His hearers were disappointed if they expected a great rhetorical display, for which the nature of the subject and the classic memories clustering about it offered such strong temptations.

Mr.Webster did not rise for that purpose, nor to make capital by an appeal to a temporary popular interest.

His speech was for a wholly different purpose.

It was the first expression of that grand conception of the American Union which had vaguely excited his youthful enthusiasm.

This conception had now come to be part of his intellectual being, and then and always stirred his imagination and his affections to their inmost depths.