The President of the United States felt the importance of Mr. Webster's aid in the great constitutional struggle of the session. There were men of great ability enlisted in support of his administration, Messrs Forsyth, Grundy, Dallas, Rives, and others, but no one competent to assume the post of antagonist to the great Southern leader. The general political position of Mr. Webster made it in no degree his duty to sustain the administration in any party measure, but the reverse. But his whole course as a public man, and all his principles, forbade him to act from party motives in a great crisis of the country's fortunes. The administration was now engaged in a fearful struggle for the preservation of the Union, and the integrity of the Constitution. The doctrines of the proclamation were the doctrines of his speech on Foot's resolution almost to the words. He would have been unjust to his most cherished principles and his views of public duty had he not come to the rescue, not of the administration, but of the country, in this hour of her peril. His aid was personally solicited in the great debate on the "Force Bill" by a member of the Cabinet, but it was not granted till the bill had undergone important amendments suggested by him, when it was given cordially, without stint and without condition.[20]
In the recess of Congress in the year 1833, Mr. Webster made a short journey to the Middle States and the West. He was everywhere the object of the most distinguished and respectful attentions. Public receptions took place at Buffalo and Pittsburg, where, under the auspices of committees of the highest respectability, he addressed immense assemblages convened without distinction of party. Invitations to similar meetings reached him from many quarters, which he was obliged by want of leisure to decline.
The friendly relations into which Mr. Webster had been drawn with the President, and the enthusiastic welcome given to the President on his tour to the East, in the summer of 1833, awakened jealousy in certain quarters. It was believed at the time, by well-informed persons, that among the motives which actuated some persons in General Jackson's confidence, in fanning his hostility to the Bank of the United States, was that of bringing forward a question of great interest both to the public and the President, on which he would be sure to encounter Mr. Webster's opposition.