During the early years of his political career Davis was on good terms with Daniel Webster, who was highly influential in party politics both at the state and national levels, and to whom he looked up. However, in the late 1830s Davis and other Massachusetts Whigs (notably Abbott Lawrence) came to believe that Webster lacked broad-based national support to successfully contend with Henry Clay and William Henry Harrison after his weak showing in the 1836 Whig convention. This introduced a rift between Webster and Davis that deepened in 1838 when the two split on western land policies. The split between Davis and Webster became permanent after Webster harshly criticized Lawrence in an 1842 speech celebrating his successful negotiation of the Webster-Ashburton Treaty with Great Britain, which resolved (among other matters) the northeast boundary.