Statesmen * 
 
 Edited iy 
 
 JOHN T. MORSE, JR, 
 

 THE ETHEL CARR PEACOCK 
 
 MEMORIAL COLLECTION 
 
 Matris amori monumentum 
 
 TRINITY COLLEGE LIBRARY 
 
 DURHAM, N. C. 
 
 1903 
 
 Gift of Dr. and Mrs. Dred Peacock 
 
( 
 
American Statesmen 
 
 EDITED BY 
 
 JOHN T. MORSE, JR. 
 
Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 in 2017 with funding from 
 Duke University Libraries 
 
 https://archive.org/details/danielwebster01lodg 
 
tsim 
 
 American J>tategmen 
 
 DANIEL WEBSTER 
 
 HENRY CABOT LODGE 
 
 2 . 5 (* 5 0 
 
 BOSTON AND NEW YORK 
 HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY 
 (CJe fitorsitoe CamfrriDge 
 
 1894 
 
Copyright, 1883, 
 
 BT HENRY CABOT LODGE. 
 
 All rights reserved. 
 
 A 
 
 t 
 
 ej 
 
 The Riverside Press, Cambridge, Mass., U. S. A. 
 Electrotyped and Printed by H. O. Houghton & Company. 
 
f 2 3, Z 7 3 
 W 5 7 g.U 
 P 
 
 I 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER L 
 
 Childhood and Youth 1 
 
 CHAPTER H. 
 
 Law and Politics in New Hampshire .... 34 
 
 CHAPTER HI. 
 
 The Dartmouth College Case. — Mr. Webster as a 
 Lawyer 72 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 The Massachusetts Convention and the Plymouth 
 Oration 110 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 Return to Congress 129 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 The Tariff of 1828 and the Reply to Hayne . 154 
 
 CHAPTER VH. 
 
 The Struggle with Jackson and the Rise of the 
 Whig Party 205 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 Secretary of State. — The Ashburton Treaty 
 
 2 S’ & S O 
 
 241 
 
ri CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Return to the Senate. — The Seventh of March 
 
 Speech 264 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 The Last Years , . 333 
 
DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH. 
 
 No sooner was the stout Puritan Common- 
 wealth of Massachusetts firmly planted than it be- 
 gan rapidly to throw out branches in all directions. 
 With every succeeding year the long, thin, sinuous 
 line of settlements stretched farther and farther 
 
 Note. — In preparing this volume I have carefully examined 
 all the literature contemporary and posthumous relating to Mr. 
 Webster. I have not gone beyond the printed material, of which 
 there is a vast mass, much of it of no value, but which contains 
 all and more than is needed to obtain a correct understanding of 
 the man and of his public and private life. No one can pretend 
 to write a life of Webster without following in large measure the 
 narrative of events as given in the elaborate, careful, and schol- 
 arly biography which we owe to Mr. George T. Curtis. In many 
 of my conclusions I have differed widely from those of Mr. Cur- 
 tis, but I desire at the outset to acknowledge fully my obligations 
 to him. I have sought information in all directions, and have ob- 
 tained some fresh material, and, as I believe, have thrown a new 
 light upon certain points, but this does not in the least diminish 
 the debt which I owe to the ample biography of Mr. Curtis in re- 
 gard to the details as well as the general outline of Mr. Webster’s 
 public and private life. 
 
 1 
 
2 
 
 DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 away to the northeast, fringing the wild shores oi 
 the Atlantic with houses and farms gathered to- 
 gether at the mouths or on the banks of the riv- 
 ers, and with the homes of hardy fishermen which 
 clustered in little groups beneath the shelter of 
 the rocky headlands. The extension of these 
 plantations was chiefly along the coast, but there 
 was also a movement up the river courses toward 
 the west and into the interior. The line of north- 
 eastern settlements began first to broaden in this 
 way very slowly but still steadily from the planta- 
 tions at Portsmouth and Dover, which were nearly 
 coeval with the flourishing towns of the Bay. 
 These settlements beyond the Massachusetts line 
 all had one common and marked chai'acteristic. 
 They were all exposed to Indian attack from the 
 earliest days down to the period of the Revolu- 
 tion. Long after the dangers of Indian raids had 
 become little more than a tradition to the popu- 
 lous and flourishing communities of Massachusetts 
 Bay, the towns and villages of Maine and New 
 Hampshire continued to be the outposts of a dark 
 and bloody border land. French and Indian war- 
 fare with all its attendant horrors was the normal 
 condition during the latter part of the seventeenth 
 and the first quarter of the eighteenth century. 
 Even after the destruction of the Jesuit missions, 
 every war in Europe was the signal for the ap- 
 pearance of Frenchmen and savages in northeast- 
 ern New England, where their course was marked 
 
CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH. 
 
 3 
 
 by rapine and slaughter, and lighted by the flames 
 of burning Tillages. The people thus assailed 
 were not slow in taking frequent and thorough 
 vengeance, and so the conflict, with rare intermis- 
 sions, went on until the power of France was de- 
 stroyed, and the awful danger from the north, 
 which had hung over the land for nearly a cen- 
 tury, was finally extinguished. 
 
 The people who waged this fierce war and man- 
 aged to make headway in despite of it were en- 
 gaged at the same time in a conflict with nature 
 which was hardly less desperate. The soil, even 
 in the most favored places, was none of the best, 
 and the predominant characteristic of New Hamp- 
 shire was the great rock formation which has 
 given it the name of the Granite State. Slowly 
 and painfully the settlers made their way back 
 into the country, seizing on every fertile spot, and 
 wringing subsistence and even a certain prosper- 
 ity from a niggardly soil and a harsh climate. 
 Their little hamlets crept onward toward the base 
 of those beautiful hills which have now become 
 one of the favorite play-grounds of America, but 
 which then frowned grimly even in summer, dark 
 with trackless forests, and for the larger part of 
 the year were sheeted with the glittering, untram- 
 pled snow from which they derive their name. 
 Stern and strong with the force of an unbroken 
 wilderness, they formed at all times a forbidding 
 background to the sparse settlements in the val- 
 leys and on the seashore. 
 
4 
 
 DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 This life of constant battle with nature and 
 with the savages, this work of wresting a subsist- 
 ence from the unwilling earth while the hand was 
 always armed against a subtle and cruel foe, had, 
 of course, a marked effect upon the people who 
 endured it. That, under such circumstances, men 
 should have succeeded not only in gaining a liveli- 
 hood, but should have attained also a certain meas- 
 ure of prosperity, established a free government, 
 founded schools and churches, and built up a 
 small but vigorous and thriving commonwealth, is 
 little short of marvellous. A race which could do 
 this had an enduring strength of character which 
 was sure to make itself felt through many genera- 
 tions, not only on their ancestral soil, but in every 
 region where they wandered in search of a fortune 
 denied to them at home. The people of New 
 Hampshire were of the English Puritan stock. 
 They were the borderers of New England, and 
 were among the hardiest and boldest of their race. 
 Their fierce battle for existence during nearly a 
 century and a half left a deep impress upon them. 
 Although it did not add new ti’aits to their char- 
 acter, it sti’engthened and developed many of the 
 qualities which chiefly distinguished the Puritan 
 Englishman. These borderers, from lack of oppor- 
 tunity, were ruder than their more favored breth- 
 ren to the south, but they were also more persist- 
 ent, more tenacious, and more adventurous. They 
 were a vigorous, bold, unforgiving, fighting race, 
 
CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH. 5 
 
 hard and stern even beyond tbe ordinary stand- 
 ard of Puritanism. 
 
 Among the Puritans who settled in New Hamp- 
 shire about tbe year 1636, during the great emi- 
 gration which preceded the Long Parliament, was 
 one bearing the name of Thomas Webster. He 
 was said to be of Scotch extra ction, but was, if 
 this be true, undoubtedly of the Lowland or Saxon 
 Scotch as distinguished from the Gaels of the 
 Highlands. He was, at all events, a Puritan of 
 English race, and his name indicates that his pro- 
 genitors were sturdy mechanics or handicraftsmen. 
 This Thomas Webster had numerous descendants, 
 who scattered through New Hampshire to earn a 
 precarious living, found settlements, and fight In- 
 dians. In Kingston, in the year 1739, was born 
 one of this family named Ebenezer .Webster^ 
 The struggle for existence was so hard for this 
 particular scion of the Webster stock, that he was 
 obliged in boyhood to battle for a living and pick 
 up learning as he best might by the sole aid of a 
 naturally vigorous mind. He came of age during 
 the great French war, and about 1760 enlisted in 
 the then famous corps known as “ Rogers’s Ran- 
 gers.” In the dangers and the successes of des- 
 perate frontier fighting, the “ Rangers ” had no 
 equal ; and of their hard and perilous experience 
 in the wilderness, in conflict with Indians and 
 Frenchmen, Ebenezer Webster, strong in body 
 and daring in temperament, had his full share. 
 
6 
 
 DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 When the war closed, the young soldier and In- 
 dian fighter had time to look about him for a 
 home. As might have been expected, he clung 
 to the frontier to which he was accustomed, and 
 in the year 1763 settled in the northernmost part 
 of the town of Salisbury. Here he built a log- 
 house, to which, in the following year, he brought 
 his first wife, and here he began his career as a 
 farmer. At that time there was nothing civilized 
 between him and the French settlements of Can- 
 ada. The wilderness stretched away from his 
 door an ocean of forest unbroken by any white 
 man’s habitation ; and in these primeval woods, 
 although the war was ended and the French power 
 overthrown, there still lurked roving bands of 
 savages, suggesting the constant possibilities of 
 a midnight foray or a noonday ambush, with 
 their accompaniments of murder and pillage. It 
 was a fit home, however, for such a man as Eben- 
 ezer Webster. He was a borderer in the fullest 
 sense in a commonwealth of borderers. He was, 
 too, a splendid specimen of the New England 
 race ; a true descendant of ancestors who had 
 been for generations yeomen and pioneers. Tall, 
 large, dark of hair and eyes, in the rough world 
 xn which he found himself he had been thrown at 
 once upon his own resources without a day’s 
 schooling, and compelled to depend on his own 
 innate force of sense and character for success. 
 He had had a full experience of desperate fighting 
 
CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH. 
 
 7 
 
 with Frenchmen and Indians, and, the war over, 
 he had returned to his native town with his hard- 
 won rank of captain. Then he had married, and 
 had established his home upon the frontier, where 
 he remained battling against the grim desolation 
 of the wilderness and of the winter, and against 
 all the obstacles of soil and climate, with the same 
 hardy bravery with which he had faced the Indi- 
 ans. After ten years of this life, in 1774, his wife 
 died and within a twelvemonth he married again. 
 
 Soon after this second marriage the alarm of 
 war with England sounded, and among the first to 
 respond was the old ranger and Indian fighter, 
 Ebenezer Webster. In the town which had 
 grown up near his once solitary dwelling he raised 
 a company of two hundred men, and marched at 
 their head, a splendid looking leader, dark, mas- 
 sive, and tall, to join the forces at Boston. We 
 get occasional glimpses of this vigorous figure dur- 
 ing the war. At Dorohegter. Wa shington con- 
 sulted him about the state of feeling in New 
 Hampshire. At Bennington, we catch sight of 
 him among the first who scaled the breastworks, 
 and again coming out of the battle, his swarthy 
 skin so blackened wdth dust and gunpowder that 
 he could scarcely be recognized. We hear of him 
 once more at West Point, just after Arnold’s trea- 
 son, on guard before the general’s tent, and Wash- 
 ington says to him, “ Captain Webster, I believe 
 I can trust you.” That was what everybody seems 
 
8 
 
 DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 to have felt about this strong, silent, uneducated 
 man. His neighbors trusted him. They gave 
 him every office in their gift, and finally he was 
 made judge of the local court. In the intervals of 
 his toilsome and adventurous life he had picked up 
 a little book-learning, but the lack of more barred 
 the way to the higher honors which would other- 
 wise have been easily his. There were splendid 
 sources of strength in this man, the outcome of 
 such a race, from which his children could draw. 
 He was, to begin with, a magnificent animal, and 
 had an imposing bodily presence and appearance. 
 He had courage, energy, and tenacity, all in high 
 degree. He was business-like, a man of few 
 words, determined, and efficient. He had a great 
 capacity for affection and self-sacrifice, noble as- 
 pirations, a vigorous mind, and, above all, a strong, 
 pure character which invited trust. Force of will, 
 force of mind, force of character ; these were the 
 three predominant qualities in Ebenezer Webster. 
 His life forms the necessary introduction to that 
 of his celebrated son, and it is well worth study, 
 because we can learn from it how much that son 
 got from a father so finely endowed, and how far 
 he profited by such a rich inheritance. 
 
 By his first wife, Ebenezer Webster had five 
 children. By his second wife, Abigail Eastman, 
 a woman of good sturdy New Hampshire stock, 
 he had likewise five. Of these, the second son 
 and fourth child was born on the eighteenth of 
 
CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH. 
 
 9 
 
 January, 1782, and was christened Daniel. The 
 infant was a delicate and rather sickly little being. 
 Some cheerful neighbors predicted after inspection 
 that it would not live long, and the poor mother, 
 overhearing them, caught the child to her bosom 
 and wept over it. She little dreamed of the iron 
 constitution hidden somewhere in the small frail 
 body, and still less of all the glory and sorrow to 
 which her baby was destined. 
 
 For many years, although the boy disappointed 
 the village Cassandras by living, he continued 
 weak and delicate. Manual labor, which began 
 very early with the children of New Hampshire 
 farmers, was out of the question in his case, and 
 so Daniel was allowed to devote much of his time 
 to play, for which he showed a decided aptitude. 
 It was play of the best sort, in the woods and 
 fields, where he learned to love nature and natural 
 objects, to wonder at floods, to watch the habits 
 of fish and birds, and to acquire a keen taste for 
 field sports. His companion was an old British 
 sailor, who carried the child on his back, rowed 
 with him on the river, taught him the angler’s art, 
 and, best of all, poured into his delighted ear end- 
 less stories of an adventurous life, of Admiral 
 Byng and Lord George Germaine, of Minden and 
 Gibraltar, of Prince Ferdinand and General Gage, 
 of Bunker Hill, and finally of the American armies, 
 to which the soldier-sailor had deserted. The boy 
 repaid this devoted friend by reading the newspa- 
 
10 
 
 DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 pers to him ; and he tells us in his autobiography 
 that he could not remember when he did not 
 read, so early was he taught by his mother and 
 sisters, in true New England fashion. At a very 
 early age he began to go to school ; sometimes in 
 his native town, sometimes in another, as the dis- 
 trict school moved from place to place. The mas- 
 ters who taught in these schools knew nothing but 
 the barest rudiments, and even some of those im- 
 perfectly. One of them who lived to a great age, 
 enlightened perhaps by subsequent events, said 
 that Webster had great rapidity of acquisition 
 and was the quickest boy in school. He certainly 
 proved himself the possessor of a very retentive 
 memory, for when this pedagogue offered a jack- 
 knife as a reward to the boy who should be able to 
 recite the greatest number of verses from the Bi- 
 ble, Webster, on the following day, when his turn 
 came, arose and reeled off verses until the master 
 cried “enough,” and handed him the coveted 
 prize. Another of his instructors kept a small 
 store, and from him the boy bought a handker- 
 chief on which was printed the Constitution just 
 adopted, and, as he read everything and remem- 
 bered much, he read that famous instrument to 
 which he was destined to give so much of his time 
 and thought. When Mr. Webster said that he 
 read better than any of his masters, he was proba- 
 bly right. The power of expression and of speech 
 and readiness in reply were his greatest natural 
 
CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH. 
 
 11 
 
 gifts, and, however much improved by cultiva- 
 tion, were born in him. His talents were known 
 in the neighborhood, and the passing teamsters, 
 while they watered their hoi’ses, delighted to get 
 “ Webster's bojq” with his delicate look and great 
 dark eyes, to come out beneath the shade of the 
 trees and read the Bible to them with all the force 
 of his childish eloquence. He describes his own 
 existence at that time with perfect accuracy. “ I 
 read what I could get to read, went to school when 
 I could, and when not at school, was a farmer’s 
 youngest boy, not good for much for want of 
 health and strength, but expected to do some- 
 thing.” That something consisted generally in 
 tending the saw-mill, but the reading went on 
 even thei’e. He would set a log, and while it was 
 going through would devour a book. There was 
 a small circulating library in the village, and 
 Webster read everything it contained, committing 
 most of the contents of the precious volumes to 
 memory, for books were so scarce that he believed 
 this to be their chief purpose. 
 
 In the year 1791 the brave old soldier, Ebenezer 
 Webster, was made a judge of the local court, and 
 thus got a salary of three or four hundred dollars 
 a year. This accession of wealth turned his 
 thoughts at once toward that education which he 
 had missed, and he determined that he would 
 give to his children what he had irretrievably lost 
 himself. Two years later he disclosed his pur- 
 
12 
 
 DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 pose to bis son, one hot day in the hay-field, with 
 a manly regret for his own deficiencies and a touch- 
 ing pathos which the boy never forgot. The next 
 spring his father took Daniel to Exeter Academy. 
 This was the boy’s first contact with the world, and 
 there was the usual sting which invariably accom- 
 panies that meeting. His school-mates laughed at 
 his rustic dress and manners, and the poor little 
 farm lad felt it bitterly. The natural and uncon- 
 scious power by which he had delighted the team- 
 sters was stifled, and the greatest orator of modern 
 times never could summon sufficient courage to 
 stand up and recite verses before these Exeter 
 school-boys. Intelligent masters, however, per- 
 ceived something of what was in the lad, and gave 
 him a kindly encouragement. He rose rapidly in 
 the classes, and at the end of nine months his father 
 took him away in order to place him as a pupil 
 with a neighboring clergyman. As they drove 
 over, about a month later, to Boscawen, where 
 Dr. Wood, the future preceptor, lived, Ebenezer 
 Webster imparted to his son the full extent of his 
 plan, which was to end in a college education. 
 The joy at the accomplishment of his dearest and 
 most fervent wish, mingled with a full sense of the 
 magnitude of the sacrifice and of the generosity 
 of his father, overwhelmed the boy. Always affec- 
 tionate and susceptible of strong emotion, these 
 tidings overcame him. He laid his head upon his 
 father’s shoulder and wept. 
 
CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH. 
 
 13 
 
 With Dr. Wood Webster remained only six 
 months. He went home on one occasion, but hay- 
 ing was not to his tastes. He found it “dull and 
 lonesome,” and preferred rambling in the woods 
 with his sister in search of berries, so that his in- 
 dulgent father sent him back to his studies. With 
 the help of Dr. Wood in Latin, and another tutor 
 in Greek, he contrived to enter Dartmouth Col- 
 lege in August, 1797. He was, of course, hastily 
 and poorly prepared. He knew something of 
 Latin, very little of Greek, and next to nothing 
 of mathematics, geography, or history. He had 
 devoured everything in the little libraries of Salis- 
 bury and Boscawen, and thus had acquired a des- 
 ultory knowledge of a limited amount of English 
 literature, including Addison, Pope, Watts, and 
 “ Don Quixote.” But however little he knew, 
 the gates of learning were open, and he had en- 
 tered the precincts of her temple, feeling dimly 
 but surely the first pulsations of the mighty in- 
 tellect with which he was endowed. 
 
 “ In those boyish days,” he wrote many years 
 afterwards, “ there were two things which I did 
 dearly love, reading and playing, — passions which 
 did not cease to struggle when boyhood was over, 
 (have they yet altogether?) and in regard to 
 which neither cita mors nor the victoria Iceta could 
 be said of either.” In truth they did not cease, 
 these two strong passions. One was of the head, 
 the other of the heart ; one typified the intellect- 
 
14 
 
 DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 ual, the other the animal strength of the boy's 
 nature ; and the two contending forces went witli 
 him to the end. The childhood of Webster has 
 a deep interest which is by no means usual. Great 
 men in their earliest years are generally much like 
 other boys, despite the efforts of their biographers 
 to the contrary If they are not, they are very 
 apt to be little prigs like the second Pitt, full of 
 “ wise saws and modern instances.” Webster was 
 neither the one nor the other. He was simple, 
 natural, affectionate, and free from pertness or 
 precocity. At the same time there was an in- 
 nate power which impressed all those who ap- 
 proached him without their knowing exactly why, 
 and there was abundant evidence of uncommon 
 talents. Webster’s boyish days are pleasant to 
 look upon, but they gain a peculiar lustre from 
 the noble character of his father, the deep solici- 
 tude of his mother, and the generous devotion and 
 self-sacrifice of both parents. There was in this 
 something prophetic. Every one about the boy 
 was laboring and sacrificing for him from the be- 
 ginning, and this was not without its effect upon 
 his character. A little anecdote which was cur- 
 rent in Boston many years ago condenses the 
 whole situation. The story may be true or false, 
 — it is very probably unfounded, — but it con- 
 tains an essential truth and illustrates the char- 
 acter of the boy and the atmosphere in which he 
 grew up. Ezekiel, the oldest son, and Daniel 
 
CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH. 
 
 15 
 
 were allowed on one occasion to go to a fair in a 
 neighboring town, and each was furnished with 
 a little money from the slender store at home. 
 When they returned in the evening, Daniel was 
 radiant with enjoyment; Ezekiel rather silent. 
 Their mother inquired as to their adventures, and 
 finally asked Daniel what he did with his money. 
 “ Spent it,” was the reply. “ And what did you 
 do with yours, Ezekiel ? ” “ Lent it to Daniel.” 
 
 That answer sums up the story of Webster’s home 
 life in childhood. Every one was giving or lend- 
 ing to Daniel of their money, their time, their 
 activity, their love and affection. This petting 
 was partly due to Webster’s delicate health, but 
 it was also in great measure owing to his nature. 
 He was one of those rare and fortunate beings who 
 without exertion draw to themselves the devotion 
 of other people, and are always surrounded by men 
 and women eager to do and to suffer for them. 
 The boy accepted all that was showered upon him, 
 not without an obvious sense that it was his due. 
 He took it in the royal spirit which is character- 
 istic of such natures ; but in those childish days 
 when laughter and tears came readily, he repaid 
 the generous and sacrificing love with the warm 
 and affectionate gratitude of an earnest nature 
 and a naturally loving heart. He was never cold, 
 or selfish, or designing. Others loved him, and 
 sacrificed to him, but he loved them in return and 
 appreciated their sacrifices. These conditions of 
 
16 
 
 DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 his early days must, however, have had an effect 
 upon his disposition and increased his belief in the 
 fitness of having the devotion of other people as 
 one of his regal rights and privileges, while, at the 
 same time, it must have helped to expand his af- 
 fections and give warmth to every generous feel- 
 ing. 
 
 The passions for reading and play went with 
 him to Dartm outh, the little New Hampshire col- 
 lege of which he was always so proud and so fond. 
 The instruction there was of good quality enough, 
 but it was meagre in quantity and of limited 
 range, compared to what is offered by most good 
 high schools of the present day. In the reminis- 
 cences of his fellow -students there is abundant 
 material for a picture of Webster at that time. 
 He was recognized by all as the foremost man in 
 the college, as easily first, with no second. Yet 
 at the same time Mr. Webster was neither a stu- 
 dent nor a scholar in the truest sense of the words. 
 He read voraciously all the English literature he 
 could lay his hands on, and remembered every- 
 thing he read. He achieved familiarity with Latin 
 and with Latin authors, and absorbed a great deal 
 of history. He was the best general scholar in the 
 college. He was not only not deficient but he 
 showed excellence at recitation in every branch of 
 study. He could learn anything if he tried. But 
 with all this he never gained more than a smat- 
 tering of Greek and still less of mathematica 
 
CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH. 
 
 17 
 
 because tliose studies require, for anything more 
 than a fair proficiency, a love of knowledge for 
 its own sake, a zeal for learning incompatible with 
 indolence, and a close, steady, and disinterested at- 
 tention. These were not the characteristics of Mr. 
 Webster’s mind. He had a marvellous power of 
 rapid acquisition, but he learned nothing unless 
 he liked the subject and took pleasure in it or else 
 was compelled to the task. This is not the stuff 
 from which the real student, with an original or 
 inquiring mind, is made. It is only fair to say 
 that this estimate, drawn from the opinions of his 
 fellow-students, coincided with his own, for he was 
 too large-minded and too clear-headed to have any 
 small vanity or conceit in judging himself. He 
 said soon after he left college, and with perfect 
 truth, that his scholarship was not remarkable, nor 
 equal to what he was credited with. He ex- 
 plained his reputation after making this confession 
 by saying that he read carefully, meditated on 
 what he had read, and retained it so that on any 
 subject he was able to tell all he knew to the 
 best advantage, and was careful never to go be- 
 yond his depth. There is no better analysis of 
 Mr. Webster’s strongest qualities of mind than 
 this made by himself in reference to his college 
 standing. Rapid acquisition, quick assimilation of 
 ideas, an iron memory, and a wonderful power of 
 stating and displaying all he knew characterized 
 him then as in later life. The extent of his knowl- 
 2 
 
18 
 
 DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 edge and the range of his mind, not the depth or 
 soundness of his scholarship, were the traits which 
 his companions remembered. One of them says 
 that they often felt that he had a more extended 
 understanding than the tutors to whom he recited, 
 and this was probably true. The Faculty of the 
 college recognized in Webster the most remarka- 
 ble man who had ever come among them, but they 
 could not find good grounds to award him the 
 prizes, which, by his standing among his fellows, 
 ought by every rule to have been at his feet. He 
 had all the promise of a great man, but he was 
 not a fine scholar. 
 
 He was studious, punctual, and regular in all 
 his habits. He was so dignified that his friends 
 would as soon have thought of seeing President 
 Wheelock indulge in boyish disorders as of seeing 
 him. But with all his dignity and seriousness 
 of talk and manner, he was a thoroughly genial 
 companion, full of humor and fun and agreeable 
 conversation. He had few intimates, but many 
 friends. He was generally liked as well as uni- 
 versally admired, was a leader in the college so- 
 cieties, active and successful in sports, simple, 
 hearty, unaffected, without a touch of priggish- 
 ness and with a wealth of wholesome animal 
 spirits. 
 
 But in these college days, besides the vague 
 feeling of students and professors that they had 
 among them a very remarkable man, there is a 
 
CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH. 
 
 19 
 
 clear indication that the qualities which after- 
 wards raised him to fame and power were already 
 apparent, and affected the little world about him. 
 All his contemporaries of that time speak of hrs 
 eloquence. The gift of speech, the unequalled 
 power of statement, which were born in him, just 
 like the musical tones of his voice, could not be 
 repressed. There was no recurrence of the diffi- 
 dence of Exeter. His native genius led him irre- 
 sistibly along the inevitable path. He loved to 
 speak, to hold the attention of a listening audience. 
 He practised off-hand speaking, but he more com- 
 monly prepared himself by meditating on his sub- 
 ject and making notes, which, however, he never 
 used. He would enter the class-room or debating 
 society and begin in a low voice and almost sleepy 
 manner, and would then gradually rouse himself 
 like a lion, and pour forth his words until he had 
 his hearers completely under his control, and glow- 
 ing with enthusiasm. 
 
 We see too, at this time, the first evidence of 
 that other great gift of bountiful nature in his 
 commanding presence. He was then tall and thin, 
 with high cheek bones and dark skin, but he was 
 still impressive. The boys about him never for- 
 got the look of his deep-set eyes, or the sound of 
 the solemn tones of his voice, his dignity of mien, 
 and his absorption in his subject. Above all they 
 were conscious of something indefinable which 
 conveyed a sense of greatness. It is not usual to 
 
20 
 
 DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 dwell so much upon mere physical attributes and 
 appearance, but we must recur to them again and 
 again, for Mr. Webster’s personal presence was 
 one of the great elements of his success ; it was 
 the fit companion and even a part of his genius, 
 and was the cause of his influence, and of the won- 
 der and admiration which followed him, as much 
 almost as anything he ever said or did. 
 
 To Mr. Webster’s college career belong the first 
 fruits of his intellect. He edited, during one year, 
 a small weekly journal, and thus eked out his slen- 
 der means. Besides his strictly editorial labors, 
 he printed some short pieces of his own, which 
 have vanished, and he also indulged in poetical 
 effusions, which he was fond of sending to absent 
 friends. His rhymes are without any especial 
 character, neither much better nor much worse 
 than most college verses, and they have no in- 
 trinsic value beyond showing that their author, 
 whatever else he might be, -was no poet. But in 
 his own field something of this time, having a 
 real importance, has come down to us. The fame 
 of his youthful eloquence, so far beyond anything 
 ever known in the college, was noised abroad, and 
 in the year 1800 the citizens of^ Hanover, the col- 
 lege town, asked him to deliver the Fourth of July 
 oration. In this production, which was thought of 
 sufficient merit to deserve printing, Mr. Webster 
 sketched rapidly and exultingly the course of the 
 Revolution, threw in a little Federal politics, and 
 
CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH. 
 
 21 
 
 eulogized the happy system of the new Constitu- 
 tion. Of this and his other early orations he al- 
 ways spoke with a good deal of contempt, as ex- 
 amples of bad taste, which he wished to have 
 buried and forgotten. Accordingly his wholesale 
 admirers and supporters who have done most of 
 the writing about him, and who always sneezed 
 when Mr. Webster took snuff, have echoed his 
 opinions about these youthful productions, and 
 beyond allowing to them the value which every- 
 thing Websterian has for the ardent worshipper, 
 have been disposed to hurry them over as of no 
 moment. Compared to the reply to Hayne or the 
 Plymouth oration, the Hanover speech is, of 
 course, a poor and trivial thing. Considered, as 
 it ought to be, by itself and in itself, it is not only 
 of great interest as Mr. Webster’s first utterance 
 on public questions, but it is something of which 
 he had no cause to feel ashamed. The sentiments 
 are honest, elevated, and manly, and the political 
 doctrine is sound. Mr. Webster was then a boy 
 of eighteen, and he therefore took his politics from 
 his father and his father’s friends. For the same 
 reason he was imitative in style and mode of 
 thought. All boys of that age, whether geniuses 
 or not, ai’e imitative, and Mr. Webster, who was 
 never profoundly original in thought, was no ex- 
 ception to the rule. He used the style of the 
 eighteenth century, then in its decadence, and 
 very florid, inflated, and heavy it was. Yet his 
 
22 
 
 DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 work was far better and his style simpler and 
 moi’e direct than that which was in fashion. He 
 indulged in a good deal of patriotic glorification. 
 We smile at his boyish Federalism describing Na- 
 poleon as “ the gasconading pilgrim of Egypt,” 
 and Columbia as “ seated in the forum of nations, 
 and the empires of the world amazed at the bright 
 effulgence of her glory.” These sentences are the 
 acme of fine writing, very boyish and very poor ; 
 but they are not fair examples of the whole, which 
 is much simpler and more direct than might have 
 been expected. Moreover, the thought is the 
 really important thing. We see plainly that the 
 speaker belongs to the new era and the new 
 generation of national measures and nationally- 
 minded men. There is no colonialism about him. 
 He is in full sympathy with the Washingtonian 
 policy of independence in our foreign relations 
 and of complete separation from the affairs of 
 Europe. But the main theme and the moving 
 spirit of this oration are most important of all. 
 The boy Webster preached love of country, the 
 grandeur of American nationality, fidelity to the 
 Constitution as the bulwark of nationality, and 
 the necessity and the nobility of the union of the 
 States ; and that was the message which the man 
 Webster delivered to his fellow-men. The endur- 
 ing work which Mr. Webster did in the world, 
 and his meaning and influence in American his- 
 tory, are all summed up in the principles enun- 
 
CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH. 
 
 23 
 
 eiated in that boyish speech at Hanover. The 
 statement of the great principles was improved 
 and developed until it towered above this first ex- 
 pression as Mont Blanc does above the village nes- 
 tled at its foot, but the essential substance never 
 altered in the least. 
 
 Two other college orations have been preserved. 
 One is a eulogy on a classmate who died before 
 finishing his course, the other is a discourse on 
 “ Opinion,” delivered before the society of the 
 “ United Fraternity.” There is nothing of es- 
 pecial moment in the thought of either, and the 
 improvement in style over the Hanover speech, 
 though noticeable, is not very marked. In the 
 letters of that period, however, amid the jokes 
 and fun, we see that Mr. Webster was already 
 following his natural bent, and turning his at- 
 tention to politics. He manifests the same spirit 
 as in his oration, and shows occasionally an un- 
 usual maturity of judgment. His criticism of 
 Hamilton’s famous letter to Adams, to take the 
 most striking instance, is both keen and sound. 
 
 After taking his degree in due course in 1801, 
 Mr. Webster returned to his native village, and 
 entered the office of a lawyer next door to his 
 father’s house, where he began the study of the 
 law in compliance with his father's wish, but 
 without any very strong inclination of his own. 
 Here he read some law and more English literature, 
 and passed a good deal of time in fishing and shoot- 
 
24 
 
 DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 ing. Before the year was out, however, he was 
 obliged to drop his legal studies and accept the post 
 of schoolmaster in the little town of Fryeburg, 
 Maine. 
 
 This change was due to an important event in 
 the Webster family which had occurred some time 
 before. The affection existing between Daniel 
 and his elder brother Ezekiel was peculiarly strong 
 and deep. The younger and more fortunate son, 
 once started in his education, and knowing the de- 
 sire of his elder brother for the same advantages, 
 longed to obtain them for him. One night in va- 
 cation, after Daniel had been two years at Dart- 
 mouth, the two brothers discussed at length the 
 all-important question. The next day, Daniel 
 broached the matter to his father. The judge 
 was taken by surprise. He was laboring already 
 under heavy pecuniary burdens caused by the 
 expenses of Daniel’s education. The farm was 
 heavily mortgaged, and Ebenezer Webster knew 
 that he was old before his time and not destined 
 to many more years of life. With the perfect and 
 self-sacrificing courage which he always showed, 
 he did not shrink from this new demand, although 
 Ezekiel was the prop and mainstay of the house. 
 He did not think for a moment of himself, yet, 
 while he gave his consent, he made it conditional 
 on that of the mother and daughters whom he felt 
 he was soon to leave. But Mrs. Webster had the 
 same spirit as her husband. She was ready to sell 
 
CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH. 
 
 25 
 
 the farm, to give up everything for the boys, pro- 
 vided they would promise to care in the future for 
 her and their sisters. More utter self-abnegation 
 and more cheerful and devoted self-sacrifice have 
 rarely been exhibited, and it was all done with a 
 simplicity which commands our reverence. It 
 was more than should have been asked, and a boy 
 less accustomed than Daniel Webster to the devo- 
 tion of others, even with the incentive of broth- 
 erly love, might have shrunk from making the 
 request. The promise of future support was easily 
 made, but the hard pinch of immediate sacrifice 
 had to be borne at once. The devoted family gave 
 themselves up to the struggle to secure an educa- 
 tion for the two boys, and for years they did battle 
 with debt and the pressure of poverty. Ezekiel 
 began his studies and entered college the year 
 Daniel graduated ; but the resources were run- 
 ning low, so low that the law had to be abandoned 
 and money earned without delay ; and hence the 
 schoolmastership. 
 
 At no time in his life does Mr. Webster’s char- 
 acter appear in a fairer or more lovable light 
 than during this winter at Fryeburg. He took 
 his own share in the sacrifices he had done so 
 much to entail, and he carried it cheerfully. Out 
 of school hours he copied endless deeds, an occu- 
 pation which he loathed above all others, in order 
 that he might give all his salary to his brother. 
 The burden and heat of the day in this struggle 
 
26 
 
 DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 for education fell chiefly on the elder brother in 
 the years which followed ; but here Daniel did his 
 full part, and deserves the credit for it. 
 
 He was a successful teacher. His perfect dig- 
 nity, his even temper, and imperturbable equa- 
 nimity made his pupils like and respect him. The 
 survivors, in their old age, recalled the impression 
 he made upon them, and especially remembered 
 the solemn tones of his voice at morning and even- 
 ing prayer, extemporaneous exercises which he 
 scrupulously maintained. His letters at this time 
 are like those of his college days, full of fun and 
 good humor and kind feeling. He had his eai'ly 
 love affairs, but was saved from matrimony by the 
 liberality of his affections, which were not con- 
 fined to a single object. He laughs pleasantly 
 and good-naturedly over his fortunes with the fair 
 sex, and talks a good deal about them, but his first 
 loves do not seem to have been very deep or last- 
 ing. Wherever he went, he produced an impres- 
 sion on all who saw him. In Fryeburg it was his 
 eyes which people seem to have remembered best. 
 He was still very thin in face and figure, and he 
 tells us himself that he was known in the village 
 as “ All-eyes ; ” and one of the boys, a friend of 
 later years, refers to Mr. Webster’s “full, steady, 
 large, and searching eyes.” There never was a 
 time in his life when those who saw him did not 
 afterwai'ds speak of his looks, generally either of 
 the wonderful eyes or the imposing presence. 
 
CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH. 
 
 27 
 
 There was a circulating library in Fryeburg, 
 and this he read through in his usual rapacious 
 and retentive fashion. Here, too, he was called on 
 for a Fourth of July oration. This speech, which 
 has been recently printed, dwells much on the 
 Constitution and the need of adhering to it in its 
 entirety. There is a distinct improvement in his 
 style in the direction of simplicity, but there is no 
 marked advance in thought or power of expression 
 over the Hanover oration. Two months after de- 
 livering this address he returned to Salisbury and 
 resumed the study of the law in Mr. Thompson’s 
 office. He now plunged more deeply into law 
 books, and began to work at the law with zeal, 
 while at the same time he read much and thor- 
 oughly in the best Latin authors. In the months 
 which ensued his mind expanded, and ambition 
 began to rise within him. His horizon was a lim- 
 ited one ; the practice of his profession, as he saw it 
 carried on about him, was small and petty ; but his 
 mind could not be shackled. He saw the lions in 
 the path plainly, but he also perceived the great op- 
 portunities which the law was to offer in the United 
 States, and he prophesied that we, too, should soon 
 have our Mansfields and Kenyons. The hand of 
 poverty was heavy upon him, and he was chafing 
 and beating his wings against the iron bars with 
 which circumstances had imprisoned him. He 
 longed for a wider field, and eagerly desired to 
 finish his studies in Boston, but saw no way to get 
 there, except by a “ miracle.” 
 
28 
 
 DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 This miracle came through Ezekiel, who had 
 been doing more for himself and his family than 
 any one else, but who, after three years in college, 
 was at the end of his resources, and had taken, in 
 his turn, to keeping school. Daniel went to Boston, 
 and there obtained a good private school for his 
 brother. The salary thus earned by Ezekiel was 
 not only sufficient for himself, but enabled Daniel 
 to gratify the cherished wish of his heart, and 
 come to the New England capital to conclude his 
 professional studies. 
 
 The first thing to be done was to gain admit- 
 tance to some good office. Mr. Webster was lucky 
 enough to obtain an introduction to Mr. Gore, 
 with whom, as with the rest of the world, that 
 wonderful look and manner, apparent even then, 
 through boyishness and rusticity, stood him in 
 good stead. Mr. Gore questioned him, trusted 
 him, and told him to hang up his hat, begin work 
 as clerk at once, and write to New Hampshire for 
 his credentials. The position thus obtained was 
 one of fortune’s best gifts to Mr. Webster. It not 
 only gave him an opportunity for a wide study of 
 the law under wise supervision, but it brought 
 him into daily contact with a trained barrister and 
 an experienced public man. Christopher Gore, 
 one of the most eminent members of the Boston 
 bar and a distinguished statesman, had just re- 
 turned from England, whither he had been sent 
 as one of the commissioners appointed under the 
 
CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH. 
 
 29 
 
 Jay treaty. He was a fine type of the aristocratic 
 Federalist leader, one of the most prominent of 
 that little group which from the “ headquarters 
 of good principles” in Boston so long controlled 
 the politics of Massachusetts. He was a scholar, 
 gentleman, and man of the world, and his portrait 
 shows us a refined, high-bred face, suggesting a 
 French marquis of the eighteenth century rather 
 than the son of a New England sea-captain. A 
 few years later, Mr. Gore was chosen governor of 
 Massachusetts, and defeated when a candidate for 
 reelection largely, it is supposed, because he rode 
 in a coach and four (to which rumor added out- 
 riders) whenever he went to his estate at Wal- 
 tham. This mode of travel offended the sensi- 
 bilities of his democratic constituents, but did 
 not prevent his being subsequently chosen to the 
 Senate of the United States, where he served a 
 term with much distinction. The society of such a 
 man was invaluable to Mr. Webster at this time. 
 It taught him many things which he could have 
 learned in no other way, and appealed to that 
 strong taste for everything dignified and refined 
 which was so marked a trait of his disposition and 
 habits. He saw now the real possibilities which 
 he had dreamed of in his native village ; and while 
 he studied law deeply and helped his brother with 
 his school, he also studied men still more thor- 
 oughly and curiously. The professional associates 
 and friends of Mr. Gore were the leaders of the 
 
30 
 
 DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 Boston bar when it had many distinguished men 
 whose names hold high places in the history of 
 American law. Among them were Theophilus 
 Parsons, Chief Justice of Massachusetts ; Samuel 
 Dexter, the ablest of them all, fresh from service 
 in Congress and the Senate and as Secretary of 
 the Treasury; Harrison Gray Otis, fluent and 
 graceful as an orator; James Sullivan, and Daniel 
 Davis, the Solicitor-General. All these and many 
 more Mr. Webster saw and watched, and he has 
 left in his diary discriminating sketches of Parsons 
 and Dexter, whom he greatly admired, and of Sul- 
 livan, of whom he had a poor opinion profession- 
 ally. 
 
 Towards the end of the year 1804, while Mr. 
 Webster was thus pleasantly engaged in studying 
 his profession, getting a glimpse of the world, and 
 now and then earning a little money, an opening 
 came to him which seemed to promise immediate 
 and assured prosperity. The judges of his father’s 
 court of common pleas offered him the vacant 
 clerkship, worth about fifteen hundred dollars an- 
 nually. This was wealth to Mr. Webster. With 
 this income he could relieve the family from debt, 
 make his father’s last years comfortable, and 
 smooth Ezekiel’s path to the bar. When, how- 
 ever, he announced his good luck to Mr. Gore, and 
 his intention of immediately going home to accept 
 the position, that gentleman, to Mr. Webster’s 
 great surprise, strongly urged a contrary course. 
 
CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH. 
 
 31 
 
 He pointed out the possible reduction of the sal- 
 ary, the fact that the office depended on the favor 
 of the judges, and, above all, that it led to nothing, 
 and destroyed the chances of any really great ca- 
 reer. This wise mentor said : “ Go on and finish 
 your studies. You are poor enough, but there are 
 greater evils than poverty ; live on no man's favor ; 
 what bread you do eat, let it be the bread of inde- 
 pendence ; pursue your profession, make yourself 
 useful to your friends and a little formidable to 
 your enemies, and you have nothing to fear.” Mr. 
 Webster, always susceptible to outside influences, 
 saw the wisdom of this advice, and accepted it. 
 It would have been well if he had never swerved 
 even by a hair’s breadth from the high and sound 
 principles which it inculcated. He acted then 
 without delay. Going at once to Salisbury, he 
 broke the news of his unlooked-for determination 
 to his father, who was utterly amazed. Pride in 
 his son’s high spirit mingled somewhat with dis- 
 appointment at the prospect of continued hard- 
 ships ; but the brave old man accepted the decision 
 with the Puritan stoicism which was so marked a 
 trait in his character, and the matter ended there. 
 
