But other styles of oratorical attack were still feasible. Just before Congress met in December, 1846, the Whigs hung out at the Chinese Museum, Philadelphia, their Great Blue Light. In other words a powerful orator, a powerful lawyer, a powerful statesman--Daniel Webster by name--after studying on the problem for half a year, undertook, if one may quote an admirer, to "knock the sand" from under the government. Hour after hour he talked on, till he mortgaged fourteen columns of the _United States Gazette_, and the reporters fled; but he came far short of making out a case. Other efforts of his proved no more successful. Before the Whig convention at Springfield he argued in a tedious, prosy, court-room style. This is "a war of pretexts"--three of them, he asserted: first, that Mexico invaded American territory; secondly, that she would not receive Slidell; and thirdly, that she would not pay our claims. Did Webster fail to see that a _casus belli_ recognized almost unanimously by our Executive and Congress was for this country at least more than a "pretext"? Did he fail to see that his other "pretexts" had not been offered by Polk as grounds for passing the war bill? And how could he say the pretexts were "all unfounded"? Did he suppose that Mexico had paid our claims? Did he suppose that she had welcomed Slidell? Of course not; but he was the attorney of New England Whiggism, trying to make a good case out of a poor one.[34.18] His really effective contributions to the polemics consisted, not of arguments, but of impressive hints: "I am greatly deceived, Mr. President, if we shall not ere long see facts coming to the light, and circumstances found coinciding and concurring, which will fix on the government" its alleged guilt; and a President bringing on war in the manner charged against Polk, would commit "an impeachable offence," as if Polk might have been impeached after Congress had assumed the responsibility for his acts. But unhappily Father Ritchie offered another citation, "Well, well, we know; or there be, and if there might; or if we list to speak."[34.18]