New-York daily tribune. [volume] (New-York [N.Y.]) 1842-1866, 1852-08-30
WHAT WILL prK. WEBSTER DO,


dertaken the desperate enterprise OF max
inc President out of Franklin Pierce,
having fixed the Free coil nomination
exactly to their liking, are now devotlng
their attention to Mr.. Webster and his pos
sible uses. They evidently regard him as
rather promising deposit OF Guano where
with the sterile field of their Presidential
speculation may be fertilized, if the utmost
skill and energy be evinced in the applica-
ton. Hence Pierce himself has been Law
isb of personal civilities and fulsome flat
teries since his own nomination. and Mr.
Webster's disappointment, just as he has
been clarifying Mr.. Clay since that States
mans death, after having hunted him with
blackening calumnies to the grave. How
far Mr.. Webster may feel gratifed with
these and like posthumous honors from
those who have used him as bugbear for
half a century, is question rather of per-
sonal thnn of public interest.
Mr.. Webster has a legal right to take
any course he pleaseS with regard to the
pending Presidential contest, but he has
no moral right to Justify any course he
may take by unfounded pretexts. He has
no right to pretend, nor to cOuntenance
others in pretending, that he was treated
unfairly in the late National Convention By
The friends Of Gen. Scott. How the case
may stand between him and Mr.. Fillmore,
we do not inquire, since that is no affair of
ours. But Mr.. Webster knew perfectly
well that Gen. Scott would be his rival be-
fore that Convention, and that the great
body of the Delegates from New York,
New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware,
Ohio, Indiana and Illinois would heartily
and perseveringly support the General.
There was no disguise about this-no I'M
certainty. 1t was not from these States
that Mr.. Webster expected the votes that
were to nominate him. He was deceived,
not with regard to these but as to the
great body of the Southern and other votes
originally cast for Mr.. Fillmore. He I'M
derstood that Mr.. F. was n candidate only
pro TEN. and that in due time he would be
Withdrawn by letter, with an urgent recon-
mendation that his friends should support
the great New Highlander. Herein he was
sorely disappointed, and may have reason
to compain-but not of the friends of Gen.
Scott. They simply adhered to their can
didate: the Fillmore men could not or
would not 90 over to Webster. nor would
the Webster men to Fillmore and so Gen.
Scott was nominated as was inevitable I'M
der the circumstances. Had Mr.. Fillmore
cherished no personal aspirations and been
earnestly devotedto Mr.. Webster's advance
ment, he might probably have given him
the nomination. Ibis Mr.. Webster GER
tainly expected; he did not expect, and
could not reasonably ask, any such devotion
from Gen. Scott. So his thirty votes failed
to grow into one hundred and fifty, and he
was not nominatcd-a fate which has be-
fallen many great and good man ere this.
But there is nothing in the circumstances
which gives him the least reason to COM
plain of Gen. Scott or his friends.
The grounds of complaint set forth by
| the Boston notables who are beslavering
his name aud damaging his reputation, are
not merely absurd but grossly insulting.
TheyIaffirm in substance" The Conven-
ton was corrupt and its decision fraud,
because Mr.. Webster ,oas not nominated"
"a species of logic which clearly involves
the denial of any right in the Convention
to decide or ballot at all. If that body had
no right to nominate any one but Webster,
why endure the tedious, numbering farce
of holding a Convcntionl Why not let
Mr.. c. w. Denison and the other godly
men of Boston who have taken the Ma
tons destinies into their keeping, settle
the whole question off-hand :! To call to-
gether Delegates from Aroostook and
Green Bay, Texas and California, simply
TO ratify the decree Of the Boston Rever-
ends and ex- Reverends, is an extension of
Louis Napoeon's scheme of popular cleo
ton and representation which could be
made agreeable neither to American in
stincts nor TO common sense.
Yet Mr.. Webster, we are told, will not
support he nomination of Gen. Scott will
neither accept nor decline any nominations
that may be rendered to himself-will sim
ply maintain his present position of armed