 Returning to Boston, Mr. Webster was admitted 
 to the bar in March, 1805. Mr. Gore moved his 
 admission, and, in the customary speech, prophe- 
 sied his student’s future eminence with a sure 
 knowledge of the latent powers which had dic- 
 tated his own advice in the matter of the clerk- 
 
32 
 
 DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 ship. Soon after this, Mr. Webster returned to 
 New Hampshire and opened his office in the little 
 town of Boscawen, in order that he might be near 
 his father. Here he devoted himself assiduously 
 to business and study for more than two years, 
 working at his profession, and occasionally writing’ 
 articles for the “ Boston Anthology.” During this 
 time he made his first appearance in court, his 
 father being on the bench. He gathered together 
 a practice worth five or six hundred a year, a very 
 creditable sum fora young country practitioner, 
 and won a reputation which made him known in 
 the State. 
 
 In April, 1806, after a noble, toiling, unselfish 
 life of sixty-seven years, Ebenezer Webster died. 
 Daniel assumed his father’s debts, waited until 
 Ezekiel was admitted to the bar, and then, trans- 
 ferring his business to his brother, moved, in the 
 autumn of 1807, to Portsmouth. This was the 
 principal town of the State, and offered, therefore, 
 the larger field which he felt he needed to give his 
 talents sufficient scope. Thus the first period in 
 his life closed, and he started out on the extended 
 and distinguished career which lay before him. 
 These early years had been years of hardship, but 
 they were among the best of his life. Through 
 great difficulties and by the self-sacrifice of his 
 family, he had made his way to the threshold of 
 the career for which he was so richly endowed. 
 He had passed an unblemished youth ; he had led 
 
CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH. 
 
 33 
 
 a clean, honest, hard-working life ; he was simple, 
 manly, affectionate. Poverty had been a misfor- 
 tune, not because it had warped or soured him, for 
 he smiled at it with cheerful philosophy, nor be- 
 cause it had made him avaricious, for he never 
 either then or at any time cared for money for its 
 own sake, and nothing could chill the natural lav- 
 ishness of his disposition. But poverty accus- 
 tomed him to borrowing and to debt, and this was 
 a misfortune to a man of Mr. Webster’s temper- 
 ament. In those early days he was anxious to 
 pay his debts ; but they did not lie heavy upon 
 him or carry a proper sense of responsibility, as 
 they did to Ezekiel and to his father. He was 
 deeply in debt ; his books, even, were bought with 
 borrowed money, all which was natural and inev- 
 itable ; but the trouble was that it never seems 
 to have weighed upon him or been felt by him as 
 of much importance. He was thus early brought 
 into the habit of debt, and was led unconsciously 
 to regard debts and borrowing as he did the sac- 
 
 o o 
 
 rifices of others, as the normal modes of existence. 
 Such a condition was to be deplored, because it 
 fostered an unfortunate tendency in his moral na- 
 ture. With this exception, Mr. Webster’s early 
 years present a bright picture, and one which any 
 man had a right to regard with pride and affec- 
 tion. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 LAW AND POLITICS IN NEW HAMPSHIRE. 
 
 The occasion of Mi\ Webster’s first appearance 
 in court has been the subject of varying tradi- 
 tion. It is certain, however, that in the counties 
 where he practised during his residence at Bos- 
 cawen, he made an unusual and very profound 
 impression. The effect then produced is described 
 in homely phrase by one who knew him well. 
 The reference is to a murder trial, in which Mr. 
 Webster gained his first celebrity. 
 
 “ There was a man tried for his life, and the judges 
 chose Webster to plead for him ; and, from what I can 
 learn, he never has spoken better than he did there 
 where he first began. He was a black, raven-haired 
 fellow, with an eye as black as death’s, and as heavy as 
 a lion’s, — that same heavy look, not sleepy, but as if 
 he did n’t care about anything that was going on about 
 him or anything anywhere else. He didn’t look as if 
 he was thinking about anything, but as if he would think 
 like a hurricane if he once got waked up to it. They 
 say the lion looks so when he is quiet. . . . Webster 
 would sometimes be engaged to argue a case just as it 
 was coming to trial. That would set him to thinking. 
 It would n’t wrinkle his forehead, but made him rest- 
 
LAW AND POLITICS IN NEW HAMPSHIRE. 35 
 
 less. He would shift his feet about, and run his hand 
 up over his forehead, through his Iudian-black hair, and 
 lift his upper lip and show his teeth, which were as 
 white as a hound’s.” 
 
 Of course the speech so admired then was in- 
 finitely below what was done afterwards. The 
 very next was probably better, for Mr. Webster 
 grew steadily. This observer, however, tells us 
 not what Mr. Webster said, but how he looked. 
 It was the personal presence which dwelt with 
 every one at this time. 
 
 Thus with his wonderful leonine look and large, 
 dark eyes, and with the growing fame which he 
 had won, Mr. Webster betook himself to Ports- 
 mouth. He had met some of the leading lawyers 
 already, but now he was to be brought into direct 
 and almost daily competition with them. At that 
 period in New England there was a great rush of 
 men of talent to the bar, then casting off its colo- 
 nial fetters and emerging to an independent life. 
 The pulpit had ceased to attract, as of old ; med- 
 icine was in its infancy ; there were none of the 
 other manifold pursuits of to-day, and politics 
 did not offer a career apart. Outside of mercan- 
 tile affairs, therefore, the intellectual forces of the 
 old Puritan commonwealths, overflowing with life, 
 and feeling the thrill of youthful independence 
 and the confidence of rapid growth in business, 
 wealth, and population, were concentrated in the 
 law. Even in a small State like New Hampshii’e, 
 
36 
 
 DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 presenting very limited opportunities, there was, 
 relatively speaking, an extraordinary amount of 
 ability among the members of the bar, notwith- 
 standing the fact that they had but just escaped 
 from the condition of colonists. Common sense 
 was the divinity of both the courts and the profes- 
 sion. The learning was not extensive or profound, 
 but . pi-actical knowledge, sound principles, and 
 shrewd management were conspicuous. Jeremiah 
 Smith, the Chief Justice, a man of humor and cul- 
 tivation, was a well read and able judge ; George 
 Sullivan was ready of speech and fertile in expe- 
 dients ; and Parsons and Dexter of Massachusetts, 
 both men of national reputation, appeared from 
 time to time in the New Hampshire courts. 
 Among the most eminent was William Plumer, 
 then Senator, and afterwards Governor of the 
 State, a well-trained, clear-headed, judicious man. 
 He was one of Mr. Webster’s early antagonists, 
 and defeated him in their first encounter. Yet at 
 the same time, although a leader of the bar and a 
 United States Senator, he seems to have been op- 
 pressed with a sense of responsibility and even of 
 inequality by this thin, black-eyed young lawyer 
 from the back country. Mr. Plumer was a man of 
 cool and excellent judgment, and he thought that 
 Mr. Webster on this occasion was too excursive 
 and declamatory. He also deemed him better 
 fitted by mind and temperament for politics than 
 for the law, an opinion fully justified in the future, 
 
LA W AND POLITICS IN NE W HAMPSHIRE. 37 
 
 despite Mr. Webster's eminence at the bar. In 
 another case, where they were opposed, Mr. Plumer 
 quoted a passage from Peake’s “ Law of Evidence.” 
 Mr. Webster criticised the citation as bad law, 
 pronounced the book a miserable two-penny com- 
 pilation, and then, throwing it down with a fine 
 disdain, said, “ So much for Mr. Thomas Peake’s 
 compendium of the ‘ Law of Evidence.’ ” Such 
 was his manner that every one present appeared 
 to think the point settled, and felt rather ashamed 
 of ever having heard of Mr. Peake or his unfor- 
 tunate book. Thereupon Mr. Plumer produced a 
 volume of reports by which it appeared that the 
 despised passage was taken word for word from 
 one of Lord Mansfield’s decisions. The wretched 
 Peake’s character was rehabilitated, and Mr. 
 Webster silenced. This was an illustration of a 
 failing of Mr. Webster at that time. He was 
 r ough' and unceremoni ous. and even o ve rbea ring, 
 both to court and bar, the natural result of a new 
 sense of power in an inexperienced man. This 
 harshness of manner, however, soon disappeared. 
 He learned rapidly to practise the stately and 
 solemn courtesy which distinguished him through 
 life. 
 
 There was one lawyer, however, at the head of 
 his profession in New Hampshire, who had more 
 effect upon Mr. Webster than any other whom he 
 ever met there or elsewhere. This was the man 
 to whom the Shaker said: “By thy size and thy 
 
38 
 
 DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 language 1 I judge that thou art Jeremiah Mason.” 
 Mr. Mason was one of the greatest common-law- 
 yers this country has ever produced. Keen and 
 penetrating in intellect, he was master of a re- 
 lentless logic and of a style which, though simple 
 and homely, was clear and correct to the last 
 point. Slow and deliberate in his movements, 
 and sententious in his utterances, he dealt so pow- 
 erfully with evidence and so lucidly with princi- 
 ples of law that he rarely failed to carry convic- 
 tion to his hearers. He was particularly renowned 
 for his success in getting verdicts. Many years 
 afterwards Mr. Webster gave it as his deliberate 
 opinion that he had never met with a stronger in- 
 tellect, a mind of more native resources or quicker 
 and deeper vision than were possessed by Mr. 
 Mason, whom in mental reach and grasp and in 
 closeness of reasoning he would not allow to be 
 second even to Chief Justice Marshall. Mr. Ma- 
 son on his side, with his usual sagacity, at once 
 detected the gi'eat talents of Mr. W ebster. In the 
 first case where they were opposed, a murder trial, 
 Mr. Webster took the place of the Attorney-Gen- 
 eral for the prosecution. Mr. Mason, speaking of 
 the impression made by his youthful and then un- 
 known opponent, said : — 
 
 “ He broke upou me like a thunder shower in July, 
 
 1 Mr. Mason, as is well known, was six feet seven inches in height, 
 and his language, always very forcible and direct, was, when he was 
 irritated, if we may trust tradition, at times somewhat profane. 
 
LAW AND POLITICS IN NEW HAMPSHIRE. 39 
 
 sudden, portentous, sweeping all before it. It was the 
 first case in which he appeared at our bar ; a criminal 
 prosecution in which I had arranged a very pretty de- 
 fence, as against the Attorney-General, Atkinson, who 
 was able enough in his way, but whom I knew very 
 well how to take. Atkinson being absent, Webster 
 conducted the case for him, and turned, in the most 
 masterly manner, the line of my defences, carrying with 
 him all but one of the jurors, so that I barely saved my 
 client by my best exertions. I was never more surprised 
 than by this remarkable exhibition of unexpected power. 
 It surpassed, in some respects, anything which I have 
 ever since seen even in him.” 
 
 With all his admiration for his young antago- 
 nist, however, one cannot help noticing that the 
 generous and modest but astute counsel for the 
 defence ended by winning his case. 
 
 Fortune showered many favors upon Mr. "Web- 
 ster, but none more valuable than that of having 
 Jeremiah Mason as his chief opponent at the New 
 Hampshire bar. Mr. Mason had no spark of envy 
 in his composition. He not only regarded with 
 pleasure the great abilities of Mr. Webster, but 
 he watched with kindly interest the rapid rise 
 which soon made this stranger from the country 
 his principal competitor and the champion com- 
 monly chosen to meet him in the courts. He gave 
 Mr. Webster his friendship, staunch and unvary- 
 ing, until his death ; he gave freely also of his wis- 
 dom and experience in advice and counsel. Best 
 
40 
 
 DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 of all was the opportunity of instruction and dis- 
 cipline which Mr. Webster gained by repeated 
 contests with such a man. The strong qualities of 
 Mr. Webster’s miud rapidly developed by constant 
 practice and under such influences. He showed 
 more and more in every case his wonderful in- 
 stinct for seizing on the very heart of a question, 
 and for extricating the essential points from the 
 midst of confused details and clashing arguments. 
 He displayed, too, more strongly every day his 
 capacity for close, logical reasoning and for telling 
 retort, backed by a passion and energy none the 
 less effective from being but slowly called into 
 activity. In a word, the unequalled power of stat- 
 ing facts or principles, which was the predomi- 
 nant quality of Mr. Webster’s genius, grew stead- 
 ily with a vigorous vitality while his eloquence 
 developed in a similar striking fashion. Much of 
 this growth and improvement was due to the sharp 
 competition and bright example of Mr. Mason. 
 But the best lesson that Mr. Webster learned from 
 his wary yet daring antagonist was in regard to 
 style. When he saw Mr. Mason go close to the 
 jury box, and in a plain style and conversational 
 manner, force conviction upon his hearers, and 
 carry off verdict after verdict, Mr. Webster felt 
 as he had never done before the defects of his 
 own modes of expression. His florid phrases 
 looked rather mean, insincere, and tasteless, be- 
 sides being weak and ineffective. From that time 
 
LAW AND POLITICS IN NEW HAMPSHIRE. 41 
 
 he began to study simplicity and directness, which 
 ended in the perfection of a style unsurpassed in 
 modern oratory. The years of Mr. Webster’s pro- 
 fessional life in Portsmouth under the tuition of 
 Mr. Mason were of inestimable service to him. 
 
 Early in this period, also, Mr. Webster gave up 
 his bachelor existence, and made for himself a 
 home. When he first appeared at church in 
 Portsmouth the minister’s daughter noted and re- 
 membered his striking features and look, and re- 
 garded him as one with great capacities for good 
 or evil. But the interesting stranger was not des- 
 tined to fall a victim to any of the young ladies of 
 Portsmouth. In the spring of 1808 he slipped 
 away from his new friends and returned to Salis- 
 bury, where, in May, he was married. The bride 
 he brought back to Portsmouth was Grace Fletcher, 
 daughter of the minister of Hopkinton. Mr. Web- 
 ster is said to have seen her first at church in Sal- 
 isbury, whither she came on horseback in a tight- 
 fitting black velvet dress, and looking, as he said, 
 “ like an angel.” She was certainly a vei’y lovely 
 and charming woman, of delicate and refined sen- 
 sibilities and bright and sympathetic mind. She 
 was a devoted wife, the object of her husband’s 
 first and strongest love, and the mother of his 
 children. It is very pleasant to look at Mr. Web- 
 ster in his home during these early years of his 
 married life. It was a happy, innocent, untroubled 
 time. He was advancing in his profession, win- 
 
42 
 
 DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 ning fame and respect, earning a sufficient income, 
 blessed in liis domestic relations, and with his chil- 
 dren growing up about him. He was social by na- 
 ture, and very popular everywhere. Genial and 
 affectionate in disposition, he attached everybody 
 to him, and his hearty humor, love of mimicry, 
 and fund of anecdote made him a delightful com- 
 panion, and led Mr. Mason to say that the stage 
 had lost a great actor in Webster. 
 
 But while he was thus enjoying professional 
 success and the contented happiness of his fireside, 
 he was slowly but surely drifting into the current 
 of politics, whither his genius led him, and which 
 had for him an irresistible attraction. Mr. Web- 
 ster took both his politics and his religion from 
 his father, and does not appear to have questioned 
 either. He had a peculiar^ conservative cast of 
 mind. In an age of revolution and scepticism he 
 showed no trace of the questioning spirit which 
 then prevailed. Even in his earliest years he was 
 a firm believer in existing institutions, in what 
 was fixed and established. He had a little of the 
 disposition of Lord Thurlow, who, when asked by 
 a dissenter why, being a notorious free-thinker, he 
 so ardently supported the Established Church, re- 
 plied : “ I support the Church of England because 
 it is established. Establish your religion, and I ’ll 
 support that.” But if Mr. Webster took his relig- 
 ion and politics from his father in an unquestioning 
 spirit, he accepted them in a mild form. He was 
 
LAW AND POLITICS IN NEW HAMPSHIRE. 43 
 
 a liberal Federalist because lie bad a wide mental 
 vision, and by nature took broad views of every- 
 thing. His father, on the other hand, was a rigid, 
 intolerant Federalist of a thorough-going Puritan 
 type. Being taken ill once in a town of Demo- 
 cratic proclivities, he begged to be carried home. 
 “ I was born a Federalist,” he said, “ I have lived 
 a Federalist, and I won’t die in a Democratic 
 town.” In the same way Ezekiel Webster’s un- 
 compromising Federalism shut him out from po- 
 litical preferment, and he would never modify his 
 principles one jot in order to gain the seat in 
 Congress which he might easily have obtained by 
 slight concessions. The broad and liberal spirit 
 of Daniel Webster rose superior to the rigid and 
 even narrow opinions of his father and brother, 
 but perhaps it would have been better for him if 
 he had had in addition to his splendid mind the 
 stern, unbending force of character which made 
 his father and brother stand by their principles 
 with immovable Puritan determination. Liberal 
 as he was, however, in his political opinions, the 
 same conservative spirit which led him to adopt 
 his creed made him sustain it faithfully and con- 
 stantly when he had once accepted it. He was a 
 steady and trusted party man, although neither 
 then nor at any time a blind, unreasoning par- 
 tisan. 
 
 Mr. Webster came forward gradually as a polit- 
 ical leader by occasional addresses and speeches, at 
 
44 
 
 DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 first with long intervals between them, and then 
 becoming more frequent, until at last he found 
 himself fairly engaged in a public career. In 1804, 
 at the request of some of his father’s friends, he 
 published a pamphlet, entitled, “An Appeal to 
 Old Whigs,” in the interest of Gilman, the Federal 
 candidate for governor. He seems to have had a 
 very poor opinion of this performance, and his in- 
 terest in the success of the party at that juncture 
 was very slight. In 1805 he delivered a Fourth 
 of July oration at Salisbury, which has not been 
 preserved; and in the following year he gave an- 
 other before the “Federal gentlemen ” of Concord, 
 which was published. The tone of this speech is 
 not very partisan, nor does it exhibit the bitter 
 spirit of the Federalists, although he attacked 
 the administration, was violent in urging the pro- 
 tection of commerce, and was extremely savage in 
 his remarks about France. At times the style is 
 forcible, and even rich, but, as a rule, it is still 
 strained and artificial. The oration begins eagerly 
 with an appeal for the Constitution and the 
 Republic, the ideas always uppermost in Mr. 
 Webster’s mind. As a whole, it shows a distinct 
 improvement in form, but there are no marks 
 of genius to raise it above the ordinary level of 
 Fourth of July speeches. His next production 
 was a little pamphlet, published in 1808, on the 
 embargo, which was then paralyzing New Eng- 
 land, and crushing out her prosperity. This essay 
 
LAW AND POLITICS IN NEW HAMPSHIRE. 45 
 
 is important because it is the first clear instance 
 of that wonderful faculty which Mr. Webster had 
 of seizing on the vital point of a subject, and 
 bringing it out in such a way that everybody 
 could see and understand it. In this case the point 
 was the distinction between a temporary embargo 
 and one of unlimited duration. Mr. Webster 
 contended that the latter was unconstitutional. 
 The great mischief of the embargo was in Jeffer- 
 son’s concealed intention that it should be unlim- 
 ited in point of time, a piece of recklessness and 
 deceit never fully appreciated until it had all 
 passed into history. This Mr. Webster detected 
 and brought out as the most illegal and dangerous 
 feature of the measure, while he also discussed the 
 general policy in its fullest extent. In 1809 he 
 spoke before the Phi Beta Kappa Society, upon 
 “ The State of our Literature,” an address without 
 especial interest except as showing a very marked 
 improvement in style, due, no doubt, to the influ- 
 ence of Mr. Mason. 
 
 During the next three years Mr. Webster was 
 completely absorbed in the practice of his profes- 
 sion, and not until the declaration of war with 
 England had stirred and agitated the whole coun- 
 try did he again come before the public. The 
 occasion of his reappearance was the Fourth of 
 July celebration in 1812, when he addressed the 
 Washington Benevolent Society at Portsmouth. 
 The speech was a strong, calm statement of the 
 
46 
 
 DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 grounds of opposition to the war. He showed 
 that “ maritime defence, commercial regulations, 
 and national revenue ” were the very corner-stones 
 of the Constitution, and that these great interests 
 had been crippled and abused by the departure 
 from Washington’s policy. He developed, with 
 great force, the principal and the most unanswer- 
 able argument of his party, that the navy had been 
 neglected and decried because it was a Federalist 
 scheme, when a navy was what we wanted above 
 all things, and especially when we were drifting 
 into a maritime conflict. He argued strongly in 
 favor of a naval war, and measures of naval de- 
 fence, instead of wasting our resources by an in- 
 vasion of Canada. So far he went strictly with 
 his party, merely invigorating and enforcing their 
 well-known principles. But when he came to de- 
 fining the proper limits of opposition to the war 
 he modified very essentially the course prescribed 
 by advanced Federalist opinions. The majority 
 of that party in New England were prepared to go 
 to the very edge of the narrow legal line which 
 divides constitutional opposition from treasonable 
 resistance. They were violent, bitter, and un- 
 compromising in their language and purposes. 
 From this Mr. Webster was saved by his breadth 
 of view, his clear perceptions, and his intense 
 national feeling. He says on this point : — 
 
 “ With respect to the war in which we are now in- 
 volved, the course which our principles require us to 
 
LAW AND POLITICS IN NEW HAMPSHIRE. 47 
 
 pursue cannot be doubtful. It is now the law of the 
 land, and as such we are bound to regard it. Resist- 
 ance and insurrection form no part of our creed. The 
 disciples of Washington are neither tyrants in power nor 
 rebels out. If we are taxed to carry on this war we 
 shall disregard certain distinguished examples and shall 
 pay. If our personal services are required we shall 
 yield them to the precise extent of our constitutional 
 liability. At the same time the world may be assured 
 that we know our rights and shall exercise them. We 
 shall express our opinions on this, as on every measure 
 of the government, — I trust without passion, I am cer- 
 tain without fear. By the exercise of our constitutional 
 right of suffrage, by the peaceable remedy of election, 
 we shall seek to restore wisdom to our councils, and 
 peace to our country.” 
 
 This was a sensible and patriotic opposition. 
 It represented the views of the moderate Fed- 
 eralists, and traced the lines which Mr. Webster 
 consistently followed during the first years of his 
 public life. The address concluded by pointing 
 out the French trickery which had provoked the 
 war, and by denouncing an alliance with French 
 despotism and ambition. 
 
 This oration was printed, and ran at once 
 through two editions. It led to the selection of 
 Mr. Webster as a delegate to an assembly of the 
 people of the county of Rockingham, a sort of 
 mass convention, held in August, 1812. There 
 he was placed on the committee to prepare the 
 address, and was chosen to write their report, 
 
48 
 
 DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 which, was adopted and published. This im- 
 portant document, widely known at the time as 
 the “ Rockingham Memorial,” was a careful argu- 
 ment against the war, and a vigorous and able 
 presentation of the Federalist views. It was 
 addressed to the President, whom it treated with 
 respectful severity. With much skill it turned 
 Mr. Madison’s own arguments against himself, 
 and appealed to public opinion by its clear and 
 convincing reasoning. In one point the memorial 
 differed curiously from the oration of a month 
 before. The latter pointed to the suffrage as the 
 mode of redress ; the former distinctly hinted at 
 and almost threatened secession even while it de- 
 plored a dissolution of the Union as a possible 
 result of the administration’s policy. In the one 
 case Mr. Webster was expressing his own views, 
 in the other he was giving utterance to the opin- 
 ions of the members of his party among whom 
 he stood. This little incident shows the suscepti- 
 bility to outside influences which formed such an 
 odd trait in the character of a man so imperious by 
 nature. When acting alone, he spoke his own 
 opinions. When in a situation where public opin- 
 ion was concentrated against him, he submitted 
 to modifications of his views with a curious and 
 indolent indifference. 
 
 The immediate result to Mr. Webster of the 
 ability and tact which he displayed at the Rocking- 
 ham Convention was his election to the thirteenth 
 
LAW AND POLITICS IN NEW HAMPSHIRE. 49 
 
 Congress, where he took his seat in May, 1813. 
 There were then many able men in the House. 
 Mr. Clay was Speaker, and on the floor were 
 John C. Calhoun, Langdon Cheves and William 
 Lowndes of South Carolina, Forsyth and Troup of 
 Georgia, Ingersoll of Pennsylvania, Grundy of 
 Tennessee, and McLean of Ohio, all conspicuous 
 in the young nationalist war party. Macon and 
 Eppes were representatives of the old Jeffersonian 
 Republicans, while the Federalists were strong in 
 the possession of such leaders as Pickering of 
 Massachusetts, Pitkin of Connecticut, Grosvenor 
 and Benson of New York, Hanson of Maryland, 
 and William Gaston of North Carolina. It was a 
 House in which any one might have been glad to 
 win distinction. That Mr. Webster was consid- 
 ered, at the outset, to be a man of great promise 
 is shown by the fact that he was placed on the 
 Committee on Foreign Relations, of which Mr. 
 Calhoun was the head, and which, in the war 
 time, was the most important committee of the 
 House. 
 
 Mr. Webster’s first act was a characteristic one. 
 Early in June he introduced a set of resolutions 
 calling upon the President for information as to 
 the time and mode in which the repeal of the 
 French decrees had been communicated to our 
 government. His unerring sagacity in singling 
 out the weak point in his enemy’s armor and in 
 choosing his own keenest weapon, was never bet- 
 
 4 
 
50 
 
 DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 ter illustrated than on this occasion. We know 
 now that in the negotiations for the repeal of the 
 decrees, the French government tricked us into 
 war with England by most profligate lying. It 
 was apparent then that there was something 
 wrong, and that either our government had been 
 deceived, or had withheld the publication of the 
 repealing decree until war was declared, so that 
 England might not have a pretext for rescinding 
 the obnoxious orders. Either horn of the dilemma, 
 therefore, was disagreeable to the administration, 
 and a disclosure could hardly fail to benefit the 
 Federalists. Mr. Webster supported his resolu- 
 tions with a terse and simple speech of explanation, 
 so far as we can judge from the meagre abstract 
 which has come down to us. The resolutions, 
 however, were a firebrand, and lighted up an angry 
 and protracted debate, but the ruling party, as Mr. 
 Webster probably foresaw, did not dare to vote 
 them down, and they passed by large majorities. 
 Mr. Webster spoke but once, and then very briefly, 
 during the progress of the debate, and soon after 
 returned to New Hampshire. With the exception 
 of these resolutions, he took no active part what- 
 ever in the business of the House beyond voting 
 steadily with his party, a fact of which we may 
 be sure because he was always on the same side as 
 that staunch old partisan, Timothy Pickering. 
 
 After a summer passed in the performance of 
 bis professional duties, Mr. Webster returned to 
 
LAW AND POLITICS IN NEW HAMPSHIRE. 51 
 
 Washington. He was late in his coming, Con- 
 gress having been in session nearly three weeks 
 when he arrived to find that he had been dropped 
 from the Committee on Foreign Relations. The 
 dominant party probably discovered that he was 
 a young man of rather too much promise and 
 too formidable an opponent for such an important 
 post. His resolutions had been answered at the 
 previous session, after his departure, and the re- 
 port, which consisted of a lame explanation of the 
 main point, and an elaborate defence of the war, 
 had been quietly laid aside. Mr. Webster desired 
 debate on this subject, and succeeded in carrying a 
 reference of the report to a committee of the whole, 
 but his opponents prevented its ever coming to 
 discussion. In the long session which ensued, Mr. 
 Webster again took comparatively little part in 
 general business, but he spoke oftener than before. 
 He seems to have been reserving his strength and 
 making sure of his ground. He defended the 
 Federalists as the true friends of the navy, and he 
 resisted with great power the extravagant attempt 
 to extend martial law to all citizens suspected of 
 treason. On January 14, 1814, he made a long 
 and well reported speech against a bill to encour- 
 age enlistments. This is the first example of the 
 eloquence which Mr. Webster afterwards carried 
 to such high perfection. Some of his subsequent 
 speeches far surpass this one, but they differ from 
 it in degree, not in kind. He was now master 
 
52 
 
 DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 of the style at which he aimed. The vehicle was 
 perfected and his natural talent gave that vehi- 
 cle abundance of thought to be conveyed. The 
 whole speech is simple in form, direct and forcible. 
 It has the elasticity and vigor of great strength, 
 and glows with eloquence in some passages. Here, 
 too, we see for the first time that power of de- 
 liberate and measured sarcasm which was destined 
 to become in his hands such a formidable weapon. 
 The florid rhetoric of the early days is utterly 
 gone, and. the thought comes to us in those short 
 and pregnant sentences and in the choice and ef- 
 fective words which were afterwards so typical 
 of the speaker. The speech itself was a party 
 speech and a presentation of party arguments. It 
 offered nothing new, but the familiar principles 
 had hardly ever been stated in such a striking and 
 impressive fashion. Mr. Webster attacked the 
 war policy and the conduct of the war, and advo- 
 cated defensive warfare, a navy, and the abandon- 
 ment of the restrictive laws that were ruining our 
 commerce, which had been the main cause of the 
 adoption of the Constitution. The conclusion of 
 this speech is not far from the level of Mr. Web- 
 ster’s best work. It is too long for quotation, but 
 a few sentences will show its quality : — - 
 
 “ Give up your futile projects of invasion. Extinguish 
 the fires that blaze on your inland frontier. Establish 
 perfect safety and defence there by adequate force. Let 
 every man that sleeps on your soil sleep in security. Stop 
 
LAW AND POLITICS IN NEW HAMPSHIRE. 53 
 
 the Wood that flows from the veins of unarmed yeo- 
 manry and women and children. Give to the living time 
 to bury and lament their dead in the quietness of private 
 sorrow. Having performed this work of beneficence 
 and mercy on your inland border, turn, and look with 
 the eye of justice and compassion on your vast popula- 
 tion along the coast. Unclench the iron grasp of your 
 embargo. Take measures for that end before another 
 sun sets. . . . Let it no longer be said that not one 
 ship of force, built by your hands, yet floats upon the 
 ocean. ... If then the war must be continued, go to 
 the ocean. If you are seriously contending for mari- 
 time rights, go to the theatre where alone those rights 
 can be defended. Thither every indication of your for- 
 tune points you. There the united wishes and exertions 
 of the nation will go with you. Even our party divi- 
 sions, acrimonious as they are, cease at the water’s 
 edge.” 
 
 Events soon forced the policy urged by Mr. 
 Webster upon the administration, whose friends 
 carried first a modification of the embargo, and 
 before the close of the session introduced a bill 
 for its total repeal. The difficult task of advo- 
 cating this measure devolved upon Mr. Calhoun, 
 who sustained his cause more ingeniously than in- 
 genuously. He frankly admitted that restriction 
 was a failure as a war measure, but he defended 
 the repeal on the ground that the condition of 
 affairs in Europe had changed since the restrictive 
 policy was adopted. It had indeed changed since 
 the embargo of 1807, but not since the imposition 
 
54 DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 of that of 1813, which was the one under discus- 
 sion. 
 
 Mr. Calhoun laid himself open to most unmer- 
 ciful retorts, which was his misfortune, not his 
 fault, for the embargo had been utterly and hope- 
 lessly wrong from the beginning. Mr. Webster, 
 however, took full advantage of the opportunity 
 thus presented. His opening congratulations are 
 in his best vein of stately sarcasm, and are admira- 
 bly put. He followed this up by a new argument 
 of great force, showing the colonial spirit of the re- 
 strictive policy. He also dwelt with fresh vigor 
 on the identification with France necessitated by 
 the restrictive laws, a reproach which stung Mr. 
 Calhoun and his followers more than anything 
 else. He then took up the embargo policy and 
 tore it to pieces, — no very difficult undertaking, 
 but well performed. The shifty and shifting pol- 
 icy of the government was especially distasteful to 
 Mr. Webster, with his lofty conception of consist- 
 ent and steady statesmanship, a point which is 
 well brought out in the following passage : — 
 
 “ In a commercial country, nothing can be more ob- 
 jectionable than frequent and violent changes. The 
 concerns of private business do not endure such rude 
 shocks but with extreme inconvenience and great loss. 
 It would seem, however, that there is a class of politi- 
 cians to whose taste all change is suited, to whom what- 
 ever is unnatural seems wise, and all that is violent 
 appears great. . . . The Embargo Act, the Non-Im- 
 
LAW AXD POLITICS IX NEW HAMPSHIRE. 55 
 
 portation Act, and all the crowd of additions and sup- 
 plements, together with all their garniture of messages, 
 reports, and resolutions, are tumbling undistinguished 
 into one common grave. But yesterday this policy had 
 a thousand friends and supporters ; to-day it is fallen 
 and prostrate, and few ‘ so poor as to do it reverence.’ 
 Sir, a government which cannot administer the affairs of 
 a nation without so frequent and such violent alterations 
 in the ordinary occupations and pursuits of private life, 
 has, in my opinion, little claim to the regard of the com- 
 munity.” 
 
 All this is very characteristic of Mr. Webster’s 
 temperament in dealing with public affairs, and is 
 a very good example of his power of dignified re- 
 proach and condemnation. 
 
 Mr. Calhoun had said at the close of his speech, 
 that the repeal of the restrictive measures should 
 not be allowed to affect the double duties which 
 protected manufactures. Mr. Webster discussed 
 this point at length, defining his own position, 
 which was that of the New England Federalists, 
 who believed in free trade as an abstract princi- 
 ple, and considered protection only as an expedi- 
 ent of which they wanted as little as possible. 
 Mr. Webster set forth these views in his usual 
 effective and lucid manner, but they can be con- 
 sidered more fitly at the period when he dealt 
 with the tariff as a leading issue of the day and of 
 his own public life. 
 
 Mr. Webster took no further action of impor- 
 
56 
 
 DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 tance at this session, not even participating in the 
 great debate on the loan bill ; but, by the manner 
 in which these two speeches were referred to and 
 quoted in Congress for many daj's after they were 
 delivered, we can perceive the depth of their first 
 impression. I have dwelt upon them at length 
 because they are not in the collected edition of 
 his speeches, where they well deserve a place, 
 and, still more, because they are the first exam- 
 ples of his parliamentary eloquence which show 
 his characteristic qualities and the action of his 
 mind. Mr. Webster was a man of slow growth, 
 not reaching his highest point until he was nearly 
 fifty years of age, but these two speeches mark an 
 advanced stage in his progress. The only fresh 
 point that he made was when he declared that the 
 embargo was colonial in spirit ; and this thought 
 proceeded from the vital principle of Mr. Webster’s 
 public life, his intense love for nationality and 
 union, which grew with his growth and strength- 
 ened with his strength. In other respects, these 
 speeches presented simply the arguments and opin- 
 ions of his party. They fell upon the ear of Con- 
 gress and the country with a new and ringing 
 sound because they were stated so finely and with 
 such simplicity. Certainly one of them, and prob- 
 ably both, were delivered without any immediate 
 preparation, but they really had the preparation of 
 years, and were the utterance of thoughts which had 
 been garnei’ed up by long meditation. He wisely 
 
LAW AND POLITICS IN NEW HAMPSHIRE. 57 
 
 confined himself at this time to a subject which had 
 been long before his mind, and upon which he had 
 gathered all the essential points by observation 
 and by a study of the multitude of speeches and 
 essays with which the country had been deluged. 
 These early speeches, like some of the best of 
 his prime, although nominally unprepared, were 
 poured forth from the overflowing resources which 
 had been the fruit of months of reflection, and 
 which had been stored up by an unyielding mem- 
 ory. They had really been in preparation ever 
 since the embargo pamphlet of 1808, and that was 
 one reason for their ripeness and terseness, for 
 their easy flow and condensed force. I have ex- 
 amined with care the debates in that Congress. 
 There were many able and experienced speakers 
 on the floor. Mr. Clay, it is true, took no part, 
 and early in the session went to Europe. But 
 Mr. Calhoun led in debate, and there were many 
 others second only to him. Among all the speeches, 
 however, Mr. Webster’s stand out in sharp relief. 
 His utterances were as clear and direct as those 
 of Mr. Calhoun, but they had none of the South 
 Carolinian’s dryness. We can best judge of their 
 merit and their effect by comparing them with 
 those of his associates. They were not only forci- 
 ble, but they were vivid also and full of life, and his 
 words when he was roused fell like the blows of 
 a hammer on an anvil. They lacked the polish and 
 richness of his later efforts, but the force and power 
 
58 
 
 DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 \ 
 
 of statement and the purity of diction were all 
 there, and men began to realize that one destined 
 to great achievements had entered the field of 
 American politics. 
 
 This was very appai’ent when Mr. Webster came 
 back to Washington for the extra session called in 
 September, 1814. Although he had made previ- 
 ously but two set speeches, and had taken compar- 
 atively little part in every-day debate, he was now 
 acknowledged, after his few months of service, to 
 be one of the foremost men in the House, and the 
 strongest leader in his party. He differed some- 
 what at this time from the prevailing sentiment of 
 the Federalists in New England, for the guiding 
 principle of his life, his love of nationality, over- 
 rode all other influences. He discountenanced the 
 measures which led to the Hartford Convention, 
 and he helped to keep New Hampshire out of that 
 movement ; but it is an entire mistake to represent 
 him as an independent Federalist at this period. 
 The days of Mr. Webster’s independent politics 
 came later, when the Federalists had ceased to 
 exist as a party and when no new ties had been 
 formed. In the winter of 1814 and 1815, although, 
 like many of the moderate Federalists, he disap- 
 proved of the separatist movement in New Eng- 
 land, on all other party questions he acted con- 
 sistently with the straitest of the sect. Sensibly 
 enough, he did not consider the convention at 
 Hartford, although he had nothing to do with 
 
LAW AND POLITICS IN NEW HAMPSHIRE. 59 
 
 it, either treasonable or seditions ; and yet, much 
 as he disliked its supposed purposes, he did not 
 hesitate, in a speech on the Enlistment Bill, to use 
 them as a threat to deter the administration from 
 war measures. This was a favorite Federalist 
 practice, gloomily to point out at this time the 
 gathering clouds of domestic strife, in order to 
 turn the administration back from war, that poor 
 frightened administration of Mr. Madison, which 
 had for months been clutching frantically at every 
 sti'aw which seemed to promise a chance of peace. 
 
 But although Mr. Webster went as steadily and 
 even more strongly with his party in this session, 
 he did more and better service than ever before, 
 partly, perhaps, because on the questions which 
 arose, his party was, in the main, entirely right. 
 The strength of his party feeling is shown by his 
 attitude in regard to the war taxes, upon which 
 made a quiet but effective speech. He took the 
 ground that, as a member of the minority, he could 
 not prevent the taxes nor stop hostilities, but he 
 could protest against the war, its conduct, and its 
 authors, by voting against the taxes. There is a 
 nice question of political ethics here as to how far 
 an opposition ought to go in time of national war 
 and distress, but it is certainly impossible to give 
 a more extreme expression to parliamentary oppo- 
 sition than to refuse the supplies at a most critical 
 moment in a severe conflict. To this last extreme 
 of party opposition to the administration, Mr. 
 
60 
 
 DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 Webster went. It was as far as he could go and 
 remain loyal to the Union. But there he stopped 
 absolutely. With the next step, which went out- 
 side the Union, and which his friends at home 
 were considering, he would have nothing to do, 
 and he would not countenance any separatist 
 schemes. In the national Congress, however, he 
 was prepared to advance as far as the boldest and 
 bitterest in opposition, and he either voted against 
 the war taxes or abstained from voting on them, 
 in company with the strictest partisans of the 
 Pickering type. 
 
 There is no need to suppose from this that Mr. 
 Webster had lost in the least the liberality or 
 breadth of view which always characterized him. 
 He was no narrower then than when he entered 
 Congress, or than when he left it. He went with 
 hi§ party because he believed it to be right, — as 
 at that moment it undoubtedly was. The party, 
 however, was still extreme and bitter, as it had 
 been for ten years, but Mr. Webster was neither. 
 He went all lengths with his friends in Con- 
 gress, but he did not share their intensity of feel- 
 ing or their fierce hostility to individuals. The 
 Federalists, for instance, as a rule had ceased to 
 ' call upon Mr. Madison, but in such intolerance 
 Mr. Webster declined to indulge. He was al- 
 ways on good terms with the President and with 
 all the hostile leaders. His opposition was extreme 
 in principle, but not in manner ; it was vigorous 
 
LAW AND POLITICS IN NEW HAMPSHIRE. 61 
 
 and uncompromising, but also stately and dignified. 
 It was part of bis large and indolent nature to ac- 
 cept much and question little ; to take the ideas 
 most easy and natural to him, those of his friends 
 and associates, and of his native New England, 
 without needless inquiry and investigation. It 
 was part of the same nature, also, to hold liberal 
 views after he had fairly taken sides, and never, by 
 confounding individuals with principles and pur- 
 poses, to import into politics the fiery, biting ele- 
 ment of personal hatred and malice. 
 
 His position in the House once assured, we find 
 Mr. Webster taking a much more active part in 
 the daily debates than before. On these occa- 
 sions we hear of his “ deliberate, conversational ” 
 manner, another of the lessons learned from Mr. 
 Mason when that gentleman, standing so close to 
 the jury-box that he could have “ laid his finger on 
 the foreman’s nose,” as Mr. Webster said, chatted 
 easily with each juryman, and won a succession 
 of verdicts. But besides the daily debate, Mr. 
 Webster spoke at length on several important oc- 
 casions. This was the case with the Enlistment 
 Bill, which involved a forced draft, including 
 minors, and was deemed unconstitutional by the 
 Federalists. Mr. Webster had “ a hand,” as he 
 puts it, — a strong one, we may be sure, — in kill- 
 ing “ Mr. Monroe’s conscription.” 
 
 The most important measure, however, with 
 which Mr. Webster was called to deal, and to which 
 
62 
 
 DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 lie gave liis best efforts, was the attempt to establish 
 a national bank. There were three parties in the 
 House on this question. The first represented the 
 “ old Republican ” doctrines, and was opposed to 
 any bank. The second represented the theories of 
 Hamilton and the Federalists, and favored a bank 
 with a reasonable capital, specie-paying, and free 
 to decide about making loans to the government. 
 The third body was composed of members of the 
 national war-party, who were eager for a bank 
 merely to help the government out of its appall- 
 ing difficulties. They, therefore, favored an insti- 
 tution of large capital, non-specie-paying, and 
 obliged to make heavy loans to the government, 
 which involved, of course, an irredeemable paper 
 currency. In a word, there was the party of no 
 bank, the party of a specie bank, and the party of 
 a huge paper-money bank. The second of these 
 parties, with which of course Mr. Webster acted, 
 held the key of the situation. No bank could be 
 established unless it was based on their princi- 
 ples. The first bill, proposing a paper-money 
 bank, originated in the House, and was killed 
 there by a strong majority, Mr. Webster making 
 a long speech against it which has not been pre- 
 served. The next bill came from the Senate, and 
 was also for a paper-money bank. Against this 
 scheme Mr. Webster made a second elaborate 
 speech, which is reprinted in his works. His 
 genius for arranging and stating facts held its full 
 
LAW AND POLITICS IN NEW HAMPSHIRE. 63 
 
 strength in questions of finance, and he now es- 
 tablished his reputation as a master in that diffi- 
 cult department of statesmanship. His recent 
 studies of economical questions in late English 
 works and in English history gave freshness to 
 what he said, and in clearness of argument, in 
 range of view, and wisdom of judgment, he showed 
 himself a worthy disciple of the school of Hamil- 
 ton. His argument proceeded on the truest eco- 
 nomical and commercial principles, and was, in- 
 deed, unanswerable. He then took his stand as 
 the foe of irredeemable paper, whether in war or 
 peace, and of wild, unrestrained banking, a position 
 from which he never wavered, and in suppoi't of 
 which he rendered to the country some of his best 
 service as a public man. The bill was defeated 
 by the casting vote of the Speaker. When the 
 result was announced, Mr. Calhoun was utterly 
 overwhelmed. He cared little for the bank but 
 deeply for the government, which, as it was not 
 known that peace had been made, seemed to be 
 on the verge of ruin. He came over to Mr. Web- 
 ster, and, bursting into tears, begged the latter to 
 aid in establishing a proper bank, a request which 
 was freely granted. 
 
