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 SPEECH 
 
 A. H. LAWRENCE, ESQ., 
 
 MEETING OF WHIGS 
 
 WASHINGTON CITY, 
 
 MAY 31st, 1852. 
 
 PRINTED AND CIRCULATED BY THE CENTRAL WEBSTER COMMITTEE, 
 
 WASHINGTON: 
 
 PRINTED BY JNO. T. TOWER: 
 1852. 
 
\ 
 
 
SPEECH. 
 
 Mr. Chaibman : Very serious alarm is beginning to be felt here 
 as to the course of the Southern Whig party in regard to the 
 nomination and election of President. 
 
 It is thought by many of our best and wisest men, (and the opin- 
 ion is fast gaining ground,) that we are upon the eve of a great po- 
 litical danger, which has not until very recently attracted much 
 notice. A danger which is not the less, but rather the more alarm- 
 ing> that it is not to be seen in any very violent outbreak of popular 
 feeling, nor in any measures of legislative or Executive encroach- 
 ment, but will rather be felt in the silent and secret alienation of 
 one portion of our Union from the other, and an introduction of 
 sectional rather than national parties, the inevitable result of 
 which will be that whatever measures may be hereafter proposed, 
 however offensive or hostile they may be to other than the locali- 
 ty where they originated, however repugnant to existing laws or 
 to the Constitution, or to good faith, no man will again be found 
 so reckless of his own quiet, so purely and disinterestedly regard- 
 less of all personal considerations, as to stand forth, in opposition 
 to the sentiments of his constituency, in support of the true inter- 
 ests of the whole country. Sir, I fear that the Northern Conserv- 
 ative, Compromise, Webster Whigs, have some apparent reason 
 to complain of their Southern Whig brethren as to the manner in 
 which Mr. Webster has been treated in the meetings and assem- 
 blies at the South ; and yet 1 am most happy to believe that the 
 supposed neglect has not arisen from any ungrateful forgetfulness 
 of Mr. Webster's services to the whole country, and especially to 
 the South, or from any want of appreciation of his great abilities, 
 his comprehensive statesmanship, his truly national and conserva- 
 tive and patriotic principles, far less from a disposition to over- 
 look and pass by those excellencies because they were found in 
 a Northern man, but from a mistaken impression that Mr. Web- 
 ster was hardly considered as an available candidate for the Pre- 
 sidency among the Whigs of the North themselves. 
 
 I believe that there is no disposition in the South to overlook or 
 depreciate the eminent services of Mr. Webster; that there is felt 
 for his self-sacrificing and patriotic conduct on the compromise a 
 lively and profound respect and gratitude; and that were Mr. 
 Webster placed before them as the nominee of the Whig party 
 he would bring to his support the entire strength of the Whigs of 
 the South. And yet it is nevertheless true, that in almost all the 
 resolutions of Southern meetings for the choice of delegates to the 
 National Convention, whilst the compromise measures as a "final- 
 
ity " are set forth as the single qualification to be never lost sight 
 of in the choice of a candidal e. yet Mr, Webster is rarely mentioned 
 by name. There is apparently, and judging only from the resolu- 
 tions, a total forgetful ness of Mr. Webster in the disposition to do 
 honor to the present President. Our Northern friends are told, 
 and we believe it to be so, that these resolutions have been 
 framed in compliment to the head of an able and distinguished 
 administration; that they indicate no personal preference; and 
 that in fact Mr. Webster has the fullest and broadest confidence 
 of the Southern Whigs. While we cordially concede to Mr. Fill- 
 more the high praise of having fearlessly done his duty to the 
 Constitution and the country in the hour of danger, we feel that 
 the effect which this apparent neglect is producing on the feelings 
 of the North is perhaps the worst indication of the times. It is to 
 be dreaded and avoided even more than the excitement which 
 preceded the passage of the compromise measures. It will do 
 more to undo those measures as a final settlement of the fearful 
 questions then agitated than all the efforts of all the, abolitionists 
 and socialists and rhapsodists in the country. It will do more to 
 weaken our faith in the policy of patriotism, it will do more to 
 sectionalize parties, it will do more to keep down and repress 
 broad and disinterested views of public affairs, than all the objur- 
 gations of fanaticism which have been hurled at the head of the 
 Secretary of State. 
 
