344 Southern Historical Society Papers.
sheltered by monuments of elegant and costly marble. Will pos- terity absolve Massachusetts from the shame of the comparative treatment of the two ? Is it quite certain that they will forbear to indicate it? Peace to the ashes of Daniel Webster! Honor, but not all honor, to his shade! He was a great, but, in our opinion, an erring, though a repentant man. We believe he was repentant. Because, when he retracted his positions in the speech of 1833, in his declarations at Capon, he must have been conscious of his errors, and no man could have appreciated more thoroughly than Daniel Webster the sin of mutilating the landmarks of national rights and liberties, and tampering with the contracts which regulate the obli- gations between sections. But, has Massachusetts shown any such delicacy of forbearance or equity of conscience in her dealings with her sister States under the Constitution for the destruction of their rights in regard to slavery? And yet, her own son, Lunt, in his "Origin of the Late War," page 27, says, after a train of circum- stantial truths, which it would be. difficult to dispute: "No one can doubt that if they (the South) had deemed the guaranty (that is for slavery) insufficient, they could have obtained pledges of a still more precise character, either then or at a later period, since the object of the Union was one of paramount interest to all. But, neither they nor their Northern compatriots entertained any question of the fidelity of their successors to engagements so solemnly undertaken, both express and implied." But, regardless of all this and of the sacred nature of her obligations, she chose rather to commit herself to the guidance of those who denounced the charter, solemnly con- ceived and recorded by an assemblage of sovereignties, of which she was one, "as a covenant with death and an agreement with hell." Can Massachusetts hope to escape, at some time or other, a trial at the bar of nations for the violation of sacred obligations and of plighted faith, entered into voluntarily by herself, and wantonly violated also by herself, after she had grown and prospered under it? If she does not, then let her l6ok at once to a history of the origin of the late war, by her own son, Lunt, and this book, "The Republic of Republics," which we are now reviewing. How can she expect to escape a consuming verdict, if the verity of either be admitted ? How she can evade the admissibility of such evidence is beyond the range of our imagination, especially of the last the Republic of Republics. Any charge of treason on the South or its sons after this is simply puerile. The man who makes it is ridiculous, be he Conger or be he Elaine, and that is