 The vote was then reconsidered, the bill recom- 
 mitted and brought back, with a reduced capital, 
 and freed from the government power to force 
 loans and suspend specie payments. This meas- 
 ure was passed by a large majority, composed of 
 
64 
 
 DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 the Federalists and the friends of the government, 
 but it was the plan of the former which had pre- 
 vailed. The President vetoed the bill for a vari- 
 ety of reasons, duly stated, but really, as Mr. 
 Webster said, because a sound bank of this sort 
 was not in favor with the administration. An- 
 other paper-money scheme was introduced, and 
 the conflict began again, but was abruptly termi- 
 nated by the news of peace, and on March 4 the 
 thirteenth Congress came to an end. 
 
 The fourteenth Congress, to which he had been 
 reelected, Mr. Webster said many years afterward, 
 was the most remarkable for talents of any he 
 had ever seen. To the leaders of marked ability 
 in the previous Congress, most of whom had 
 been reelected, several others were added. Mr. 
 Clay returned from Europe to take again an ac- 
 tive part. Mr. Pinkney, the most eminent prac- 
 tising lawyer in the country, recently Attorney- 
 General and Minister to England, whom John 
 Randolph, with characteristic insolence, “ believed 
 to be from Maryland,” was there until his ap- 
 pointment to the Russian mission. Last, but not 
 least, there was John Randolph himself, wildly 
 eccentric and venomously eloquent, — sometimes 
 witty, always odd and amusing, talking incessantly 
 on everything, so that the reporters gave him up 
 in despair, and with whom Mr. Webster came to 
 a definite understanding before the close of the 
 session. 
 
LAW AND POLITICS IN NEW HAMPSHIRE. 65 
 
 Mr. Webster did not take liis seat until Feb- 
 ruary, being detained at the North by the illness 
 of his daughter Grace. When he arrived he found 
 Congress at work upon a bank bill possessing the 
 same objectionable features of paper money and 
 large capital as the former schemes which he had 
 helped to overthrow. He began his attack upon 
 this dangerous plan by considering the evil condi- 
 tion of the currency. He showed that the cur- 
 rency of the United States was sound because it 
 was gold and silver, in his opinion the only con- 
 stitutional medium, but that the country was 
 flooded by the irredeemable paper of the state 
 banks. Congress could not regulate the state 
 banks, but they could force them to specie pay- 
 ments by refusing to receive any notes which were 
 not paid in specie by the bank which issued them. 
 Passing to the pi’oposed national bank, he reiter- 
 ated the able arguments which he had made in 
 the previous Congress against the large capital, 
 the power to suspend specie payments, and the 
 stock feature of the bank, which he thought would 
 lead to speculation and control by the state banks. 
 This last point is the first, instance of that finan- 
 cial foresight for'which Mr. Webster was so re- 
 markable, and which shows so plainly the sound- 
 ness of his knowledge in regard to economical 
 matters. A violent speculation in bank stock did 
 ensue, and the first years of the new institution 
 were troubled, disorderly, and anything but cred- 
 5 
 
66 
 
 DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 ifcable. The opposition of Mr. Webster and those 
 who thought with him, resulted in the reduction 
 of the capital and the removal of the power to 
 suspend specie payments. But although shorn of 
 its most obnoxious features, Mr. Webster voted 
 against the bill on its final passage on account of the 
 participation permitted to the government in its 
 management. He was quite right, but, after the 
 bank was well established, he supported it as Lord 
 Thurlow promised to do in regard to the dissent- 
 er’s religion. Indeed, Mr. Webster ultimately 
 so far lost his original dislike to this bank that 
 he became one of its warmest adherents. The 
 plan was defective, but the scheme, on the whole, 
 worked better than had been expected. 
 
 Immediately after the passage of the bank bill, 
 Mr. Calhoun introduced a bill requiring the rev- 
 enue to be collected in lawful money of the United 
 States. A sharp debate ensued, and the bill was 
 lost. Mr. Webster at once offered resolutions re- 
 quiring all government dues to be paid in coin, 
 in Treasury notes, or in notes of the Bank of the 
 United States. He supported these resolutions, 
 thus daringly put forward just after the princi- 
 ple they involved had been voted down, in a speech 
 of singular power, clear, convincing, and full of 
 information and illustration. He elaborated the 
 ideas contained in his previous remarks on the 
 currency, displaying with great force the evils of 
 irredeemable paper, and the absolute necessity of 
 
LAW AND POLITICS IN NEW HAMPSHIRE. 67 
 
 a sound currency based on specie payments. He 
 won a signal victory by the passage of bis resolu- 
 tions, which brought about resumption, and, after 
 the bank was firmly established, gave us a sound 
 currency and a safe medium of exchange. This 
 was one of the most conspicuous services ever 
 rendered by Mr. Webster to the business interests 
 and good government of the country, and he de- 
 serves the full credit, for he triumphed where 
 Mr. Calhoun had just been defeated. 
 
 Mr. Webster took more or less part in all the 
 questions which afterwards arose in the House, 
 especially on the tariff, but his great efforts were 
 those devoted to the bank and the currency. The 
 only other incident of the session was an invitation 
 to fight a duel sent him by John Randolph. This 
 was the only challenge ever received by Mr. Web- 
 ster. He never could have seemed a very happy 
 subject for such missives, and, moreover, he never 
 indulged in language calculated to provoke them. 
 Randolph, however, would have challenged any- 
 body or anything, from Henry Clay to a field- 
 mouse, if the fancy happened to strike him. Mr. 
 Webster’s reply is a model of dignity and veiled 
 contempt. He refused to admit Randolph’s right 
 to an explanation, alluded to that gentleman’s 
 lack of com*tesy in the House, denied his right to 
 call him out, and wound up by saying that he 
 did not feel bound to risk his life at any one’s 
 bidding, but should “ always be prepared to repel, 
 
68 
 
 DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 in a suitable manner, tbe aggression of any man 
 who may presume on this refusal.” One cannot 
 help smiling over this last clause, with its sugges- 
 tion of personal violence, as the two men rise be- 
 fore the fancy, — the big, swarthy black-haired 
 son of the northern hills, with his robust com- 
 mon sense, and the sallow, lean, sickly Virginia 
 planter, not many degrees removed mentally from 
 the patients in Bedlam. 
 
 In the affairs of the next session of the four- 
 teenth Congress Mr. Webster took scarcely any 
 part. He voted for Mr. Calhoun’s internal im- 
 provement bill, although without entering the de- 
 bate, and he also voted to pass the bill over Mr. 
 Madison’s veto. This was sound Hamiltonian 
 Federalism, and in entire consonance with the na- 
 tional sentiments of Mr. Webster. On the con- 
 stitutional point, which he is said to have exam- 
 ined with some care, he decided in accordance 
 with the opinions of his party, and with the doc- 
 trine of liberal construction, to which he always 
 adhered. 
 
 On March 4, 1817, the fourteenth Congress 
 expired, and with it the term of Mr. Webster’s 
 service. Five years were to intervene before he 
 again appeared in the arena of national politics. 
 This retirement from active public life was due 
 to professional reasons. In nine years Mr. Web- 
 ster had attained to the very summit of his pro- 
 fession in New Hampshire. He was earning two 
 
LAW AND POLITICS IN NEW HAMPSHIRE. 69 
 
 thousand dollars a year, and in that hardy and 
 poor community he could not hope to earn more. 
 To a man with such great and productive tal- 
 ents, and with a growing family, a larger field 
 had become an absolute necessity. In June, 1816, 
 therefore, Mr. Webster removed from Portsmouth 
 to Boston. That he gained by the change is ap- 
 parent from the fact that the first year after his 
 removal his professional income did not fall short 
 of twenty thousand dollars. The first suggestion 
 of the possibilities of wealth offered to his abili- 
 ties in a suitable field came from his going to 
 Washington. There, in the winter of 1813 and 
 1814, he was admitted to the bar of the Supreme 
 Court of the United States, before which he tried 
 two or three cases, and this opened the vista of a 
 professional career, which he felt would give him 
 verge and room enough, as well as fit remunera- 
 tion. From this beginning the Supreme Court 
 practice, which soon led to the removal to Boston, 
 rapidly increased, until, in the last session of his 
 term, it occupied most of his time. This with- 
 drawal from the duties of Congress, however, was 
 not due to a sacrifice of his time to his profes- 
 sional engagements, but to the depression caused 
 by his first great grief, which must have rendered 
 the noise and dust rf debate .most distasteful to 
 him. Mr. and Mrs. Webster had arrived in 
 Washington for this last session, in December, 
 1816 , and were recalled to Boston by the illness 
 
70 
 
 DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 of their little daughter Grace, who was their old- 
 est child, singularly bright and precocious, with 
 much of her father's look and talent, and of her 
 mother’s sensibility. She was a favorite with her 
 father, and tenderly beloved by him. After her 
 parents’ return she sank rapidly, the victim of 
 consumption. When the last hour was at hand, 
 the child, rousing from sleep, asked for her father. 
 He came, raised her upon his arm, and, as he did 
 so, she smiled upon him and died. It is a little 
 incident in the life of a great man, but a child’s 
 instinct does not err at such a moment, and her 
 dying smile sheds a flood of soft light upon the 
 deep and warm affections of Mr. Webster’s sol- 
 emn and reserved nature. It was the first great 
 grief. Mr. W ebster wept convulsively as he stood 
 beside the dead, and those who saw that stately 
 creature so wrung by anguish of the heart never 
 forgot the sight. 
 
 Thus the period which began at Portsmouth in 
 1807 closed in Boston, in 1817, with the death of 
 the eldest born. In that decade Mr. Webster had 
 advanced with great strides from the position of 
 a raw and youthful lawyer in a back country town 
 of New Hampshire. He had reached the highest 
 professional eminence in his own State, and had 
 removed to a wider sphere, where he at once took 
 rank with the best lawyers. He was a leading 
 practitioner in the highest national court. During 
 his two terms in Congress he had become a leader 
 
LAW AND POLITICS IN NEW HAMPSHIRE. 71 
 
 of bis party, and had won a solid national reputa- 
 tion. In those years he had rendered conspicuous 
 service to the business interests of the nation, and 
 had established himself as one of the ablest states- 
 men of the country in matters of finance. He 
 had defined his position on the tariff as a free- 
 trader in theory and a very moderate protection- 
 ist when protection was unavoidable, a true repre- 
 sentative of the doctrine of the New England 
 Federalists. He had taken up his ground as the 
 champion of specie payments and of the liberal 
 interpretation of the Constitution, which author- 
 ized internal improvements. While he had not 
 shrunk from extreme opposition to the adminis- 
 tration during the war, he had kept himself en- 
 tirely clear from the separatist sentiment of New 
 England in the year 1814. He left Congress with 
 a realizing sense of his own growing powers, and, 
 rejoicing in his strength, he turned to his profes- 
 sion and to his new duties in his new home. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 THE DARTMOUTH COLLEGE CASE. — MR. WEB- 
 STER AS A LAWYER. 
 
 There is a vague tradition that when Mr. 
 Webster took up his residence in Boston, some of 
 the worthies of that ancient Puritan town were 
 disposed at first to treat him rather cavalierly and 
 make him understand that because he was great 
 in New Hampshire it did not follow that he was 
 also great in Massachusetts. They found very 
 quickly, however, that it was worse than useless 
 to attempt anything of this sort with a man who, 
 by his mere look and presence whenever he en- 
 tered a room, drew all eyes to himself and hushed 
 the murmur of conversation. It is certain that 
 Mr. Webster soon found himself the friend and 
 associate of all the agreeable and distinguished 
 men of the town, and that he rapidly acquired that 
 general popularity which, in those days, went with 
 him everywhere. It is also certain that he at 
 once and without effort assumed the highest posi- 
 tion at the bar as the recognized equal of its most 
 eminent leaders. With an income increased ten- 
 fold and promising still further enlargement, a 
 practice in which one fee probably surpassed the 
 
THE DARTMOUTH COLLEGE CASE. 73 
 
 earnings of three months in New Hampshire, with 
 an agreeable society about him, popular abroad, 
 happy and beloved at home, nothing could have 
 been more auspicious than these opening years of 
 his life in Boston. 
 
 The period upon which he then entered, and 
 during which he withdrew from active public ser- 
 vice to devote himself to his profession, was a 
 very important one in his career. It was a period 
 marked by a rapid intellectual growth and by the 
 first exhibition of his talents on a large scale. It 
 embraces, moreover, two events, landmarks in the 
 life of Mr. Webster, which placed him before the 
 country as one of the first and the most eloquent 
 of her constitutional lawyers, and as the great 
 master in the art of occasional oratory. The first 
 of these events was the argument in the Dart- 
 mouth College case ; the second was the delivery 
 of the Plymouth oration. 
 
 I do not propose to enter into or discuss the 
 merits or demerits of the constitutional and legal 
 theories and principles involved in the famous 
 “ college causes,” or in any other of the great 
 cases subsequently argued by Mr. Webster. In a 
 biography of this kind it is sufficient to examine 
 Mr. Webster’s connection with the Dartmouth 
 College case, and endeavor, by a study of his argu- 
 ments in that and in certain other hardly less im- 
 portant causes, to estimate properly the character 
 and quality of his abilities as a lawyer, both in 
 
74 
 
 DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 the ordinary acceptation of the term and in deal- 
 ing with constitutional questions. 
 
 The complete history of the Dartmouth Col- 
 lege case is very curious and deserves more than a 
 passing notice. Until within three years it is not 
 too much to say that it was quite unknown, and 
 its condition is but little better now. In 1879 Mr. 
 John M. Shirley published a volume entitled the 
 “ Dartmouth College Causes,” which is a mon- 
 ument of careful study and thorough research. 
 Most persons would conclude that it was a work 
 of merely legal interest, appealing to a limited 
 class of professional readers. Even those into 
 whose hands it chanced to come have . probably 
 been deterred from examining it as it deserves by 
 the first chapter, which is very obscure, and by 
 the confusion of the narrative which follows. Yet 
 this monograph, which has so unfortunately suf- 
 fered from a defective arrangement of material, is 
 of very great value, not only to our legal and con- 
 stitutional history, but to the political history of 
 the time and to a knowledge of the distinguished 
 actors in a series of events which resulted in the 
 establishment of one of the most far-reaching of 
 constitutional doctrines, one that has been a living 
 question ever since the year 1819, and is at this 
 moment of vast practical importance. Mr. Shir- 
 ley has drawn forth from the oblivion of manu- 
 script a collection of documents which, taken in 
 conjunction with those already in print, throws a 
 
THE DARTMOUTH COLLEGE CASE. 
 
 75 
 
 flood of light upon a dark place of the past and 
 gives to a dry constitutional question the vital and 
 human interest of political and personal history. 
 
 In his early days, Eleazer Wheelock, the founder 
 of Dartmouth College, had had much religious 
 controversy with Dr. Bellamy of Connecticut, who 
 was like himself a graduate of Yale. Wheelock 
 was a Presbyterian and a liberal, Bellamy a Con- 
 gregationalist and strictly orthodox. The charter 
 of Dartmouth was free from any kind of religious 
 discrimination. By his will the elder Wheelock 
 provided in such a way that his son succeeded 
 him in the presidency of the college. In 1793 
 Judge Niles, a pupil of Bellamy, became a trustee 
 of the college, and he and John Wheelock repre- 
 sented the opposite views which they respectively 
 inherited from tutor and father. They were 
 formed for mutual hostility, and the contest be- 
 gan some twelve years before it reached the pub- 
 lic. The trustees and the president were then all 
 Federalists, and there would seem to have been 
 no differences of either a political or a religious 
 nature. The trouble arose from the resistance of 
 a minority of the trustees to what they termed 
 the “ family dynasty.” Wheelock, however, main- 
 tained his ascendency until 1809, when his ene- 
 mies obtained a majority in the board of trustees, 
 and thereafter admitted tio friend of the president 
 to the government, and used every effort to sub- 
 due the dominant dynasty. 
 
76 
 
 DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 In New Hampshire, at that period, the Federal- 
 ists were the ruling party, and the Congregational- 
 ists formed the state church. The people were, in 
 practice, taxed to support Congregational churches, 
 and the clergy of that denomination were ex- 
 empted from taxation. All the Congregational 
 ministers were stanch Federalists and most of 
 their parishioners were of the same party. The 
 college, the only seat of learning in the State, was 
 one of the Federalist and Congregational strong- 
 holds. 
 
 After several years of fruitless and bitter con- 
 flict, the Wheelock party, in 1815, brought their 
 grievances before the public in an elaborate pam- 
 phlet. This led to a rejoinder and a war of 
 pamphlets ensued, which was soon transferred to 
 the newspapers, and created a great sensation and 
 a profound interest. Wheelock now contemplated 
 legal proceedings. Mr. Plumer was in ill health, 
 Judge Smith and Mr. Mason were allied with the 
 trustees, and the president therefore went to Mr. 
 Webster, consulted him professionally, paid him, 
 and obtained a promise of his future services. 
 About the time of this consultation, Wheelock 
 'Sent a memorial to the Legislature, charging the 
 trustees with misapplication of the funds, and va- 
 rious breaches of trust, religious intolerance, and 
 a violation of the charter in their attacks upon 
 the presidential office, and prayed for a commit- 
 tee of investigation. The trustees met him boldly 
 
THE DARTMOUTH COLLEGE CASE. 77 
 
 and offered a sturdy resistance, denying all the 
 charges, especially that of religious intolerance ; 
 but the committee was voted by a large majority. 
 On August 5th, Wheelock, as soon as he learned 
 that the committee was to have a hearing, wrote 
 to Mr. Webster, reminding him of their consulta- 
 tion, inclosing a fee of twenty dollars, and asking 
 him to appear before the committee. Mr. Web- 
 ster did not come, and Wheelock had to go on as 
 best he could without him. One of Wheelock’s 
 friends, Mr. Dunham, wrote a very indignant let- 
 ter to Mr. Webster on his failure to appear ; to 
 which Mr. Webster replied that he had seen 
 Wheelock and they had contemplated a suit in 
 court, but that at the time of the hearing he was 
 otherwise engaged, and moreover that he did not 
 regard a summons to appear before a legislative 
 committee as a professional call, adding that he was 
 by no means sure that the president was wholly 
 in the right. The truth was, that many of Mr. 
 Webster’s strongest personal and political friends, 
 and most of the leaders with whom he was associ- 
 ated in the control of the Federalist party, were 
 either trustees themselves or closely allied with 
 the trustees. In the interval between the consul- 
 tation with Wheelock and the committee hearing, 
 these friends and leaders saw Mr. Webster, and 
 pointed out to him that he must not desert them, 
 and that this college controversy was fast develop- 
 ing into a party question. Mr. Webster was con- 
 
78 
 
 DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 ^/vinced, and abandoned Wheelock, making, as has 
 been seen, a very unsatisfactory explanation of his 
 conduct. In this way he finally parted company 
 with Wheelock, and was thereafter irrevocably 
 engaged on the side of the trustees. 
 
 Events now moved rapidly. The trustees, with- 
 out heeding the advice of Mr. Mason to delay, 
 removed Wheelock from the presidency, and ap- 
 pointed in his place the Rev. Francis Brown. 
 This fanned the flame of popular excitement, and 
 such a defiance of the legislative committee threw 
 the whole question into politics. As Mr. Mason 
 had foreseen when he warned the trustees against 
 hasty action, all the Democrats, all members of 
 sects other than the Congregational, and all free- 
 thinkers generally, were united against the trus- 
 tees, and consequently against the Federalists. 
 The election came on. Wheelock, who was a 
 Federalist, went over to the enemy, carrying his 
 friends with him, and Mr. Plumer, the Democratic 
 candidate, was elected Governor, together with a 
 Democratic Legislature. Mr. Webster perceived 
 once that the trustees were in a bad position. 
 He advised that every effort should be made to 
 soothe the Democrats, and that the purpose of 
 founding a new college should be noised abroad, 
 in order to create alarm. Strategy, however, was 
 vain. Governor Plumer declared against the trus- 
 tees in his message, and the Legislature in June, 
 1816, despite every sort of protest and remon- 
 
THE DARTMOUTH COLLEGE CASE. 79 
 
 strance, passed an act to reorganize the college, 
 and virtually to place it within the control of the 
 State. The Governor and council at once pro- 
 ceeded to choose trustees and overseers under the 
 new law, and among those thus selected was Jo- 
 seph Story of Massachusetts. 
 
 Both boards of trustees assembled. The old 
 hoard turned out Judge Woodward, their secre- 
 tary, who was a friend to Wheelock and secretary 
 also of the new board, and, receiving a thousand 
 dollars from a friend of one of the professors, re- 
 solved to fight. President Brown I’efused to obey 
 the summons of the new trustees, who expelled 
 the old board by resolution. Thereupon the old 
 board brought suit against Woodward for the col- 
 lege seal and other property, and the case came 
 on for trial in May, 1817. Mr. Mason and Judge 
 Smith appeared for the college, George Sullivan 
 and Ichabod Bartlett for Woodward and the state 
 board. The case was argued and then went over 
 to the September term of the same year, at Exe- 
 ter, when Mason and Smith were joined by Mr. 
 W ebster. 
 
 The cause was then argued again on both sides 
 and with signal ability. In point of talent the 
 counsel for the college were vastly superior to their 
 opponents, but Sullivan and Bartlett were never- 
 theless strong men and thoroughly prepared. Sul- 
 livan was a good lawyer and a fluent and ready 
 speaker, with great power of illustration. Bart- 
 
80 
 
 DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 lett was a shrewd, hard-headed man, very keen 
 and incisive, and one whom it was impossible to 
 outwit or deceive. He indulged, in his argument, 
 in some severe reflections upon Mr. Webster’s 
 conduct toward Wheelock, which so much incensed 
 Mr. Webster that he referred to Mr. Bartlett’s 
 argument in a most contemptuous way, and stren- 
 uously opposed the publication of the remarks 
 “ personal or injurious to counsel.” 
 
 The weight of the argument for the college fell 
 upon Mason and Smith, who spoke for two and 
 four hours respectively. Sullivan and Bartlett 
 occupied three hours, and the next day Mr. Web- 
 ster closed for the plaintiffs in a speech of two 
 hours. Mr. Webster spoke with great force, go- 
 ing evidently beyond the limits of legal argument, 
 and winding up with a splendid sentimental ap- 
 peal which drew tears from the crowd in the Exe- 
 ter court-room, and which he afterwards used in 
 an elaborated form and with similar effect before 
 the Supreme Court at Washington. 
 
 It now becomes necessary to state briefly the 
 points at issue in this case, which were all fully 
 argued by the counsel on both sides. Mr. Ma- 
 son’s brief, which really covered the whole case, 
 was that the acts of the Legislature were not ob- 
 ligatory, 1, because they were not within the gen- 
 eral scope of legislative power ; 2, because they 
 violated certain provisions of the Constitution of 
 New Hampshire restraining legislative power; 3, 
 
TEE DARTMOUTH COLLEGE CASE. 81 
 
 because they violated the Constitution of the 
 United States. In Farrar’s report of Mason’s 
 speech, twenty-three pages are devoted to the first 
 point, eight to the second, and six to the third. 
 In other words, the third point, involving the 
 great constitutional doctrine on which the case was 
 finally decided at Washington, the doctrine that 
 the Legislature, by its acts, had impaired the ob- 
 ligation of a contract, was passed over lightly. 
 In so doing Mr. Mason was not alone. Neither he 
 nor Judge Smith nor Mr. Webster nor the court 
 nor the counsel on the other side, attached much 
 importance to this point. Curiously enough, the 
 theory had been originated many years before, by 
 Wheelock himself, at a time when he expected 
 that the minority of the trustees would invoke the 
 aid of the Legislature against him, and his idea 
 had been remembered. It was revived at the 
 time of the newspaper controversy, and was 
 pressed upon the attention of the trustees and 
 upon that of their counsel. But the lawyers at- 
 tached little weight to the suggestion, although 
 they introduced it and argued it briefly. Mason, 
 Smith, and Webster all relied for success on the 
 ground covered by the first point in Mason’s 
 brief. This is called by Mr. Shirley the “ Bar- 
 gons view,” from the fact that it was largely 
 drawn from an argument made by Chief Justice 
 Parsons in regard to visitatorial powers at Har- 
 vard College. Briefly stated, the argument was 
 6 
 
82 
 
 DANIEL WEBSTER.. 
 
 that the college was an institution founded by pri- 
 vate persons for particular uses ; that the charter 
 was given to perpetuate such uses ; that miscon- 
 duct of the trustees was a question for the courts, 
 and that the Legislature, by its interference, 
 transcended its powers. To these general prin- 
 ciples, sti’engthened by particular clauses in the 
 Constitution of New Hampshire, the counsel for 
 the college trusted for victory. The theory of im- 
 pairing the obligation of contracts they introduced, 
 but they did not insist on it, or hope for much 
 from it. On this point, however, and, of course, 
 on this alone, the case went up to the Supreme 
 Court. In December, 1817, Mr. Webster wrote 
 to Mr. Mason, regretting that the case went up 
 on “one point only.” He occupied himself at 
 this time in devising cases which should raise 
 what he considered the really vital points, and 
 which, coming within the jurisdiction of the 
 United States, could be taken to the Circuit 
 Court, and thence to the Supreme Court at Wash- 
 ington. These cases, in accordance with his sug- 
 gestion, were begun, but before they came on 
 in the Circuit Court, Mr. Webster made his great 
 effort in Washington. Three quarters of his le- 
 gal argument were there devoted to the points 
 in the Circuit Court cases, which were not in any 
 way before the Supreme Court in the College 
 vs. Woodward. So little, indeed, did Mr. Web- 
 ster think of the great constitutional question 
 
THE DARTMOUTH COLLEGE CASE. 83 
 
 which has made the case famous, that he forced 
 the other points in where he admitted that they 
 had no proper standing, and argued them at 
 length. They were touched upon by Marshall, 
 who, however, decided wholly upon the constitu- 
 tional question, and they were all thrown aside 
 by Judge Washington, who declared them irrele- 
 vant, and rested his decision solely and properly 
 on the constitutional point. Two months after his 
 Washington argument, Mr. Webster, still ui’ging 
 forward the Circuit Court cases, wrote to Mr. 
 Mason that all the questions must be brought 
 properly before the Supreme Court, and that, on 
 the “ general principle ” that the State Legisla- 
 ture could not divest vested rights, strengthened 
 by the constitutional provisions of New Hamp- 
 shire, he was sure they could defeat their adver- 
 saries. Thus this doctrine of “ impairing the 
 obligation of contracts,” which produced a deci- 
 sion in its effects more far-reaching and of more 
 general interest than perhaps any other ever made 
 in this country, was imported into the case at the 
 suggestion of laymen, was little esteemed by coun- 
 sel, and was comparatively neglected in every 
 argument. 
 
 It is necessary to go back now, for a moment, in 
 the history of the case. The New Hampshire 
 court decided against the plaintiffs on every point, 
 and gave a very strong and elaborate judgment, 
 which Mr. Webster acknowledged was “ able. 
 
84 
 
 DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 plausible, and ingenious.” After ranch -wrang- 
 ling, the counsel agreed on a special verdict, and 
 took the case up on a writ of error to the Supreme 
 Court. Mason and Smith were unable or unwill- 
 ing to go to Washington, and the case was in- 
 trusted to Mr. Webster, who secured the assistance 
 of Mr. Joseph Hopkinson of Philadelphia. The 
 case for the State, hitherto ably managed, was now 
 confided to Mr. John Holmes of Maine, and Mr. 
 Wirt, the Attorney-General, who handled it very 
 badly. Holmes, an active, fluent Democratic pol- 
 itician, made a noisy, rhetorical, political speech, 
 which pleased his opponents and disgusted his 
 clients and their friends. Mr. Wirt, loaded with 
 business cares of every sort, came into court quite 
 unprepared, and endeavored to make up for his 
 deficiencies by declamation. On the other side the 
 case was managed with consummate skill. Hop- 
 kinson was a sound lawyer, and, being thoroughly 
 prepared, made a good legal ai’gument. The bur- 
 den of the conflict was, however, borne by Mr. 
 Webster, who was more interested personally 
 than professionally, and who, having raised money 
 in Boston to defray the expenses of the suit, came 
 into the arena at Washington armed to the teeth, 
 and in the full lustre of his great powers. 
 
 The case was heard on March 10, 1818, and 
 was opened by Mr. Webster. He had studied the 
 arguments of his adversaries below, and the vig- 
 orous hostile opinion of the New Hampshire 
 
THE DARTMOUTH COLLEGE CASE. 85 
 
 judges. He was in possession of the thorough 
 argument emanating from the penetrating mind 
 of Mr. Mason and fortified and extended by the 
 ample learning and judicial wisdom of Judge 
 Smith. To the work of his eminent associates he 
 could add nothing more than one not very impor- 
 tant point, and a few cases which his far-ranging 
 and retentive memory supplied. All the notes, 
 minutes, and arguments of Smith and Mason were 
 in his hands. It is only just to say that Mr. 
 Webster tells all this himself, and that he gives 
 all credit to his colleagues, whose arguments he 
 says “ he clumsily put together,” and of which he 
 adds that he could only be the reciter. The fac- 
 ulty of obtaining and using the valuable work of 
 other men, one of the characteristic qualities of a 
 high and commanding order of mind, was even 
 then strong in Mr. Webster. But in that bright pe- 
 riod of early manhood it was accompanied by a 
 frank and generous acknowledgment of all and 
 more than all the intellectual aid he received from 
 others. He truly and properly awarded to Ma- 
 son and Smith all the credit for the law and for 
 the legal points and theories set forth on their 
 side, and modestly says that he was merely the 
 arranger and reciter of other men’s thoughts. 
 But how much that arrangement and recitation 
 meant ! There were, perhaps, no lawyers better 
 fitted than Mason and Smith to examine a case 
 and prepare an argument enriched with everything 
 
86 
 
 DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 that learning and sagacity could suggest. But 
 when Mr. Webster burst upon the court and the 
 nation with this great appeal, it was certain that 
 there was no man in the land who could so ar- 
 range arguments and facts, who could state them 
 so powerfully and with such a grand and fitting 
 eloquence. 
 
 The legal part of the argument was printed in 
 Farrar’s report and also in Wheaton’s, after it had 
 been carefully revised by Mr. Webster with the 
 arguments of his colleagues before him. This 
 legal and constitutional discussion shows plainly 
 enough Mr. Webster’s easy and firm grasp of facts 
 and principles, and his power of strong, effective, 
 and lucid statement ; but it is in its very nature 
 dry, cold, and lawyer-like. It gives no conception 
 of the glowing vehemence of the delivery, or of 
 those omitted portions of the speech which dealt 
 with matters outside the domain of law, and which 
 were introduced by Mr. Webster with such telling 
 and important results. He spoke for five hours, 
 but in the printed report his speech occupies only 
 three pages more than that of Mr. Mason in the 
 court below. Both were slow speakers, and thus 
 there is a great difference in time to be accounted 
 for, even after making every allowance for the per- 
 oration which we have from another source, and 
 for the wealth of legal and historical illustration 
 with which Mr. Webster amplified his presenta- 
 tion of the question. “ Something was left out,” 
 
THE DARTMOUTH COLLEGE CASE. 87 
 
 Mr. Webster says, and that something which must 
 have occupied in its delivery nearly an hour was 
 the most conspicuous example of the general- 
 ship by which Mr. Webster achieved victory, and 
 which was wholly apart from his law. This art 
 of management had already been displayed in the 
 treatment of the cases made up for the Circuit 
 Courts, and in the elaborate and irrelevant legal 
 discussion which Mr. Webster introduced before 
 the Supreme Court. But this management now 
 entered on a much higher stage, where it was des- 
 tined to win victory, and exhibited in a high 
 degree tact and knowledge of men. Mr. Webster 
 was fully aware that he could rely, in any aspect 
 of the case, upon the sympathy of Marshall and 
 Washington. He was equally certain of the un- 
 yielding opposition of Duvall and Todd ; the 
 other three judges, Johnson, Livingston, and 
 Story, were known to be adverse to the college, 
 but were possible converts. The first point was 
 to increase the sympathy of the Chief Justice to an 
 eager and even passionate support. Mr. Webster 
 knew the chord to strike, and he touched it with 
 a master hand. This was the “ something left 
 out,” of which we know the general drift, and we 
 can easily imagine the effect. In the midst of all 
 the legal and constitutional arguments, relevant 
 and irrelevant, even in the pathetic appeal which 
 he used so well in behalf of his Alma Mater, Mr. 
 Webster boldly and yet skilfully introduced the 
 
88 
 
 DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 political view of the case. So delicately did he 
 do it that an attentive listener did not realize 
 that he was straying from the field of “ mere rea- 
 son ” into that of political passion. Here no man 
 could equal him or help him, for here his eloquence 
 had full scope, and on this he relied to arouse 
 Marshall, whom he thoroughly understood. In 
 occasional sentences he pictured his beloved col- 
 lege under the wise I’ule of Federalists and of the 
 Church. He depicted the party assault that was 
 made upon her. He showed the citadel of learn- 
 ing threatened with unholy invasion and falling 
 helplessly into the hands of Jacobins and free- 
 thinkers. As the tide of his resistless and solemn 
 eloquence, mingled with his masterly argument, 
 flowed on, we can imagine how the great Chief 
 Justice roused like an old war-horse at the sound 
 of the trumpet. The words of the speaker car- 
 ried him back to the early years of the century, 
 when, in the full flush of manhood, at the head of 
 his court, the last stronghold of Federalism, the 
 last bulwark of sound government, he had faced 
 the power of the triumphant Democrats. Once 
 more it was Marshall against Jefferson, — the 
 judge against the President. Then he had pre- 
 served the ark of the Constitution. Then he had 
 seen the angry waves of popular feeling breaking 
 vainly at his feet. Now, in his old age, the con- 
 flict was revived. Jacobinism was raising its sac- 
 rilegious hand against the temples of learning, 
 
THE DARTMOUTH COLLEGE CASE. 89 
 
 against the friends of order and good government. 
 The joy of battle must have glowed once more in 
 the old man’s breast as he grasped anew his weap- 
 ons aud prepared with all the force of his indom- 
 itable will to raise yet another constitutional bar- 
 rier across the path of his ancient enemies. 
 
 We cannot but feel that Mr. Webster’s lost 
 passages, embodying this political appeal, did the 
 work, and that the result was settled when the 
 political passions of the Chief Justice were fairly 
 aroused. Marshall would probably have brought 
 about the decision by the sole force of his imperi- 
 ous will. But Mr. Webster did a good deal of 
 effective work after the arguments were all fin- 
 ished, and no account of the case would be com- 
 plete without a glance at the famous peroration 
 with which he concluded his speech and in which 
 he boldly flung aside all vestige of legal reasoning, 
 and spoke directly to the passions and emotions 
 of his hearers. 
 
 When he had finished his argument he stood 
 silent for some moments, until every eye was fixed 
 upon him, then, addressing the Chief Justice, he 
 said : — 
 
 “ This, sir, is my case. It is the case not merely of 
 that humble institution, it is the case of every college 
 in our land. . . . 
 
 “ Sir, you may destroy this little institution ; it is 
 weak; it is in your hands! I know it is one of the 
 lesser lights in the literary horizon of our country. 
 
90 
 
 DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 You may put it out. But if you do so you must carry 
 through your work ! You must extinguish, one after 
 another, all those greater lights of science which for 
 more than a century have thrown their radiance over 
 our land. It is, sir, as I have said, a small college. 
 And yet there are those who love it.” 
 
 Here his feelings mastered him ; his eyes filled 
 with tears, his lips quivered, his voice was choked. 
 In broken words of tenderness he spoke of his at- 
 tachment to the college, and his tones seemed 
 filled with the memories of home and boyhood ; 
 of early affections and youthful privations and 
 struggles. 
 
 “ The court room,” says Mr. Goodrich, to whom we 
 owe this description, “ during these two or three min- 
 utes presented an extraordinary spectacle. Chief Jus- 
 tice Marshall, with his tall and gaunt figure bent over 
 as if to catch the slightest whisper, the deep furrows 
 of his cheek expanded with emotion and his eyes suf- 
 fused with tears ; Mr. Justice Washington, at his side, 
 with his small and emaciated frame, and countenance 
 more like marble than I ever saw on any other human 
 being, — leaning forward with an eager, troubled look ; 
 and the remainder of the court at the two extremities, 
 pressing, as it were, to a single point, while the au- 
 dience below were wrapping themselves round in closer 
 folds beneath the bench, to catch each look and every 
 movement of the speaker’s face. . . . 
 
 “Mr. Webster had now recovered his composure, and, 
 fixing his keen eye on the Chief Justice, said in that 
 deep tone with which he sometimes thrilled the heart 
 of an audience : — 
 
THE DARTMOUTH COLLEGE CASE. 
 
 91 
 
 “ ‘ Sir, I know not how others may feel ’ (glancing 
 at the opponents of the college before him), ‘ but for 
 myself, when I see my Alma Mater surrounded, like Cae- 
 sar in the senate-house, by those who are reiterating 
 stab after stab, I would not, for this right hand, have 
 her turn to me, and say, Et tu quoque, mi fill! And thou 
 too, my son!’ ” 
 
 This outbreak of feeling was perfectly genuine. 
 Apart from his personal relations to the college, 
 he had the true oratorical temperament, and no 
 man can be an orator in the highest sense unless 
 he feels intensely, for the moment at least, the 
 truth and force of every word he utters. To move 
 others deeply he must be deeply moved himself. 
 Yet at the same time Mr. Webster’s peroration, 
 and, indeed, his whole speech, was a model of 
 consummate art. Great lawyer as he undoubtedly 
 was, he felt on this occasion that he could not rely 
 on legal argument and pure reason alone. With- 
 out appearing to go beyond the line of propriety, 
 without indulging in a declamation unsuited to 
 the place, he had to step outside of legal points 
 and in a freer air, where he could use his keenest 
 and strongest weapons, appeal to the court not as 
 lawyers but as men subject to passion, emotion, 
 and prejudice. This he did boldly, delicately, 
 successfully, and thus he won his case. 
 
 The replies of the opposing counsel were poor 
 enough after such a speech. Holmes’s declama- 
 tion sounded rather cheap, and Mr. Wirt, thrown 
 
92 
 
 DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 off his balance by Mr. Webster’s exposure of bis 
 ignorance, did but slight justice to himself or bis 
 cause. March 12tli the arguments were closed, and 
 the next day, after a conference, the Chief Justice 
 announced that the court could agree on nothing 
 and that the cause must be continued for a year, 
 until the next term. The fact probably was that 
 Marshall found the judges five to two against the 
 college, and that the task of bringing them into 
 line was not a light one. 
 
 In this undertaking, however, he was powerfully 
 aided by the counsel and all the friends of the col- 
 lege. The old board of trustees had already paid 
 much attention to public opinion. The press was 
 largely Federalist, and, under the pressure of what 
 was made a party question, they had espoused 
 warmly the cause of the college. Letters and 
 essays had appeared, and pamphlets had been 
 circulated, together with the arguments of the 
 counsel at Exeter. This work was pushed with 
 increased eagerness after the argument at Wash- 
 ington, and the object now was to create about 
 the three doubtful judges an atmosphere of public 
 opinion which should imperceptibly bring them 
 over to the college. Johnson, Livingston, and 
 Story were all men who would have started at 
 the barest suspicion of outside influence even 
 in the most legitimate form of argument, which 
 was all that was ever thought of or attempted. 
 This made the task of the trustees very delicate 
 
THE DARTMOUTH COLLEGE CASE. 93 
 
 and difficult in developing a public sentiment 
 which should sway the judges without their being 
 aware of it. The printed arguments of Mason, 
 Smith, and Webster were carefully sent to certain 
 of the judges, but not to all. All documents of 
 a similar character found their way to the same 
 quarters. The leading Federalists were aroused 
 everywhere, so that the judges might be made to 
 feel their opinion. With Story, as a New Eng- 
 land man, a Democrat by circumstances, a Fed- 
 eralist by nature, there was but little difficulty. 
 A thorough review of the case, joined with Mr. 
 Webster’s argument, caused him soon to change 
 his first impression. To reach Livingston and 
 Johnson was not so easy, for they were out of 
 New England, and it was necessary to go a long 
 way round to get at them. The great legal up- 
 holder of Federalism in New York was Chancellor 
 Kent. His first impression, like that of Story, 
 was decidedly against the college, but after much 
 effort on the part of the trustees and their able 
 allies, Kent was converted, partly through his 
 reason, partly through his Federalism, and then 
 his powers of persuasion and his great influence 
 on opinion came to bear very directly on Living- 
 ston, more remotely on Johnson. The whole busi- 
 ness was managed like a quiet, decorous political 
 campaign. The press and the party were every- 
 where actively interested. At first, and in the 
 early summer of 1818, before Kent was converted, 
 
94 
 
 DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 matters looked badly for the trustees. Mr. Web- 
 ster knew the complexion of the court, and hoped 
 little from the point raised in Trustees vs. Wood- 
 ward. Still, no one despaired, and 'the work was 
 kept up until, in September, President Brown 
 wrote to Mr. Webster in reference to the argu- 
 ment : — 
 
 “ It has already been, or shortly will be, read by all 
 the commanding men of New England and New York ; 
 and so far as it has gone it has united them all, without 
 a single exception within my knowledge, in one broad 
 and impenetrable phalanx for our defence and support. 
 New England and New York are gained. Will not this 
 be sufficient for our present purposes ? If not, I should 
 recommend reprinting. And on this point you are the 
 best judge. I prevailingly think, however, that the cur- 
 rent of opinion from this part of the country is setting 
 so strongly towards the South that we may safely trust 
 to its force alone to accomplish whatever is necessary.” 
 
 The worthy clergyman writes of public opinion 
 as if the object was to elect a President. All 
 this effort, however, was well applied, as was found 
 when the court came together at the next term. 
 In the interval the State had become sensible of 
 the defects of their counsel, and had retained Mr. 
 Pinkney, who stood at that time at the head of 
 the bar of the United States. He had all the qual- 
 ifications of a great lawyer, except perhaps that of 
 robustness. He was keen, strong, and learned ; 
 diligent in preparation, he was ready and fluent in 
 
THE DARTMOUTH COLLEGE CASE. 
 
 95 
 
 action, a good debater, and master of a High order 
 of eloquence. He was a most formidable adver- 
 sary, and one whom Mr. Webster, then just at the 
 outset of his career, had probably no desire to meet 
 in such a doubtful case as this . 1 Even here, how- 
 ever, misfortune seemed to pursue the State, for 
 Mr. Pinkney was on bad terms with Mr. Wirt, 
 and acted alone. He did all that was possible ; 
 prepared himself elaborately in the law and his- 
 tory of the case, and then went into court ready 
 to make the wisest possible move by asking for a 
 re-argument. Marshall, however, was also quite 
 prepared. Turning his “ blind ear,” as some one 
 said, to Pinkney, he announced, as soon as he took 
 his seat, that the judges had come to a conclusion 
 during the vacation. He then read one of his 
 
 1 Mr. Peter Harvey, in his Reminiscences (p. 122), has an anec- 
 dote in regard to Webster and Pinkney, which places the former 
 in the light of a common and odious bully, an attitude as alien to 
 Mr. Webster’s character as can well be conceived. The story is 
 undoubtedly either wholly fictitious or so grossly exaggerated as 
 to be practically false. On the page preceding the account of 
 this incident, Mr. Harvey makes Webster say that he never re- 
 ceived a challenge from Randolph, whereas in Webster’s own let- 
 ter, published by Mr. Curtis, there is express reference to a note 
 of challenge received from Randolph. This is a fair example of 
 these Reminiscences. A more untrustworthy book it would be 
 impossible to imagine. There is not a statement in it which can 
 be safely accepted, unless supported by other evidence. It puts 
 its subject throughout in the most unpleasant light, and nothing 
 has ever been written about Webster so well calculated to injure 
 and belittle him as these feeble and distorted recollections of his 
 loving and devoted Boswell. It is the reflection of a great man 
 upon the mirror of a very small mind and weak memory. 
 
