I think he begins already to repent his course." Mr.Clay was intensely national, but his theory of preserving the Union was by continual compromise, or, in other words, by constant yielding to the aggressive South.

Mr.Webster's plan was to maintain a firm attitude, enforce absolute submission to all constitutional laws, and prove that agitation against the Union could lead only to defeat.

This policy would not have resulted in rebellion, but, if it had, the hanging of Calhoun and a few like him, and the military government of South Carolina, by the hero of New Orleans, would have taught slave-holders such a lesson that we should probably have been spared four years of civil war.

Peaceful submission, however, would have been the sure outcome of Mr.Webster's policy.

But a compromise appealed as it always does to the timid, balance-of-power party.