 Even now it is said that Mr. Webster is,the last statesman of the 
 North, who will ever sacrifice himself in the contests upon the 
 subject of slavery. Even already, we fear that an abatement of 
 feeling has already begun to be felt amongst those who have thus 
 far given check to abolitionism. They say already, if Daniel 
 Webster is not to be trusted by the South, it is in vain to expect 
 hereafter any support to any Northern man. If the services which 
 he has tendered do not entitle him to the regard of the whole 
 country, no man can ever look for it in time to come. It was a 
 fearful crisis when the Compromise was under discussion. The 
 danger which was hanging over our country was more imminent 
 than had ever before threatened it. Both parties were contend- 
 ing for extremes. The Union itself was shaking on its very 
 foundations. Good men, intelligent men, patriotic men, were 
 trembling for its safety. Clouds and darkness were hanging over 
 our country; and men's hearts were failing them for fear. In 
 this crisis, the Senator from Massachusetts stood forth, and it is 
 not too much to say that he held the fate of this Union in the 
 palms of his hands. Had he given encouragement to the wild 
 spirit of abolitionism, which was raging at the North — had he 
 turned the influence of his great intellect and great name against 
 the constitutional rights of the South — or, had he made use of 
 that theoretical repugnance to slavery in the abstract, which is 
 general at the North, and fanned it into a consuming fire, the days 
 of this Republic would have been numbered. This is not un- 
 
meaning or groundless assertion. It is susceptible almost of de- 
 monstration. Who does not know that it took all o( Mr. Webster's 
 great influence at the North to carry with him even his most de- 
 voted friends? Who does not, know that he has incurred the 
 rancorous hatred of a very considerable portion of the Whig 
 party in the North? Who does not know that Mr. Webster 
 not 'only hazarded, but that for a time, he actually lost that 
 position, that proud position, which he had up to that time 
 maintained undisputed in the hearts of the people of Massa- 
 chusetts; and that the doors of that cradle of liberty, which 
 had been so often the scene of his triumphant displays of 
 eloquence and patriotism, were actuallv closed against him? 
 Thank God he has since been in Faneuil Hall "OPEN." Every 
 one knows this that knows any thing of the events which have 
 transpired within the last two years. If then such was the 
 struggle, which was required to maintain the position even of 
 Daniel Webster, in the State of Massachusetts, when taking the 
 stand which he did at the demand of lofty national patriotism, 
 who does not see that the influence of his name, when thrown' 
 into the same scale with the sectional feelings of the free States, 
 would have carried them in a body against any me sures which 
 looked like a compromise with slavery. 
 
 Now, it is not loo much to say, that to Daniel Webster more 
 than to any other man belongs the credit of having averted this 
 awful calamity. To him more than to all other public men is to 
 be ascribed the check which was given to that dangerous progress 
 of abolitionism in the free States, which would have inevitably 
 brought on all the consequences I have alluded to. For his own 
 personal popularity in his own section of the country, it was a 
 truly hazardous proceeding. But. he did not regard his private 
 fortunes in the public cause. He saw that his country was in 
 danger, and he staked his all for that country. At that, tearful 
 crisis he knew no North, no South, nothing hut the UNION. He 
 trusted that future times would do justice to his motives, though 
 the present might cover him with obloquy. 
 
 Mr. Chairman, the only mode by which the constitutional rights 
 of the South can ever be preserved, is by the maintenance of a con- 
 stitutional conservative party in the non-slaveholding States. Of 
 course I am not speaking now of violent and revolutionary mea- 
 sures resorted to in self-defence, against aggressive acts ; but of 
 laws regularly passed, and which should not endanger the perpe- 
 tuity of the Union. I repeat, then, that the only mode consistently 
 with the safety of the Union by which the constitutional rights of the 
 South will be preserved, is by the encouragement and maintenance 
 of a conservative Union party in the free States. If political abo- 
 lition should ever become the prevailing policy of the free States, 
 it needs no prophet to foretell that aggressive measures would be 
 commenced upon the institution of slavery. It needs no prophet 
 to foretell that such aggressions would be resisted. And that would 
 
6 
 
 be war, civil war. There is no middle course if the North and 
 South are arrayed against each other as a whole upon this sub- 
 ject. There, is nothing' to restrain the violence of either. But let 
 a conservative party be maintained in the free States themselves, 
 as is the case now, and conservative measures will always be the* 
 result. We have seen this in the fearful crisis which has been 
 passed. Ii; will always be so hereafter. 
 
 But, let me ask. how is a conservative party to be maintained 
 in the North. Is it to sustain itself amidst all the discourage- 
 ments at the North without any encouragement from the South? 
 Will such a party continue true to the rights of the South, whilst 
 the South shall cast it off as an useless thing as soon as its own 
 purposes are answered? Or can such a party be maintained 
 when its leaders, its great men, its good men, are not. trusted, are 
 not met with that cordial greeting, are not honored and supported 
 as they ought to be? It is reasoning against the whole current 
 of human feeling and human conduct to believe it. Those grent, 
 leaders, those patriotic statesmen might continue firm in the 
 cause they had espoused ; but their followers would fall off in 
 mortification and disgust. There would be no conservative party. 
 Every man who knows Mr. Webster knows that he would re- 
 main steadfast to the principles on which he has acted, if every 
 man in the country should desert him. He could "take no step 
 backward." He would remain true to the<^onstituiion of the 
 United States by the necessity of his nature. He could not adopt 
 an unconstitutional course until the laws of intellect should be 
 changed. But for the very reason of his greatness and his un- 
 changeable firmness would not his friends be the more touched 
 by the neglect to pay the tribute due to those qualities ? 
 