96 
 
 DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 great opinions, in which he held that the college 
 charter was a contract within the meaning of the 
 Constitution, and that the acts of the New Hamp- 
 shire Legislature impaired this contract, and were 
 therefore void. To this decision four judges as- 
 sented in silence, although Story and Washington 
 subsequently wrote out opinions. Judge Todd 
 was absent, through illness, and Judge Duvall dis- 
 sented. The immediate effect of the decision was 
 to leave the college in the hands of the victorious 
 Federalists. In the precedent which it estab- 
 lished, however, it had much deeper and more 
 far-reaching results. It brought within the scope 
 of the Constitution of the United States every 
 charter granted by a State, limited the action of 
 the States in a most important attribute of sover- 
 eignty, and extended the jurisdiction of the high- 
 est federal court more than any other judgment 
 ever rendered by them. From the day when it 
 was announced to the present time, the doctrine of 
 Marshall in the Dartmouth College case has con- 
 tinued to exert an enormous influence, and has 
 been constantly sustained and attacked in litiga- 
 tion of the greatest importance. 
 
 The defendant Woodward having died, Mr. 
 Webster moved that the judgment be entered 
 nunc pro tunc. Pinkney and Wirt objected on 
 the ground that the other causes on the docket 
 contained additional facts, and that no final judg- 
 ment should be entered until these causes had 
 
THE DARTMOUTH COLLEGE CASE. 
 
 97 
 
 been heard. The court, however, granted Mr. 
 Webster’s motion. Mr. Pinkney then tried to 
 avail himself of the stipulation in regard to the 
 special verdict, that any new and material facts 
 might be added or any facts expunged. Mr. Web- 
 ster peremptorily declined to permit any change, 
 obtained judgment against Woodward, and obliged 
 Mr. Pinkney to consent that the other causes 
 should be remanded, without instructions, to the 
 Circuit Court, where they were heard by Judge 
 Story, who rendered a decree nisi for the college. 
 This closed the case, and such were the last dis- 
 plays of Mr. Webster’s dexterous and vigorous 
 management of the famous “ college causes.” 
 
 The popular opinion of this case seems to be 
 that Mr. Webster, with the aid of Mr. Mason and 
 Judge Smith, developed a great constitutional ar- 
 gument, which he forced upon the acceptance of 
 the court by the power of his close and logical 
 reasoning, and thus established an interpretation 
 of the Constitution of vast moment. The truth 
 is, that the suggestion of the constitutional point, 
 not a very remarkable idea in itself, originated, as 
 has been said, with a layman, was regarded by 
 Mr. Webster as a forlorn hope, and was very 
 briefly discussed by him before the Supreme Court. 
 He knew, of course, that if the case were to be 
 decided against Woodward, it could only be on the 
 constitutional point, but he evidently thought that 
 the court would not take the view of it which was 
 
98 
 
 DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 favorable to the college. The Dartmouth College 
 case was unquestionably one of Mr. Webster’s 
 great achievements at the bar, but it has been 
 rightly praised on mistaken grounds. Mr. Web- 
 ster made a very fine presentation of the argu- 
 ments mainly prepared by Mason and Smith. He 
 transcended the usual legal limits with a burst of 
 eloquent appeal which stands high among the fa- 
 mous passages of his oratory. In what may be 
 called the strategy of the case he showed the best 
 generalship and the most skilful management. He 
 also proved himself to be possessed of great tact 
 and to be versed in the knowledge of men, qual- 
 ities not usually attributed to him because their 
 exercise involved an amount of care and pains- 
 taking foreign to his indolent and royal temper- 
 ament, which almost always relied on weight and 
 force for victory. 
 
 Mr. Webster no doubt improved in details, and 
 made better arguments at the bar than he did 
 upon this occasion, but the Dartmouth College 
 case, on the whole, shows his legal talents so nearly 
 at their best, and in such unusual variety, that it 
 is a fit point at which to pause in order to con- 
 sider some of his other great legal arguments and 
 his position and abilities as a lawyer. For this 
 purpose it is quite sufficient to confine ourselves 
 to the cases mentioned by Mr. Curtis, and to the 
 legal arguments preserved in the collection of Mr. 
 Webster’s speeches. 
 
THE DARTMOUTH COLLEGE CASE. 
 
 99 
 
 Five years after the Dartmouth College decision, 
 Mr. Webster made his famous argument in the 
 case of Gibbons vs. Ogden. The case was called 
 suddenly, and Mr. Webster prepared his argument 
 in a single night of intense labor. The facts were 
 all before him, but he showed a readiness in ar- 
 rangement only equalled by its force. The ques- 
 tion was whether the State of New York had a 
 right under the Constitution to grant a monopoly 
 of steam navigation in its waters to Fulto n a nd 
 L ivings ton. Mr. Webster contended that the acts 
 making such a grant were unconstitutional, be- 
 cause the power of Congress to regulate com- 
 merce was, within certain limitations, exclusive. 
 He won his cause, and the decision, from its im- 
 portance, probably enhanced the contemporary 
 estimate of his effort. The argument was badly 
 reported, but it shows all its author’s strongest 
 qualities of close reasoning and effective state- 
 ment. The point in issue was neither difficult 
 nor obscure, and afforded no opportunity for a 
 display of learning. It was purely a matter of 
 constitutional interpretation, and could be dis- 
 cussed chiefly in a historical manner and from the 
 standpoint of public interests. This was partic- 
 ularly fitted to Mr. Webster's cast of mind, and he 
 did his subject full justice. It was pure argument 
 on general principles. Mr. Webster does not 
 reach that point of intense clearness and conden- 
 sation which characterized Marshall and Hamil- 
 
100 
 
 DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 ton, in whose writings we are fascinated by the 
 beauty of the intellectual display, and are held 
 fast by each succeeding line, which always comes 
 charged with fresh meaning. '.Nevertheless, Mr. 
 Webster touches a very high point in this most 
 difficult form of argument, and the impressiveness 
 of his manner and voice carried all that he said to 
 its mark with a direct force in which he stood un- 
 rivalled. 
 
 In Ogden v. Saunders, heard in 1827, Mr. Web- 
 ster argued that the clause prohibiting state laws 
 impairing the obligation of contracts covered fu- 
 ture as well as past contracts. He defended his 
 position with astonishing ability, but the court 
 very correctly decided against him. The same 
 qualities which appear in these cases are shown 
 in the others of a like nature, which were con- 
 spicuous among the multitude with which he was 
 intrusted. We find them also in cases involving 
 purely legal questions, such as the Bank of the 
 United States v. Primrose, and The Providence 
 Railroad Co. v. The City of Boston, accompa- 
 nied always with that ready command of learn- 
 ing which an extraordinary memory made easy. 
 There seemed to be no diminution of Mr. Web- 
 ster’s great powers in this field as he advanced in 
 years. In the Rhode Island case and in the Pas- 
 senger Tax cases, argued when he was sixty-six 
 years old, he rose to the same high plane of clear, 
 impressive, effective reasoning as when he de- 
 fended his Alma Mater. 
 
THE DARTMOUTH COLLEGE CASE. 101 
 
 Two causes, however, demand more than a pass- 
 ing mention, — the Girard will case and the Rhode 
 Island case. The former involved no constitutional 
 points. The suit was brought to break the will of 
 Stephen Girard, and the question was whether the 
 bequest to found a college could be construed to 
 be a charitable devise. On this question Mr. Web- 
 ster had a weak case in point of law, but he readily- 
 detected a method by which he could go boldly 
 outside the law, as he had done to a certain de- 
 gree in the Dartmouth College case, and substi- 
 tute for argument an eloquent and impassioned 
 appeal to emotion and prejudice. Girard was a 
 free-thinker, and he provided in his will that no 
 priest or minister of any denomination should be 
 admitted to his college. Assuming that this ex- 
 cluded all religious teaching, Mr. Webster then 
 laid down the proposition that no bequest or 
 gift could be charitable which excluded Christian 
 teaching. In other words, he contended that there 
 was no charity except Christian charity, which, 
 the poet assures us, is so rare. At this day such 
 a theory would hardly be gravely propounded by 
 any one. But Mr. Webster, on the ground that 
 Girard's bequest was derogatory to Christianity, 
 pi’onounced a very fine discourse defending and 
 eulogizing, with much eloquence, the Christian re- 
 ligion. The speech produced a great effect. One 
 is inclined to think that it was the cause of the 
 court’s evading the question raised by Mr. Web- 
 
102 
 
 DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 ster, and sustaining the will, a result they were 
 bound to reach in any event, on other grounds. 
 The speech certainly produced a great sensation, 
 and was much admired, especially by the clergy, 
 who caused it to be printed and widely distrib- 
 uted. It did not impress lawyers quite so favor- 
 ably, and we find Judge Story writing to Chan- 
 cellor Kent that “ Webster did his best for the 
 other side, but it seems to me altogether an ad- 
 dress to the prejudices of the clergy.” The sub- 
 ject, in certain ways, had a deep attraction for 
 Mr. Webster. His imagination was excited by 
 the splendid history of the Church, and his conser- 
 vatism was deeply stirred by a system which, 
 whether in the guise of the Romish hierarchy, as 
 the Church of England, or in the form of power- 
 ful dissenting sects, was, as a whole, imposing 
 by its age, its influence, and its moral grandeur. 
 Moreover, it was one of the great established bul- 
 warks of well-ordered and civilized society. All 
 this appealed strongly to Mr. Webster, and he 
 made the most of his opportunity and of his 
 shrewdly-chosen ground. Yet the speech on the 
 Girard will is not one of his best efforts. It has 
 not the subdued but intense fire which glowed so 
 splendidly in his great speeches in the Senate. It 
 lacked the stately pathos which came always when 
 Mr. Webster was deeply moved. It was delivered 
 in 1844, and was slightly tinged with the pom- 
 pousness which manifested itself in his late years, 
 
THE DARTMOUTH COLLEGE CASE. 103 
 
 and especially on religious topics. No man lias a 
 right to question the religious sincerity of another, 
 unless upon evidence so full and clear that, in 
 such cases, it is rarely to be found. There is cer- 
 tainly no cause for doubt in Mr. Webster’s case. 
 He was both sincere and honest in religion, and 
 had a real and submissive faith. But he accepted 
 his religion as one of the great facts and proprie- 
 ties of life. He did not reach his religious con- 
 victions after much burning questioning and many 
 bitter experiences. In this he did not differ from 
 most men of this age, and it only amounts to say- 
 ing that Mr. Webster did not have a deeply re- 
 ligious temperament. He did not have the ardent 
 proselyting spirit which is the surest indication of 
 a profoundly religious nature ; the spirit of the 
 Saracen Emir crying, “ Forward ! Paradise is 
 under the shadow of our swords.” When, there- 
 fore, he turned his noble powers to a defence of 
 religion, he did not speak with that impassioned 
 fervor which, coming from the depths of a man’s 
 heart, savors of inspiration and seems essential 
 to the highest religious eloquence. He believed 
 thoroughly every word he uttered, but he did not 
 feel it, and in things spiritual the heart must be 
 enlisted as well as the head. It was wittily said 
 of a well-known anti-slavery leader, that had he 
 lived in the Middle Ages he would have gone to 
 the stake for a principle, under a misapprehension 
 as to the facts. Mr. Webster not only could never 
 
104 
 
 DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 have misapprehended facts, bat, if lie had flour- 
 ished in the Middle Ages he would have been 
 a stanch and honest supporter of the strongest 
 government and of the dominant church. Per- 
 haps this defines his religious character as well as 
 anything, and explains why the argument in the 
 Girard will case, fine as it was, did not reach the 
 elevation and force which he so often displayed 
 on other themes. 
 
 The Rhode Island case grew out of the troubles 
 known at that period as Dorr’s rebellion. It in- 
 volved a discussion not only of the constitutional 
 provisions for suppressing insurrections and secur- 
 ing to every State a republican form of govern- 
 ment, but also of the general history and theory 
 of the American governments, both state and na- 
 tional. There was thus offered to Mr. Webster 
 that full scope and large field in which he de- 
 lighted, and which were always peculiarly favor- 
 able to his talents. His argument was purely 
 constitutional, and although not so closely rea- 
 soned, perhaps, as some of his earlier efforts, is, 
 on the whole, as fine a specimen as we have of his 
 intellectual power as a constitutional lawyer at 
 the bar of the highest national tribunal. Mr. 
 Webster did not often transcend the pi'oper limits 
 of purely legal discussion in the courts, and yet 
 even when the question was wholly legal, the 
 court-room would be crowded by ladies as well as 
 gentlemen, to hear him speak. It was so at the 
 
THE DARTMOUTH COLLEGE CASE. 105 
 
 hearing of the Girard suit ; and during the strictly 
 legal arguments in the Charles River Bridge case, 
 the court-room, Judge Story says, was filled with 
 a brilliant audience, including many ladies, and 
 he adds that “Webster’s closing reply was in his 
 best manner, but with a little too much jiertS 
 here and there.” The ability to attract such au- 
 diences gives an idea of the impressiveness of his 
 manner and of the beauty of his voice and delivery 
 better than anything else, for these qualities alone 
 could have drawn the general public and held 
 their attention to the cold and dry discussion of 
 laws and constitutions. 
 
 't There is a little anecdote told by Mr. Curtis in 
 connection with this Rhode Island case, which il- 
 lustrates very well two striking qualities in Mr. 
 Webster as a lawyer. The counsel in the court 
 below had been assisted by a clever young lawyer 
 named Bosworth, who had elaborated a point which 
 he thought very important, but which his seniors 
 rejected. Mr. Bosworth was sent to Washington 
 to instruct Mr. Webster as to the cause, and, after 
 he had gone through the case, Mr. Webster asked 
 if that was all. Mr. Bosworth modestly replied 
 that there was another view of his own which his 
 seniors had rejected, and then stated it briefly. 
 When he concluded, Mr. Webster started up and 
 exclaimed, “ Mr. Bosworth, by the blood of all the 
 Bosworths who fell on Bosworth field, that is the 
 point of the case. Let it be included in the brief 
 
106 
 
 DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 by all means.” This is highly characteristic of 
 one of Mr. Webster’s strongest attributes. He 
 always saw with an unerring glance “ the point ” 
 of a case or a debate. A great surgeon will de- 
 tect the precise spot where the knife should enter 
 when disease hides it from other eyes, and often 
 with apparent carelessness will make the neces- 
 sary incision at the exact place when a deflection 
 of a hair’s breadth or a tremor of the hand would 
 bring death to the patient. Mr. Webster had the 
 same intellectual dexterity, the mingled result of 
 nature and art. As the tiger is said to have a 
 sure instinct for the throat of his victim, so Mr. 
 Webster always seized on the vital point of a 
 question. Other men would debate and argue for 
 days, perhaps, and then Mr. Webster would take 
 up the matter, and grasp at once the central and 
 essential element which had been there all along, 
 pushed hither and thither, but which had escaped 
 all eyes but his own. He had preeminently 
 “ The calm eye that seeks 
 ’Midst all the huddling silver little worth 
 The one thin piece that comes, pure gold.” 
 
 The anecdote further illustrates the use which 
 Mr. Webster made of the ideas of other people. 
 He did not say to Mr. Bosworth, here is the true 
 point of the case, but he saw that something was 
 wanting, and asked the young lawyer what it was. 
 The moment the proposition was stated he recog- 
 nized its value and importance at a glance. He 
 
THE DARTMOUTH COLLEGE CASE. 107 
 
 might and probably would have discovered it for 
 himself, but his instinct was to get it from some 
 one else. 
 
 It is one of the familiar attributes of great in- 
 tellectual power to be able to select subordinates 
 wisely ; to use other people and other people’s 
 labor and thought to the best advantage, and to 
 have as much as possible done for one by others. 
 This power of assimilation Mr. Webster had to a 
 marked degree. There is no depreciation in say- 
 ing that he took much from others, for it is a ca- 
 pacity characteristic of the strongest minds, and so 
 long as the debt is acknowledged, such a faculty 
 is a subject for praise, not criticism. But when 
 the recipient becomes unwilling to admit the ob- 
 ligation which is no detraction to himself, and 
 without which the giver is poor indeed, the case is 
 altered. In his earliest days Mr. Webster used 
 to draw on one Parker Noyes, a mousing, learned 
 New Hampshire lawyer, and freely acknowledged 
 the debt. In the Dartmouth College case, as has 
 been seen, he over and over again gave simply 
 and generously all the credit for the learning and 
 the points of the brief to Mason and Smith, and 
 yet the glory of the case has rested with Mr. 
 Webster and always will. He gained by his frank 
 honesty and did not lose a whit. But in his lat- 
 ter days, when his sense of justice had grown 
 somewhat blunted and his nature was perverted 
 by the unmeasured adulation of the little immedi- 
 
108 
 
 DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 ate circle which then hung about him, he ceased 
 to admit his obligations as in his earlier and bet- 
 ter years. From no one did Mr. Webster receive 
 so much hearty and generous advice and assistance 
 as from Judge Story, whose calm judgment and 
 wealth of learning were always at his disposal. 
 They were given not only in questions of law, but 
 in regal’d to the Crimes Act, the Judiciary Act, 
 and the Ashburton treaty. After Judge Story’s 
 death, Mr. Webster not only declined to allow the 
 publication by the judge’s son and biographer of 
 Story’s letters to himself, but he refused to per- 
 mit even the publication of extracts from his own 
 letters, intended merely to show the nature of 
 the services rendered to him by Story. A cordial 
 assent would have enhanced the reputation of 
 both. The refusal is a blot on the intellectual 
 greatness of the one and a source of bitterness to 
 the descendants and admirers of the other. It 
 is to be regretted that the extraordinary ability 
 which Mr. Webster always showed in grasping 
 and assimilating masses of theories and facts, and 
 in drawing from them what was best, should ever 
 have been sullied by a want of gratitude which, 
 properly and freely rendered, would have made 
 the lustre of his own fame shine still more brightly. 
 
 A close study of Mr. Webster’s legal career, in 
 the light of contempoi’ary reputation and of the 
 best examples of his work, leads to certain quite 
 obvious conclusions. He had not a strongly orig- 
 
THE DARTMOUTH COLLEGE CASE. 109 
 
 inal or creative legal mind. This was chiefly due 
 to nature, but in some measure to a dislike to the 
 slow processes of investigation and inquiry which 
 were always distasteful to him, although he was 
 entirely capable of intense and protracted exertion. 
 He cannot, therefore, be ranked with the illustri- 
 ous few, among whom we count Mansfield and 
 Marshall as the most brilliant examples, who not 
 only declared what the law was, but who made it. 
 Mr. Webster’s powers were not of this class, but, 
 except in these highest and rarest qualities, he 
 stands in the front rank of the lawyers of his coun- 
 try and his age. Without extraordinary profundity 
 of thought or depth of learning, he had a wide, 
 sure, and ready knowledge both of principles and 
 cases. Add to this quick apprehension, unerring 
 sagacity for vital and essential points, a perfect 
 sense of proportion, an almost unequalled power 
 of statement, backed by reasoning at once close 
 and lucid, and we may fairly say that Mr. Web- 
 ster, who possessed all these qualities, need fear 
 comparison with but very few among the great 
 lawyers of that period either at home or abroad. 
 
CHAPTER IY. 
 
 THE MASSACHUSETTS CONVENTION AND THE 
 PLYMOUTH ORATION. 
 
 The conduct of the Dartmouth College case, 
 and its result, at once raised Mr. Webster to a po- 
 sition at the bar second only to that held by Mr. 
 Pinkney. He was now constantly occupied by 
 most important and lucrative engagements, but in 
 1820 he was called upon to take a leading part in 
 a great public work which demanded the exertion 
 of all his talents as statesman, lawyer, and debater. 
 The lapse of time and the setting off of the Maine 
 district as a State had made a convention neces- 
 sary, in order to revise the Constitution of Massa- 
 chusetts. This involved the direct resort to the 
 people, the source of all power, which is only re- 
 quired to effect a change in the fundamental law 
 of the State. On these rare occasions it has been 
 the honored custom in Massachusetts to lay aside 
 all the qualifications attaching to ordinary legisla- 
 tures and to choose the best men, without regard 
 to party, public office, or domicile, for the per- 
 formance of this important work. No better or 
 abler body could have been assembled for this 
 
THE MASSACHUSETTS CONVENTION. Ill 
 
 purpose than that which met in convention at 
 Boston in November, 1820. Among these dis- 
 tinguished men were John Adams, then in his 
 eighty-fifth year, and one of the framers of the 
 original Constitution of 1780, Chief Justice Par- 
 ker, of the Supreme Bench, the Fedei’al judges, 
 and many of the leaders at the bar and in busi- 
 ness. The two most conspicuous men in the con- 
 vention, however, were Joseph Story and Daniel 
 Webster, who bore the burden in every discus- 
 sion ; and there were three subjects, upon which 
 Mr. Webster spoke at length, that deserve more 
 than a passing allusion. 
 
 Questions of party have, as a rule, found but 
 little place in the constitutional assemblies of Mas- 
 sachusetts. This was peculiarly the case in 1820, 
 when the old political divisions were dying out, 
 and new ones had not yet been formed. At the 
 same time widely opposite views found expression 
 in the convention. The movement toward thor- 
 ough and complete democracy was gathering head- 
 way, and directing its force against many of the 
 old colonial traditions and habits of government 
 embodied in the existing Constitution. That por- 
 tion of the delegates which favored certain radical 
 changes was confronted and stoutly opposed by 
 those who, on the whole, inclined to make as few 
 alterations as possible, and desired to keep things 
 about as they were. Mr. Webster, as was natural, 
 was the leader of the conservative party, and his 
 
112 
 
 DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 course in this convention is an excellent illustra' 
 tion of this marked trait in his disposition and 
 character. 
 
 One of the important questions concerned the 
 abolition of the profession of Christian faith as a 
 qualification for holding office. On this point the 
 line of argument pursued by Mr. Webster is ex- 
 tremely characteristic. Although an unvarying 
 conservative throughout his life, he was incapable 
 of bigotry, or of narrow and illiberal views. At 
 the same time the process by which he reached 
 his opinion in favor of removing the religious test 
 shows more clearly than even ultra-conservatism 
 could, how free he was from any touch of the re- 
 forming or innovating spirit. He did not urge 
 that, on general principles, religious tests were 
 wrong, that they were relics of the past and in 
 hopeless conflict with the fundamental doctrines 
 of American liberty and democracy. On the con- 
 trary, he implied that a religious test was far 
 from being of necessity an evil. He laid down the 
 sound doctrine that qualifications for office were 
 purely matters of expediency, and then argued 
 that it was wise to remove the religious test be- 
 cause, while its principle would be practically en- 
 forced by a Christian community, it was offensive 
 to some persons to have it engrafted on the Con- 
 stitution. The speech in which he set forth these 
 views was an able and convincing one, entirely 
 worthy of its author, and the removal of the test 
 
THE MASSACHUSETTS CONVENTION. 113 
 
 was carried by a large majority. It is an interest- 
 ing example of the combination of steady conser- 
 vatism and breadth of view which Mr. Webster al- 
 ways displayed. Bat it also brings into strong 
 relief his aversion to radical general principles as 
 grounds of action, and his inborn hostility to far- 
 reaching change. 
 
 His two other important speeches in this con- 
 vention have been preserved in his works, and are 
 purely and wholly conservative in tone and spirit. 
 The first related to the basis of representation in 
 the Senate, whose members were then apportioned 
 according to the amount of taxable property in 
 the districts. This system, Mr. Webster thought, 
 should be retained, and his speech was a most 
 masterly discussion of the whole system of gov- 
 ernment by two Houses. He urged the necessity 
 of a basis of representation for the upper House 
 different from that of the lower, in order to make 
 the former fully serve its purpose of a check and 
 balance to the popular branch. This important 
 point he handled in the most skilful manner, and 
 there is no escape from his conclusion that a dif- 
 ference of origin in the two legislative branches 
 of the government is essential to the full and per- 
 fect operation of the system. This difference of 
 origin, he argued, could be obtained only by the 
 introduction of property as a factor in the basis 
 of representation. The weight of his speech was 
 directed to defending the principle of a suitable 
 8 
 
114 
 
 DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 representation of property, which was a subject 
 requiring very adroit treatment. The doctrine is 
 one which probably would not be tolerated now- 
 in any part of this country, and even in 1820, in 
 Massachusetts, it was a delicate matter to advocate 
 it, for it was hostile to the general sentiment of 
 the people. Having established his position that 
 it was all important to make the upper branch a 
 strong and effective check, he said that the point 
 in issue was not whether property offered the best 
 method of distinguishing between the two Houses, 
 but whether it was not better than no distinction 
 at all. This being answered affirmatively, the 
 next question to be considered was whether prop- 
 erty, not in the sense of personal possessions and 
 personal power, but in a general sense, ought not 
 to have its due influence in matters of govern- 
 ment. He maintained the justice of this proposi- 
 tion by showing that our constitutions rest largely 
 on the general equality of property, which, in turn, 
 is due to our laws of distribution. This led him 
 into a discussion of the principles of the distribu- 
 tion of property. He pointed out the dangers 
 arising in England from the growth of a few large 
 estates, while on the other hand he predicted that 
 the rapid and minute subdivision of property in 
 France would change the character of the govern- 
 ment, and, far from strengthening the crown, as 
 was then generally prophesied, would have a 
 directly opposite effect, by creating a large and 
 
THE MASSACHUSETTS CONVENTION. 115 
 
 united body of small proprietors, who would sooner 
 or later control the country. He illustrated, in 
 this way, the value and importance of a general 
 equality of property, and of steadiness in legisla- 
 tion affecting it. These were the reasons, he con- 
 tended, for making property the basis of the check 
 and balance furnished to our system of govern- 
 ment by an upper House. Moreover, all property 
 being subject to taxation for the purpose of educat- 
 ing the children of both rich and poor, it deserved 
 some representation for this valuable aid to gov- 
 ernment. It is impossible, in a few lines , 1 to do 
 justice to Mr. Webster’s argument. It exhibited 
 a great deal of tact and ingenuity, especially in 
 the distinction so finely drawn between property 
 as an element of personal power and property in a 
 general sense, and so distributed as to be a bul- 
 wark of liberty. The speech is, on this account, 
 an interesting one, for Mr. Webster was rarely in- 
 genious, and hardly ever got over difficulties by 
 fine-spun distinctions. In this instance adroitness 
 was very necessary, and he did not hesitate to em- 
 ploy it. By his skilful treatment, by his illus- 
 trations drawn from England and France, which 
 show the accuracy and range of his mental vision 
 in matters of politics and public economy, both at 
 home and abroad, and with the powerful support 
 of Judge - Story, Mr. Webster carried his point. 
 
 1 My brief statement is merely a further condensation of the 
 excellent abstract of this speech made by Mr Curtis. 
 
116 
 
 DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 The element of property representation in the 
 Senate was retained, but so wholly by the ability 
 of its advocate, that it was not long afterwards re- 
 moved. 
 
 Mr. Webster’s other important speech related 
 to the judiciary. The Constitution provided that 
 the judges, who held office during good behavior, 
 should be removable by the Governor on an ad- 
 dress from the Legislature. This was considered 
 to meet cases of incompetency or of personal mis- 
 conduct, which could not be reached by impeach- 
 ment. Mr. Webster desired to amend the clause 
 so as to require a two thirds vote for the passage 
 of the address, and that reasons should be assigned, 
 and a hearing assured to the judge who was the 
 subject of the proceedings. These changes were 
 all directed to the further protection of the bench, 
 and it was in this connection that Mr. Webster 
 made a most admirable and effective speech on 
 the well-worn but noble theme of judicial inde- 
 pendence. He failed to carry conviction, how- 
 ever, and his amendments were all lost. The 
 perils which he anticipated have never arisen, and 
 the good sense of the people of Massachusetts has 
 prevented the slightest abuse of what Mr. Web- 
 ster rightly esteemed a dangerous power. 
 
 Mr. Webster’s continual and active exertion 
 throughout the session of this convention brought 
 him great applause and admiration, and showed 
 his powers in a new light. Judge Story, with 
 
THE PLYMOUTH ORATION. 117 
 
 generous enthusiasm, wrote to Mr. Mason, after 
 the convention adjourned : — 
 
 “ Our friend Webster has gained a noble reputation. 
 He was before known as a lawyer ; but he has now se- 
 cured the title of an eminent and enlightened statesman. 
 It was a glorious field for him, and he has had an ample 
 harvest. The whole force of his great mind was brought 
 out, and, in several speeches, he commanded universal 
 admiration. He always led the van, and was most skilful 
 and instantaneous in attack and retreat. He fought, as 
 I have told him, in the ‘ imminent deadly breach ; ’ and 
 all I could do was to skirmish, in aid of him, upon 
 some of the enemy’s outposts. On the whole, I never 
 was more proud of any display than his in my life, and 
 I am much deceived if the well-earned popularity, so 
 justly and so boldly acquired by him on this occasion, 
 does not carry him, if he lives, to the presidency.” 
 
 While this convention, so memorable in the ca- 
 reer of Mr. Webster and so filled with the most 
 absorbing labors, was in session, he achieved a 
 still wider renown in a very different field. On 
 the 22d of December, 1820, he delivered at Plym- 
 outh the oration which commemorated the two 
 hundredth anniversary of the landing of the Pil- 
 grims. The theme was a splendid one, both in 
 the intrinsic interest of the event itself, in the 
 character of the Pilgrims, in the vast results 
 which had grown from their humble beginnings, 
 and in the principles of free government, which 
 had spread from the cabins of the exiles over the 
 
118 
 
 DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 face of a continent, and had become the common 
 heritage of a great people. We are fortunate in 
 having a description of the orator, written at the 
 time by a careful observer and devoted friend, 
 Mr. Ticknor, who says : — 
 
 “ Friday Evening. — I have run away from a great 
 levee there is down-stairs, thronging in admiration round 
 Mr. Webster, to tell you a little word about his oration. 
 Yet I do not dare to trust myself about it, and I warn 
 you beforehand that I have not the least confidence in 
 my own opinion. His manner carried me away com- 
 pletely ; not, I think, that I could have been so carried 
 away if it had been a poor oration, for of that, I appre- 
 hend, there can be no fear. It must have been a great, 
 a very great performance, but whether it was so abso- 
 lutely unrivalled as I imagined when I was under the 
 immediate influence of his presence, of his tones, of his 
 looks, I cannot be sure till I have read it, for it seems 
 to me incredible. 
 
 “ I was never so excited by public speaking before in 
 my life. Three or four times I thought my temples 
 would burst with the gush of blood ; for, after all, you 
 must know that I am aware it is no connected and com- 
 pacted whole, but a collection of wonderful fragments 
 of burning eloquence, to which his whole manner gave 
 tenfold force. When I came out I was almost afraid 
 to come near to him. It seemed to me as if he was 
 like the mount that might not be touched and that burned 
 with fire. I was beside myself, and am so still.” 
 
 “ Saturday. — Mr. Webster was in admirable spirits. 
 On Thursday evening he was considerably agitated and 
 
THE PLYMOUTH ORATION. 
 
 119 
 
 oppressed, and yesterday morning he had not his natural 
 look at all ; but since his entire success he has been as 
 gay and playful as a kitten. The party came in one 
 after another, and the spirits of all were kindled brighter 
 and brighter, and we fairly sat up till after two o’clock. 
 I think, therefore, we may now safely boast the Plym- 
 outh expedition has gone off admirably.” 
 
 Mr. Ticknor was a man of learning and schol- 
 arship, just returned from a prolonged sojourn in 
 Europe, where he had met and conversed with all 
 the most distinguished men of the day, both in 
 England and on the Continent. He was not, 
 therefore, disposed by training or recent habits to 
 indulge a facile enthusiasm, and such deep emotion 
 as he experienced must have been due to no ordi- 
 nary cause. He was, in fact, profoundly moved 
 because he had been listening to one of the great 
 masters of eloquence exhibiting, for the first time, 
 his full powers in a branch of the art much more 
 cultivated in America by distinguished men of all 
 professions than is the custom elsewhere. The 
 Plymouth oration belongs to what, for lack of a 
 better name, we must call occasional oratory. 
 This form of address, taking an anniversary, a 
 great historical event or character, a celebration, 
 or occasion of any sort as a starting point, per- 
 mits either a close adherence to the original text 
 or the widest latitude of treatment. The field is 
 a broad and inviting one. That it promises an 
 easy success is shown by the innumerable produc- 
 
120 
 
 DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 tions of this kind which, for many years, have been 
 showered upon the country. That the promise is 
 fallacious is proved by the very small number 
 among the countless host of such addresses which 
 survive the moment of their utterance. The facil- 
 ity of saying something is counterbalanced by the 
 difficulty of saying anything worth hearing. The 
 temptation to stray and to mistake platitude for 
 originality is almost always fatal. 
 
 Mr. Webster was better fitted than any man 
 who has ever lived in this country for the perilous 
 task of occasional oratory. The freedom of move- 
 ment which renders most speeches of this class 
 diluted and commonplace was exactly what he 
 needed. He required abundant intellectual room 
 for a proper display of his powei’s, and he had the 
 rare quality of being able to range over vast spaces 
 of time and thought without becoming attenuated 
 in what he said. Soaring easily, with a powerful 
 sweep he returned again to earth without jar or 
 shock. He had dignity and grandeur of thought, 
 expression, and manner, and a great subject never 
 became small by his treatment of it. He had, too, 
 a fine historical imagination, and could breathe 
 life and passion into the dead events of the past. 
 
 Mr. Ticknor speaks of the Plymouth oration as 
 impressing him as a series of eloquent fragments. 
 The impression was perfectly correct. Mr. Web- 
 ster touched on the historical event, on the char- 
 acter of the Pilgrims, on the growth and future of 
 
THE PLYMOUTH ORATION. 121 
 
 the country, on liberty and constitutional princi- 
 ples, on education, and on human slavery. This 
 was entirely proper to such an address. The diffi- 
 culty lay in doing it well, and Mr. Webster did it 
 as perfectly as it ever has been done. The thoughts 
 were fine, and were expressed in simple and beau- 
 tiful words. The delivery was grand and impres- 
 sive, and the presentation of each successive theme 
 glowed with subdued fire. There was no straining 
 after mere rhetorical effect, but an artistic treat- 
 ment of a succession of great subjects in a general 
 and yet vivid and picturesque fashion. The emo- 
 tion produced by the Plymouth oration was akin 
 to that of listening to the strains of music issuing 
 from a full-toned organ. Those who heard it did 
 not seek to gratify their reason or look for convic- 
 tion to be brought to their understanding. It did 
 not appeal to the logical faculties or to the pas- 
 sions, which are roused by the keen contests of 
 parliamentary debate. It was the divine gift of 
 speech, the greatest instrument given to man, used 
 with surpassing talent, and the joy and pleasure 
 which it brought were those which come from lis- 
 tening to the song of a great singer, or looking 
 upon the picture of a great artist. 
 
 The Plymouth oration, which was at once print- 
 ed and published, was received with a universal 
 burst of applause. It had more literary success 
 than anything which had at that time appeared, 
 except from the pen of Washington Irving. The 
 
122 
 
 DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 public, without stopping to analyze their own feel- 
 ings, or the oration itself, recognized at once that 
 a new genius had come before them, a man en- 
 dowed with the noble gift of eloquence, and capa- 
 ble by the exei’cise of his talents of moving and 
 inspiring great masses of his fellow-men. Mr. 
 Webster was then of an age to feel fully the glow 
 of a great success, both at the moment and when 
 the cooler and more critical approbation came. 
 He was fresh and young, a strong man rejoicing 
 to run the race. Mr. Ticknor says, in speaking 
 of the oration : — 
 
 “ The passage at the end, where, spreading his arms 
 as if to embrace them, he welcomed future generations 
 to the great inheritance which we have enjoyed, was 
 spoken with the most attractive sweetness and that pe- 
 culiar smile which in him was always so charming. The 
 effect of the whole was very great. As soon as he got 
 home to our lodgings, all the principal people then in 
 Plymouth crowded about him. He was full of anima- 
 tion, and radiant with happiness. But there was some- 
 thing about him very grand and imposing at the same 
 time. I never saw him at any time when he seemed to 
 me to be more conscious of his own powers, or to have 
 a more true and natural enjoyment from their posses- 
 sion.” 
 
 Amid all the applause and glory, there was 
 one letter of congratulation and acknowledgment 
 which must have given Mr. Webster more pleas- 
 ure than anything else. It came from John Ad- 
 
THE PLYMOUTH ORATION. 
 
 128 
 
 ams, who never did anything by halves. Whether 
 he praised or condemned, he did it heartily and 
 ardently, and such an oration on New England 
 went straight to the heart of the eager, warm- 
 blooded old patriot. His commendation, too, was 
 worth having, for he spoke as one having author- 
 ity. John Adams had been one of the eloquent 
 men and the most forcible debater of the first 
 Congress. He had listened to the great orators of 
 other lands. He had heard Pitt and Fox, Burke 
 and Sheridan, and had been present at the trial of 
 Warren Hastings. His unstinted praise meant 
 and still means a great deal, and it concludes with 
 one of the finest and most graceful of compli- 
 ments. The oration, he says, 
 
 “ is the effort of a great mind, richly stored with every 
 species of information. If there be an American who 
 can read it without tears, I am not that American. It 
 enters more perfectly into the genuine spirit of New 
 England than any production I ever read. The obser- 
 vations on the Greeks and Romans ; on colonization in 
 general ; on the West India islands ; on the past, pres- 
 ent, and future of America, and on the slave-trade, are 
 sagacious, profound, and affecting in a high degree.” 
 
 “ Mr. Burke is no longer entitled to the praise — the 
 most consummate orator of modern times.” 
 
 “ What can I say of what regards myself ? To my 
 humble name, Exegisti monumentum cere perennius 
 
 Many persons consider the Plymouth oration to 
 be the finest of all Mr. Webster’s efforts in this 
 
124 
 
 DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 field. It is certainly one of the very best of his 
 productions, but he showed on the next great oc- 
 casion a distinct improvement, which he long 
 maintained. Five years after the oration at 
 Plymouth, he delivered the address on the laying 
 of the corner-stone of Bunker Hill monument. 
 The superiority to the first oration was not in es- 
 sentials, but in details, the fruit of a ripening and 
 expanding mind. At Bunker Hill, as at Plym- 
 outh, he displayed the massiveness of thought, 
 the dignity and grandeur of expression, and the 
 range of vision which are all so characteristic of 
 his intellect and which were so much enhanced 
 by his wonderful physical attributes. But in the 
 later oration there is a greater finish and smooth- 
 ness. We appreciate the fact that the Plymouth 
 oration is a succession of eloquent fragments ; the 
 same is true of the Bunker Hill address, but we 
 no longer realize it. The continuity is, in appear- 
 ance, unbroken, and the whole work is rounded 
 and polished. The style, too, is now perfected. 
 It is at once plain, direct, massive, and vivid. 
 The sentences are generally short and always 
 clear, but never monotonous. The preference for 
 Anglo-Saxon words and the exclusion of Latin de- 
 rivatives are extremely marked, and we find here 
 in rare perfection that highest attribute of style, 
 the union of simplicity, picturesqueness, and force. 
 
 In the first Bunker Hill oration Mr. Webster 
 touched his highest point in the difficult task of 
 
THE PLYMOUTH ORATION. 125 
 
 commemorative oratorj^. In that field he not only- 
 stands unrivalled, but no one has approached him. 
 The innumerable productions of this class by 
 other men, many of a high degree of excellence, 
 are forgotten, while those of Webster form part 
 of the education of every American school- boy, are 
 widely read, and have entered into the literature 
 and thought of the country. The orations of 
 Plymouth and Bunker Hill are grouped in Web- 
 ster’s works with a number of other speeches pro- 
 fessedly of the same kind. But only a very few 
 of these are strictly occasional ; the great majority 
 are chiefly, if not wholly, political speeches, con- 
 taining merely passages here and there in the 
 same vein as his great commemorative addresses. 
 Before finally leaving the subject, however, it will 
 be well to glance for a moment at the few orations 
 which properly belong to the same class as the 
 first two which we have been considering. 
 
 The Bunker Hill oration, after the lapse of only 
 a year, was followed by the celebrated eulogy 
 upon Adams and Jefferson. This usually and 
 with justice is ranked in merit with its two imme- 
 diate predecessors. As a whole it is not, perhaps, 
 quite so much admired, but it contains the famous 
 imaginary speech of John Adams, which is the 
 best known and most hackneyed passage in any 
 of these orations. The opening lines, “ Sink or 
 swim, live or die, survive or perish, I give my 
 hand and my heart to this vote,” since Mr. Web- 
 
126 
 
 DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 ster first pronounced them in Faneuil Hall, have 
 risen even to the dignity of a familiar quotation. 
 The passage, indeed, is perhaps the best example 
 we have of the power of Mr. Webster’s historical 
 imagination. He had some fragmentary sen- 
 tences, the character of the man, the nature of the 
 debate, and the circumstances of the time to build 
 upon, and from these materials he constructed a 
 speech which was absolutely startling in its life- 
 like force. The revolutionary Congress, on the 
 verge of the tremendous step which was to sepa- 
 rate them from England, rises before us as we 
 read the burning words which the imagination of 
 the speaker put into the mouth of John Adams. 
 They are not only instinct with life, but with the 
 life of impending revolution, and they glow with 
 the warmth and strength of feeling so character- 
 istic of their supposed author. It is well known 
 that the general belief at the time was that the 
 passage was an extract from a speech actually de- 
 livered by John Adams. Mr. Webster, as well 
 as Mr. Adams’s son and grandson, received nu- 
 merous letters of inquiry on this point, and it is 
 possible that many people still persist in this be- 
 lief as to the origin of the passage. Such an 
 effect was not produced by mere clever imitation, 
 for there was nothing to imitate, but by the force 
 of a powerful historic imagination and a strong 
 artistic sense in its management. 
 
 In 1828 Mr. Webster delivered an address be- 
 
THE PLYMOUTH ORATION. 
 
 127 
 
 fore the Mechanics’ Institute in Boston, on “ Sci- 
 ence in connection with the Mechanic Arts,” a 
 subject which was outside of his usual lines of 
 thought, and offered no especial attractions to 
 him. This oration is graceful and strong, and 
 possesses sufficient and appropriate eloquence. It 
 is chiefly interesting, however, from the reserve 
 and self-control, dictated by a nice sense of fit- 
 ness, which it exhibited. Omniscience was not 
 Mr. Webster’s foible. He never was guilty of 
 Lord Brougham's weakness of seeking to prove 
 himself master of universal knowledge. In de- 
 livering an address on science and invention, there 
 was a sti’ong temptation to an orator like Mr. 
 Webster to substitute glittering rhetoric for real 
 knowledge ; but the address at the Mechanics’ In- 
 stitute is simply the speech of a very eloquent and 
 a liberally educated man upon a subject with 
 which he had only the most general acquaintance. 
 
