight of it than he swooned and fell off his perch. Democratic roosters straightened out their necks and ran screaming with terror. Whig ’coons scampered up trees and barked furiously. The world was falling, and every one had “heard it, saw it, and felt it.”