act with Jackson. That way was shut to him by nature, if by nothing else.
But he could have maintained his position as the independent and unbending
defender of nationality and as the foe of compromise. He might then have
brought Mr. Clay to his side, and remained himself the undisputed head of
the Whig party. The coalition between Clay and Calhoun was a hollow,
ill-omened thing, certain to go violently to pieces, as, in fact, it did,
within a few years, and then Mr. Clay, if he had held out so long, would
have been helpless without Mr. Webster. But such a course required a very
strong will and great tenacity of purpose, and it was on this side that Mr.
Webster was weak, as Mr. Benton points out. Instead of waiting for Mr. Clay
to come to him, Mr. Webster went over to Clay and Calhoun, and formed for a
time the third in that ill-assorted partnership. There was no reason for
his doing so. In fact every good reason was against it. Mr. Clay had come
to Mr. Webster with his compromise, and had been met with the reply "that
it would be yielding great principles to faction; and that the time had
come to test the strength of the Constitution and the government." This was
a brave, manly answer, but Mr. Clay, nationalist as he was, had straightway
deserted his friend and ally, and gone over to the separatists for support.
Then a sharp contest had occurred between Mr. Webster and Mr. Clay in the
debate on the tariff; and when it was all over, the latter wrote with frank
vanity and a slight tinge of contempt: "Mr. Webster and I came in
conflict, and I have the satisfaction to tell you that he gained nothing.
My friends flatter me with my having completely triumphed. There is no
permanent breach between us. 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