 The other orations of this class were those on 
 “ The Character of Washington,” the second 
 Bunker Hill address, “ The Landing at Plym- 
 outh,” delivered in New York at the dinner of the 
 Pilgrim Society, the remarks on the death of 
 Judge Story and of Mr. Mason, and finally the 
 speech on laying the corner-stone for the addition 
 to the Capitol, in 1851. These were all compara- 
 tively brief speeches, with the exception of that 
 at Bunker Hill, which, although very fine, was 
 perceptibly inferior to his first effort when the 
 
128 
 
 DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 corner-stone of the monument was laid. The ad- 
 dress on the character of Washington, to an Amer- 
 ican the most dangerous of great and well-worn 
 topics, is of a high order of eloquence. The theme 
 appealed to Mr. Webster strongly and brought out 
 his best powers, which were peculiarly fitted to do 
 justice to the noble, massive, and dignified char- 
 acter of the subject. The last of these addresses, 
 that on the addition to the Capitol, was in a pro- 
 phetic vein, and, while it shows but little diminu- 
 tion of strength, has a sadness even in its splendid 
 anticipations of the future, which makes it one of 
 the most impressive of its class. All those which 
 have been mentioned, however, show the hand of 
 the master and are worthy to be preserved in the 
 volumes which contain the noble series that began 
 in the early flush of genius with the brilliant ora- 
 tion in the Plymouth church, and closed with the 
 words uttered at Washington, under the shadow 
 of the Capitol, when the light of life was fading 
 and the end of all things was at hand. 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 RETURN TO CONGRESS. 
 
 The thorough knowledge of the principles of 
 government and legislation, the practical states- 
 manship, and the capacity for debate shown in the 
 State convention, combined with the splendid ora- 
 tion at Plymouth to make Mr. Webster the most 
 conspicuous man in New England, with the single 
 exception of John Quincy Adams. There was, 
 therefore, a strong and general desire that he 
 should return to public life. He accepted with 
 some reluctance the nomination to Congress from 
 the Boston district in 1822, and in December, 
 1823, took his seat. 
 
 The six years which had elapsed since Mr. 
 Webster left Washington had been a period of 
 political quiet. The old parties had ceased to rep- 
 resent any distinctive principles, and the Federal- 
 ists scarcely existed as an organization. Mr. Web- 
 ster, during this interval, had remained almost 
 wholly quiescent in regard to public affairs. He 
 had urged the visit of Mr. Monroe to the North, 
 which had' done so much to hasten the inevitable 
 dissolution of parties. He had received Mr. Cal- 
 9 
 
130 
 
 DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 houn when that gentleman visited Boston, and 
 their friendship and apparent intimacy were such 
 that the South Carolinian was thought to be his 
 host's candidate for the presidency. Except for 
 this and the part which he took in the Boston op- 
 position to the Missouri compromise and to the 
 tariff, matters to be noticed in connection with 
 later events, Mr. Webster had held aloof from 
 political conflict. 
 
 When he returned to Washington in 1823, the 
 situation was much altered from that which he 
 had left in 1817. In reality there were no par- 
 ties, or only one ; but the all-powerful Republicans 
 who had adopted, under the pressure of foreign 
 war, most of the Federalist principles so obnox- 
 ious to Jefferson and his school, were split up into 
 as many factions as there were candidates for the 
 presidency. It was a period of transition in which 
 personal politics had taken the place of those 
 founded on opposing principles, and this “era of 
 good feeling” was marked by the intense bitter- 
 ness of the conflicts produced by these personal 
 rivalries. In addition to the factions which were 
 battling for the control of the Republican party 
 and for the great prize of the presidency, there 
 was still another faction, composed of the old Fed- 
 eralists, who, although without organization, still 
 held to their name and their prejudices, and clung 
 together more as a matter of habit than with any 
 practical object. Mr. Webster had been one of 
 
RETURN TO CONGRESS. 
 
 131 
 
 the Federalist leaders in the old days, and when 
 he returned to public life with all the distinction 
 which he had won in other fields, he was at once 
 recognized as the chief and head of all that now 
 remained of the great party of Washington and 
 Hamilton. No Federalist could hope to be Presi- 
 dent, and for this very reason Federalist support 
 was eagerly sought by all Republican candidates 
 for the presidency. The favor of Mr. Webster as 
 the head of an independent and necessarily disin- 
 terested faction was, of course, strongly desired in 
 many quarters. His political position and his 
 high reputation as a lawyer, orator, and statesman 
 made him, therefore, a character of the first im- 
 portance in Washington, a fact to which Mr. Clay 
 at once gave public recognition by placing his fu- 
 ture rival at the head of the J udiciary Committee 
 of the House. 
 
 The six years of congressional life which now 
 ensued were among the most useful if not the 
 most brilliant in Mr. Webster’s whole public ca- 
 reer. He was free from the annoyance of oppo- 
 sition at home, and was twice returned by a 
 practically unanimous popular vote. He held a 
 commanding and influential and at the same time 
 a thoroughly independent position in Washington, 
 where he was regarded as the first man on the 
 floor of the House in point of ability and imputa- 
 tion. He was not only able to show his great 
 capacity for practical legislation, but he was at 
 
132 
 
 DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 liberty to advance his own views on public ques- 
 tions in his own way, unburdened by the outside 
 influences of party and of association which had 
 affected him so much in his previous term of ser- 
 vice and were soon to reassert their sway in all 
 1 's subsequent career. 
 
 ^ His return to Congress was at once signalized 
 by a great speech, which, although of no practical 
 or immediate moment, deserves careful attention 
 from the light which it throws on the workings of 
 his mind and the development of his opinions in 
 regard to his country. The House had been in 
 session but a few days when Mr. Webster offered 
 a resolution in favor of providing by law for the 
 expenses incident to the appointment of a com- 
 missioner to Greece, should the President deem 
 such an appointment expedient. The Greeks were 
 then in the throes of revolution, and the sympathy 
 for the heirs of so much glory in their struggle for 
 freedom was strong among the American people. 
 When Mr. Webster rose on January 19, 1824, to 
 move the adoption of the resolution which he had 
 laid upon the table of the House, the chamber was 
 crowded and the galleries were filled by a large 
 and fashionable audience attracted by the repu- 
 tation of the orator and the interest felt in his 
 subject. His hearers were disappointed if they 
 expected a great rhetorical display, for which the 
 nature of the subject and the classic memories 
 clustering about it offered such strong tempta- 
 
RETURN TO CONGRESS. 
 
 133 
 
 tions. Mr. Webster did not rise for that purpose, 
 nor to make capital by an appeal to a temporary 
 popular interest. His speech was for a wholly 
 different purpose. It was the first expression of 
 that grand conception of the American Union 
 which had vaguely excited his youthful enthu- 
 siasm. This conception had now come to be part 
 of his intellectual being, and then and always 
 stirred his imagination and his affections to their 
 inmost depths. It embodied the principle from 
 which he never swerved, and led to all that he 
 represents and to all that his influence means in 
 our history. 
 
 As the first expression of his conception of the 
 destiny of the United States as a great and united 
 nation, Mr. Webster was, naturally, “more fond 
 of this child ” than of any other of his intellectual 
 family. The speech itself was a noble one, but it 
 was an eloquent essay rather than a great exam- 
 ple of the oratory of debate. This description can 
 in no other case be applied to Mr. Webster’s par- 
 liamentary efforts, but in this instance it is cor- 
 rect, because the occasion justified such a form. 
 Mr. Webster’s purpose was to show that, though 
 the true policy of the United States absolutely 
 debarred them from taking any part in the affairs 
 of Europe, yet they had an important duty to per- 
 form in exercising their proper influence on the 
 public opinion of the world. Europe was then 
 struggling with the monstrous principles of the 
 
134 
 
 DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 “Holy Alliance.” Those principles Mr. Webster 
 reviewed historically. He showed their pernicious 
 tendency, their hostility to all modern theories of 
 government, and their especial opposition to the 
 principles of American liberty. If the doctrines 
 of the Congress of Laybach were right and could 
 be made to prevail, then those of America were 
 wrong and the systems of popular government 
 adopted in the United States were doomed. 
 Against such infamous principles it behooved the 
 people of the United States to raise their voice. 
 Mr. Webster sketched the history of Greece, and 
 made a fine appeal to Americans to give an ex- 
 pression of their sympathy to a people struggling 
 for freedom. He proclaimed, so that all men 
 might hear, the true duty of the United States 
 toward the oppressed of any land, and the respon- 
 sibility which they held to exert their influence 
 upon the opinions of mankind. The national des- 
 tiny of his country in regard to other nations was 
 his theme ; to give to the glittering declaration 
 of Canning, that he would “ call in the new world 
 to redress the balance of the old,” a deep and real 
 significance was his object. 
 
 The speech touched Mr. Clay to the quick. 
 He supported Mr. Webster’s resolution with all 
 the ardor of his genei’ous nature, and supplemented 
 it by another against the interference of Spain in 
 South America. A stormy debate followed, viv- 
 ified by the flings and taunts of John Randolph, 
 
RETURN TO CONGRESS. 
 
 135 
 
 but the unwillingness to take action was so 
 great that Mr. Webster did not press his resolu- 
 tion to a vote. He had at the outset looked for 
 a practical result from his resolution, and had de- 
 sired the appointment of Mr. Everett as commis- 
 sioner, a plan in which he had been encouraged 
 by Mr. Calhoun, who had given him to under- 
 stand that the Executive regarded the Greek mis- 
 sion with favor. Before he delivered his speech 
 he became aware that Calhoun had misled him, 
 that Mr. Adams, the Secretary of State, con- 
 sidered Everett too much of a partisan, and that 
 the administration was wholly averse to any ac- 
 tion in the premises. This destroyed all hope of 
 a practical result, and made an adverse vote cer- 
 tain. The only course was to avoid a decision 
 and trust to what he said for an effect on public 
 opinion. The real purpose of the speech, however, 
 was achieved. Mr. Webster had exposed and de- 
 nounced the Holy Alliance as hostile to the liber- 
 ties of mankind, and had declared the unalterable 
 enmity of the United States to its reactionary 
 doctrines. The speech was widely read, not only 
 wherever English was spoken, but it was trans- 
 lated into all the languages of Europe, and was 
 circulated throughout South America. It increased 
 Mr. Webster’s fame at home and laid the founda- 
 tion of his reputation abroad. Above all, it 
 stamped him as a statesman of a broad and na- 
 tional cast of mind. 
 
136 
 
 DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 He now settled down to hard and continuous 
 labor at the routine business of the House, and it 
 was not until the end of March that he had occa- 
 sion to make another elaborate and important 
 speech. At that time Mr. Clay took up the bill 
 for laying certain protective duties and advocated 
 it strenuously as part of a general and steady pol- 
 icy which he then christened with the name of 
 “ the American system.” Against this bill, known 
 as the tariff of 1824, Mr. Webster made, as Mr. 
 Adams wrote in his diary at the time, “ an able 
 and powerful speech,” which can be more properly 
 considered when we come to his change of position 
 on this question a few years later. 
 
 As chairman of the Judiciary Committee, the 
 affairs of the national courts were his particular 
 care. Western expansion demanded an increased 
 number of judges for the circuits, but, unfortu- 
 nately, decisions in certain recent cases had of- 
 fended the sensibilities of Virginia and Kentucky, 
 and there was a renewal of the old Jeffersonian 
 efforts to limit the authority of the Supreme 
 Court. Instead of being able to improve, he was 
 obliged to defend the court, and this he did suc- 
 cessfully, defeating all attempts to curtail its power 
 by alterations of the act of 1789. These duties 
 and that of investigating the charges brought by 
 Ninian Edwards against Mr. Crawford, the Secre- 
 tary of the Treasury, made the session an un- 
 usually laborious one, and detained Mr. Webster 
 in Washington until midsummer. 
 
RETURN TO CONGRESS. 
 
 137 
 
 The short session of the next winter was of 
 course marked by the excitement attendant upon 
 the settlement of the presidential election which 
 resulted in the choice of Mr. John Quincy Adams 
 by the House of Representatives. The intense 
 agitation in political circles did not, however, pre- 
 vent Mr. Webster from delivering one very im- 
 portant speech, nor from carrying through success- 
 fully one of the most important and practically 
 useful measures of his legislative career. The 
 speech was delivered in the debate on the bill for 
 continuing the national Cumberland road. Mr. 
 Webster had already, many years before, defined 
 his position on the constitutional question involved 
 in internal improvements. He now, in response 
 to Mr. McDuffie of South Carolina, who de- 
 nounced the measure as partial and sectional, not 
 merely defended the principle of internal improve- 
 ments, but declared that it was a policy to be 
 pursued only with the purest national feeling. It 
 was not the business of Congress, he said, to legis- 
 late for this State or that, or to balance local in- 
 terests, and because they helped one region to help 
 another, but to act for the benefit of all the States 
 united, and in making improvements to be guided 
 only by their necessity. He showed that these 
 roads would open up the West to settlement, and 
 incidentally defended the policy of selling the 
 public lands at a low price as an encouragement 
 to emigration, telling his Southern friends very 
 
138 
 
 DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 plainly that they could not expect to coerce the 
 course of population in favor of their own section. 
 The whole speech was conceived in the broadest 
 and wisest spirit, and marks another step in the 
 development of Mr. Webster as a national states- 
 man. It increased his reputation, and brought to 
 him a great accession of popularity in the West. 
 
 The measure which he carried through was the 
 famous “ Crimes Act,” perhaps the best monu- 
 ment that there is of his legislative and construc- 
 tive ability. The criminal law of the United 
 States had scarcely been touched since the days of 
 the first Congress, and was very defective and un- 
 satisfactory. Mr. Webster’s first task, in which 
 he received most essential and valuable though 
 unacknowledged assistance from Judge Story, was 
 to codify and digest the whole body of criminal 
 law. This done, the hardly less difficult under- 
 taking followed of carrying the measure through 
 Congress. In the latter, Mr. Webster, by his 
 skill in debate and familiarity with his subject, 
 and by his influence in the House, was perfectly 
 successful. That he and Judge Story did their 
 work well in perfecting the bill is shown by the 
 admirable manner in which the Act stood the test 
 of time and experience. 
 
 When the new Congress came together in 1825, 
 Mr. Webster at once turned his attention to the 
 improvement of the Judiciary, which he had been 
 obliged to postpone in order to ward off the attacks 
 
RETURN TO CONGRESS. 
 
 139 
 
 upon the court. After much, deliberation and 
 thought, aided by Judge Story, and having made 
 some concessions to his committee, he brought 
 in a bill increasing the Supreme Court judges 
 to ten, making ten instead of seven circuits, and 
 providing that six judges should constitute a quo- 
 rum for the transaction of business. Although 
 not a party question, the measure excited much 
 opposition, and was more than a month in passing 
 through the House. Mr. Webster supported it at 
 every stage with great ability, and his two most 
 important speeches, which are in their way mod- 
 els for the treatment of such a subject, are pre- 
 served in his works. The bill was carried by his 
 great strength in debate and by weight of forcible 
 argument. But in the Senate, where it was de- 
 prived of the guardianship of its author, it hung 
 along in uncertainty, and was finally lost through 
 the apathy or opposition of those very Western 
 members for whose benefit it had been devised. 
 Mr. Webster took its ultimate defeat very coolly. 
 The Eastern States did not require it, and were 
 perfectly contented with the existing arrange- 
 ments, and he was entirely satisfied with the as- 
 surance that the best lawyers and wisest men ap- 
 proved the principles of the bill. The time and 
 thought which he had expended were not wasted 
 so far as he was personally concerned, for they 
 served to enhance his influence and reputation 
 both as a lawyer and statesman. 
 
340 
 
 DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 This session brought with it also occasions for 
 debate other than those which were offered by 
 measures of purely legislative and practical inter- 
 est. The administration of Mr. Adams marks the 
 close of the “era of good feeling,” as it was called, 
 and sowed the germs of those divisions which were 
 soon to result in new and definite party combina- 
 tions. Mr. Adams and Mr. Clay represented the 
 conservative and General Jackson and his friends 
 the radical or democratic elements in the now all- 
 embracing Republican party. It was inevitable 
 that Mr. Webster should sympathize with the 
 former, and it was equally inevitable that in doing 
 so he should become the leader of the administra- 
 tion forces in the House, where “ his great and 
 commanding influence,” to quote the words of an 
 opponent, made him a host himself. The desire 
 of Mr. Adams to send representatives to the Pan- 
 ama Congress, a scheme which lay very near his 
 heart and to which Mr. Clay was equally at- 
 tached, encountered a bitter and factious resist- 
 ance in the Senate, sufficient to deprive the meas- 
 ure of any real utility by delaying its passage. In 
 the House a resolution was introduced declaring 
 simply that it was expedient to appropriate money 
 to defray the expenses of the proposed mission. 
 The opposition at once undertook by amendments 
 to instruct the ministers, and generally to go be- 
 yond the powers of the House. The real ground 
 of the attack was slavery, threatened, as was sup- 
 
RETURN TO CONGRESS. 
 
 141 
 
 posed, by the attitude of the South American re- 
 publics — a fact which no one understood or cared 
 to recognize. Mr. Webster stood forth as the 
 champion of the Executive. In an elaborate 
 speech of great ability he denounced the uncon- 
 stitutional attempt to interfere with the prerog- 
 ative of the President, and discussed with much 
 effect the treaty^naking power assailed on another 
 famous occasion, many years before, by the South, 
 and defended at that time also by the eloquence 
 of a representative of Massachusetts. Mr. Web- 
 ster showed the nature of the Panama Congress, 
 defended its objects and the policy of the admin- 
 istration, and made a full and fine exposition of 
 the intent of the “ Monroe doctrine.” The speech 
 was air important and effective one. It exhibited 
 in an exceptional way Mr. Webster’s capacity for 
 discussing large questions of public and constitu- 
 tional law and foreign policy, and was of essential 
 service to the cause which he espoused. It was 
 imbued, too, with that sentiment of national unity 
 which occupied a larger space in his thoughts with 
 each succeeding year, until it finally pervaded his 
 whole career as a public man. 
 
 At the second session of the same Congress, 
 after a vain effort to confer upon the country the 
 benefit of a national bankrupt law, Mr. Webster 
 was again called upon to defend the Executive in a 
 much more heated conflict than that aroused by 
 the Panama resolution. Georgia was engaged in 
 
142 
 
 DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 oppressing and robbing the Creek Indians, in open 
 contempt of the treaties and obligations of the 
 United States. Mr. Adams sent in a message re- 
 citing the facts and hinting pretty plainly that he 
 intended to carry out the laws by force unless 
 Georgia desisted. The message was received with 
 great wrath by the Southern members. They 
 objected to any reference to a committee, and Mr. 
 Forsyth of Georgia declared the whole business to 
 be “ base and infamous,” while a gentleman from 
 Mississippi announced that Georgia would act as 
 she pleased. Mr. Webster, having said that she 
 would do so at her peril, was savagely attacked as 
 the organ of the administration, daring to menace 
 and insult a sovereign State. This stirred Mr. 
 Webster, although slow to anger, to a determina- 
 tion to carry through the reference at all hazards. 
 He said : — 
 
 “ He would tell the gentleman from Georgia that if 
 there were rights of the Indians which the United 
 States were bound to protect, that there were those in 
 the House and in the country who would take their 
 part. If we have bound ourselves by any treaty to do 
 certain things, we must fulfil such obligation. High 
 words will not terrify us, loud declamation will not deter 
 us from the discharge of that duty. In my own course 
 in this matter I shall not be dictated to by any State or 
 the representative of any State on this floor. I shall 
 not be frightened from my purpose nor will I suffer 
 harsh language to produce any reaction on my mind. 1 
 
RETURN TO CONGRESS. 
 
 143 
 
 will examine with great and equal care all the rights of 
 both parties. ... I have made these few remarks to 
 give the gentleman from Georgia to understand that it 
 was not by bold denunciation nor by bold assumption 
 that the members of this House are to be influenced in 
 the decision of high public concerns.” 
 
 When Mr. Webster was thoroughly roused and 
 indignant there was a darkness in his face and a 
 gleam of dusky light in his deep-set eyes which 
 were not altogether pleasant to contemplate. How 
 well Mr. Forsyth and his friends bore the words 
 and look of Mr. Webster we have no means of 
 knowing, but the message was referred to a select 
 committee without a division. The interest to us 
 in all this is the spirit in which Mr. Webster 
 spoke. He loved the Union as intensely then as 
 at any period of his life, but he was still far dis- 
 tant from the frame of mind which induced him 
 to think that his devotion to the Union would be 
 best expressed and the cause of the Union best 
 served by mildness toward the South and rebuke 
 to the North. He believed in 1826 that dignified 
 courage and firm language were the surest means 
 of keeping the peace. He was quite right then, 
 and he would have been always right if he had 
 adhered to the plain words and determined man- 
 ner to which he treated Mr. Forsyth and his 
 friends. 
 
 This session was crowded with work of varying 
 importance, but the close of Mr. Webster’s career 
 
144 
 
 DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 in the lower House was near at hand. The fail- 
 ing health of Mr. E. H. Mills made it certain that 
 Massachusetts would soon have a vacant seat in 
 the Senate, and every one turned to Mr. Webster 
 as the person above all others- entitled to this 
 high office. He himself was by no means so quick 
 in determining to accept the position. He would 
 not even think of it until the impossibility of Mr. 
 Mills’s return was assured, and then he had to 
 meet the opposition of the administration and all 
 its friends, who regarded with alarm the prospect 
 of losing such a tower of strength in the House. 
 Mr. Webster, indeed, felt that he could render 
 the best service in the lower branch, and urged 
 the senatorship upon Governor Lincoln, who was 
 elected, but declined. After this there seemed to 
 be no escape from a manifest destiny. Despite 
 the opposition of his friends in Washington, and 
 his own reluctance, he finally accepted the office 
 of United States senator, which was conferred 
 upon him by the Legislature of Massachusetts in 
 June, 1827. 
 
 In tracing the labors of Mr. Webster during 
 three years spent in the lower House, no allusion 
 has been made to the purely political side of his 
 career at this time, nor to his relations with the 
 public men of the day. The period was important, 
 generally speaking, because it showed the first 
 signs of the development of new parties, and to 
 Mr. Webster in particular, because it brought him 
 
RETURN TO CONGRESS. 
 
 145 
 
 gradually toward the political and party position 
 which he was to occupy during the rest of his life. 
 When he took his seat in Congress, in the autumn 
 of 1823, the intrigues for the presidential succes- 
 sion were at their height. Mr. Webster was then 
 strongly inclined to Mr. Calhoun, as was sus- 
 pected at the time of that gentleman’s visit to 
 Boston. He soon became convinced, however, 
 that Mr. Calhoun's chances of success were slight, 
 and his good opinion of the distinguished South 
 Carolinian seems also to have declined. It was 
 out of the question for a man of Mr. Webster’s 
 temperament and habits of thought, to think for 
 a moment of supporting Jackson, a candidate on 
 the ground of military glory and unreflecting pop- 
 ular enthusiasm. Mr. Adams, as the representative 
 of New England, and as a conservative and trained 
 statesman, was the natural and proper candidate 
 to receive the aid of Mr. Webster. But here 
 party feelings and traditions stepped in. The 
 Federalists of New England had hated Mr. Adams 
 with the peculiar bitterness which always grows 
 out of domestic quarrels, whether in public or 
 private life ; and although the old strife had sunk 
 a little out of sight, it had never been healed. 
 The Federalist leaders in Massachusetts still dis- 
 liked and distrusted Mr. Adams with an intensity 
 none the less real because it was concealed. In 
 the nature of things Mr. Webster now occupied a 
 position of political independence ; but he had 
 10 
 
146 
 
 DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 been a steady party man when bis party was in 
 existence, and he was still a party man so far as 
 the old Federalist feelings retained vitality and 
 force. He bad, moreover, but a slight personal 
 acquaintance with Mr. Adams and no very cor- 
 dial feeling toward him. This disposed of three 
 presidential candidates. The fourth was Mr. 
 Clay, and it is not very clear why Mr. Webster 
 refused an alliance in this quarter. Mr. Clay had 
 treated him with consideration, they were per- 
 sonal friends, their opinions were not dissimilar 
 and were becoming constantly more alike. Pos- 
 sibly there was an instinctive feeling of rivalry on 
 this very account. At all events, Mr. Webster 
 would not support Clay. Only one candidate re- 
 mained : Mr. Crawford, the representative of all 
 that was extreme among the Republicans, and, in 
 a party sense, most odious to the Federalists. But 
 it was a time when personal factions flourished 
 rankly in the absence of broad differences of prin- 
 ciple. Mr. Crawford was bidding furiously for 
 support in every and any quarter, and to Mr. 
 Crawford, accordingly, Mr. Webster began to look 
 as a possible leader for himself and his friends. 
 Just how far Mr. Webster went in this direction 
 cannot be readily or surely determined, although 
 we get some light on the subject from an attack 
 made on Mr. Crawford just at this time. Ninian 
 Edwards, recently senator from Illinois, had a 
 quarrel with Mr. Crawford, and sent in a memo- 
 
RETURN TO CONGRESS. 
 
 147 
 
 rial to Congress containing charges against the 
 Secretary of the Treasury which were designed 
 to break him down as a candidate for the presi- 
 dency. Of the merits of this quarrel it is not 
 very easy to judge, even if it were important. 
 The character of Edwards was none of the best, 
 and Mr. Crawford had unquestionably made a 
 highly unscrupulous use, politically, of his posi- 
 tion. The members of the administration, al- 
 though with no great love for Edwards, who had 
 been appointed Minister to Mexico, were dis- 
 tinctly hostile to Mr. Crawford, and refused to 
 attend a dinner from which Edwards had been 
 expressly excluded. Mr. Webster’s part in the 
 affair came from his being on the committee 
 charged with the investigation of the Edwards 
 memorial. Mr. Adams, who was of course ex- 
 cited by the presidential contest, disposed to re- 
 gard his rivals with extreme disfavor, and espe- 
 cially and justly suspicious of Mr. Crawford, 
 speaks of Mr. Webster’s conduct in the matter 
 with the utmost bitterness. He refers to it again 
 and again as an attempt to screen Crawford and 
 break down Edwards, and denounces Mr. Web- 
 ster as false, insidious, and treacherous. Much of 
 this may be credited to the heated animosities of 
 the moment, but there can be no doubt that Mr. 
 Webster took the matter into his own hands in 
 the committee, and made every effort to protect 
 Mr. Crawford, in whose favor he also spoke in the 
 
148 
 
 DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 House. It is likewise certain that there was an 
 attempt to bring about an alliance between Craw- 
 ford and the Federalists of the North and East. 
 The effort was abortive, and even before the con- 
 clusion of the Edwards business Mr. Webster 
 avowed that he should take but little part in the 
 election, and that his only purpose was to secure 
 the best terms possible for the Federalists, and 
 obtain recognition for them from the next admin- 
 istration. At that time he wished Mr. Mason to 
 be attorney-general, and had already turned his 
 thoughts toward the English mission for himself. 
 
 To this waiting policy he adhered, but when 
 the popular election was over, and the final decis- 
 ion had been thrown into the House of Repre- 
 sentatives, more definite action became necessary. 
 From the questions which he put to his brother 
 and others as to the course which he ought to 
 pursue in the election by the House, it is obvious 
 that he was far from anxious to secure the choice 
 of Mr. Adams, and was weighing carefully other 
 contingencies. The feeling of New England could 
 not, however, be mistaken. Public opinion there 
 demanded that the members of the House should 
 stand by the New England candidate to the last. 
 To this sentiment Mr. Webster submitted, and 
 soon afterwai’ds took occasion to have an inter- 
 view with Mr. Adams in order to make the best 
 terms possible for the Federalists, and obtain for 
 them suitable recognition. Mr. Adams assured 
 
RETURN TO CONGRESS. 
 
 149 
 
 Mr. Webster that he did not intend to proscribe 
 any section or any party, and added that although 
 lie could not give the Federalists representation 
 in the cabinet, he should give them one of the 
 important appointments. Mr. Webster was en- 
 tirely satisfied with this promise and with all that 
 was said by Mr. Adams, who, as everybody knows, 
 was soon after elected by the House on the first 
 ballot. 
 
 Mr. Adams on his side saw plainly the necessity 
 of conciliating Mr. Webster, whose great ability 
 and influence he thoroughly understood. He told 
 Mr. Clay that be bad a high opinion of Mr. Web- 
 ster, and wished to win his support ; and the sav- 
 age tone displayed in regard to the Edwards affair 
 now disappears from the Diary. Mr. Adams, how- 
 ever, although he knew, as he says, that “ Web- 
 ster was panting for the English mission,” and 
 hinted that the wish might be gratified hereafter? 
 was not ready to go so far at the moment, and 
 at the same time he sought to dissuade Mr. Web- 
 ster from being a candidate for the speakership, 
 for which in truth the latter had no inclination. 
 Their relations, indeed, soon grew very pleasant. 
 Mr. Webster naturally became the leader of the 
 administration forces in the House, while the 
 President on his side sought Mr. Webster’s ad- 
 vice, admired his oration on Adams and Jefferson, 
 dined at his house, and lived on terms of friend- 
 ship and confidence with him. It is to be feared, 
 
150 
 
 DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 however, that all this was merely on the surface. 
 Mr. Adams at the bottom of his heart never, in 
 reality, relaxed in his belief that Mr. Webster 
 was morally unsound. Mr. Webster, on the other 
 hand, whose Federalist opposition to Mr. Adams 
 had only been temporarily allayed, was not long 
 in coming to the conclusion that his services, if 
 appreciated, were not properly recognized by the 
 administration. There was a good deal of justice 
 in this view. The English mission never came, 
 no help Was to be obtained for Mr. Mason’s elec- 
 tion as senator from New Hampshire, the speaker- 
 ship was to be refused in order to promote har- 
 mony and strength in the House. To all this Mr. 
 Webster submitted, and fought the battles of the 
 administration in debate as no one else could have 
 done. Nevertheless, all men like recognition, and 
 Mr. Webster would have preferred something more 
 solid than words and confidence or the triumph of 
 a common cause. When the Massachusetts sen- 
 atorship was in question Mr. Adams urged the 
 election of Governor Lincoln, and objected on the 
 most flattering grounds to Mr. Webster’s with- 
 drawal from the House. It is not a too violent 
 conjecture to suppose that Mr. Webster’s final ac- 
 ceptance of a seat in the Senate was due in large 
 measure to a feeling that he had sacrificed enough 
 for the administration. There can be no doubt 
 that coolness grew between the President and the 
 Senator, and that the appointment to England, if 
 
RETURN TO CONGRESS. 
 
 151 
 
 still desired, never was made, so that when the 
 next election came on Mr. Webster was inactive, 
 and, despite his hostility to Jackson, viewed the 
 overthrow of Mr. Adams with a good deal of in- 
 difference and some satisfaction. It is none the 
 less true, however, that during these years when 
 the first foundations of the future Whig party 
 were laid, Mr. Webster formed the political affilia- 
 tions which were to last through life. He in- 
 evitably found himself associated with Clay and 
 Adams, and opposed to Jackson, Benton, and Van 
 Buren, while at the same time he and Calhoun 
 were fast drifting apart. He had no specially 
 cordial feeling to his new associates ; but they 
 were at the head of the conservative elements of 
 the country, they were nationalists in policy, and 
 they favored the views which were most affected 
 in New England. As a conservative and nation- 
 alist by nature and education, and as the great New 
 England leader, Mr. Webster could not avoid be- 
 coming the parliamentai’y chief of Mr. Adams’s 
 administration, and thus paved the way for leader- 
 ship in the Whig party of the future. 
 
 In narrating the history of these years, I have 
 confined myself to Mr. Webster’s public services 
 and political course. But it was a period in his 
 career which was crowded with work and achieve- 
 ment, bringing fresh fame and increased reputa- 
 tion, and also with domestic events both of joy and 
 sorrow. Mr. Webster steadily pursued the prac- 
 
152 
 
 DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 tice of the law, and was constantly engaged in the 
 Supreme Courts To these years belong many of 
 his great arguments, and also the prosecution of the 
 Spanish claims, a task at once laborious and prof- 
 itable. In the summer of 1821 Mr. Webster first 
 saw Marshfield, his future home, and in the autumn 
 of the same year he visited Monticello, where he 
 had a long interview with Mr. Jefferson, of whom 
 he has left a most interesting description. During 
 the winter he formed the acquaintance and lived 
 much in the society of some well-known English- 
 men then travelling in this country. This party 
 consisted of the Earl of Derby, then Mr. Stanley, 
 Lord Wharncliffe, then Mr. Stuai’t Wortley; Lord 
 Taunton, then Mr. Labouchere, and Mr. Denison, 
 afterwards Speaker of the House of Commons. 
 With Mr. Denison this acquaintance was the 
 foundation of a lasting and intimate friendship 
 maintained by correspondence. In June, 1825, 
 came the splendid oration at Bunker Hill, and 
 then a visit to Niagara, which, of course, appealed 
 strongly to Mr. Webster. His account of it, how- 
 ever, although indicative of a deep mental im- 
 pression, shows that his power of describing na- 
 ture fell far short of his wonderful talent for pic- 
 turing human passions and action. The next 
 vacation brought the eulogy on Adams and Jeffer- 
 son, when perhaps Mr. Webster may be consid- 
 ered to have been in his highest physical and 
 intellectual perfection. Such at least was the 
 opinion of Mr. Ticknor, who says : — 
 
RETURN TO CONGRESS. 
 
 153 
 
 “ He was in the perfection of manly beauty and 
 strength ; his form filled out to its finest proportions, 
 and his bearing, as he stood before the vast multitude, 
 that of absolute dignity and power. His manner of 
 speaking was deliberate and commanding. I never 
 heard him when his manner was so grand and appropri- 
 ate ; . . . when he ended the minds of men were 
 wrought up to an uncontrollable excitement, and then 
 followed three tremendous cheers, inappropriate indeed, 
 but as inevitable as any other great movement of na- 
 ture.” 
 
 He liad held the vast audience mute for over 
 two hours, as John Quincy Adams said in his di- 
 ary, and finally their excited feelings found vent in 
 cheers. He spoke greatly because he felt greatly. 
 His emotions, his imagination, his entire orator- 
 ical temperament were then full of quick sensi- 
 bility. When he finished writing the imaginary 
 speech of John Adams in the quiet of his library 
 and the silence of the morning hour, his eyes were 
 wet with tears. 
 
 A year passed by after this splendid display of 
 eloquence, and then the second congressional pe- 
 riod, which had been so full of work and intellect- 
 ual activity and well-earned distinction, closed, 
 and he entered upon that broader field which 
 opened to him in the Senate of the United States, 
 where his greatest triumphs were still to be 
 achieved. 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 THE TARIFF OF 1828 AND THE REPLY TO HAYNE. 
 
 The new dignity conferred on Mr. Webster by 
 the people of Massachusetts had hardly been as- 
 sumed when he was called upon to encounter a 
 trial which must have made all his honors seem 
 poor indeed. He had scarcely taken his seat when 
 he was obliged to return to New York, where fail- 
 ing health had arrested Mrs. Webster’s journey to 
 the capital, and where, after much suffering, she 
 died, January 21, 1828. The blow fell with ter- 
 rible severity upon her husband. He had many 
 sorrows to bear during his life, but this surpassed 
 all others. His wife was the love of his youth, 
 the mother of his children, a lovely woman whose 
 strong but gentle influence for good was now lost 
 to him irreparably. In his last days his thoughts 
 reverted to her, and as he followed her body to the 
 grave, on foot in th6 wet and cold, and leading his 
 children by the hand, it must indeed have seemed 
 as if the wine of life had been drunk and only the 
 lees remained. He was excessively pale, and to 
 those who looked upon him seemed crushed and 
 heart-broken. 
 
THE TARIFF OF 1828. 
 
 155 
 
 The only relief was to return to his work and 
 to the excitement of public affairs ; but the cloud 
 hung over him long after he was once more in his 
 place in the Senate. Death had made a wound in 
 his life which time healed but of which the scar 
 remained. Whatever were Mr. Webster’s faults, 
 his affection for those nearest to him, and espe- 
 cially for the wife of his youth, was deep and 
 strong. 
 
 “The very first day of Mr. Webster’s arrival and 
 taking his seat in the Senate,” Judge Story writes to Mr. 
 Ticknor, “ there was a process bill on its third reading, 
 filled, as he thought, with inconvenient and mischievous 
 provisions. He made, in a modest undertone, some in- 
 quiries, and, upon an answer being given, he expressed in 
 a few words his doubts and fears. Immediately Mr. 
 Tazewell from Virginia broke out upon him in a speech 
 of two hours. Mr. Webster then moved an adjournment, 
 and on the next day delivered a most masterly speech 
 in reply, expounding the whole operation of the intended 
 act in the clearest manner, so that a recommitment was 
 carried almost without an effort. It was a triumph of 
 the most gratifying nature, and taught his opponents the 
 danger of provoking a trial of his strength, even when 
 he was overwhelmed by calamity. In the labors of the 
 court he has found it difficult to work himself up to 
 high efforts ; but occasionally he comes out with all his 
 powers, and when he does, it is sure to attract a brilliant 
 audience.” 
 
 It would be impossible to give a better picture 
 than that presented by Judge Story of Mr. Web- 
 
156 
 
 DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 ster’s appearance and conduct in the month im- 
 mediately following the death of his wife. We 
 can see how his talents, excited by the conflicts 
 of the Senate and the court, struggled, sometimes 
 successfully, sometimes in vain, with the sense of 
 loss and sorrow which oppressed him. 
 
 He did not again come prominently forward in 
 the Senate until the end of April, when he roused 
 himself to prevent injustice. The bill for the 
 relief of the surviving officers of the Revolution 
 seemed on the point of being lost. The object of 
 the measure appealed to Mr. Webster’s love for 
 the past, to his imagination, and his patriotism. 
 He entered into the debate, delivered the fine 
 and dignified speech which is preserved in liis 
 works, and saved the bill. < 
 
 A fortnight after this he made his famous 
 speech on the tariff of 1828, a bill making ex- 
 tensive changes in the rates of duties imposed in 
 1816 and 1824. This speech marks an important 
 change in Mr. Webster’s views and in his course 
 as a statesman. He now gave up his position as 
 the ablest opponent in the country of the protec- 
 tive policy, and went over to the support of the 
 tariff and the “American system” of Mr. Clay. 
 This change, in every way of great importance, 
 subjected Mr. Webster to severe criticism both 
 then and subsequently. It is, therefore, necessary 
 to examine briefly his previous utterances on this 
 question in order to reach a correct understanding 
 
THE TARIFF OF 1828. 
 
 157 
 
 of his motives in taking this important step and 
 to appreciate his reasons for the adoption of a pol- 
 icy with which, after the year 1828, he was so 
 closely identified. 
 
 When Mr. Webster first entered Congress he 
 was a thorough-going Federalist. But the Fed- 
 eralists of New England differed from their great 
 chief, Alexander Hamilton, on the question of a 
 protective policy. Hamilton, in his report on 
 manufactures, advocated with consummate ability 
 the adoption of the principle of protection for 
 nascent industries as an integral and essential part 
 of a true national policy, and urged it on its own 
 merits, without any reference to its being incident 
 to revenue. The New England Federalists, on the 
 other hand, coming from exclusively commercial 
 communities, were in principle free-traders. They 
 regarded with disfavor the doctrine that protec- 
 tion was a good thing in itself, and desired it, if at 
 all, only in the most limited form and purely as an 
 incident to raising revenue. With these opinions 
 Mr. Webster was in full sympathy, and he took 
 occasion when Mr. Calhoun, in 1814, spoke in 
 favor of the existing double duties as a protective 
 measure, and also in favor of manufactures, during 
 the debate on the repeal of the embargo, to define 
 his position on this important question. A few 
 brief extracts will show his views, which were ex- 
 pressed very clearly and with his wonted ability 
 and force. 
 
158 
 
 DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 “ I consider,” he said, “ the imposition of double du- 
 ties as a mere financial measure. Its great object was 
 to raise revenue, not to foster manufactures. ... I do 
 not say the double duties ought to be continued. I 
 think they ought not. But what I particularly object 
 to is the holding out of delusive expectations to those 
 concerned in manufactures. ... In respect to manufac- 
 tures it is necessary to speak with some precision. I 
 am not, generally speaking, their enemy. I am their 
 friend ; but I am not for rearing them or any other in- 
 terest in hot-beds. I would not legislate precipitately, 
 even in favor of them ; above all, I would not profess 
 intentions in relation to them which I did not purpose to 
 execute. I feel no desire to push capital into extensive 
 manufactures faster than the general progress of our 
 wealth and population propels it. 
 
 “ I am not in haste to see Sheffields and Birminghams 
 in America. Until the population of the country shall 
 be greater in proportion to its extent, such establish- 
 ments would be impracticable if attempted, and if prac- 
 ticable they would be unwise.” 
 
 He then pointed out the inferiority and the 
 perils of manufactures as an occupatioxr in com- 
 parison with agriculture, and concluded as fol- 
 lows : — 
 
 “ I am not anxious to accelerate the approach of the 
 period when the great mass of American labor shall not 
 find its employment in the field ; when the young men 
 of the country shall be obliged to shut their eyes upon 
 external nature, upon the heavens and the earth, and 
 immerse themselves in close and unwholesome work- 
 
THE TARIFF OF 1828 . 
 
 159 
 
 shops ; when they shall be obliged to shut their ears to 
 the bieatings of their own flocks upon their own hills, 
 and to the voice of the lark that cheers them at the 
 plough, that they may open them in dust and smoke and 
 steam to the perpetual whirl of spools and spindles, and 
 the grating of rasps and saws. I have made these re- 
 marks, sir, not because I perceive any immediate danger 
 of carrying our manufactures to an extensive height, but 
 for the purpose of guarding and limiting my opinions, 
 and of checking, perhaps, a little the high-wrought 
 hopes of some who seem to look to our present infant 
 establishments for ‘ more than their nature or their state 
 can bear.’ 
 
 “ It is the true policy of government to suffer the dif- 
 ferent pursuits of society to take their own course, and 
 not to give excessive bounties or encouragements to one over 
 another. This, also, is the true spirit of the Constitu- 
 tion. It has not, in my opinion, conferred on the govern- 
 ment the power of changing the occupations of the people 
 of different States and sections, and of forcing them into 
 other employments. It cannot prohibit commerce any 
 more than agriculture, nor manufactures any more than 
 commerce. It owes protection to all.” 
 
 The sentences in italics constitute a pretty 
 strong and explicit statement of the laissez faire 
 doctrine, and it will be observed that the tone of 
 all the extracts is favorable to free trade and hos- 
 tile to protection and even to manufactures in a 
 marked degree. We see, also, that Mr. Webster, 
 with his usual penetration and justice of percep- 
 tion, saw very clearly that uniformity and steadi- 
 
160 
 
 DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 ness of policy were more essential than even the 
 policy itself, and in his opinion were most likely 
 to be attained by refraining from protection as 
 much as possible. 
 
 When the tariff of 1816 was under discussion 
 Mr. Webster made no elaborate speech against it, 
 probably feeling that it was hopeless to attempt 
 to defeat the measure as a whole, but he devoted 
 himself with almost complete success to the task 
 of reducing the proposed duties and to securing 
 modifications of various portions of the bill. 
 
