I went below and fell into conversation with a passenger, a handsome man, with easy carriage and an intelligent face. We were approaching...

The state of Sparta was very close to our ancestors in its austerity, and it held the same principles as they did. In keeping with the...

Seward still believed that offering his hand in peace in the attempt to prevent a civil war was the right judgment. His wife, Frances, profoundly disagreed. The final speech had reached her in Auburn by telegraph hours after it was delivered. She wrote her husband a blistering letter. "Eloquent as your speech was it fails to meet the entire approval of those who love you best," she began. "You are in danger of taking the path which let Daniel Webster to an unhonored grave ten

Daniel Webster of Massachusetts, the third of the "great triumvirate" (as Clay, Calhoun, and Webster were called), was scheduled to speak on the 7th of March. The Senate chamber was "crammed" with more men and women, a Washington newspaper reported, than on any previous occasion. Anticipation soared with the rumor that Webster had decided, against the fervent hopes of his overwhelmingly antislavery constituents, to support Clay's Southern-leaning compromise. Frances Seward wa

The success of the people and Parliament of England in their efforts to gain greater freedom and more representation had made an impression on the people of Massachusetts. They were troubled that there was now more freedom in England than in the Bay Colony. Malcontents who had been denied the vote were horrified at the thought of being more restricted in New England than they would have been at home. It was inevitable that the future should bring an ever-increasing disharmony