North Carolina standard. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1850-1852, 1851-06-04

deepening, and widening. until Convention of the
States will be called, and the work will be done.
Twenty years hence. if we to have more slave
States, the free States will be two to one against the
former; and then the Constitution can be changed,
according TO its own forms, and the power can De
given to Congress to "act upon it " in the STATES.
Then it will be constitutional to abolish the lnsu-
tion in the States by act of Congress, and extreme
regrets :" will vanish away. God only knows. when
that time comes whether the people of the slave
holding States will submit to the outrage or not
Party spirit and looking to Federal rewards and
honors have already distracted and divided them !;
and it may be, by that day, that these things will
have sealed their ruin. One thing is certain cir
cumscribe Slavery is ultimately to destroy it. No
man is better assured of this than Mr.. Webster.
Mr.. Webster suPposes a case in connection with
HIMSELF which we have frequently thought Of 1t
is this:
Suppose that on the 9TH of March, instead of
making speech that would reconcile the country,
had Joined in the general clamor of the party-sup-
pose had said 1 will have nothing to do with any
accommodation-we will admit no satisfaction-we
will let Texas invade New Mexico-we will leave
New Mexico and Utah to take care of themselves,
and will plant ourselves on the Wilmot Prov iso,
and let the devil take the hindernost''
Up to this 18th of March Speech no man had gone
before Mr.. Webster in denanciatons of the slave
power in Freesoil expressions and Freesoil efforts
generally. In 1913 he claimed Wilmot's Proviso as
his thunder -he declared that he had been for it
all aong-hat he had started it and stood by it, and
that no should deprive him of the credit of it,
He claimed also for the Wings of New England, in
1913, that they had accomplished great excitement
in the public mind on this Slavery question long
before WiImot and the Barnburners took it up; and
he solemnly warned the people of Massachusetts,
during the same campaign, that Gen. Cass was more
favorably disposed towards the South on this ques-
ton than Gen. Taylor, and that if Cass elected
Slavery would be extended and the Missouri line
established These are facts which will dis
pute. But Mr.. Webster that the Union was in
danger, and without taking back any of his express
sions conceang his principles he came to its res
cue. That was great act; but still we cannot help
thinking that, after ALL he deserves more honor for
what he did not do than for what he did. He held
his hand. The Southern States had been pushed to
the WALL and we're turning on their assaiants; and
if Webster had still pressed onward with language
of menace, and had cheered, of old, the assautng
columns. :his hour might been ushered in with war
upon its wings. We cannot tell what the issue would
have been.
Mr.. Webster says very emphaticaly and very sig
nicantly, in the of his Speech, that he knows
he is speaking. That well put in. He was ad-
dressing portion of the people of Mr. Fimore's old
Congressional District; he talking TO the Erie
and Buffalo Freesoilers and Abolonists, made so
much by Mr.. Fillmore as by any one else. 1t was
to these people that Mr.. Fillmore wrote his famous
Erie letter in 1886, in which he said he was in favor
of abolishing the internal savetrade and Slavery in
the District of Columbia and it was therefore not
only proper that Mr.. Webster should kno,o to whom
he was speaking, but it significant in him to say
so. He felt that he at home-he was talking as
well for Mr.. Fillmore as for himself, and he wanted
the Erie boys to know it.
! We regard this of Mr.. Webster's ablest ef-
forts. Age seems TO have chilled his blood nor to
have worn his intellect; both still there, as they
were, and as the latter will live in the records of his
country. But it is dangerous Speech-the most
dangerous, all things considered which has been de-
lvered against domestic Slavery during the past ten
years That is opnion-our readers must judge
for themselves. Read it, and then lay it aside for fu
ture reference. 1t may be needed hereafter.