 In 1820, when the tariff recommended at the 
 previous session was about to come befoi'e Con- 
 gress, Mr. Webster was not in public life. He 
 attended, however, a meeting of merchants and 
 agriculturists, held in Faneuil Hall in the summer 
 of that year, to protest against the proposed tariff, 
 and he spoke strongly in favor of the free trade 
 resolutions which were then adopted. He began 
 by saying that he was a friend to manufactures, 
 but not to the tariff, which he considered as most 
 injurious to the country. 
 
 “ He certainly thought it might be doubted whether 
 Congress would not be acting somewhat against the spirit 
 and intention of the Constitution in exercising a power 
 to control essentially the pursuits and occupations of in- 
 dividuals in their private concerns — a power to force 
 great and sudden changes both of occupation and prop- 
 erty upon individuals, not as incidental to the exercise of 
 any other power , hut as a substantial and direct power” 
 
THE TARIFF OF 1828 . 
 
 161 
 
 It will be observed that he objects to the con- 
 stitutionality of protection as a “ direct power,” 
 and in the speech of 1814, in the portion quoted 
 in italics, he declared against any general' power 
 still more forcibly and broadly. It is an impossi- 
 ble piece of subtlety and refining, therefore, to 
 argue that Mr. Webster always held consistently 
 to his views as to the limitations of the revenue 
 power as a source of protection, and that he put 
 protection in 1828, and subsequently sustained it 
 after his change of position, on new and general 
 constitutional grounds. In the speeches of 1814 
 and 1820 he declared expressly against the doc- 
 trine of a general power of protection, saying, in 
 the latter instance : — 
 
 “It would hardly be contended that Congress pos- 
 sessed that sort of general power by which it might de- 
 clare that particular occupations should be pursued in 
 society and that others should not. If such power 
 belonged to any government in this country , it certainly 
 did not belong to the general government .” 
 
 Mr. Webster took the New England position 
 that there was no general power, and having so 
 declared in this speech of 1820, he then went on 
 to show that protection could only come as inci- 
 dental to revenue, and that, even in this way, it 
 became unconstitutional when the incident was 
 turned into the principle and when protection and 
 not revenue was the object of the duties. After 
 arguing this point, he proceeded to discuss the 
 ll 
 
162 
 
 DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 general expediency of protection, holding it up as 
 a thoroughly mistaken policy, a failure in England 
 which that country would gladly be rid of, and 
 defending commerce as the truest and best sup- 
 port of the government and of general prosperity. 
 He took up next the immediate effects of the pro- 
 posed tariff, and, premising that it would confess- 
 edly cause a diminution of the revenue, said : — 
 
 “ In truth, every man in the community not immedi- 
 ately benefited by the new duties would suffer a double 
 loss. In the first place, by shutting out the former com- 
 modity, the price of the domestic manufacture would be 
 raised. The consumer, therefore, must pay more for it, 
 and insomuch as government will have lost the duty on 
 the imported article, a tax equal to that duty must be 
 paid to the government. The real amount, then, of this 
 bounty on a given article will be precisely the amount 
 of the present duty added to the amount of the pro- 
 posed duty.” 
 
 He then went on to show the injustice which 
 would be done to all manufacturers of unprotected 
 articles, and ridiculed the idea of the connection 
 between home industries artificially developed and 
 national independence. He concluded by assail- 
 ing manufacturing as an occupation, attacking it 
 as a means of making the rich richer and the poor 
 poorer; of injuring business by concentrating 
 capital in the hands of a few who obtained control 
 of the corporations ; of distributing capital less 
 widely than commerce ; of breeding up a danger- 
 
THE TARIFF OF 1828 . 
 
 168 
 
 ous and undesirable population ; and of leading to 
 the hurtful employment of women and children. 
 The meeting, the resolutions, and the speech were 
 all in t?ie interests of commerce and free trade, 
 and Mr. Webster’s doctrines were on the most 
 approved pattern of New England Federalism, 
 which, professing a mild friendship for manufac- 
 tures and unwillingly conceding the minimum of 
 protection solely as an incident to revenue, was, 
 at bottom, thoroughly hostile to both. In 1820 
 Mr. Webster stood forth, both politically and con- 
 stitutionally, as a free-trader, moderate but at the 
 same time decided in his opinions. 
 
 When the tariff of 1824 was brought before 
 Congress and advocated with great zeal by Mr. 
 Clay, who upheld it as the “ American system,” 
 Mr. Webster opposed the policy in the fullest and 
 most elaborate speech he had yet made on the 
 subject. A distinguished American economist, 
 Mr. Edward Atkinson, has described this speech 
 of 1824 briefly and exactly in the following 
 words : — 
 
 “It contains a refutation of the exploded theory of 
 the balance of trade, of the fallacy with regard to the 
 exportation of specie, and of the claim that the policy 
 of protection is distinctively the American policy which 
 can never be improved upon, and it indicates how thor- 
 oughly his judgment approved and his better nature 
 sympathized with the movement towards enlightened and 
 liberal commercial legislation, then already commenced 
 in Great Britain.” 
 
164 
 
 DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 This speech was in truth one of great ability, 
 showing a remarkable capacity for questions of 
 political economy, and opening with an admirable 
 discussion of the currency and of finance, in regard 
 to which Mr. Webster always held and advanced 
 the soundest, most scientific, and most enlightened 
 views. Now, as in 1820, he stood forth as the 
 especial champion of commerce, which, as he said, 
 had thriven without protection, had brought reve- 
 nue to the government and wealth to the country, 
 and would be grievously injured by the proposed 
 tariff. He made his principal objection to the 
 protection policy on the ground of favoritism to 
 some interests at the expense of others when all 
 were entitled to equal consideration. Of England 
 he said, “ Because a thing has been wrongly done, 
 it does not follow that it can be undone ; and this 
 is the reason, as I understand it, for which exclu- 
 sion, prohibition, and monopoly are suffered to re* 
 main in any degree in the English system.” After 
 examining at length the different varieties of pro- 
 tection, and displaying very thoroughly the state 
 of current English opinion, he defined the position 
 which he, in common with the Federalists of New 
 England, then as always adhered to in the follow- 
 ing words : — 
 
 “ Protection, when carried to the point which is now 
 recommended, that is, to entire prohibition, seems to me 
 destructive of all commercial intercourse between na- 
 tions. We are urged to adopt the system on general 
 
THE TARIFF OF 1828 . 
 
 165 
 
 principles ; I do not admit the general principle ; 
 on the contrary, I think freedom of trade the general 
 principle, and restriction the exception.” 
 
 He pointed out that the proposed protective 
 policy involved a decline of commerce, and that 
 steadiness and uniformity, the most essential req- 
 uisites in any policy, were endangered. He then 
 with great power dealt with the various points 
 summarized by Mr. Atkinson, and concluded with 
 a detailed and learned examination of the various 
 clauses of the bill, which finally passed by a small 
 majority and became law. 
 
 In 1828 came another tariff bill, so bad and so 
 extreme in many respects that it was called the 
 “ bill of abominations.” It originated in the agi- 
 tation of the woollen manufacturers which had 
 started the year before, and for this bill Mr. Web- 
 ster spoke and voted. He changed his ground on 
 this important question absolutely and entirely, 
 and made no pretence of doing anything else. 
 The speech which he made on this occasion is a 
 celebrated one, but it is so solely on account of 
 the startling change of position which it an- 
 nounced. Mr. Webster has been attacked and 
 defended for his action at this time with great 
 zeal, and all the constitutional and economic argu- 
 ments for and against protection are continually 
 brought forward in this connection. From the 
 tone of the discussion, it is to be feared that many 
 of those who are interested in the question have 
 
166 
 
 DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 not taken the trouble to read what he said. The 
 speech of 1828 is by no means equal in any way 
 to its predecessors in the same field. It is brief 
 and simple to the last degree. It has not a shred 
 of constitutional argument, nor does it enter at 
 all into a discussion of general principles. It 
 makes but one point, and treats that point with 
 great force as the only one to be made under the 
 circumstances, and thereby presents the single and 
 sufficient reason for its author’s vote. A few lines 
 from the speech give the marrow of the whole 
 matter. Mr. W ebster said : — 
 
 “ New England, sir, has not been a leader in this 
 policy. On the contrary, she held back herself and tried 
 to hold others back from it, from the adoption of the 
 Constitution to 1824. Up to 1824 she was accused of 
 sinister and selfish designs, because she discountenanced 
 the progress of this policy. . . . Under this angry denun- 
 ciation against her the act of 1824 passed. Now the 
 imputation is of a precisely opposite character. . . . 
 Both charges, sir, are equally without the slightest 
 foundation. The opinion of New England up to 1824 
 was founded in the conviction that, on the whole, it was 
 wisest and best, both for herself and others, that manu- 
 factures should make haste slowly. . . . When, at the 
 commencement of the late war, duties were doubled, we 
 were told that we should find a mitigation of the weight 
 of taxation in the new aid and succor which would be 
 thus afforded to our own manufacturing labor. Like 
 arguments were urged, and prevailed, but not by the 
 aid of New England votes, when the tariff was after- 
 
THE TARIFF OF 1828. 
 
 167 
 
 wards arranged at the close of the war in 1816. Fi- 
 nally, after a winter’s deliberation, the act of 1824 re- 
 ceived the sanction of both Houses of Congress and 
 settled the policy of the country. What, then, was 
 New England to do ? . . . Was she to hold out forever 
 against the course of the government, and see herself 
 losing on one side and yet make no effort to sustain 
 herself on the other ? No, sir. Nothing was left to 
 New England but to conform herself to the will of 
 others. Nothing was left to her but to consider that the 
 government had fixed and determined its own policy ; 
 and that policy was protection. ... I believe, sir, al- 
 most every man from New England who voted against 
 the law of 1824 declared that if, notwithstanding his 
 opposition to that law, it should still pass, there would 
 be no alternative but to consider the course and policy 
 of the government as then settled and fixed, and to act 
 accordingly. The law did pass ; and a vast increase of 
 investment in manufacturing establishments was the con- 
 sequence.” 
 
 Opinion in New England changed for good 
 and sufficient business reasons, and Mr. Web- 
 ster changed with it. Free trade had commended 
 itself to him as an abstract principle, and he had 
 sustained and defended it as in the interest of 
 commercial New England. But when the weight 
 of interest in New England shifted from free trade 
 to protection Mr. Webster followed it. His con- 
 stituents were by no means unanimous in support 
 of the tariff in 1828, but the majority favored it, 
 and Mr. Webster went with the majority. At a 
 
168 
 
 DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 public dinner given to him in Boston at the close 
 of the session, he explained to the dissentient mi- 
 nority the reasons for his vote, which were very 
 simple. He thought that good predominated over 
 evil in the bill, and that the majority throughout 
 the whole State of which he was the representa- 
 tive favored the tariff, and therefore he had voted 
 in the affirmative. 
 
 Much fault has been found, as has been said, 
 both at the time and since, with Mr. Webster’s 
 change of position on this question. It has been 
 held up as a monument of inconsistencjq and as 
 indicating a total absence of deep conviction. 
 That Mr. Webster was, in a certain sense, incon- 
 sistent is beyond doubt, but consistency is the bug- 
 bear of small minds, as well as a mark of strong 
 characters, while its reverse is often the proof of 
 wisdom. On the other hand, it may be fairly 
 argued that, holding as he did that the whole 
 thing was purely a business question to be decided 
 according to circumstances, his course, in view of 
 the policy adopted by the government, was at 
 bottom perfectly consistent. As to the want of 
 deep conviction, Mr. Webster’s vote on this ques- 
 tion proves nothing. He believed in free trade as 
 an abstract general principle, and there is no rea- 
 son to suppose that he ever abandoned his belief 
 on this point. But he had too clear a mind ever 
 to be run away with by the extreme vagaries of 
 the Manchester school. He knew that there was 
 
THE TARIFF OF 1828 . 
 
 169 
 
 no morality, no immutable right and wrong, in 
 an impost or a free list. It has been the fash- 
 ion to refer to Mr. Disraeli’s declaration that free 
 trade was “ a mere question of expediency ” as a 
 proof of that gentleman’s cynical indifference to 
 moral principles. That the late Earl of Beacons- 
 field had no deep convictions on any subject may 
 be readily admitted, but in this instance he uttered 
 a very plain and simple truth, which all the talk 
 in the world about free trade as the harbinger and 
 foundation of universal peace on earth cannot dis- 
 guise. 
 
 Mr. Webster never at any time treated the 
 question of free trade or protection as anything 
 but one of expediency. Under the lead of Mr. 
 Calhoun, in 1816, the South and West initiated a 
 protective policy, and after twelve years it had 
 become firmly established and New England had 
 adapted herself to it. Mr. Webster, as a New 
 England representative, resisted the protective 
 policy at the outset as against her interests, but 
 when she had conformed to the new conditions, he 
 came over to its support simply on the ground of 
 expediency. He rested the defence of his new 
 position upon the doctrine which he had always 
 consistently preached, that uniformity and perma- 
 nency were the essential and sound conditions of 
 any policy, whether of free trade or protection. 
 In 1828, neither at the dinner in Boston nor in 
 the Senate, did he enter into any discussion of 
 
170 
 
 DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 general principles or constitutional theories. He 
 merely said, in substance, You have chosen to 
 make protection necessary to New England, and 
 therefore I am now forced to vote for it. This 
 was the position which he continued to hold to 
 the end of his life. As he was called upon, year 
 after year, to defend protection, and as New Eng- 
 land became more and more wedded to the tariff, 
 he elaborated his arguments on many points, but 
 the essence of all he said afterwards is to be found 
 in the speech of 1828. On the constitutional 
 point he was obliged to make a more violent 
 change. He held, of course, to his opinion that, 
 under the revenue power, protection could be in- 
 cidental only, because from that doctrine there 
 was no escape. But he dropped the condemna- 
 tion expressed in 1814 and the doubts uttered in 
 1820 as to the theory that it was within the direct 
 power of Congress to enact a pi-otective taiiff, and 
 assumed that they had this right as one of the 
 general powers in the Constitution, or that at all 
 events they had exercised it, and that therefore 
 the question was henceforward to be considered 
 as res adj udicata. The speech of 1828 marks the 
 separation of Mr. Webster from the opinions of 
 the old school of New England Federalism. 
 Thereafter he stood forth as the champion of the 
 tariff and of the “ American system ” of Henry 
 Clay. Regarding protection in its true light, as 
 a mere question of expediency, he followed the 
 
TEE TARIFF OF 1828. 
 
 171 
 
 interests of New England and of the great indus- 
 trial communities of the North. That he shifted 
 his ground at the proper moment, bad as the “ bill 
 of abominations ” was, and that, as a Northern 
 statesman, he was perfectly justified in doing so, 
 cannot be fairly questioned or criticised. It is 
 true that his course was a sectional one, but every- 
 body else’s on this question was the same, and it 
 could not be, it never has been, and never will be 
 otherwise. 
 
 The tariff of 1828 was destined indirectly to 
 have far more important results to Mr. Webster 
 than the brief speech in which he signalized his 
 change of position on the question of protection. 
 Soon after the passage of the act, in May, 1828, 
 the South Carolina delegation held a meeting to 
 take steps to resist the operation of the tariff, but 
 nothing definite was then accomplished. Popu- 
 lar meetings in South Carolina, characterized by 
 much violent talk, followed, however, duping the 
 summer, and in the autumn the Legislature of the 
 State put forth the famous “ exposition and pro- 
 test ” which emanated from Mr. Calhoun, and 
 embodied in the fullest and strongest terms the 
 principles of “ nullification.” These movements 
 were viewed with regret and with some alarm 
 throughout the country, but they were rather lost 
 sight of in the intense excitement of the presi- 
 dential election. The accession of Jackson then 
 came to absorb the public attention, and brought 
 
172 
 
 DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 with it the sweeping removals from office which 
 Mr. Webster strongly denounced. At the same 
 time he was not led into the partisan absurdity of 
 denying the President’s power of removal, and 
 held to the impregnable position of steady resist- 
 ance to the evils of patronage, which could be 
 cured only by the operation of an enlightened 
 public sentiment. It is obvious now that, in the 
 midst of all this agitation about other matters, 
 Mr. Calhoun and the South Carolinians never lost 
 sight of the conflict for which they were prepar- 
 ing, and that they were on the alert to bring nulli- 
 fication to the front in a more menacing and 
 pronounced fashion than had yet been attempted. 
 
 The grand assault was finally made in the Sen- 
 ate, under the eye of the great nullifier, who then 
 occupied the chair of the Vice-President, and 
 came in an unexpected way. In December, 1829, 
 Mr. Foote of Connecticut introduced a harmless 
 resolution of inquiry respecting the sales and sur- 
 veys of the Western lands. In the long-drawn 
 debate which ensued, General Hayne of South 
 Carolina, on January 19, 1880, made an elaborate 
 attack on the New England States. He accused 
 them of a desire to check the growth of the West 
 in the interests of the protective policy, and tried 
 to show the sympathy which should exist between 
 the West and South, and lead them to make com- 
 mon cause against the tariff. Mr. Webster felt 
 that this attack could Tiot be left unanswered, and 
 
THE REPLY TO HAYNE. 
 
 173 
 
 the next day he replied to it. This first speech 
 on Foote’s resolution has been so obscured by the 
 greatness of the second that it is seldom referred 
 to and but little read. Yet it is one of the most 
 effective retorts, one of the strongest pieces of 
 destructive criticism, ever uttered in the Senate, 
 although its purpose was simply to repel the 
 charge of hostility to the West on the part of New 
 England. The accusation was in fact absurd, and 
 but few years had elapsed since Mr. Webster and 
 New England had been assailed by Mr. McDuffie 
 for desiring to build up the West at the expense 
 of the South by the policy of internal improve- 
 ments. It was not difficult, therefore, to show the 
 groundlessness of this new attack, but Mr. Web- 
 ster did it with consummate art and great force, 
 shattering Hayne’s elaborate argument to pieces 
 and treading it under foot. Mr. Webster only al- 
 luded incidentally to the tariff agitation in South 
 Carolina, but the crushing nature of the reply 
 inflamed and mortified Mr. Hayne, who, on the 
 following day, insisted on Mr. Webster’s presence, 
 and spoke for the second time at great length. 
 He made a bitter attack upon New England, upon 
 Mr. Webster personally, and upon the character 
 and patriotism of Massachusetts. He then made 
 a full exposition of the doctrine of nullification, 
 giving free expression of the views and principles 
 entertained by his master and leader, who pre- 
 sided over the discussion. The debate had now 
 
174 
 
 DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 drifted far from the original resolution, but its 
 real object had been reached at last. The war 
 upon the tariff had been begun, and the standard 
 of nullification and of resistance to the Union and 
 to the laws of Congress had been planted boldly 
 in the Senate of the United States. The debate 
 was adjourned and Mr. Hayne did not conclude till 
 J anuary 25. The next day Mr. Webster replied in 
 the second speech on Foote’s resolution, which is 
 popularly known as the “ Reply to Hayne.” 
 
 This great speech marks the highest point at- 
 tained by Mr. Webster as a public man. He 
 never surpassed it, he never equalled it after- 
 wards. It was his zenith intellectually, politi- 
 cally, and as an orator. His fame grew and 
 extended in the years which followed, he won 
 ample distinction in other fields, he made many 
 other splendid speeches, but he never went beyond 
 the reply which he made to the Senator from 
 South Carolina on January 26, 1830. 
 
 The doctrine of nullification, which was the 
 main point both with Hayne and Webster, was no 
 new thing. The word was borrowed from the 
 Kentucky resolutions of 1799, and the principle 
 was contained in the more cautious phrases of 
 the contemporary Virginia resolutions and of the 
 Hartford Convention in 1814. The South Caro- 
 linian reproduction in 1830 was fuller and more 
 elaborate than its predecessors and supported by 
 more acute reasoning, but the principle was un- 
 
TEE REPLY TO HAYNE. 
 
 175 
 
 changed. Mr. Webster’s argument was simple but 
 overwhelming. He admitted fully the right of rev- 
 olution. He accepted the proposition that no one 
 was bound to obey an unconstitutional law ; but 
 the essential question was who was to say whether 
 a law was unconstitutional or not. Each State has 
 that authority, was the reply of the nullifiers, and 
 if the decision is against the validity of the law it 
 cannot be executed within the limits of the dis- 
 senting State. The vigorous sarcasm with which 
 Mr. Webster depicted practical nullification, and 
 showed that it was nothing more or less than rev- 
 olution when actually carried out, was really the 
 conclusive answer to the nullifying doctrine. But 
 Mr. Calhoun and his school eagerly denied that 
 nullification rested on the right to revolt against 
 oppression. They argued that it was a constitu- 
 tional right ; that they could live within the Con- 
 stitution and beyond it, — inside the house and out- 
 side it at one and the same time. They contended 
 that, the Constitution being a compact between 
 the States, the Federal government was the creation 
 of the States; yet, in the same breath, they de- 
 clared that the general government was a party to 
 the contract from which it had itself emanated, in 
 order to get rid of the difficulty of proving that, 
 while the single dissenting State could decide 
 against the validity of a law, the twenty or more 
 other States, also parties to the contract, had no 
 right to deliver an opposite judgment which 
 
176 
 
 DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 should be binding as the opinion of the majority 
 of the court. There was nothing very ingenious 
 or very profound in the argument by which Mr. 
 Webster demonstrated the absurdity of the doc- 
 trine which attempted to make nullification a 
 peaceable constitutional privilege, when it could 
 be in practice nothing else than revolution. But 
 the manner in which he put tlie argument was 
 magnificent and final. As he himself said, in this 
 very speech, of Samuel Dexter, “his statement 
 was argument, his inference demonstration.” 
 
 The weak places in his armor were historical 
 in their nature. It was probably necessary, at all 
 events Mr. Webster felt it to be so, to argue that 
 the Constitution at the outset was not a compact 
 between the States, but a national instrument, 
 and to distinguish the cases of Virginia and Ken- 
 tuckjr in 1799 and of New England in 1814, from 
 that of South Carolina in 1880. The former point 
 he touched upon lightly, the latter he discussed 
 ably, eloquently, ingeniously, and at length. Un- 
 fortunately the facts were against him in both in- 
 stances. When the Constitution was adopted by 
 the votes of States at Philadelphia, and accepted 
 by the votes of States in popular conventions, it 
 is safe to say that there was not a man in the 
 country from Washington and Hamilton on the 
 one side, to George Clinton and George Mason on 
 the other, who regarded the new system as any- 
 thing but an experiment entered upon by the 
 
THE REPLY TO HAYNE. 
 
 177 
 
 States and from which each and every State had 
 the right peaceably to withdraw, a right which 
 was very likely to be exercised. When the Vir- 
 ginia and Kentucky resolutions appeared they 
 were not opposed on constitutional grounds, but 
 on those of expediency and of hostility to the rev- 
 olution which they were considered to embody. 
 Hamilton, and no one knew the Constitution bet- 
 ter than he, treated them as the beginnings of an 
 attempt to change the government, as the germs 
 of a conspiracy to destroy the Union. As Dr. 
 Von Holst tersely and accurately states it, “ there' 
 was no time as yet to attempt to strangle the 
 healthy human mind in a net of logical deduc- 
 tions.” That was the work reserved for John C.. 
 Calhoun. 
 
 What is true of 1799 is true of the New Eng- 
 land leaders at Washington when they discussed 
 the feasibility of secession in 1804 ; of the decla- 
 ration in favor of secession made by Josiah Quincy 
 in Congress a few years later ; of the resistance of 
 New England during the war of 1812, and of the 
 right of “ interposition ” set forth by the Hart- 
 ford Convention. In all these instances no one 
 troubled himself about the constitutional aspect ; 
 it was a question of expediency, of moral and po- 
 litical right or wrong. In every case the right 
 was simply stated, and the uniform answer was, 
 such a step means the overthrow of the present 
 system. 
 
 12 
 
. 178 
 
 DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 When South Carolina began her resistance to 
 the tariff in 1830, times had changed, and with 
 them the popular conception of the government 
 established by the Constitution. It was now a 
 much more serious thing to threaten the existence 
 of the Federal government than it had been in 
 1799, or even in 1814. The great fabric which 
 had been gradually built up made an overthrow 
 of the government look very terrible ; it made 
 peaceable secession a mockery, and a withdrawal 
 from the Union equivalent to civil war. The 
 boldest hesitated to espouse any principle which 
 was avowedly revolutionary, and on both sides 
 men wished to have a constitutional defence for 
 every doctrine which they promulgated. This 
 was the feeling which led Mr. Calhoun to elabo- 
 rate and perfect with all the ingenuity of his acute 
 and logical mind the arguments in favor of nullifi- 
 cation as a constitutional principle. At the same 
 time the theory of nullification, however much 
 elaborated, had not altered in its essence from the 
 bald and brief statement of the Kentucky resolu- 
 tions. The vast change had come on the other 
 side of the question, in the popular idea of the 
 Constitution. It was no longer regarded as an 
 experiment from which the contracting parties 
 had a right to withdraw, but as the charter of a 
 national government. “ It is a critical moment,” 
 said Mr. Bell of New Hampshire to Mr. Webster, 
 on the morning of January 26, “ and it is time, it 
 
THE REPLY TO HAYNE. 
 
 179 
 
 is high time that the people of this country should 
 know what this Constitution is." “ Then,” an- 
 swered Mr. Webster, “by the blessing of heaven 
 they shall learn, this day, before the sun goes 
 down, what I understand it to be.” With these 
 words on his lips he entered the senate chamber, 
 and when he replied to Hayne he stated what the 
 Union and the government had come to be at that 
 moment. He defined the character of the Union 
 as it existed in 1830, and that definition so mag- 
 nificently stated, and with such grand eloquence, 
 went home to the hearts of the people, and put 
 into noble words the sentiment which they felt 
 but had not expressed. This was the signifi- 
 cance of the reply to Hayne. It mattered not 
 what men thought of the Constitution in 1789. 
 The government which was then established 
 might have degenerated into a confederation little 
 stronger than its predecessor. But the Constitu- 
 tion did its work better, and converted a confed- 
 eracy into a nation. Mr. Webster set forth the 
 national conception of the Union. He expressed 
 what many men were vaguely thinking and be- 
 lieving, and the principles which he made clear 
 and definite went on broadening and deepening 
 until, thirty years afterwards, they had a force 
 sufficient to sustain the North and enable her to 
 triumph in the terrible struggle which resulted in 
 the preservation of national life. When Mr. 
 Webster showed that practical nullification was 
 
180 
 
 DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 revolution, he had answered completely the South 
 Carolinian doctrine, for revolution is not suscepti- 
 ble of constitutional argument. But in the state 
 of public opinion at that time it was necessary to 
 discuss nullification on constitutional grounds also, 
 and Mr. Webster did this as eloquently and ably 
 as the nature of the case admitted. Whatever the 
 historical defects of his position, he put weapons 
 into the hands of every friend of the Union, and 
 gave reasons and arguments to the doubting and 
 timid. Yet after all is said, the meaning of Mr. 
 Webster’s speech in our history and its signifi- 
 cance to us are, that it set forth with every attri- 
 bute of eloquence the nature of the Union as it 
 had developed under the Constitution. He took 
 the vague popular conception and gave it life and 
 form and character. He said, as he alone could 
 say, the people of the United States are a nation, 
 the } 7 are the masters of an empire, their union is 
 indivisible, and the words which then rang out 
 in the senate chamber have come down through 
 long years of political conflict and of civil war, 
 until at last they are part of the political creed of 
 every one of his fellow-countrymen. 
 
 The reply to Hayne cannot, however, be dis- 
 missed with a consideration of its historical and 
 political meaning or of its constitutional signifi- 
 cance. It has a personal and literary importance 
 of hardly less moment. There comes an occasion, 
 a period perhaps, in the life of every man when 
 
THE REPLY TO HAYNE. 
 
 181 
 
 he touches his highest point, -when he does his 
 best, or even, under a sudden inspiration and ex- 
 citement, something better than his best, and to 
 which he can never again attain. At the moment 
 it is often impossible to detect this point, but when 
 the man and his career have passed into history, 
 and we can survey it all spread out before us like 
 a map, the pinnacle of success can easily be dis- 
 covered. The reply to Hayne was the zenith of 
 Mr. Webster’s life, and it is the place of all others 
 where it is fit to pause and study him as a parlia- 
 mentary orator and as a master of eloquence. 
 
 Before attempting, however, to analyze what 
 he said, let us strive to recall for a moment the 
 scene of his great triumph. On the morning of 
 the memorable day, the senate chamber was packed 
 by an eager and excited crowd. Every seat on the 
 floor and in the galleries was occupied, and all the 
 available standing-room was filled. The protracted 
 debate, conducted with so much ability on both 
 sides, had excited the attention of the whole 
 country, and had given time for the arrival of 
 hundreds of interested spectators from all parts 
 of the Union, and especially from New England. 
 The fierce attacks of the Southern leaders had 
 angered and alarmed the people of the North. 
 They longed with an intense longing to have 
 these assaults met and repelled, and yet they 
 could not believe that this apparently desperate 
 feat could be successfully accomplished. Men of 
 
182 
 
 DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 the North and of New England could be known 
 in Washington, in those days, by their indignant 
 but dejected looks and downcast eyes. They 
 gathered in the senate chamber on the appointed 
 day, quivering with anticipation, and with hope 
 and fear struggling for the mastery in their 
 breasts. With them were mingled those who 
 were there from mere curiosity, and those who 
 had come rejoicing in the confident expectation 
 that the Northern champion would suffer failure 
 and defeat. 
 
 In the midst of the hush of expectation, in that 
 dead silence which is so peculiarly oppressive be- 
 cause it is possible only when many human beings 
 are gathered together, Mr. Webster rose. He had 
 sat impassive and immovable during all the pre- 
 ceding days, while the storm of argument and in- 
 vective had beaten about his head. At last his 
 time had come ; and as he rose and stood forth, 
 drawing himself up to his full height, his personal 
 grandeur and his majestic calm thrilled all who 
 looked upon him. With perfect quietness, un- 
 affected apparently by the atmosphere of intense 
 feeling about him, he said, in a low, even tone : 
 
 Mr. President : When the mariner has been 
 tossed for many daj^s in thick weather and on 
 an unknown sea, he naturally avails himself of 
 the first pause in the storm, the earliest glance 
 of the sun, to take his latitude and ascertain how 
 far the elements have driven him from his true 
 
THE REPLY TO HAYNE. 
 
 183 
 
 course. Let us imitate this prudence ; and, before 
 we float farther on the waves of this debate, refer 
 to the point from which we departed, that we may, 
 at least, be able to conjecture where we now are. 
 I ask for the reading of the resolution before the 
 Senate.’’ This opening sentence was a piece of 
 consummate art. The simple and appropriate 
 image, the low voice, the calm manner, relieved 
 the strained excitement of the audience, which 
 might have ended by disconcerting the speaker if 
 it had been maintained. Every one was now at 
 his ease ; and when the monotonous reading of the 
 resolution ceased Mr. Webster was master of the 
 situation, and had his listeners in complete control. 
 With breathless attention they followed him as 
 he proceeded. The strong masculine sentences, 
 the sarcasm, the pathos, the reasoning, the burn- 
 ing appeals to love of State and country, flowed on 
 unbroken. As his feelings warmed the fire came 
 into his eyes ; there was a glow on his swarthy 
 cheek; his strong right arm seemed to sweep 
 away resistlessly the whole phalanx of his oppo- 
 nents, and the deep and melodious cadences of his 
 voice sounded like harmonious organ-tones as they 
 filled the chamber with their music. As the last 
 tvords died away into silence, those who had list- 
 ened looked wonderingly at each other, dimly con- 
 scious that they had heard one of the grand speeches 
 which are land-marks in the history of eloquence ; 
 and the men of the North and of New England 
 
184 
 
 DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 went forth full of the pride of victory, for their 
 champion had triumphed, and no assurance was 
 needed to prove to the world that this time no 
 answer could be made. 
 
 As every one knows, this speech contains much 
 more than the argument against nullification, 
 which has just been discussed, and exhibits all its 
 author’s intellectual gifts in the highest perfec- 
 tion. Mr. Hayne had touched on every conceiv- 
 able subject of political importance, including 
 slavery, which, however covered up, was really 
 at the bottom of every Southern movement, and 
 was certain sooner or later to come to the surface. 
 All these various topics Mr. Webster took up, 
 one after another, displaying a most remarkable 
 strength of grasp and ease of treatment. He dealt 
 with them all effectively and yet in just propor- 
 tion. Throughout there are bursts of eloquence 
 skilfully mingled with statement and argument, 
 so that the listeners were never wearied by a 
 strained and continuous rhetorical display; and 
 yet, while the attention was closely held by the 
 even flow of lucid reasoning, the emotions and 
 passions were from time to time deeply aroused 
 and strongly excited. In many passages of direct 
 retort Mr. Webster used an irony which he em- 
 ployed always in a perfectly characteristic way. 
 He had a strong natural sense of humor, but he 
 never made fun or descended to trivial efforts to 
 excite laughter against his opponent. He was not 
 
THE REPLY TO HAYNE. 
 
 185 
 
 a -witty man or a maker of epigrams. But he was 
 a master in the use of a cold, dignified sarcasm, 
 which at times, and in this instance particularly, 
 he used freely and mercilessly. Beneath the 
 measured sentences there is a lurking smile which 
 saves them from being merely savage and cutting 
 attacks, and yet brings home a keen sense of the 
 absurdity of the opponent's position. The weapon 
 resembled more the sword of Richard than the 
 scimetar of Saladin, but it was none the less a 
 keen and trenchant blade. There is probably no 
 better instance of Mr. Webster’s power of sarcasm 
 than the famous passage in which he replied to 
 Hayne’s taunt about the “ murdered coalition,” 
 which was said to have existed between Adams 
 and Calhoun. In a totally different vein is the 
 passage about Massachusetts, perhaps in its way 
 as good an example as .we have of Webster’s 
 power of appealing to the higher and more tender 
 feelings of human nature. The thought is simple 
 and even obvious, and the expression unadorned, 
 and yet what he said had that subtle quality 
 which stirred and still stirs the heart of every 
 man born on the soil of the old Puritan Common- 
 wealth. 
 
 The speech as a whole has all the qualities 
 which made Mr. Webster a great orator, and the 
 same traits run through his other speeches. An 
 analysis of the reply to Hayne, therefore, gives us 
 all the conditions necessary to forming a correct 
 
186 DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 idea of Mr. Webster’s eloquence, of its character- 
 istics and its value. The Attic school of oratory 
 subordinated form to thought to avoid the misuse 
 of ornament, and triumphed over the more florid 
 practice of the so-called “ Asiatics.” Rome gave 
 the palm to Atticism, and modern oratory has 
 gone still farther in the same direction, until its 
 predominant quality has become that of making 
 sustained appeals to the understanding. Logical 
 vigilance and long chains of reasoning, avoided 
 by the ancients, are the essentials of our modern 
 oratory. Many able men have achieved success 
 under these conditions as forcible and convincing 
 speakers. But the grand eloquence of modern 
 times is distinguished by the bursts of feeling, of 
 imagery or of invective, joined with convincing 
 argument. This combination is rare, and when- 
 ever we find a man who possesses it we may be 
 sure that, in greater or less degree, he is one of 
 the great masters of eloquence as we understand 
 it. The names of those who in debate or to a 
 jury have been in every-day practice strong and 
 effective speakers, and also have thrilled and 
 shaken large masses of men, readily occur to us. 
 To this class belong Chatham and Burke, Fox, 
 Sheridan and Erskine, Mirabeau and Vergniaud, 
 Patrick Henry and Daniel Webster. 
 
 Mr. Webster was of course essentially modern 
 in his oratory. He relied chiefly on the sustained 
 appeal to the understanding, and he was a con- 
 
TEE REPLY TO HAYNE. 
 
 187 
 
 spicuous example of the prophetic character which 
 Christianity, and Protestantism especially, has 
 given to modern eloquence. At the same time 
 Mr. Webster was in some respects more classical, 
 and resembled more closely the models of antiq- 
 uity, than any of those who have been mentioned 
 as belonging to the same high class. He was wont 
 to pour forth the copious stream of plain, intelli- 
 gible observations, and indulge in the varied ap- 
 peals to feeling, memory, and interest, which Lord 
 Brougham sets down as characteristic of ancient 
 oratory. It has been said that while Demosthe- 
 nes was a sculptor, Burke was a painter. Mr_ 
 Webster was distinctly more of the former than 
 the latter. He rarely amplified or developed an 
 image or a description, and in this he followed the 
 Greek rather than the Englishman. Dr. Francis 
 Lieber wrote: “ To test Webster’s oratory, which 
 has ever been very attractive to me, I read a por- 
 tion of my favorite speeches of Demosthenes, and 
 then read, always aloud, parts of Webster; then 
 returned to the Athenian; and Webster stood the 
 test.” Apart from the great compliment which 
 this conveys, such a comparison is very interesting 
 as showing the similarity between Mr. Webster 
 and the Greek orator. Not only does the test in- 
 dicate the merit of Mr. Webster's speeches, but it 
 also pi’oves that he resembled the Athenian, and 
 that the likeness was more striking than the inev- 
 itable difference born of race and time. Yet there 
 
188 
 
 DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 is no indication that Webster ever made a study 
 of the ancient models or tried to form himself 
 upon them. 
 
 The cause of the classic self-restraint in Web- 
 ster was partly due to the artistic sense which 
 made him so devoted to simplicity of diction, and 
 partly to the cast of his mind. He had a power- 
 ful historic imagination, but not in the least the 
 imagination of the poet, which 
 
 “Bodies forth the forms of things unknown.” 
 
 He could describe with great vividness, brev- 
 ity, and force what had happened in the past, 
 what actually existed, or what the future prom- 
 ised. But his fancy never ran away with him or 
 carried him captive into the regions of poetry. 
 Imagination of this sort is readily curbed and 
 controlled, and, if less brilliant, is safer than that 
 defined by Shakespeare. For this reason, Mr. 
 Webster rarely indulged in long, descriptive pas- 
 sages, and, while he showed the highest power in 
 treating anything with a touch of humanity about 
 it, he was sparing of images drawn wholly from 
 nature, and was not peculiai’ly successful in de- 
 picting in words natural scenery or phenomena. 
 The result is, that in his highest flights, while he 
 is often grand and affecting, full of life and power, 
 he never shows the creative imagination. But if 
 he falls short on the poetic side, there is the coun- 
 terbalancing advantage that there is never a false 
 
THE REPLY TO EAYNE. 189 
 
 note nor an overwrought description which offends 
 our taste and jars upon our sensibilities. 
 
 Mr. Webster showed his love of direct sim- 
 plicity in his style even more than in his thought 
 or the general arrangement and composition of 
 his speeches. His sentences are. as a rule, short, 
 and therefore pointed and intelligible, but they 
 never become monotonous and harsh, the fault to 
 which brevity is always liable. On the contrary, 
 they are smooth and flowing, and there is always 
 a sufficient variety of form. The choice of lan- 
 guage is likewise simple. Mr. Webster was a 
 remorseless critic of his own style, and he had an 
 almost extreme preference for Anglo-Saxon words 
 and a corresponding dislike of Latin derivatives. 
 The only exception he made was in his habit of 
 using “ commence ” instead of its far superior 
 synonym “ begin.” His style was vigorous, clear, 
 and direct in the highest degree, and at the same 
 time warm and full of vitality. He displayed 
 that rare union of strength with perfect simplic- 
 ity, the qualities which made Swift the great mas- 
 ter of pure and forcible English. 
 
 Charles Fox is credited with saying that a good 
 speech never reads well. This opinion, taken in 
 the sense in which it was intended, that a care- 
 fully-prepared speech, which reads like an essay, 
 lacks the freshness and glow that should charac- 
 terize the oratory of debate, is undoubtedly cor- 
 rect. But it is equally true that when a speech 
 
90 
 
 DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 which we know to have been good in delivery is 
 equally good in print, a higher intellectual plane 
 is reached and a higher level of excellence is at- 
 tained than is possible to either the mere essay or 
 to the effective retort or argument, which loses 
 its flavor with the occasion which draws it forth. 
 Mr. Webster’s speeches on the tariff, on the 
 bank, and on like subjects, able as they are, are 
 necessarily dry, but his speeches on nobler themes 
 are admirable reading. This is, of course, due to 
 the variety and ease of treatment, to their power, 
 and to the purity of the style. At the same time, 
 the immediate effect of what he said was immense, 
 greater, even, than the intrinsic merit of the 
 speech itself. There has been much discussion as 
 to the amount of preparation which Mr. Webster 
 made. His occasional orations were, of course, 
 carefully written out beforehand, a practice which 
 was entirely proper ; but in his great parliamen- 
 tary speeches, and often in legal arguments as 
 well, he made but slight preparation in the ordi- 
 nary sense of the term. The notes for the two 
 speeches on Foote’s resolution were jotted down 
 on a few sheets of note-paper. The delivery of 
 the second one, his masterpiece, was practically 
 extemporaneous, and yet it fills seventy octavo 
 pages and occupied four hours. He is reported 
 to have said that his whole life had been a prepa- 
 ration for the reply to Hayne. Whether he said 
 it or not, the statement is perfectly true. The 
 
THE REPLY TO EAYNE. 
 
 191 
 
 thoughts on the Union and on the grandeur of 
 American nationality had been garnered up for 
 years, and this in a greater or less degree was true 
 of all his finest efforts. The preparation on paper 
 was trifling, but the mental preparation extend- 
 ing over w : eeks or days, sometimes, perhaps, over 
 years, was elaborate to the last point. When the 
 moment came, a night’s work would put all the 
 stored-up thoughts in order, and on the next day 
 they would pour forth with all the power of a 
 strong mind thoroughly saturated with its subject, 
 and yet with the vitality of unpremeditated ex- 
 pression, having the fresh glow of morning upon 
 it, and with no trace of the lamp. 
 
 More than all this, however, in the immediate 
 effect of Mr. Webster’s speeches was the physical 
 influence of the man himself. We can but half 
 understand his eloquence and its influence if we 
 do not carefully study his physical attributes, 
 his temperament and disposition. In face, form, 
 and voice, nature did her utmost for Daniel Web- 
 ster. No envious fairy was present at his birth to 
 mar these gifts by her malign influence. He 
 seemed to every one to be a giant ; that, at least, 
 is the word we most commonly find applied to 
 him, and there is no better proof of his enormous 
 physical impressiveness than this well-known fact, 
 for Mr. Webster was not a man of extraordinary 
 stature. He was five feet ten inches in height, 
 and, in health, weighed a little less than two hun- 
 
192 
 
 DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 dred pounds. These are the proportions of a 
 large man, but there is nothing remarkable about 
 them. We must look elsewhere than to mere size 
 to discover why men spoke of Webster as a giant. 
 He had a swarthy complexion and straight black 
 hair. His head was very large, the brain weigh- 
 ing, as is well known, more than any on record, 
 except those of Cuvier and of the celebrated 
 bricklayer. At the same time his head was of 
 noble shape, with a broad and lofty brow, and 
 his features were finely cut and full of massive 
 strength. His eyes were extraordinary. They 
 were very dark and deep-set, and, when he began 
 to rouse himself to action, shone with the deep 
 light of a forge-fire, getting ever more glowing as 
 excitement rose. His voice was in harmony with 
 his appearance. It was low and musical in conver- 
 sation ; in debate it was high but full, ringing out 
 in moments of excitement like a clarion, and then 
 sinking to deep notes with the solemn richness of 
 organ-tones, while the words were accompanied by 
 a manner in which grace and dignity mingled in 
 complete accord. The impression which he pro- 
 duced upon the eye and ear it is difficult to ex- 
 press. There is no man in all history who came 
 into the world so equipped physically for speech. 
 In this direction nature could do no more. The 
 mere look of the man and the sound of his voice 
 made all who saw and heard him feel that he 
 must be the embodiment of wisdom, dignity, and 
 
TEE REPLY TO HAYNE. 
 