 Now suppose that Mr. Webster, after the peculiar services 
 which he has rendered in this matter, and after the particular 
 resentments which he has incurred " in the house of his friends," 
 Should now — when his steadfast followers there, those who have 
 stood by him in good report and evil report, are seeking to do him 
 honor — be passed by with neglect here in the South ? What will 
 be its moral effect hereafter? In the first place, what will be its 
 immediate effects on the friends of the compromise — the support- 
 ers of the fugitive slave law in the North? Will they feel them- 
 selves particularly called upon to rise up early and sit up late, in 
 order to do battle for this fugitive slave law against all the de- 
 vices of its enemies — when the South, for whose benefit it was 
 enacted, and for whose benefit it-is carried out, takes no step for- 
 ward to meet the man who has done more to give this law abi- 
 ding constitutional efficiency than all other men? Will they not 
 grow indifferent and lukewarm? Most certainly they will. But 
 this is not all. When some emergency shall hereafter arise ; 
 when, perhaps, this very slave question shall again be agitated; 
 when the repeal of the fugitive slave act shall be urged — the 
 very act which requires a greater veneration for existing law than 
 
all others to carry it into execution in the midst of the free States — 
 that act, which in its practical operation on the real interests of 
 the South, is of more consequence than all the other questions per- 
 taining to that subject ; 1 say, when some such crisis shall again 
 come, where will the man be found who will be willing to stem 
 the torrent of prejudice at home, and yet know or believe that he 
 will find no just appreciation, no public acknowledgment of his 
 services amongst those for whom he has hazarded his domestic 
 popularity? Where is the future statesman, who, with the his- 
 tory of Daniel Webster before him (if unfortunately such neglect 
 cf Mr. Webster shall ever be matter of history) will risk his 
 personal comfort and good name among his neighbors and kins- 
 folk for the benefit of those who will not thank him for it when 
 it is done ? No such man will ever be found. It is against 
 human nature to expect it. It is against all experience to hope 
 for it. And what will be the result ? Will it not be sectional 
 feeling, sectional action, sectional parties; and will not the con- 
 sequence of that be sectional measures, and in the end a dissolu- 
 tion of the Union? Such we fear will be the consequence, if 
 we here, in the South, fail to manifest our appreciation of such 
 services as Mr. Webster has rendered. We know that in fact a 
 proper feeling does exist, and that the neglect is only apparent. 
 We know that no man stands better in the estimation of all 
 union -loving men in the South than Mr. Webster. Yet our 
 Northern friends do not, know it. They have had no good ground 
 to suppose it. The appearance of things is against it. And yet 
 in all practical consequences, the appearance is as fatal as the 
 reality. And whether real or apparent, its moral influence, and 
 its practical consequence hereafter, is as much to be deplored, 
 and as earnestly to be struggled against, as any event that could 
 well be imagined. 
 
 Sir, it is the apprehension, whether fanciful or real, that Northern 
 men who are free from the shackles of mere local opinion, and 
 are rrational in their views, looking to the whole country in their 
 measures, are nevertheless to be rejected by Southern men be- 
 cause, forsooth, on certain subjects which are local to them, such 
 Northern statesmen may not go so far as they do. These local 
 ideas, these narrow and confined notions of public policy, would, 
 if generally acted on, ruin any free government extending over 
 such a space of territory as ours. Our only safety on questions 
 of such vital interest is for opposing opinions to extend through 
 all sections of the country. The greatest safety for the constitu- 
 tional rights of the South, on the subject of slavery, is the exist- 
 ence of a party in the free soil States who are determined to abide 
 by the provisions of the Constitution. 
 
 I repeat then that nothing will tend more to put down, and 
 keep down hereafter, a conservative and constitutional and na- 
 tional spirit in the North than the belief that Northern statesmen 
 of that character are not supported by the South. And nothing 
 
8 
 
 would more largety contribute to maintain, to "perpetuate a party 
 in the North, always true to the constitutional rights of the South, 
 than seeing the Southern Whig party coming up in one solid 
 phalanx to the support, for the Presidency, of the great Northern 
 Champion of the true principles of the American Constitution. 
 Let us do what we can to bring about this event. Let us do 
 what we can to avert the impending clanger. Let us do what 
 we can to raise the man whom we venerate to the highest office 
 of the Republic, not simply because he deserves it and more than 
 deserves it, but because we shall thus be serving the best interest 
 of our whole country, and accomplishing something for the perpe- 
 tuity of this glorious Union.