Daniel Webster Quotes
I am nearly broken down with labor and anxiety. I know not how to meet the present emergency, or with what weapons to beat down the Northern and Southern follies, now raging in equal extremes.
Northern abolitionists were pushing to abolish the Fugitive Slave Act and prohibit slavery in any of the new territories. Southerners were calling for secession and civil war if necessary if the Fugitive Slave Act was not enforced and they could continue to exploit slaves. Webster, to the distress of most of the abolitionists, was working for a compromise. But that had been tried before. It was either slavery or not.
Daniel Webster, 1782-1852, U. S. Congressman (Federalist, NH & MA) & U. S. Senator (Federalist & Whig, MA), U. S. Secretary of State, Letter to his son, February 23, 1850
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
Describing Oliver L. North who he tried to transfer out of the White House:
Daniel Webster was an American lawyer and statesman who represented New Hampshire and Massachusetts in the U.S. Congress and served as the U.S. Secretary of State under Presidents William Henry Harrison, John Tyler, and Millard Fillmore. As one of the most prominent American lawyers of the 19th century, he argued over 200 cases before the U.S. Supreme Court between 1814 and his death in 1852. During his life, he was a member of the Federalist Party, the National Republican Party, and the Whig Party.