scribed a storm in a manner that no man but Webster could describe. His flight of eloquence equaled his best at Bunker Hill or Plymouth Rock. You could hear the dashing waves, the whistling winds, the creaking limbers, and the shrieking passengers; and as he sent the vessel to the bottom with all on board, he exclaimed: "What but a merciful Providence saved me from such a catastrophe when I passed over Lake Michigan in 1837? At such a dire disaster could the senator from New York derive any consolation from the reflection that his narrow interpretation of the constitution had been maintained?" As Webster closed. Col. Benton turned to me and said: "That is the greatest speech upon so small a matter I ever heard." Reverdy Johnson came up and said: "Now do n't you abuse the whigs any more." And Senator Breeze said: "Now you can go back to the house. That speech saves us." The bill passed without amendment. But, alas. President Polk vetoed it. And out of his veto grew that wonderful event in the history of Chicago, the river and harbor convention of 1847, a
VAST ASSEMBLAGE,
composed of the most talented, enterprising, wealthy, and influential men of all parts of the country. At the laying of the corner-stone of the Douglas monument. Gen. Dix was there as the principal orator. While others were speaking, I called his attention to our magnificent harbor works. After complimenting them highly, he said: "They ought to protect you from any storm—even from such an one as Webster manufactured for you in the senate in 1846."
I never think of Waukegan without being reminded of the selfishness of railroad corporations. When our harbor system was revived, Waukegan was left out of the bill, although Kenosha, Racine, and Milwaukee, were provided for. The railroad company did not want any competition by water at that point. Alter several years a railroad was constructed a few miles west of it, which took from it the western trade. Then to injure the new road, the old company withdrew their opposition, and now Waukegan has, what it ought to have had before, a harbor appropriation.
I have alluded to the superior confidence which all capitalists had in the opinions of Mr. Webster. This was of inestimable service to the Illinois delegation in the house of representatives, in securing our early railroad grant. I accent the word early, because, since the census of 1850, the numerical strength of the western states has been so greatly increased that liberal grants have been secured without difficulty. During the period in which we were struggling for our grant, we had, at different times, for senators, four able and influential men who had been upon our supreme bench together, James Semple, Sidney Breese, Stephen A. Douglas, and James Shields. But as the new states had the same number of senators as the old ones, they did not meet with the same obstacles that we did in the house. Yet they were very sensitive as to any one's having superior credit over the others, for extra efforts. Gen. Shields, at his last visit to Chicago, complained to his friends that, as a member of the committee upon public lands, having charge of the bill, he had not had sufficient credit for his efforts in the matter. "But," said he, "so thought each of the others, and no one was upon
SPEAKING TERMS
with all the others at the time of his death." But in the house we could sesecure nothing of this kind to quarrel about. We labored, and labored, and labored; but it did no good. There was a great sectional and political bar-