 193 
 
 strength, divinely eloquent, even if he sat in 
 dreamy silence or uttered nothing but heavy com- 
 monplaces. 
 
 It is commonly said that no one of the many 
 pictures of Mr. Webster gives a true idea of what 
 he was. We can readily believe this when we read 
 the descriptions which have come down to us. 
 That indefinable quality which we call personal 
 magnetism, the power of impressing by one’s per- 
 sonality every human being who comes near, was 
 at its height in Mr. Webster. He never, for in- 
 stance, punished his children, but when they did 
 wrong he would send for them and look at them 
 silently. The look, whether of anger or sorrow, 
 was punishment and rebuke enough. It was the 
 same with other children. The little daughter of 
 Mr. Wirt once came into a room where Mr. Web- 
 ster was sitting with his back toward her, and 
 touched him on the arm. He turned suddenly, 
 and the child started back with an affrighted cry 
 at the sight of that dark, stern, melancholy face. 
 But the cloud passed as swiftly as the shadows on 
 a summer sea, and the next moment the look of 
 affection and humor brought the frightened child 
 into Mr. Webster’s arms, and they were friends 
 and playmates in an instant. 
 
 The power of a look and of changing expres- 
 sion, so magical with a child, was hardly less so 
 with men. There have been very few instances 
 in history where there is such constant reference 
 
 13 
 
194 
 
 DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 to merely physical attributes as in the case of Mr. 
 Webster. His general appearance and his eyes 
 are the first and last things alluded to in every 
 contemporary description. Every one is familiar 
 with the story of the English navvy who pointed 
 at Mr. Webster in the streets of Liverpool and 
 said, “ There goes a king.” Sidney Smith ex- 
 claimed when he saw him, “ Good heavens, he is 
 a small cathedral by himself.” Carlyle, no lover 
 of America, wrote to Emerson : — 
 
 “ Not many days ago I saw at breakfast the notablest 
 of all your notabilities, Daniel Webster. He is a mag- 
 nificent specimen. You might say to all the world, 
 ‘ This is our Yankee Englishman ; such limbs we make 
 in Yankee land ! ’ As a logic fencer, or parliamentary 
 Hercules, one would incline to back him at first sight 
 against all the extant world. The tanned complexion ; 
 that amorphous crag-like face ; the dull black eyes un- 
 der the precipice of brows, like dull anthracite furnaces 
 needing only to be blown ; the mastiff mouth accurately 
 closed ; I have not traced so much of silent Berserlcir rage 
 that I remember of in any man. ‘ I guess 1 should not 
 like to be your nigger!’ Webster is not loquacious, 
 but he is pertinent, conclusive ; a dignified, perfectly 
 bred man, though not English in breeding ; a man wor- 
 thy of the best reception among us, and meeting such I 
 understand.” 
 
 Such was the effect produced by Mr. Webster 
 when in England, and it was a universal impres- 
 sion. Wherever he went men felt in the depths 
 
THE REPLY TO EAYNE. 
 
 195 
 
 of their being the amazing force of his personal 
 presence. He could control an audience by a look, 
 and could extort applause from hostile listeners 
 by a mere glance. On one occasion, after the 7th 
 of March speech, there is a story that a noted 
 abolitionist leader was present in the crowd gath- 
 ered to hear Mr. Webster, and this bitter oppo- 
 nent is reported to have said afterwards, “ When 
 Webster, speaking of secession, asked ‘what is to 
 become of me,’ I was thrilled with a sense of some 
 awful impending calamity.” The story may be 
 apocryphal, but there can be no doubt of its essen- 
 tial truth so far as the effect of Mr. Webster’s per- 
 sonal presence goes. People looked at him, and 
 that was enough. Mr. Parton in his essay speaks 
 of seeing Webster at a public dinner, sitting at the 
 head of the table with a bottle of Madeira under 
 his yellow waistcoat, and looking like Jove. When 
 he presided at the Cooper memorial meeting in 
 New York he uttered only a few stately platitudes, 
 and yet every one went away with the firm convic- 
 tion that they had heard him speak words of the 
 profoundest wisdom and grandest eloquence. 
 
 The temptation to rely on his marvellous phys- 
 ical gifts grew on him as he became older, which 
 was to be expected with a man of his tempera- 
 ment. Even in his early days, when he was not 
 in action, he had an impassible and slumberous 
 look ; and when he sat listening to the invective 
 of Hayne, no emotion could be traced on his cold. 
 
196 
 
 DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 dark, melancholy face, or in the cavernous eyes 
 shining with a dull light. This all vanished when 
 he began to speak, and, as he poured forth his 
 strong, weighty sentences, there was no lack of 
 expression or of movement. But Mr. Webster, 
 despite his capacity for work, and his protracted 
 and often intense labor, was constitutionally indo- 
 lent, and this sluggishness of temperament in- 
 creased very much as he grew older. It extended 
 from the periods of repose to those of action until, 
 in his later years, a direct stimulus was needed to 
 make him exert himself. Even to the last the 
 mighty power was still there in undiminished 
 strength, but it was not willingly put forth. 
 Sometimes the outside impulse would not come; 
 sometimes the most trivial incident would suffice, 
 and like a spark on the train of gunpowder would 
 bring a sudden burst of eloquence, electrifying all 
 who listened. On one occasion he was arguing a 
 case to the jury. He was talking in his heaviest 
 and most ponderous fashion, and with half closed 
 eyes. The court and the jurymen were nearly 
 asleep as Mr. Webster argued on, stating the law 
 quite wrongly to his nodding listeners. The coun- 
 sel on the other side interrupted him and called 
 the attention of the court to Mr. Webster’s pres- 
 entation of the law. The judge, thus awakened, 
 explained to the jury that the law was not as Mr. 
 Webster stated it. While this colloquy was in prog- 
 ress Mr. Webster roused up, pushed back his thick 
 
THE REPLY TO HAYNE. 
 
 197 
 
 hair, shook himself, and glanced about him with 
 the look of a caged lion. When the judge paused, 
 he turned again to the jury, his eyes no longer 
 half shut but wide open and glowing with excite- 
 ment. Raising his voice, he said, in tones which 
 made every one start : If my client could recover 
 under the law as I stated it, how much more is he 
 entitled to recover under the law as laid down by 
 the court ; ” and then, the jury now being thor- 
 oughly awake, he poured forth a flood of eloquent 
 argument and won his case. In his latter days 
 Mr. Webster made many careless and dull speeches 
 and carried them through by the power of his look 
 and manner, but the time never came when, if 
 fairly aroused, he failed to sway the hearts and 
 understandings of men by a grand and splendid 
 eloquence. The lion slept very often, but it never 
 became safe to rouse him from his slumber. 
 
 It was soon after the reply to Hayne that Mr. 
 Webster made his great argument for the govern- 
 ment in the White murder case. One other ad- 
 dress to a jury in the Goodridge case, and the 
 defence of Judge Prescott before the Massachu- 
 setts Senate, which is of similar character, have 
 been preserved to us. The speech for Prescott is 
 a strong, dignified appeal to the sober, and yet 
 sympathetic, judgment of his hearers, but wholly 
 free from any attempt to confuse or mislead, or to 
 sway the decision by unwholesome pathos. Under 
 the circumstances, which were very adverse to his 
 
198 
 
 DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 client, the argument was a model of its kind, and 
 contains some very fine passages full of the sol- 
 emn force so characteristic of its author. The 
 Goodridge speech is chiefly remarkable for the 
 ease with which Mr. Webster unravelled a compli- 
 cated set of facts, demonstrated that the accuser 
 was in reality the guilty party, and carried irre- 
 sistible conviction to the minds of the jurors. It 
 was connected with a remarkable exhibition of his 
 power of cross-examination, which was not only 
 acute and penetrating, but extremely terrifying 
 to a recalcitrant witness. The argument in the 
 White case, as a specimen of eloquence, stands on 
 far higher ground than either of the other two, 
 and, apart from the nature of the subject, ranks 
 with the very best of Mr. Webster’s oratorical 
 triumphs. The opening of the speech, comprising 
 the account of the murder and the analysis of the 
 workings of a mind seared with the remembrance 
 of a horrid crime, must be placed among the very 
 finest masterpieces of modern oratory. The de- 
 scription of the feelings of the murderer has a 
 touch of the creative power, but, taken in conjunc- 
 tion with the wonderful picture of the deed itself, 
 the whole exhibits the highest imaginative excel- 
 lence, and displays the possession of an extraordi- 
 nary dramatic force such as Mr. Webster rarely 
 exerted. It has the same power of exciting a 
 kind of horror and of making us shudder with a 
 creeping, nameless terror as the scene after the 
 
THE REFLY TO BAYNE. 
 
 199 
 
 murder of Duncan, when Macbeth rushes out from 
 the chamber of death, crying, “ I have done the 
 deed. Didst thou not hear a noise? ” I have stud- 
 ied this famous exordium with extreme care, and I 
 have sought diligently in the works of all the great 
 modern orators, and of some of the ancient as well, 
 for similar passages of higher merit. My quest 
 has been in vain. Mr. Webster’s description of 
 the White murder, and of the ghastly haunting 
 sense of guilt which pursued the assassin, has 
 never been surpassed in dramatic force by any 
 speaker, whether in debate or before a jury. Per- 
 haps the most celebrated descriptive passage in 
 the literature of modern eloquence is the picture 
 drawn by Burke of the descent of Hyder Ali upon 
 the plains of the Carnatic, but even that certainly 
 falls short of the opening of W ebster’s speech in 
 simple force as well as in dramatic power. Burke 
 depicted with all the ardor of his nature and with 
 a wealth of color a great invasion which swept 
 thousands to destruction. Webster’s theme was 
 a cold-blooded murder in a quiet New England 
 town. Comparison between such topics, when one 
 is so infinitely larger than the other, seems at first 
 sight almost impossible. But Mr. Webster also 
 dealt with the workings of the human heart under 
 the influence of the most terrible passions, and 
 those have furnished sufficient material for the 
 genius of Shakespeare. The test of excellence is 
 in the treatment, and in this instance Mr. Web- 
 
200 
 
 DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 ster has never been excelled. The effect of that 
 exordium, delivered as he alone could have deliv- 
 ered it, must have been appalling. He was ac- 
 cused of having been brought into the case to 
 hurry the jury beyond the law and evidence, and 
 his whole speech was certainly calculated to drive 
 any body of men, terror-stricken by his eloquence, 
 wherever lie wished them to go. Mr. Webster did 
 not have that versatility and variety of eloquence 
 which we associate with the speakers who have pro- 
 duced the most startling effect upon that complex 
 thing called a jury. He never showed that rapid 
 alternation of wit, humor, pathos, invective, sub- 
 limity, and ingenuity which have been character- 
 istic of the greatest advocates. Before a jury as 
 everywhere else he was direct and simple. He 
 awed and terrified jurymen ; he convinced their 
 reason ; but he commanded rather than persuaded, 
 and carried them with him by sheer force of elo- 
 quence and argument, and by his overpowering 
 personality. 
 
 The extravagant admiration which Mr. Web- 
 ster excited among his followers has undoubtedly 
 exaggerated his greatness in many respects ; but, 
 high as the praise bestowed upon him as an ora- 
 tor has been, in that direction at least he has cer- 
 tainly not been overestimated. The reverse rather 
 is true. Mr. Webster was, of course, the great- 
 est orator this country has ever produced. Patrick 
 Henry’s fame rests wholly on tradition. The 
 
THE REPLY TO BAYNE. 
 
 201 
 
 same is true of Hamilton, who, moreover, never 
 had an opportunity adequate to his talents, which 
 were unquestionably of the first order. Fisher 
 Ames’s reputation was due to a single speech 
 which is distinctly inferior to many of Webster’s. 
 Clay’s oratory has not stood the test of time ; 
 his speeches, which were so wonderfully effective 
 when he uttered them, seem dead and cold and 
 rather thin as we read them to-da}\ Calhoun was 
 a great debater, but was too dry and hard for the 
 highest eloquence. John Quincy Adams, despite 
 his physical limitations, carried the eloquence of 
 combat and bitter retort to the highest point in 
 the splendid battles of his congressional career, 
 but his learning, readiness, power of expression, 
 argument, and scathing sarcasm were not rounded 
 into a perfect whole by the more graceful attri- 
 butes which also form an essential part of ora- 
 tory. 
 
 Mr. Webster need not fear comparison with any 
 of his countrymen, and he has no reason to shun 
 it with the greatest masters of speech in England. 
 He had much of the grandeur of Chatham, with 
 whom it is impossible to compare him or indeed 
 any one else, for the Great Commoner lives only 
 in fragments of doubtful accuracy. Sheridan 
 was universally considered to have made the most 
 splendid speech of his day. Yet the speech on the 
 Begums as given by Moore does not cast Web- 
 ster’s best work at all into the shade. Webster 
 
202 
 
 DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 did not have Sheridan’s brilliant wit, but on the 
 other hand be was never forced, never involved, 
 never guilty of ornament, which fastidious judges 
 would now pronounce tawdry. Webster’s best 
 speeches read much better than anything of Sheri- 
 dan, and, so far as we can tell from careful de- 
 scriptions, his manner, look, and delivery were far 
 more imposing. The “ manly eloquence ” of Fox 
 seems to have resembled Webster’s more closely 
 than that of any other of his English rivals. Fox 
 was more fertile, more brilliant, more surprising 
 than Webster, and had more quickness and dash, 
 and a greater ease and charm of manner. ( But he 
 was often careless, and sometimes fell into repe- 
 titions, from which, of course, no great speaker 
 can be wholly free any more than he can keep 
 entirely clear of commonplaces. Webster gained 
 upon him by superior finish and by greater weight 
 of argument. Before a jury Webster fell behind 
 Erskine as he did behind Choate, although neither 
 of them ever produced anything at all comparable 
 to the speech on the White murder ; but in the 
 Senate, and in the general field of oratory, he 
 rises high above them both. The man with whom 
 Webster is oftenest compared, and the last to be 
 mentioned, is of course Burke. It may be con- 
 ceded at once that in creative imagination, and in 
 richness of imagery and language, Burke ranks 
 above Webster. But no one would ever have said 
 of Webster as Goldsmith did of Burke : — 
 
TEE REPLY TO HAYNE. 
 
 203 
 
 « Who, too deep for his hearers, still went on refining, 
 
 And thought of convincing while they thought of dining.” 
 
 Webster never sinned by over refinement or 
 over ingenuity, for both were utterly foreign to 
 his nature. Still less did be impair his power in 
 the Senate as Burke did in the Commons by talk- 
 ing too often and too much. If he did not have 
 
 O 
 
 the extreme beauty and grace of which Burke was 
 capable, he was more forcible and struck harder 
 and more weighty blows. He was greatly aided 
 in this by his brief and measured periods, and his 
 strength was never wasted in long and elaborate 
 sentences. Webster, moreover, would never have 
 degenerated into the ranting excitement which led 
 Burke to draw a knife from his bosom and cast it 
 on the floor of the House. This illustrates what 
 was, perhaps, Mr. Webster’s very strongest point, 
 — his absolute good taste. He may have been 
 ponderous at times in his later years. We know 
 that he was occasionally heavy, pompous, and even 
 dull, but he never violated the rules of the nicest 
 taste. Other men have been more versatile, pos- 
 sessed of a richer imagination and more gorgeous 
 st3 T le, with a more brilliant wit and a keener sar- 
 casm, but there is not one who is so absolutely 
 free from faults of taste as Webster, or who is so 
 uniformly simple and pure in thought and style, 
 even to the point of severity . 1 
 
 1 A volume might be written comparing Mr. Webster with 
 other great orators. Only the briefest and most rudimentary 
 
204 
 
 DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 It is easy to compare Mr. Webster with this 
 and the other great orator, and to select points of 
 resemblance and of difference, and show where 
 Mr. Webster was superior and where he fell be- 
 hind. But the final verdict must be upon all his 
 qualities taken together. He had the most ex- 
 traordinary physical gifts of face, form, and voice, 
 and employed them to the best advantage. Thus 
 equipped, he delivered a long series of great 
 speeches which can be read to-day with the deep- 
 est interest, instruction, and pleasure. He had 
 dignity, grandeur, and force, a strong historic 
 imagination, and great dramatic power when he 
 chose to exert it. He possessed an unerring taste, 
 a capacity for vigorous and telling sarcasm, a glow 
 and fire none the less intense because they were 
 subdued, perfect clearness of statement joined to 
 the highest skill in argument, and he was mas- 
 ter of a style which was as forcible as it was sim- 
 ple and pure. Take him for all in all, he was not 
 only the greatest orator this country has ever 
 known, but in the history of eloquence his name 
 will stand with those of Demosthenes and Cicero, 
 of Chatham and Burke. 
 
 treatment of the subject is possible here. A most excellent study 
 of the comparative excellence of Webster’s eloquence has been 
 made by Judge Chamberlain, Librarian of the Boston Public 
 Library, in a speech at the dinner of the Dartmouth Alumni, 
 which has since been printed as a pamphlet. 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 
 THE STRUGGLE WITH JACKSON AND THE RISE 
 OF THE WHIG PARTY. 
 
 In the year preceding the delivery of his great 
 speech Mr. Webster had lost his brother Ezekiel 
 by sudden death, and he had married for his sec- 
 ond wife Miss Leroy of New York. The former 
 event was a terrible grief to him, and taken in 
 conjunction with the latter seemed to make a 
 complete break with the past, and with its strug- 
 gles and privations, its joys and successes. The 
 slender girl whom he had married in Salisbury 
 church and the beloved brother were both gone, 
 and with them went those years of youth in 
 which, — 
 
 “ He had sighed deep, laughed free. 
 
 Starved, feasted, despaired, been happy.” 
 
 One cannot come to this dividing line in Mr. Web- 
 ster's life without regret. There was enough of 
 brilliant achievement and substantial success in 
 what had gone before to satisfy any man, and it 
 had been honest, simple, and unaffected. A wider 
 fame and a greater name lay before him, but with 
 them came also ugly scandals, bitter personal at- 
 
206 
 
 DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 tacks, an ambition which warped his nature, and 
 finally a terrible mistake. One feels inclined to 
 say of these later years, with the Roman lover : — 
 
 “ Shut them in 
 
 With their triumphs and their glories and the rest. 
 
 Love is best.” 
 
 The home changed first, and then the public 
 career. The reply which, as John Quincy Adams 
 said, “utterly demolished the fabric of Hayne’s 
 speech and left scarcely a wreck to be seen,” went 
 straight home to the people of the North. It gave 
 eloquent expression to the strong but undefined 
 feeling in the popular mind. It found its way into 
 every house and was read everywhere ; it took its 
 place in the school books, to be repeated by shrill 
 boy voices, and became part of the literature and 
 of the intellectual life of the country. In those 
 solemn sentences men read the description of what 
 the United States had come to be under the Con- 
 stitution, and what American nationality meant 
 in 1830. The leaders of the young war party in 
 1812 were the first to arouse the national senti- 
 ment, but no one struck the chord with such a 
 master hand as Mr. Webster, or drew forth such 
 long and deep vibrations. There is no single ut- 
 terance in our history which has done so much by 
 mere force of words to strengthen the love of 
 nationality and implant it deeply in the popular 
 heart, as the reply to Hayne. 
 
 Before the delivery of that speech Mr. Webster 
 
THE STRUGGLE WITH JACKSON. 207 
 
 was a distinguished statesman, but the day after 
 he awoke to a national fame which made all his 
 other triumphs pale. Such fame brought with it, 
 of course, as it always does in this country, talk 
 of the presidenc} r . The reply to Hayne made Mr. 
 Webster a presidential candidate, and from that 
 moment he was never free from the gnawing, 
 haunting ambition to win the grand prize of 
 American public life. There was a new force in 
 his career, and in all the years to come the influ- 
 ence of that force must be reckoned and remem' 
 bered. 
 
 Mr. Webster was anxious that the party of op- 
 position to General Jackson, which then passed 
 by the name of National Republicans, should be 
 in some way strengthened, solidified, and placed on 
 a broad platform of distinct principles. He saw 
 with great regret the ruin which was threatened 
 by the anti-masonic schism, and it would seem 
 that he was not indisposed to take advantage of 
 this to stop the nomination of Mr. Clay, who was 
 peculiarly objectionable to the opponents of ma- 
 sonry. He earnest^ desired the nomination him- 
 self, but even his own friends in the party told 
 him that this was out of the question, and he ac- 
 quiesced in their decision. Mr. Clay’s personal 
 popularity, moreover, among the National Repub- 
 licans was, in truth, invincible, and he was unan- 
 imously nominated by the convention at Balti- 
 more. The action of the anti-masonic element in 
 
208 
 
 DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 the country doomed Clay to defeat, which he was 
 likely enough to encounter in any event; hut the 
 consolidation of the party so ardently desired by 
 Mr. Webster was brought about by acts of the 
 administration, which completely overcame any 
 intestine divisions among its opponents. 
 
 The session of 1831-1832, when the country 
 was preparing for the coming presidential elec- 
 tion, marks the beginning of the fierce struggle 
 with Andrew Jackson which was to give birth to 
 a new and powerful organization known in our 
 history as the Whig party, and destined, after 
 years of conflict, to bring overwhelming defeat to 
 the “ Jacksonian democracy.” There is no occa- 
 sion here to enter into a history of the famous 
 bank controversy. Established in 1816, the bank 
 of the United States, after a period of difficulties, 
 had become a powerful and valuable financial or- 
 ganization. In 1832 it applied for a continuance 
 of its charter, which then had three years still to 
 run. Mr. Webster did not enter into the per- 
 sonal contest which had already begun, but in a 
 speech of great ability advocated a renewal of the 
 charter, showing, as he always did on such themes, 
 a knowledge and a grasp of the principles and in- 
 tricacies of public finance unequalled in our his- 
 tory except by Hamilton. In a second speech he 
 made a most effective and powerful argument 
 against a pi’oposition to give the States author- 
 ity to tax the bank, defending the doctrines laid 
 
THE STRUGGLE WITH JACKSON. 209 
 
 down by Chief Justice Marshall in McCullough 
 vs. Maryland, and denying the power of Congress 
 to give the States the right of such taxation, be- 
 cause by so doing they violated the Constitution. 
 The amendment was defeated, and the bill for the 
 continuance of the charter passed both Houses 
 by large majorities. 
 
 Jackson returned the bill with a veto. He had 
 the audacity to rest his veto upon the ground that 
 the bill was unconstitutional, and that it was the 
 duty of the President to decide upon the constitu- 
 tionality of every measure without feeling in the 
 least bound by the opinion of Congress or of the 
 Supreme Court. His ignorance was so crass that 
 he failed to perceive the distinction between a 
 new bill and one to continue an existing law, while 
 his vanity and his self-assumption were so colossal 
 that he did not hesitate to assert that he had the 
 right and the power to declare an existing law, 
 passed by Congress, approved by Madison, and 
 held to be constitutional by an express decision 
 of the Supreme Court, to be invalid, because he 
 thought fit to say so. To overthrow such doc- 
 trines was not difficult, but Mr. Webster refuted 
 them with a completeness and force which were 
 irresistible. At the same time he avoided per- 
 sonal attack in the dignified way which was char- 
 acteristic of him, despite the extraordinary temp- 
 tation to indulge in invective and telling sarcasm 
 to which Jackson by his ignorance and presump- 
 14 
 
210 
 
 DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 tion had so exposed himself. The bill was lost, 
 the great conflict with the bank was begun, and 
 the Whig party was founded. 
 
 Another event of a different character, which 
 had occurred not long before, helped to widen the 
 breach and to embitter the contest between the 
 parties of the administration and of the opposi- 
 tion. When in 1829 Mr. McLane had received 
 his instructions as Minister to England, he had 
 been directed by Mr. Van Buren to reopen nego- 
 tiations on the subject of the West Indian trade, 
 and in so doing the Secretary of State had re- 
 flected on the previous administration, and bad 
 said that the party in power would not support 
 the pretensions of its predecessors. Such lan- 
 guage was, of course, at variance with all tradi- 
 tions, was wholly improper, and was mean and 
 contemptible in dealing with a foreign nation. 
 In 1831 Mr. Van Buren was nominated as Minis- 
 ter to England, and came up for confirmation in 
 the Senate some time after he had actually de- 
 parted on his mission. Mr. Webster opposed the 
 confirmation in an eloquent speech full of just 
 pride in his country and of vigorous indignation 
 against the slight which Mr. Van Buren had put 
 upon her by his instructions to Mr. McLane. He 
 pronounced a splendid “ rebuke upon the first in- 
 stance in which an American minister had been 
 sent abroad as the representative of his party and 
 not as the representative of his country.” The 
 
THE STRUGGLE WITH JACKSON. 211 
 
 opposition was successful, and Mr. Van Buren’s 
 nomination was rejected. It is no doubt true that 
 the rejection was a political mistake, and that, as 
 was commonly said at the time, it created sympa- 
 thy for Mr. Van Buren and insured his succession 
 to the presidency. Yet no one would now think 
 as well of Mr. Webster if, to avoid awakening 
 popular sympathy and party enthusiasm in behalf 
 of Mr. Van Buren, he had silently voted for that 
 gentleman’s confirmation. To do so was to ap- 
 prove the despicable tone adopted in the instruc- 
 tions to McLane. As a patriotic American, above 
 all as a man of intense national feelings, Mr. Web- 
 ster could not have done otherwise than resist 
 with all the force of his eloquence the confirma- 
 tion of a man who had made such an undignified 
 and unworthy exhibition of partisanship. Politi- 
 cally he may have been wrong, but morally he 
 was wholly right, and his rebuke stands in our 
 history as a reproach which Mr. Van Buren’s 
 subsequent success can neither mitigate nor im- 
 pair. 
 
 There was another measure, however, which 
 had a far different effect from those which tended 
 to build up the opposition to Jackson and his fol- 
 lowers. A movement was begun by Mr. Clay 
 looking to a revision and reduction of the tariff, 
 which finally resulted in a bill reducing duties on 
 many articles to a revenue standai’d, and leaving 
 those on cotton and woollen goods and iron un- 
 
212 
 
 DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 changed. In the debates which occurred during 
 the passage of this bill Mr. Webster took but 
 little part, but they caused a furious outbreak on 
 the part of the South Carolinians led by Hayne, 
 and ended in the confirmation of the protective 
 policy. When Mr. Webster spoke at the New 
 York dinner in 1831, he gave his hearers to under- 
 stand very clearly that the nullification agitation 
 was not at an end, and after the passage of the 
 new tariff bill he saw close at hand the danger 
 which he had predicted. 
 
 In November, 1832, South Carolina in conven- 
 tion passed her famous ordinance nullifying the 
 revenue laws of the United States, and her Legis- 
 lature, which assembled soon aftex-, enacted laws to 
 carry out the ordinance, and gave an open defi- 
 ance to the Federal government. The country 
 was filled with excitement. It was known that 
 Mr. Calhoun, having published a letter in defence 
 of nullification, had resigned the vice-presidency, 
 accepted the senatorship of South Carolina, and 
 was coming to the capital to advocate his favoi'ite 
 doctrine. But the South Carolinians had made 
 one trifling blunder. They had overlooked the 
 President. Jackson was a Southerner and a Dem- 
 ocrat, but he was also the head of the nation, and 
 determined to maintain its integrity. On Decem- 
 ber 10, before Congress assembled, he issued his 
 famous proclamation in which lie took up vigor- 
 ously the position adopted by Mr. Webster in his 
 
THE STRUGGLE WITH JACKSON. 213 
 
 reply to Hayne, and gave the South Carolinians 
 to understand that he would not endure treason, 
 but would enforce constitutional laws even though 
 he should be compelled to use bayonets to do it. 
 The Legislature of the recalcitrant State replied 
 in an offensive manner which only served to make 
 Jackson angry. He, too, began to say some pretty 
 violent things, and, as he generally meant what he 
 said, the gallant leaders of nullification and other 
 worthy people grew very uneasy. There can be 
 no doubt that the outlook was very threatening, 
 and the nullifiers were extremely likely to be the 
 first to suffer from the effects of the impending 
 storm. 
 
 Mr. Webster was in New Jersey, on his way to 
 Washington, when he first received the proclama- 
 tion, and at Philadelphia he met Mr. Clay, and 
 from a friend of that gentleman l'eceived a copy 
 of a bill which was to do away with the tariff by 
 gradual reductions, prevent the imposition of any 
 further duties, and which at the same time de- 
 clared against protection and in favor of a tariff 
 for revenue only. This headlong plunge into con- 
 cession and compromise was not at all to Mr. 
 Webster's taste. He was opposed to the scheme 
 for economical reasons, but still more on the far 
 higher ground that there was open resistance to 
 laws of undoubted constitutionality, and until that 
 resistance was crushed under foot any talk of 
 compromise was a blow at the national dignity 
 
214 
 
 DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 and the national existence which ought not to be 
 tolerated for an instant. His own course was 
 plain. He proposed to sustain the administration, 
 and when the national honor should be vindicated 
 and all unconstitutional resistance ended, then 
 would come the time for concessions. Jackson 
 was not slow in giving Mr. Webster something to 
 support. At the opening of the session a message 
 was sent to Congress asking that provision might 
 be made to enable the President to enforce the 
 laws by means of the land and naval forces if 
 necessary. The message was referred to a com- 
 mittee, who at once reported the celebrated “ Force 
 Bill,” which embodied the principles of the mes- 
 sage and had the entire approval of the Presi- 
 dent. But Jackson’s party broke, despite the at- 
 titude of their chief, for many of them were from 
 the South and could not bring themselves to the 
 point of accepting the “ Force Bill.” The mo- 
 ment was critical, and the administration turned 
 to Mr. Webster and took him into their councils. 
 On February 8 Mr. Webster rose, and, after ex- 
 plaining in a fashion which no one was likely to 
 forget, that this was wholly an administration 
 measure, he announced his intention, as an inde- 
 pendent senator, of giving it his hearty and in- 
 flexible support. The combination thus effected 
 was overwhelming. Mr. Calhoun was now thor- 
 oughly alarmed, and we can well imagine that the 
 threats of hanging, in which it was rumored that 
 
THE STRUGGLE WITH JACKSON. 215 
 
 the President had indulged, began to have a good 
 deal of practical significance to a gentleman who, 
 as Secretary of War, had been familiar with the 
 circumstances attending the deaths of Arbuthnot 
 and Ambrister. At all events, Mr. Calhoun lost 
 no time in having an interview with Mr. Clay, 
 and the result was, that the latter, on February 
 11, announced that he should, on the following 
 day, introduce a tariff bill, a measure of the same 
 sort having already been started in the House. 
 The bill as introduced did not involve such a 
 complete surrender as that which Mr. Webster 
 had seen in Philadelphia, but it necessitated most 
 extensive modifications and gave all that South 
 Carolina could reasonably demand. Mr. Clay 
 advocated it in a brilliant speech, resting his de- 
 fence on the ground that this was the only way to 
 preserve the tariff, and that it was founded on the 
 great constitutional doctrine of compromise. Mr. 
 Webster opposed the bill briefly, and then intro- 
 duced a series of resolutions combating the pro- 
 posed measure on economical principles and on 
 those of justice, and especially assailing the read- 
 iness to abandon the rightful powers of Congress 
 and yield them up to any form of resistance. 
 Before, however, he could speak in support of his 
 resolutions, the “Force Bill” came up, and Mr. 
 Calhoun made his celebrated argument in sup- 
 port of nullification. This Mr. Webster was 
 obliged to answer, and he replied with the great 
 
216 
 
 DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 speech known in his works as “ The Constitution 
 not a compact between sovereign States.” In a 
 general way the same criticism is applicable to 
 this debate as to that with Hayne, but there were 
 some important differences. Mr. Calhoun’s argu- 
 ment was superior to that of his follower. It was 
 dry and hard, but it was a splendid specimen of 
 close and ingenious reasoning, and, as was to be 
 expected, the originator and master surpassed the 
 imitator and pupil. Mr. Webster’s speech, on 
 the other hand, in respect to eloquence, was de- 
 cidedly inferior to the masterpiece of 1830. Mr. 
 Curtis says, “ Perhaps there is no speech ever 
 made by Mr. Webster that is so close in its rea- 
 soning, so compact, and so powerful.” To the first 
 two qualities we can readily assent, but that it 
 was equally powerful may be doubted. So long 
 as Mr. Webster confined himself to defending the 
 Constitution as it actually was and as what it had 
 come to mean in point of fact, he was invincible. 
 Just in proportion as he left this ground and at- 
 tempted to argue on historical premises that it 
 was a fundamental law, he weakened his position, 
 for the historical facts were against him. In the 
 reply to Hayne he touched but slightly on the 
 historical, legal, and theoretical aspects of the 
 case, and he was overwhelming. In the reply to 
 Calhoun he devoted his strength chiefly to these 
 topics, and, meeting his keen antagonist on the 
 latter’s own chosen ground, he put himself at a 
 
THE STRUGGLE WITH JACKSON. 217 
 
 disadvantage. In the actual present and in the 
 steady course of development, the facts were 
 wholly with Mr. Webster. Whatever the people 
 of the United States understood the Constitu- 
 tion to mean in 1789, there can be no question 
 that a majority in 1833 regarded it as a funda- 
 mental law, and not as a compact — an opinion 
 which has now become universal. But it was 
 quite another thing to argue that what the Con- 
 stitution had come to mean was what it meant 
 when it was adopted. The identity of meaning 
 at these two periods was the proposition which 
 Mr. Webster undertook to maintain, and he up- 
 held it as well and as plausibly as the nature of 
 the case admitted. His reasoning was close and 
 vigorous ; but he could not destroy the theory of 
 the Constitution as held by leaders and people in 
 1789, or reconcile the Virginia and Kentucky res- 
 olutions or the Hartford Convention with the fun- 
 damental-law doctrines. Nevertheless, it would 
 be an error to suppose that because the facts of 
 history were against Mr. Webster in these par- 
 ticulars, this able, ingenious, and elaborate argu- 
 ment was thrown away. It was a fitting supple- 
 ment and complement to the reply to Hayne. It 
 reiterated the national principles, and furnished 
 those whom the statement and demonstration of 
 an existing fact could not satisfy, with an im- 
 mense magazine of lucid reasoning and plausible 
 and effective arguments. The reply to Hayne 
 
218 
 
 DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 gave magnificent expression to the popular feeling, 
 while that to Calhoun supplied the arguments 
 which, after years of discussion, converted that 
 feeling into a fixed opinion, and made it strong 
 enough to carry the North through four years of 
 civil war. But in his final speech in this debate 
 Mr. Webster came back to his original ground, and 
 said, in conclusion, “ Shall we have a general gov- 
 ernment? Shall we continue the union of States 
 under a government instead of a league? This 
 vital and all-important question the people will 
 decide.” The vital question went to the great 
 popular juiy, and they cast aside all historical pre- 
 mises and deductions, all legal subtleties and re- 
 finements, and gave their verdict on the existing 
 facts. The world knows what that verdict was, 
 and will never forget that it was largely due to the 
 splendid eloquence of Daniel Webster when he de- 
 fended the cause of nationality against the slave- 
 holding separatists of South Carolina. 
 
 While this great debate was in progress, and 
 Mr. Webster and the faithful adherents of Jack- 
 son wei'e pushing the “ Force Bill ” to a vote, Mr. 
 Clay was making every effort to carry the com- 
 promise tariff. In spite of his exertions, the 
 Force Bill passed on February 20, but close be- 
 hind came the tariff, which Mr. Webster opposed, 
 on its final passage, in a vigorous speech. There 
 is no need to enter into his economical objec- 
 tions, but he made his strongest stand against 
 
THE STRUGGLE WITH JACKSON. 
 
 219 
 
 the policy of sacrificing great interests to soothe 
 South Carolina. Mr. Clay replied, but did not 
 then press a vote, for, with that dexterous man- 
 agement which he had exhibited in 1820 and was 
 again to display in 1850, he had succeeded in get- 
 ting his tariff bill carried rapidly through the 
 House, in order to obviate the objection that all 
 money bills must originate in the lower branch. 
 The House bill passed the Senate, Mr. Webster 
 voting against it, and became law. There was no 
 further need of the Force Bill. Clay, Calhoun, 
 even the daring Jackson ultimatel} 7 , were very 
 glad to accept the easy escape offered by a com- 
 pi’omise. South Carolina had in reality prevailed, 
 although Mr. Clay had saved protection in a 
 modified form. Her threats of nullification had 
 brought the United States government to terms, 
 and the doctrines of Calhoun went home to the 
 people of the South with the glory of substantial 
 victory about them, to breed and foster separatism 
 and secession, and prepare the way for armed con- 
 flict with the nobler spirit of nationality which 
 Mr. Webster had roused in the North. 
 
 Speaking of Mr. Webster at this period, Mr. 
 Benton says : — 
 
 “ He was the colossal figure on the political stage 
 during that eventful time, and his labors, splendid in 
 their day, survive for the benefit of distant posterity.” 
 . . . “ It was a splendid era in his life, both for his intel- 
 lect and his patriotism. No longer the advocate of 
 
220 
 
 DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 classes or interests, lie appeared as the great defender 
 of the Union, of the Constitution, of the country, and of 
 the administration to which he was opposed. Released 
 from the bonds of party and the narrow confines of class 
 and corporation advocacy, his colossal intellect expanded 
 to its full proportions in the field of patriotism, luminous 
 with the fires of genius, and commanding the homage 
 not of party but of country. His magnificent harangues 
 touched Jackson in his deepest-seated and ruling feeling, 
 love of country, and brought forth the response which 
 always came from him when the country was in peril 
 and a defender presented himself. He threw out the 
 right hand of fellowship, treated Mr. Webster with 
 marked distinction, commended him with public praise, 
 and placed him on the roll of patriots. And the public 
 mind took the belief that they were to act together in 
 future, and that a cabinet appointment or a high mis- 
 sion would be the reward of his patriotic service. It 
 was a crisis in the life of Mr. Webster. He stood in 
 public opposition to Mr. Clay and Mr. Calhoun. With 
 Mr. Clay he had a public outbreak in the Senate. He 
 was cordial with Jackson. The mass of his party stood 
 by him on the proclamation. He was at a point from 
 which a new departure might be taken : one at which 
 he could not stand still ; from which there must be 
 either advance or recoil. It was a case in which will 
 more than intellect was to rule. He was above Mr. 
 Clay and Mr. Calhoun in intellect, below them in will : 
 and he was soon seen cooperating with them (Mr. Clay 
 in the lead) in the great measure condemning President 
 Jackson.” 
 
THE STRUGGLE WITH JACKSON. 221 
 
 This is of course the view of a Jacksonian 
 leader, but it is none the less full of keen analysis 
 and comprehension of Mr. Webster, and in some 
 respects embodies very well the conditions of the 
 situation. Mr. Benton naturally did not see that 
 an alliance with Jackson was utterly impossible 
 for Mr. Webster, whose proper course was there- 
 fore much less simple than it appeared to the 
 Senator from Missouri. There was in reality no 
 common ground possible between Webster and 
 Jackson except defence of the national integrity. 
 Mr. Webster was a great oratoi’, a splendid advo- 
 cate, a trained statesman and economist, a remark- 
 able constitutional lawyer, and a man of immense 
 dignity, not headstrong in temper and without pe- 
 culiar force of will. Jackson, on the other hand, 
 was a rude soldier, unlettered, intractable, arbi- 
 trary, with a violent temper and a most despotic 
 will. Two men more utterly incompatible it would 
 have been difficult to find, and nothing could have 
 been more wildly fantastic than to suppose an 
 alliance between them, or to imagine that Mr. 
 Webster could ever have done anything but op- 
 pose utterly those mad gyrations of personal gov- 
 ernment which the President called his “ policy.” 
 
 Yet at the same time it is perfectly true that 
 just after the passage of the tariff bill Mr. Web- 
 ster was at a great crisis in his life. He could 
 not act with Jackson. That way was shut to him 
 by nature, if by nothing else. But he could have 
 
222 
 
 DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 maintained liis position as the independent and 
 unbending defender of nationality and as the foe 
 of compromise. He might then have brought Mr. 
 Clay to his side, and remained himself the undis- 
 puted head of the Whig party. The coalition be- 
 tween Clay and Calhoun was a hollow, ill-omened 
 thing, certain to go violently to pieces, as, in 
 fact, it did, within a few years, and then Mr. Clay, 
 if he had held out so long, would have been help- 
 less without Mr. Webster. But such a course re- 
 quired a very strong will and great tenacity of pur- 
 pose, and it was on this side that Mr. Webster 
 was weak, as Mr. Benton points out. Instead of 
 waiting for Mr. Clay to come to him, Mr. Webster 
 went over to Clay and Calhoun, and formed for 
 a time the third in that ill-assorted partnership. 
 There was no reason for his doing so. In fact 
 every good reason was against it. Mr. Clay had 
 come to Mr. Webster with his compromise, and had 
 been met with the reply “ that it would be yielding 
 great principles to faction ; and that the time had 
 come to test the strength of the Constitution and the 
 government.” This was a brave, manly answer, 
 but Mr. Clay, nationalist as he was, had straight- 
 way deserted his friend and ally, and gone over to 
 the separatists for support. Then a sharp contest 
 had occurred between Mr. Webster and Mr. Clay 
 in the debate on the tariff ; and when it was all 
 over, the latter wrote with frank vanity and a slight 
 tinge of contempt: “Mr. Webster and I came in 
 
TEE STRUGGLE WITH JACKSON. 
 
 223 
 
 conflict, and I have the satisfaction to tell you that 
 he gained nothing. My friends flatter me with 
 my having completely triumphed. There is no 
 permanent breach between us. I think he be- 
 gins already to repent his course.” Mr. Clay was 
 intensely national, but his theory of preserving 
 the Union was by continual compromise, or, in 
 other words, by constant yielding to the aggress- 
 ive South. Mr. Webster’s plan was to maintain 
 a firm attitude, enforce absolute submission to 
 all constitutional laws, and prove that agitation 
 against the Union could lead only to defeat. This 
 policy would not have resulted in rebellion, but, if 
 it had, the hanging of Calhoun and a few like him, 
 and the military government of South Carolina, 
 by the hero of New Orleans, would have taught 
 slave-holders such a lesson that we should prob- 
 ably have been spared four years of civil war. 
 Peaceful submission, however, would have been 
 the sure outcome of Mr. Webster's policy. But a 
 compromise appealed as it always does to the 
 timid, balance-of-power party. Mr. Clay pre- 
 vailed, and the manufacturers of New England, as 
 well as elsewhere, finding that he had secured for 
 them the benefit of time and of the chapter of 
 accidents, rapidly came over to his support. The 
 pressure was too much for Mr. Webster. Mr. Clay 
 thought that if Mr. Webster “had to go over the 
 work of the last few weeks he would have been 
 for the compromise, which commands the appro- 
 
224 
 
 DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 bation of a great majority.” Whether Mr. Web* 
 ster repented his opposition to the compromise no 
 one can say, but the change of opinion in New 
 England, the general assent of the Whig party, 
 and the dazzling temptations of presidential can- 
 didacy prevailed with him. He fell in behind 
 Mr. Clay, and remained there in a party sense and 
 as a party man for the rest of his life. 
 
