Secession Era Editorials Project

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WEBSTER AND NEBRASKA.

New York, Tribune [Whig]

(8 February 1854)

If we do not mistake, DANIEL WEBSTER was reckoned something of a constitutional lawyer in his time, and about the year 1850 was exalted to the highest pitch of statesmanship, so far as the applause and encomiums of everybody on the Slavery side could do it. Well, Mr. WEBSTER once wrote a memorial to Congress, at the request of citizens of Boston, on this Missouri question, portions of which we publish in another part of this paper. We recommend their perusal to the small fry who are just now making a parade of their great astuteness in the reproduction of Mr. Calhouns's doctrine of the unconstitutionality of excluding Slavery from the territories; a doctrine which his ingenious sophistry alone could shield from contempt. The little Northern Judas Iscariots have exhumed it, and it is now their principal stock in trade on the Nebraska question; a miracle of reasoning which they are trying to palm off as indicative of their originality and acuteness.

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