"Sink or swim, live or die, survive or perish, I give my hand and my heart to this vote."

After serving again in the House, Webster was sent in 1827 to the Senate; there he supported Henry Clay's "American system." About this time the question of the tariff was causing much friction between the North and the South, and the people of South Carolina were discussing nullification. This discussion led to one of Webster's ablest speeches. In 1830 General Hayne of South Carolina made a speech expressing the view that the Constitution was " a compact between sovereign states" and asserting the right of secession which Kentucky and Virginia in 1799 and New England in 1814 had threatened to exercise. In his reply to Hayne, Webster insisted that the Constitution was not a 66 pact" but a "national instrument," and he made aï eloquent argument for the Union and the Constitution. This speech was published and scattered far and wide; it was inserted in school-books and declaimed in debating societies; its author was regarded as the "great expounder and defender of the Constitution."

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The lifelong ambition of Webster, as of Clay, was to become president, but like his rival he was doomed to disappointment. Many people thought that Webster might have attained the honor in 1852 had it not been for his speech in 1850 on the Fugitive Slave Law. Webster was not an extremist. He considered slavery

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one of the greatest evils, both moral and political,"

and he was opposed to its being admitted into the western territories. He said, however, that the Constitution "found slavery in the Union, it recognized it, and gave it solemn guaranties" which could not honestly and honorably be broken. He asserted that a state had no right to refuse to give up runaway slaves to their masters, as was provided by the Fugitive Slave Law. He concluded his speech with an eloquent appeal for national harmony and the Union. His position was legally unassailable and he was animated by a desire to conciliate and unite the jarring sections, but the speech called forth a storm of indignation from the abolitionists. There was no longer any hope that he would receive the presidential nomination.

His health

1852, at

His dv

But the time was at hand when earthly honors were a matter of no moment to the great orator. was giving way, and he died September 8, Marshfield, his beloved home beside the sea. ing eyes were gladdened by the sight of the flag he loved, the symbol of the "Union and liberty" for which he had striven.

Abraham Lincoln

The War President

When asked about his early life Abraham Lincoln once said, "It can all be condensed into a single sentence and that sentence you will find in Gray's 'Elegy,'

'The short and simple annals of the poor.""

His father, Thomas Lincoln, was a roving, shiftless, man, a carpenter by trade; after his marriage his wife taught him to read and to write his name, but here his education began and ended. Abraham Abraham Lincoln's mother came, he said, "of a family of the name of Hanks," about whom nothing good is recorded. Of his mother personally, almost nothing is known.

Abraham Lincoln was born February 12, 1809, in a log cabin in Kentucky. When he was seven years old, his father made one of his numerous moves, going to Indiana and taking up a claim of land. There he built what was called "a half-faced camp"-a logshed open on one side; in this his family passed the winter. The next year Thomas Lincoln built a cabin; it had four walls, but for years it was left without floor, door, or window. Instead of steps there were pegs in the wall by means of which Abraham ascended to the loft where he slept. The furniture was rude and scanty. It consisted of a few stools, a rough table and bed, some pewter dishes, a skillet and a pot.

Abraham was only nine years old when his mother succumbed to a fatal disease. As she lay on her deathbed she called her son and daughter to her and gave them her last charge. "Be good to one another," she said, "love God and your kin."

The winter which followed was dreary and desolate for the motherless children. A few months later