Kenosha telegraph. [volume] (Kenosha, Wis.) 1850-1854, 1852-11-19

ed that there was fifth party-the Government
at the time. The difficulty was almost fifty years
old: Many political doctors had their hands on
the immedicable wound, which only smarted sor-
err Under their touch The British Government
sent an honorable representative, and America an
honorable Secretary; the two trustworthy men
settled the difficulty, honestly, fairly, and above
board, am not niggard Of my praise; but /
think this is one great deed of Mr.. Webster.
Perhaps no other man in America could have
done so well, and drawn the thunder out of the
gathered cloud. l am no judge of that. You all
remember the anxiety of America and England
the apprehension of war, and the delight when
those two countries shook hands when the work
was done. Then VIC all felt that there only
one English Nation--thc English Briton and the
English Amercan-that Webster and Ashburton
were fellow citzens,-ye were brothers in the
came great Anglo-Saxon tribe.
His letter on the right of search, and the Brit
ish claim TO impress scamen from American ships
40 I'D have done honor to any statesman in the
world. He refused to England the right TO visit
and search ships, on the plea of their being
engaged in the slave trade. Some of my anti
slavery brethren have censured him for this. /
always thought he was right in this matter
On the other side, his celebrated letter to Mr..
Ashburton, in the Creole case, seems to me most
eminently unjust; false in law, and wicked in mo-
raliy 1t is the one stain on that negotiation, and
it is wonderful to me that, in 1916, Mr., Webster
could himself declare that he thought that letter
was the most triumphant production from his pen
in all that correspondence.
After the conclusion of the treaty, Mr. Webster
came to Boston. You remember the speech in
1912 in Fanueil Hall. He was then sixty years
old. He had done the great deed of his life He
still held high station. He scorncd or affected
TO scorn the littlcness of party and its narrow
platform, and claimed to repre- sent the people of
the United States. Everybody knew the mpor-
tance of his speech l counted sixteen reporters
of the New England and northern Press at that
meeting. 1t was proud day for him. and also a
stormy day. Other than friends about him.
lie had just scattered the thunder which impen-
dcd over the nation the sullen cloud still hung
over his own head. lie Numbered his eloqucncc
into that cloud-thc great ground lightning of his
Olympan mind. | always thought that on that
OCCASION Daniel Webster was in the right, and his
opponents in the wrong; and grieyed at the re-
proach which public newspapers heaped upon him.
and the obloquy which the court of Massachusetts
poured upon his head What was his sin z He
had faltered in the tariff aud did not declare that
money was the great object of the government,
and the manufacture of cotton the chicfcnd of God
an the creation of man.
AT first he opposed the annexation of Texas ;
he warned men against it in 1897. He prepared
some resolutions which wero passed at the anti
Texan Convention in 1915. But some of the
North opposed that meeting, and favored annex
alton, he did not appear at the Convention, hut
went off 10 New York. In l845, he voted against
annexation. He had felt it to be his duty steadily
uniformly and zealously TO oppose it, He did not
wish America to be possessed by the spirit of ag-
grandizemcnt. lie objected to the annexation
principally because it was n slave state. Here he
stood with Adams but against him were Calhoun
Clay, and most all the democrats. Van Buren,
was then on his side; and many of the capitalists
of the North wanted the thing that Webster wan
ted not. He objected to the Constitution of Tex
"a. Why! Because it tied up the hands of the
said that, on Forcfather's day, two hundred and
twenty five years after the landing of the Pilgrims
on Plymouth rock Then he could not forget his
own words, uttered quarter of a century before.
l thought him honest then; | think so still. But
he said New England might have prevented an
ncxation; that Massachusetts might have proven
ted annexation, only she could not be reused If
he had labored then for freedom as he wrought for
slavery in so and 81, Massachusetts, would have
been reused, New England would have risen as a
single man, and annexation would have been put
aside TO the greek kalcnds, day beyond ctcn-
tv
He opposed the Mexican war, but invested a
son in it, and praised the soldiers who fought in
it, surprising our fathers who stood behind the
buiwarks on Bunkcrs Hill? lie called on the
nation to uphold the stars of America on the field
of Mexico, though he knew it was the stripes they
held up.
come now to speak of bis relation to slavery
Up to 1850, his conduct had been just and honor
able AS private citizen, in 1920, he opposed
the Missouri Compromise. On Forefathcr's dav,
in 1920, standing on Plymouth Rock, he could
say -
L deem it my duty on this occasion TO suggest,
that the land is yet wholly free from the con-
tanination of a traffic AT which every feeling of
humanity must forever revolt mean the Afr-
can Slave Trade. Neither public sentiment, nor
the law, has hitherto been uble entirely to put an
end TO this odiouS and abOminablc trade. AT the
moment when God in his mercy has blessed the
Christian world with universal peace there is
reason TO fear that, to the disgrace of the Chris
tian name Uud character efforts are making
for the extension cf this trade, by subjects and cit
liens Of the Christian states in whose hearts there
dwell no sentiments ofhumantv or of Justice and
over whom ueither the fear of God nor the fear of
man exercises control. In the sight of our law,
the African Slayc-tradcr is a pirate and a fclon
and in the sight of Heaven, an offender far beyond
the ordinary human guilt There is no brighter
page of our history, than that which records the
measures which have been adopted by the govern
mcnt at an early day and different times since,
for the suppression of this traffic and | would
call on all the true Of New England TO coop
crate with the laws of man and the jaStcc of Hea-
ven. ltthere be within the extent of our knowl-
edge or influence, any participation in this traffic
let us pledge ourselves here, upon the Rock of
Plymouth. 10 eNtirpate and destroy it, 1t is not
fit that the land of the Pilgrims should bear the