bear the loss of friends at the North, and to forego the chance of a
public career, rather than countenance any measure calculated to excite
ill-will at the South, now prompted him to advocate military coercion
for the preservation of the Union. Notwithstanding President Lincoln had
just deprived him of the office upon which he depended for the
maintenance of his family, he did not hesitate to tender to the
administration his personal support in the field.

In the oration already quoted, he had said: "There are certain ultimate
rights which must be maintained; and when force is brought to overthrow
them, it must be resisted by force." Among the rights which must thus be
maintained, in his view, was the right of the United States to maintain,
forever, the union of these States. The policy of coercion, bitterly as
he bewailed its necessity, was not new to him. His father had advocated
the Force Bill almost thirty years before. The time had come, when, in
the words of Jefferson (words spoken when only the Articles of
Confederation held the States in union): "Some of the States must see
the rod; perhaps some of them must feel it." Accordingly, on the
twentieth of April, 1861, while the bombardment of Fort Sumter and the
attack on the Sixth Regiment were firing the Northern heart, Fletcher
Webster called that memorable Sunday-morning meeting in State Street,
which resulted in the organization of the Twelfth Regiment of
Massachusetts Infantry. Referring to that occasion, George S, Hillard
said it recalled to the minds of those present, Colonel Webster's
father, who had then been but nine years in the grave. "To the mind's
eye, that majestic form and grand countenance seemed standing by the
side of his son; and in the mind's ear, they heard again the deep music
of that voice which had so often charmed and instructed them."

Colonel Webster said: "He whose name I bear had the good fortune to