 The terrible prize of the presidency was indeed 
 again before his eyes. Mr. Clay’s overthrow at 
 the previous election had removed him, for the 
 time being at least, from the list of candidates, 
 and thus freed Mr. Webster from his most danger- 
 ous rival. In the summer of 1833 Mr. Webster 
 made a tour through the Western States, and was 
 received everywhere with enthusiasm, and hailed 
 as the great expounder and defender of the Con- 
 stitution. The following winter he stood forward 
 as the preeminent champion of the Bank against 
 the President. Everything seemed to point to 
 him as the natural candidate of the opposition. 
 The Legislature of Massachusetts nominated him 
 for the presidency, and he himself deeply desired 
 the office, for the fever now burned strongly 
 within him. But the movement came to nothing. 
 The anti-masonic schism still distracted the oppo- 
 sition. The Kentucky leaders wei’e jealous of Mr. 
 Webster, and thought him “no such man” as 
 their idol Henry Clay. They admitted his great- 
 ness and his high traits of character, but they 
 
THE STRUGGLE WITlP JACKSON. 225 
 
 thought his ambition mixed with too much self- 
 love. Governor Letcher wrote to Mr. Crittenden 
 in 1836 that Clay was more elevated, disinter- 
 ested and patriotic than Webster, and that the 
 verdict of the country had had a good effect on the 
 latter. Despite the interest and enthusiasm which 
 Mr. Webster aroused in the West, he had no real 
 hold upon that section or upon the masses of the 
 people and the Western Whigs turned to Harri- 
 son. There was no hope in 1836 for Mr. Webster, 
 or, for that matter, for his party either. He re- 
 ceived the electoral vote of faithful Massachu- 
 setts, and that was all. As it was then, so it had 
 been at the previous election, and so it was to 
 continue to be at the end of every presidential 
 term. There never was a moment when Mr. 
 Webster had any real prospect of attaining to the 
 presidency. Unfortunately he never could real- 
 ize this. He would have been more than human, 
 perhaps, if he had done so. The tempting bait 
 hung always before his eyes. The prize seemed 
 to be always just coming within his reach and 
 was really never near it. But the longing had 
 entered his soul. He could not rid himself of the 
 idea of this final culmination to his success ; and 
 it warped his feelings and actions, injured his 
 career, and embittered his last years. 
 
 This notice of the presidential election of 1836 
 has somewhat anticipated the course of events. 
 Soon after the tariff compromise had been ef- 
 15 
 
226 
 
 DAI I EL WEBSTER. 
 
 fected, Mr. Webster renewed his relations with 
 Mr. Clay, and, consequently, with Mr. Calhoun, 
 and their redoutable antagonist in the President’s 
 chair soon gave them enough to do. The most 
 immediate obstacle to Mr. Webster’s alliance with 
 General Jackson was the latter's attitude in re- 
 gard to the bank. Mr. W ebster had become sat- 
 isfied that the bank was, on the whole, a useful 
 and even necessary institution. No one was bet- 
 ter fitted than he to decide on such a question, and 
 few persons would now be found to differ from his 
 judgment on this point. In a general way he 
 may be said to have adopted the Hamiltonian doc- 
 trine in regard to the expediency and constitu- 
 tionality of a national bank. There were intima- 
 tions in the spring of 1833 that the President, 
 not content with preventing the re-cliarter of the 
 bank, was planning to strike it down, and practi- 
 cally deprive it of even the three years of life 
 which still remained to it by law. The scheme 
 was perfected during the summer, and, after 
 changing his Secretary of the Treasury until he 
 got one who would obey, President Jackson dealt 
 his great blow. On September 26 Mr. Taney 
 signed the order removing the deposits of the 
 government from the Bank of the United States. 
 The result was an immediate contraction of loans, 
 commercial distress, and great confusion. 
 
 The President had thrown down the gage, and 
 the leaders of the opposition were not slow to take 
 
THE STRUGGLE WITH JACKSON. 227 
 
 it up. Mr. Clay opened the battle by introducing 
 two resolutions, — one condemning the action of 
 the President as unconstitutional, the other attack- 
 ing the policy of removal, and a long and bitter de- 
 bate ensued. A month later, Mr. Webster came 
 forward with resolutions from Boston against the 
 course of the President. He presented the resolu- 
 tions in a powerful and effective speech, depicting 
 the deplorable condition of business, and the in- 
 jury caused to the country by the removal of the 
 deposits. He rejected the idea of leaving the cur- 
 rency to the control of the President, or of doing 
 away entirely with paper, and advocated the re- 
 charter of the present bank, or the creation of a 
 new one ; and, until the time for that should arrive, 
 the return of the deposits, with its consequent re- 
 lief to business and a restoration of stability and of 
 confidence for the time being at least. He soon 
 found that the administration had determined that 
 no law should be passed, and that the doctrine 
 that Congress had no power to establish a bank 
 should be upheld. He also discovered that the 
 constitutional pundit in the White House, who 
 was so opposed to a single national bank, had cre- 
 ated, by his own fiat, a large number of small 
 national banks in the guise of state banks, to 
 which the public deposits were committed, and the 
 collection of the public revenues intrusted. Such 
 an arbitrary policy, at once so ignorant, illogical, 
 and dangerous, aroused Mr. Webster thoroughly, 
 
228 
 
 DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 and he entered immediately upon an active cam> 
 paign against the President. Between the pres- 
 entation of the Boston resolutions and the close 
 of the session he spoke on the bank, and the sub- 
 jects necessarily connected with it, no less than 
 sixty-four times. He dealt entirely with financial 
 topics, — chiefly those relating to the currency, 
 and with the constitutional questions raised by 
 the extension of the executive authority. This 
 long series of speeches is one of the most remark- 
 able exhibitions of intellectual power ever made 
 by Mr. Webster, or indeed by any public man in 
 our history. In discussing one subject in all its 
 bearings, involving of necessity a certain amount 
 of repetition, he not only displayed an extraordi- 
 nary grasp of complicated financial problems and 
 a wide knowledge of their scientific meaning and 
 history, but he showed an astonishing fertility 
 in argument, coupled with great variety and cleai’- 
 nessof statement and cogency of reasoning. With 
 the exception of Hamilton, Mr. Webster is the 
 only statesman in our history who was capable of 
 such a performance on such a subject, when a 
 thorough knowledge had to be united with all 
 the resources of debate and all the arts of the 
 highest eloquence. 
 
 The most important speech of all was that de- 
 livered in answer to Jackson’s “ Protest,” sent in 
 as a reply to Mr. Clay’s resolutions which had 
 been sustained by Mr. Webster as chairman of 
 
TEE STRUGGLE WITH JACKSON. 229 
 
 the Committee on Finance. The “ Protest ” as* 
 serted, in brief, that the Legislature could not 
 order a subordinate officer to perform certain 
 duties free from the control of the President ; 
 that the President had the right to put his own 
 conception of the law into execution ; and, if the 
 subordinate officer refused to obey, then to remove 
 such officer ; and that the Senate had therefore no 
 right to censure his removal of the Secretary of 
 the Treasury, in order to reach the government 
 deposits. To this doctrine Mr. Webster replied 
 with great elaboration and ability. The question 
 was a vei'y nice one. There could be no doubt of 
 the President’s power of removal, and it was neces- 
 sary to show that this power did not extend to the 
 point of depriving Congress of the right to confer 
 by law specified and independent powers upon an 
 inferior officer, or of regulating the tenure of office. 
 To establish this proposition in such a way as to 
 take it out of the thick and heated atmosphere of 
 personal controversy, and put it in a shape to carry 
 conviction to the popular understanding, was a del- 
 icate and difficult task, requiring, in the highest 
 degree, lucidity and ingenuity of argument. It is 
 not too high praise to say that Mr. Webster suc- 
 ceeded entirely. The real contest was for the 
 possession of that debatable ground which lies 
 between the defined limits of the executive and 
 legislative departments. The struggle consoli- 
 dated and gave coherence tc the Whig party as 
 
230 
 
 DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 representing the opposition to executive encroach- 
 ments. At the time Jackson, by his imperious 
 will and marvellous personal popularity, prevailed 
 and obtained the acceptance of his doctrines. But 
 the conflict has gone on, and the balance of ad- 
 vantage now rests with the Legislature. This 
 tendency is quite as dangerous as that of which 
 Jackson was the exponent, if not more so. The 
 executive department has been crippled ; and the 
 influence and power of Congress, and especially of 
 the Senate, have become far greater than they 
 should be, under the system of proportion and bal- 
 ance embodied in the Constitution. Despite Jack- 
 son’s victory there is, to-day, far more danger of 
 undue encroachments on the part of the Senate 
 than on that of the President. 
 
 - At the next session the principal subject of dis- 
 cussion was the trouble with France. Irritated 
 at the neglect of the French government to pro- 
 vide funds for the payment of their debt to us, 
 Jackson sent in a message severely criticising 
 them, and recommending the passage of a law 
 authorizing reprisals on French {property. The 
 President and his immediate followers were eager 
 for war, Calhoun and his faction regarded the 
 whole question as only matter for “ an action of 
 assumpsit,” while Mr. Webster and Mr. Clay de- 
 sired to avoid hostilities, but wished the country 
 to maintain a firm and dignified attitude. Under 
 the lead of Mr. Clay, the recommendation of re- 
 
THE STRUGGLE WITH JACKSON. 231 
 
 prisals was rejected, and under that of Mr. Web- 
 ster a clause smuggled into the Fortification Bill to 
 give the President three millions to spend as he 
 liked was struck out and the bill was subsequently 
 lost. This affair, which brought us to the verge 
 of war with France, soon blew over, however, and 
 caused only a temporary ripple, although Mr. 
 Webster’s attack on the Fortification Bill left a 
 sting behind. 
 
 In this same session Mr. Webster made an ex- 
 haustive speech on the question of executive pat- 
 ronage and the President’s power of appointment 
 and removal. He now went much farther than 
 in his answer to the “ Protest,” asserting not only 
 the right of Congress to fix the tenure of office, 
 but also that the power of removal, like the power 
 of appointment, was in the President and Senate 
 jointly. The speech contained much that was 
 valuable, but in its main doctrine was radically 
 unsound. The construction of 1789, which de- 
 cided that the power of removal belonged to the 
 President alone, was clearly right, and Mr. Web- 
 ster failed to overthrow it. His theory, embodied 
 in a bill which provided that the President should 
 state to the Senate, when he appointed to a va- 
 cancy caused by removal, his reasons for such 
 removal, was thoroughly mischievous. It was 
 more dangerous than Jackson’s doctrine, for it 
 tended to take the power of patronage still more 
 from a single and responsible person and vest 
 
232 
 
 DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 it in a large and therefore wholly irresponsible 
 body which has always been too much inclined to 
 degenerate into an office-broking oligarchy, and 
 thus degrade its high and important functions. 
 Mr. Webster argued his proposition with his usual 
 force and perspicuity, but the speech is strongly 
 partisan and exhibits the disposition of an advo- 
 cate to fit the Constitution to his particular case, 
 instead of dealing with it on general and funda- 
 mental principles. 
 
 The session closed with a resolution offered by 
 Mr. Benton to expunge the resolutions of censure 
 upon the President, which was overwhelmingly 
 defeated, and was then laid upon the table, on the 
 motion of Mr. Webster. He also took the first step 
 to prevent the impending financial disaster grow- 
 ing out of the President’s course toward the banty 
 by carrying a bill to stop the payment of treasury 
 warrants by the deposit banks in current bank- 
 notes, and to compel their payment in gold and sil- 
 ver. The rejection of Benton’s resolutions served 
 to embitter the already intense conflict between 
 the President and his antagonists, and Mr. Web- 
 ster's bill, while it showed the wisdom of the op- 
 position, was powerless to remedy the mischief 
 which was afoot. 
 
 In this same year (1835) the independence of 
 Texas was achieved, and in the session of 1835- 
 36 the slavery agitation began its march, which 
 was only to terminate on the field of battle and 
 
THE STRUGGLE WITH JACKSON. 233 
 
 in the midst of contending armies. Mr. Web- 
 ster's action at this time in regard to this great 
 question, which was destined to have such an effect 
 upon his career, can be more fitly narrated when 
 we come to consider his whole course in regard to 
 slavery in connection with the “7th of March” 
 speech. The other matters of this session demand 
 but a brief notice. The President animadverted 
 in his message upon the loss of the Fortification 
 Bill, due to the defeat of the three million clause. 
 Mr. Webster defended himself most conclusively 
 and effectively, and before the session closed the 
 difficulties with France were practically settled. 
 He also gave great attention to the ever-pressing 
 financial question, trying to mitigate the evils 
 which the rapid accumulation of the public funds 
 was threatening to produce. He felt that he 
 was powerless, that nothing indeed could be done 
 to avert the approaching disaster ; but he strug- 
 gled to modify its effects and delay its progress. 
 
 Complications increased rapidly during the sum- 
 mer. The famous “ Specie Circular,” issued by 
 the Secretary of the Treasury without authority 
 of law, weakened all banks which did not hold the 
 government deposits, forced them to contract their 
 loans, and completed the derangement of domestic 
 exchange. This grave condition of affairs con- 
 fronted Congress when it assembled in December, 
 1836. A resolution was introduced to rescind the 
 Specie Circular, and Mr. Webster spoke at length 
 
234 
 
 DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 in the debate, defining the constitutional duties 
 of the government toward the regulation of the 
 currency, and discussing in a masterly manner 
 the intricate questions of domestic exchanges and 
 the excessive circulation of bank notes. On an- 
 other occasion he reiterated his belief that a na- 
 tional bank was the true remedy for existing ills, 
 but that only hard experience could convince the 
 country of its necessity. 
 
 At this session the resolution to expunge the vote 
 of censure of 1833 was again brought forward by 
 Mr. Benton. The Senate had at last come under 
 the sway of the President, and it was clear that 
 the resolution would pass. This precious scheme 
 belongs to the same category of absurdities as the 
 placing Oliver Cromwell’s skull on Temple Bar, 
 and throwing Robert Blake’s body on a dung-hill 
 by Charles Stuart and his friends. It was not 
 such a mean and cowardly performance as that of 
 the heroes of the Restoration, but it was far more 
 “ childish-foolish.” The miserable and ludicrous 
 nature of such a proceeding disgusted Mr. Web- 
 ster beyond measure. Before the vote was taken 
 he made a brief speech that is a perfect model of 
 dignified and severe protest against a silly outrage 
 upon the Constitution and upon the rights of sen- 
 ators, which he was totally unable to prevent. 
 The original censure is part of history. No “black 
 lines” can take it out. The expunging resolution, 
 which Mr. Curtis justly calls “fantastic and the- 
 
TEE STRUGGLE WITH JACKSON. 235 
 
 atrical,” is also part of history, and carries with it 
 the ineffaceable stigma affixed by Mr. Webster’s 
 indignant protest. 
 
 Before the close of the session Mr. Webster 
 made up his mind to resign his seat in the Senate. 
 He had private interests which demanded his at- 
 tention, and he wished to travel both in the 
 United States and in Europe. He may well have 
 thought, also, that he could add nothing to his 
 fame by remaining longer in the Senate. But 
 besides the natural craving for rest, it is quite pos- 
 sible that he believed that a withdrawal from active 
 and official participation in politics was the best 
 preparation for a successful candidacy for the pres- 
 idency in 1840. This certainly was in his mind 
 in the following year (1838), when the rumor was 
 abroad that he was again contemplating retire- 
 ment from the Senate ; and it is highly probable 
 that the same motive was at bottom the control- 
 ling one in 1837. But whatever the cause of his 
 wish to resign, the opposition of his friends every- 
 where, and of the Legislature of Massachusetts, 
 formally and strongly expressed, led him to forego 
 his purpose. He consented to hold his seat for 
 the present, at least, and in the summer of 1837 
 made an extended tour through the West, where 
 he was received as before with the greatest admi- 
 ration and enthusiasm. 
 
 The distracted condition of the still inchoate 
 Whig party in 1836, and the extraordinary popu- 
 
236 
 
 DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 larity of Jackson, resulted in the complete victory 
 of Mr. Van Buren. But the General’s chosen suc- 
 cessor and political heir found the great office to 
 which he had been called, and which he so eagerly 
 desired, anything but a bed of roses. The ruin 
 which Jackson’s wild policy had prepared was 
 close at hand, and three months after the inaugu- 
 ration the storm burst with full fury. The banks 
 suspended specie payments and universal bank- 
 ruptcy reigned throughout the country. Our 
 business interests were in the violent throes of the 
 worst financial panic which had ever been known 
 in the United States. The history of Mr. Van 
 Buren’s administration, in its main features, is 
 that of a vain struggle with a hopeless network of 
 difficulties, and with the misfortune and prostra- 
 tion which grew out of this wide-spread disaster. 
 It is not necessary here to enter into the details of 
 these events. Mr. Webster devoted himself in 
 the Senate to making every effort to mitigate the 
 evils which he had prophesied, and to prevent 
 their aggravation by further injudicious legisla- 
 tion. His most important speech was delivered 
 at the special session against the first sub-treasury 
 bill and Mr. Calhoun’s amendment. Mr. Calhoun, 
 who had wept over the defeat of the bank bill in 
 1815, was now convinced that all banks were mis- 
 takes, and wished to prevent the acceptance of the 
 notes of specie paying banks for government dues. 
 Mr. Webster’s speech was the fullest and most 
 
THE STRUGGLE WITH JACKSON. 237 
 
 elaborate he ever made on the subject of the cur- 
 rency, and the relations of the government to it. 
 His theme was the duty and right of the general 
 government under the Constitution to regulate 
 and control the currency, and his masterly argu- 
 ment was the best that has ever been made, leav- 
 ing in fact nothing to be desired. 
 
 o o 
 
 In the spring of 1839 there was talk of sending 
 Mr. Webster to London as commissioner to settle 
 the boundary disputes, but it came to nothing, 
 and in the following summer he went to England 
 in his pi’ivate capacity accompanied by his family. 
 The visit was in every way successful. It brought 
 rest and change as well as pleasure, and was full 
 of interest. Mr. Webster was very well received, 
 much attention was paid him, and much admira- 
 tion shown for him. He commanded all this, not 
 only by his appearance, his reputation, and his in- 
 tellectual force, but still more by the fact that 
 he was thoroughly and genuinely American in 
 thought, feeling, and manner. 
 
 K He reached New York on his return at the end 
 of December, and was there met by the news of 
 General Harrison’s nomination by the Whigs. In 
 the previous year it had seemed as if, with Clay 
 out of the way by the defeat of 1832, and Harri- 
 son by that of 1836, the great prize must fall to 
 Mr. Webster. His name was brought forward 
 by the Whigs of Massachusetts, but it met with 
 no response even in New England. It was the 
 
238 
 
 DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 old story; Mr. Clay and his friends were cool, and 
 the masses of the party did not desire Mr. Web- 
 ster. The convention turned from the Massachu- 
 setts statesman and again nominated the old West- 
 ern soldier. 
 
 Mr. Webster did not hesitate as to the course 
 he should pursue upon his return. He had been 
 reelected to the Senate in January, 1839, and after 
 the session closed in July, 1840, he threw himself 
 into the campaign in support of Harrison. The 
 people did not desire Mr. Webster to be their 
 President, but there was no one whom they so 
 much wished to hear. He was besieged from all 
 parts of the country with invitations to speak, 
 and he answered generously to the call thus made 
 upon him. 
 
 On his way home from Washington, in March, 
 1837, more than three years before, he had made 
 a speech at Niblo’s Garden in New York, — the 
 greatest purely political speech which he ever de- 
 livered. He then reviewed and arraigned with 
 the greatest severity the history of Jackson’s ad- 
 ministration, abstaining in his characteristic way 
 from all personal attack, but showing, as no one 
 else could show, what had been done, and the re- 
 sults of the policy, which were developing as he 
 had predicted. He also said that the worst was 
 yet to come. The speech produced a profound 
 impression. People were still reading it when 
 the worst really came, and the great panic broke 
 
THE STRUGGLE WITH JACKSON. 239 
 
 oyer the country. Mr. Webster had, in fact, 
 struck the key-note of the coming campaign in 
 the Niblo-Garden speech of 1837. In the sum- 
 mer of 1840 he spoke in Massachusetts, New 
 York, Pennsylvania, and Virginia, and was almost 
 continually upon the platform. The great feat 
 of 1833-34, when he made sixty-four speeches in 
 the Senate on the bank question, was now repeated 
 under much more difficult conditions. In the first 
 instance he was addressing a small and select 
 body of trained listeners, all more or less familiar 
 with the subject. In 1840 he was obliged to pre- 
 sent these same topics, with all their infinite detail 
 and inherent dryness, to vast popular audiences, 
 but nevertheless he achieved a marvellous success. 
 The chief points which he brought out were the 
 condition of the currency, the need of govern- 
 ment regulation, the responsibility of the Dem- 
 ocrats, the miserable condition of the country, and 
 the exact fulfillment of the prophecies he had 
 made. The argument and the conclusion were 
 alike irresistible, but Mr. Webster showed, in 
 handling his subject, not only the variety, rich- 
 ness, and force which he had displayed in the 
 Senate, but the capacity of presenting it in a 
 way thoroughly adapted to the popular mind, 
 and yet, at the same time, of preserving the im- 
 pressive tone of a dignified statesman, without 
 any degeneration into mere stump oratory. This 
 wonderful series of speeches produced the great- 
 
240 
 
 DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 est possible effect. They were heard by thou- 
 sands and read by tens of thousands. They fell, 
 of course, upon willing ears. The people, smarting 
 under bankruptcy, poverty, and business depression, 
 were wild for a change ; but nothing did so much 
 to swell the volume of public resentment against 
 the policy of the ruling party as these speeches 
 of Mr. Webster, which gave character and form 
 to the whole movement. Jackson had sown the 
 wind, and his unlucky successor was engaged in 
 the agreeable task of reaping the proverbial crop. 
 There was a political revolution. The Whigs 
 swept the country by an immense majority, the 
 great Democi’atic party was crushed to the earth, 
 and the ignorant misgovernment of Andrew Jack- 
 son found at last its fit reward. General Harri- 
 son, as soon as he was elected, turned to the two 
 great chiefs of his party to invite them to become 
 the pillars of his administration. Mr. Clay de- 
 clined any cabinet office, but Mr. Webster, after 
 some hesitation, accepted the secretaryship of state. 
 He resigned his seat in the Senate February 22, 
 1841, and on March 4 following took his place in 
 the cabinet, and entered upon a new field of public 
 service. 
 
CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 SECRETARY OF STATE. — THE ASHBURTON 
 TREATY. 
 
 There is one feature in the history, or rather 
 in the historic scenery of this period, which we 
 are apt to overlook. The political questions, the 
 debates, the eloquence of that day, give us no idea 
 of the city in which the history was made, or of 
 the life led by the men who figured in that history. 
 Their speeches might have been delivered in any 
 great centre of civilization, and in the midst of 
 a brilliant and luxurious society. But the Wash- 
 ington of 1841, when Mr. Webster took the post 
 which is officially the first in the society of the 
 capital and of the country, was a very odd sort of 
 place, and widely different from what it is to-day. 
 It was not a village, neither was it a city. It had 
 not grown, but had been created for a special pur- 
 pose. A site had been arbitrarily selected, and a 
 city laid out on the most magnificent scale. But 
 there was no independent life, for the city was 
 wholly official in its purposes and its existence. 
 There were a few great public buildings, a few 
 large private houses, a few hotels and boarding 
 16 
 
242 
 
 DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 houses, and a large number of negro shanties. 
 The general effect was of attempted splendor, 
 which had resulted in slovenliness and straggling 
 confusion. The streets were un paved, dusty in 
 summer, and deep with mud in winter, so that the 
 mere difficulty of getting from place to place was 
 a serious obstacle to general society. Cattle fed 
 in the streets, and were milked by their owners on 
 the sidewalk. There Avas a grotesque contrast be- 
 tween the stately capitol where momentous ques- 
 tions were eloquently discussed and such queerly 
 primitive and rude surroundings. Few persons 
 were able to entertain because few persons had 
 suitable houses. Members of Congress usually 
 clubbed together and took possession of a house, 
 and these “ messes,” as they were called, — al- 
 though without doubt very agreeable to their 
 members, — did not offer a mode of life which 
 was easily compatible with the demands of general 
 society. Social enjoyments, therefore, were pur- 
 sued under difficulties ; and the city, although im- 
 proving, was dreary enough. 
 
 Society, too, was in a bad condition. The old 
 forms and ceremonies of the men of 1789 and the 
 manners and breeding of our earliest generation of 
 statesmen had passed away, and the new democ- 
 racy had not as yet a system of its own. It was a 
 period of transition. The old customs had gone, 
 the new ones had not crystallized. The civiliza- 
 tion Avas crude and raw, and in Washington had 
 
SECRETARY OF STATE. 
 
 243 
 
 no background whatever, — suck as was to be 
 found in the old cities and towns of the original 
 thirteen States. The tone of the men in public 
 life had deteriorated and was growing worse, ap- 
 proaching rapidly its lowest point, which it reached 
 dui'ine: the Polk administration. This was due 
 partly to the Jacksonian democracy, which had 
 rejected training and education as necessary to 
 statesmanship, and had loudly proclaimed the 
 great truths of rotation in office, and the spoils to 
 the victors, and partly to the slavery agitation 
 which was then beginning to make itself felt. 
 The rise of the irrepressible conflict between free- 
 dom and slavery made the South overbearing and 
 truculent ; it produced that class of politicians 
 known as “Northern men with Southern prin- 
 ciples,” or, in the slang of the day, as “ dough- 
 faces ; ” and it had not yet built up a strong, vigor- 
 ous, and aggressive party in the North. The lack 
 of proper social opportunities, and this deteriora- 
 tion among men in public life, led to an increasing 
 violence and roughness in debate, and to a good 
 deal of coarse dissipation in private. There was 
 undoubtedly a brighter side, but it was limited, 
 and the surroundings of the distinguished men 
 who led our political parties in 1841 at the 
 national capital, do not present a very cheerful 
 or attractive picture. 
 
 When the new President appeared upon the 
 scene he was followed by a general rush of hungry 
 
244 
 
 DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 office-seekers, who had been starving for places 
 for many years. General Harrison was a brave, 
 honest soldier and pioneer, simple in heart and 
 manners, unspoiled and untaught by politics of 
 which he had had a good share. He was not a 
 great man, but he was honorable and well inten- 
 tioned. He wished to have about him the best 
 and ablest men of his party, and to trust to their 
 guidance for a successful administration. But 
 although he had no desire to invent a policy, or to 
 draft state papers, he was determined to be the 
 author of his own inaugural speech, and he came 
 to Washington with a carefully-prepared manu- 
 script in his pocket. When Mr. Webster read 
 this document he found it full of gratitude to the 
 people, and abounding in allusions to Roman his- 
 tory. With his strong sense of humor, and of the 
 unities and proprieties as well, he was a. good deal 
 alarmed at the proposed speech ; and after much 
 labor, and the expenditure of a good deal of tact, 
 he succeeded in effecting some important changes 
 and additions. When he came home in the even- 
 ing, Mrs. Seaton, at whose house he was staying, 
 remarked that he looked worried and fatigued, 
 and asked if anything had happened. Mr. Web- 
 ster replied, “You would think that something 
 had happened if you knew what I have done. I 
 have killed seventeen Roman proconsuls.” It was 
 a terrible slaughter for poor Harrison, for the pro- 
 consuls were probably very dear to his heart. His 
 
SECRETARY OF STATE. 
 
 245 
 
 youth had been passed in the time when the 
 pseudo classicism of the French Republic and Em- 
 pire was rampant, and now that, in his old age, lie 
 had been raised to the presidency, his head was 
 probably full of the republics of antiquity, and of 
 Cincinnatus called from the plough to take the 
 helm of state. 
 
 M. de Bacourt, the French minister at this pe- 
 riod, a rather shallow and illiberal man who dis- 
 liked Mr. Webster, gives, in his recently published 
 correspondence, the following amusing account of 
 the presentation of the diplomatic corps to Pres- 
 ident Harrison, — a little bit of contemporary gos- 
 sip which carries us back to those days better than 
 anything else could possibly do. The diplomatic 
 corps assembled at the house of Mr. Fox, the 
 British minister, who was to read a speech in 
 behalf of the whole body, and thence proceeded 
 to the White House where 
 
 “ the new Secretary of State, Mr. Webster, who is 
 much embarrassed by his new functions, came to make 
 his arrangements with Mr. Fox. This done, we were 
 ranged along the wall in order of seniority, and after too 
 long a delay for a country where the chief magistrate 
 has no right to keep people waiting, the old General came 
 in, followed by all the members of his Cabinet, who 
 walked in single file, and so kept behind him. He then 
 advanced toward Mr. Fox, whom Mr. Webster presented 
 to him. Mr. Fox read to him his address. Then the 
 President took out his spectacles and read his reply. 
 
246 
 
 DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 Then, after having shaken hands with the English 
 minister, he walked from one end of our line to the 
 other, Mr. Webster presenting each of us by name, and 
 he shaking hands with each one without saying a word. 
 This ceremony finished he returned to the room whence 
 he had come, and reappeared with Mrs. Harrison — the 
 widow of his eldest son — upon his arm, whom he pre- 
 sented to the diplomatic corps en masse. Mr. Webster, 
 who followed, then presented to us Mrs. Finley, the 
 mother of this Mrs. Harrison, in the following terms : 
 
 ‘ Gentlemen, I introduce to you Mrs. Finley, the lady 
 who attends Mrs. Harrison ; ’ and observe that this good 
 lady who attends the others — takes care of them — is 
 blind. Then all at once, a crowd of people rushed into 
 the room. They were the wives, sisters, daughters, 
 cousins, and lady friends of the President and of all his 
 ministers, who were presented to us, and vice versa , in 
 the midst of an inconceivable confusion.” 
 
 Fond, however, as Mr. Webster was of society, 
 and punctilious as he was in matters of etiquette 
 and propriety, M. de Bacourt to the contrary not- 
 withstanding, he had far more important duties to 
 perform than those of playing host and receiving 
 foreign ministers. Our relations with England 
 when he entered the cabinet were such as to make 
 war seem almost inevitable. The northeastern 
 boundary, undetermined by the treaty of 1783, 
 had been the subject of continual and fruitless ne- 
 gotiation ever since that time, and' was still unset- 
 tled and more complicated than ever. It was 
 agreed that there should be a new survey and a 
 
SECRETARY OF STATE. 
 
 247 
 
 new arbitration, but no agreement could be reached 
 as to who should arbitrate or what questions 
 should be submitted to the arbitrators, and the 
 temporary arrangements for the possession of the 
 territory in dispute were unsatisfactory and pre- 
 carious. Much more exciting and perilous than 
 this old difficulty was a new one and its conse- 
 quences growing out of the Canadian rebellion in 
 1887. Certain of the rebels fled to the United 
 States, and there, in conjunction with American 
 citizens, prepared to make incursions into Can- 
 ada. For this purpose they fitted out an Amer- 
 ican steamboat, the Caroline. An expedition 
 from Canada crossed the Niagara River to the 
 American shore, set fire to the Caroline, and 
 let her drift over the Falls. In the fray which 
 occurred, an American named Durfree was killed. 
 The British government avowed this invasion to 
 be a public act and a necessary measure of self- 
 defence ; but it was a question when Mr. Van 
 Buren went out of office whether this avowal had 
 been made in an authentic manner. There was 
 another incident, however, also growing out of 
 this affair, even more irritating and threatening 
 than the invasion itself. In November, 1840, one 
 Alexander McLeod came from Canada to New 
 York, where he boasted that he was the slayer of 
 Durfree, and thereupon was at once arrested on a 
 charge of murder and thrown into prison. This 
 aroused great anger in England, and the convic- 
 
248 
 
 DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 tion of McLeod was all that was needed to cause 
 immediate war. In addition to these complica- 
 tions was the question of the right of search for 
 the impressment of British seamen and for the 
 suppression of the slave-trade. Our government 
 was, of course, greatly hampered in action by the 
 rights of Maine and Massachusetts on the north- 
 eastern boundary, and by the fact that McLeod 
 was within the jurisdiction and in the power of 
 the New York courts, and wholly out of reach of 
 those of the United States. The character of the 
 national representatives on both sides in London 
 tended, moreover, to aggravate the growing irrita- 
 tion between the two countries. Lord Palmerston 
 was sharp and domineering, and Mr. Stevenson, 
 our minister, was by no means mild or concilia- 
 tory. Between them they did what they could to 
 render accommodation impossible. 
 
 To evolve a satisfactory and permanent peace 
 from these conditions was the task which con- 
 fronted Mr. Webster, and he was hardly in office 
 before he received a demand from Mr. Fox for the 
 release of McLeod, in which full avowal was made 
 that the burning of the Caroline was a public 
 act. Mr. Webster determined that the proper 
 method of settling the boundary question, when 
 that subject should be reached, was to agree upon 
 a conventional and arbitrary line, and that in the 
 mean time the only way to dispose of McLeod was 
 to get him out of prison, separate him, diplomats 
 
SECRETARY OF STATE. 
 
 249 
 
 cally speaking, from the affair of the Caroline, 
 and then take that up as a distinct matter for 
 negotiation with the British government. The 
 difficulty in regard to McLeod was the most 
 pressing, and so to that he gave his immediate at- 
 tention. His first step was to instruct the Attor- 
 ney-General to proceed to Lockport, where McLeod 
 was imprisoned, and communicate with the coun- 
 sel for the defence, furnishing them with authen- 
 tic information that the destruction of the Caro- 
 line }vas a public act, and that therefore McLeod 
 could not be held responsible. . He then replied 
 to the British minister that McLeod could, of 
 course, be released only by judicial process, but 
 he also informed Mr. Foi of the steps which had 
 been taken by the administration to assure the 
 prisoner a complete defence based on the avowal 
 of the British government that the attack on the 
 Caroline was a public act. This threw the re- 
 sponsibility for McLeod, and for consequent peace 
 or war, where it belonged, on the New York au- 
 thorities, who seemed, however, but little inclined 
 to assist the general government. McLeod came 
 before the Supreme Court of New York in July, 
 on a writ of habeas corpus , but they refused to 
 release him on the grounds set forth in Mr. Web- 
 ster’s instructions to the Attorney-General, and 
 he was remanded for trial in October, which was 
 highly embarrassing to our government, as it kept 
 this dangerous affair open. 
 
250 
 
 DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 But this and all other embarrassments to the 
 Secretary of State sank into insignificance beside 
 those caused him by the troubles in his own polit- 
 ical party. Between the time of the instructions 
 to the Attorney-General and that of the letter to 
 Mr. Fox, President Harrison died, after only a 
 month of office. Mr. Tyler, of whose views but 
 little was known, at once succeeded, and made no 
 change in the cabinet of his predecessor. On the 
 last day of Ma}', Congress, called in extra session 
 by President Harrison, convened. A bill estab- 
 lishing a bank was passed, and Mr. Tyler vetoed 
 it on account of constitutional objections to some 
 of its features. The triumphant Whigs were filled 
 with wrath at this unlooked-for check. Mr. Clay 
 reflected on the President with great severity in 
 the Senate, the members of the party in the House 
 were very violent in their expressions of disap- 
 proval, and another measure, known as the “ Fis- 
 cal Corporation Act,” was at once prepared. Mr. 
 Webster regarded this state of affairs with great 
 anxiety and alarm. He said that such a contest, 
 if persisted in, would ruin the party and deprive 
 them of the fruits of their victory, besides im- 
 perilling the important foreign policy then just 
 initiated. He strove to allay the excitement, and 
 resisted the passage of any new bank measure, 
 much as he wished the establishment of such an 
 institution, advising postponement and delay for 
 the sake of procuring harmony if possible. But 
 
SECRETARY OF STATE. 
 
 251 
 
 the party in Congress would not be quieted. They 
 were determined to force Mr. Tyler's hand at all 
 hazards, and while the new bill was pending, Mr. 
 Clay, stung by the taunts of Mr. Buchanan, made 
 a savage attack upon the President. As a natural 
 consequence, the “ Fiscal Corporation ” scheme 
 shared the fate of its predecessor. The breach 
 between the President and his party was opened 
 irreparably, and four members of the cabinet at 
 once resigned. Mr. Webster was averse to be- 
 coming a party to an obvious combination between 
 the Senate and the cabinet to harass the Presi- 
 dent, and he was determined not to sacrifice the 
 success of his foreign negotiations to a political 
 quarrel. He therefore resolved to remain in the 
 cabinet for the present, at least, and, after con- 
 sulting the Massachusetts delegation in Congress, 
 who fully approved his course, he announced his 
 decision to the public in a letter to the “ National 
 Intelligencer.” His action soon became the sub- 
 ject of much adverse criticism from the Whigs, 
 but at this day no one would question that he was 
 entirely right. It was not such an easy thing to 
 do, however, as it now appears, for the excitement 
 was running high among the Whigs, and there 
 was great bitterness of feeling toward the Pres- 
 ident. Mr. Webster behaved in an independent 
 and patriotic manner, showing a liberality of spirit, 
 a breadth of view, and a courage of opinion which 
 entitle him to the greatest credit. 
 
252 
 
 DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 Events, which had seemed thus far to go steadily 
 against him in his negotiations, and which had 
 been supplemented by the attacks of the opposi- 
 tion in Congress for his alleged interference with 
 the course of justice in New York, now began to 
 turn in his favor. The news of the refusal of the 
 New York court to release McLeod on a habeas 
 corpus had hardly reached England when the 
 Melbourne ministry was beaten in the House of 
 Commons, and Sir Robert Peel came in, bringing 
 with him Lord Aberdeen as the successor of Lord 
 Palmerston in the department of foreign affairs. 
 The new ministry was disposed to be much more 
 peaceful than their predecessors had been, and the 
 negotiations at once began to move more smoothly. 
 Great care was still necessary to prevent outbreaks 
 on the border, but in October McLeod proved an 
 alibi and was acquitted, and thus the most danger- 
 ous element in our relations with England was 
 removed. Matters were still further improved by 
 the retirement of Mr. Stevenson, whose successor 
 in London was Mr. Everett, eminently concilia- 
 tory in disposition and in full sympathy with the 
 Secretary of State. 
 
 Mr. Webster was now able to turn his undi- 
 vided attention to the long-standing boundary 
 question. His proposition to agree upon a con- 
 ventional line had been made known by Mr. Fox 
 to his government, and soon afterwards Mr. Ever- 
 ett was informed that Lord Ashburton would be 
 
SECRETARY OF STATE. 
 
 253 
 
 sent to Washington on a special mission. The 
 selection of an envoy well known for his friendly 
 feeling toward the United States, which was also 
 traditional with the great banking-house of his 
 family, was in itself a pledge of conciliation and 
 good will. Lord Ashburton reached Washing- 
 ton in April, 1842, and the negotiation at once 
 began. 
 
 It is impossible and needless to give here a de- 
 tailed account of that negotiation. We can only 
 glance briefly at the steps taken by Mr. Webster 
 and at the results achieved by him. There were 
 many difficulties to be overcome, and in the win- 
 ter of 1841-42 the case of the Creole added a 
 fresh and dangerous complication. The Creole 
 was a slave-ship, on which the negroes had risen, 
 and, taking possession, had carried her into an 
 English port in the West Indies, where assist- 
 ance was refused to the crew, and where the slaves 
 were allowed to go free. This was an act of very 
 doubtful legality, it touched both England and 
 the Southern States in a very sensitive point, and 
 it required all Mr. Webster’s tact and judgment to 
 keep it out of the negotiation until the main issue 
 had been settled. 
 
 The principal obstacle in the arrangement of 
 the boundary dispute arose from the interests and 
 the attitude of Massachusetts and Maine. Mr. 
 Webster obtained with sufficient ease the appoint- 
 ment of commissioners from the former State, and, 
 
254 
 
 DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 through the agency of Mr. Sparks, who was sent 
 to Augusta for the purpose, commissioners were 
 also appointed in Maine ; but these last were in- 
 structed to adhere to the line of 1783 as claimed 
 by the United States. Lord Ashburton and Mr. 
 Webster readily agreed that a treaty must come 
 from mutual conciliation and compromise ; but, 
 after a good deal of correspondence, it became ap- 
 parent that the Maine commissioners and the Eng- 
 lish envoy could not be brought to an agreement. 
 A dead-lock and consequent loss of the treaty were 
 imminent. Mr. Webster then had a long inter- 
 view with Lord Ashburton. By a process of give 
 and take they agreed on a conventional line and 
 on the concession of certain rights, which made a 
 fair bargain, but unluckily the loss was suffered by 
 Maine and Massachusetts, while the benefits re- 
 ceived by the United States accrued to New York, 
 Vermont, and New Hampshire. This brought the 
 negotiators to the point at which they had already 
 been forced to halt so many times before. Mr. 
 Webster now cut the knot by proposing that the 
 United States should indemnify Maine and Massa- 
 chusetts in money for the loss they were to suffer 
 in territory, and by his dexterous management the 
 commissioners of the two States were persuaded to 
 assent to this arrangement, while Lord Ashburton 
 was induced to admit the agreement into a clause 
 of the treaty. This disposed of the chief ques- 
 tion in dispute, but two other subjects were in- 
 
SECRETARY OF STATE. 
 
 255 
 
 eluded in the treaty besides the boundary. The 
 first related to the right of search claimed by Eng- 
 land for the suppression of the slave-trade. This 
 was met by what was called the “ Cruising Con- 
 vention,” a clause which stipulated that each na- 
 tion should keep its own squadron on the coast of 
 Africa, to enforce separately its own laws against 
 the slave-trade, but in mutual cooperation. The 
 other subject of agreement grew out of the Creole 
 case. England supposed that we sought the re- 
 turn of the negroes because they were slaves, but 
 Mr. Webster argued that they were demanded as 
 mutineers and murderers. The result was an ar- 
 ticle which, while it carefully avoided even the 
 appearance of an attempt to bind England to re- 
 turn fugitive slaves, provided amply for the extra- 
 dition of criminals. The case of the Caroline 
 was disposed of by a formal admission of the 
 inviolability of national territory and by an apol- 
 ogy for the burning of the steamboat. As to the 
 action in regard to the slaves on the Creole, 
 Mr. Webster could only obtain the assurance that 
 there should be “ no officious interference with 
 American vessels driven by accident or violence 
 into British ports,” and with this he was content 
 to let the matter drop. On the subject of impress- 
 ment, the old casus belli of 1812, Mr. Webster 
 wrote a forcible letter to Lord Ashburton. In it 
 he said that, in future, “in every regularly-docu- 
 mented American merchant vessel, the crew who 
 
256 
 
 DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 navigate it will find their protection in the flag 
 which is over them.” In other words, if you take 
 sailors out of our vessels, we shall fight ; and this 
 simple statement of fact ended the whole matter 
 and was quite as binding on England as any treaty 
 could have been. 
 
 Thus the negotiation closed. The only serious 
 objection to its results was that the interests of 
 Maine were sacrificed perhaps unduly, — as a re- 
 cent discussion of that point seems to show. 
 But such a sacrifice was fully justified by what 
 was achieved. A war was averted, a long stand- 
 ing and menacing dispute was settled, and a treaty 
 was concluded which was creditable and honorable 
 to all concerned. By his successful introduction 
 of the extradition clause, Mr. Webster rendered 
 a great service to civilization and to the suppres- 
 sion and punishment of crime. Mr. Webster was 
 greatly aided throughout — both in his arguments, 
 and in the construction of the treaty itself — by 
 the learned and valuable assistance freely given 
 by Judge Story. But he conducted the whole 
 negotiation with great ability and in the spirit of a 
 liberal and enlightened statesman. He displayed 
 the highest tact and dexterity in reconciling so 
 many clashing interests, and avoiding so many 
 perilous side issues, until he had brought the 
 main problem to a solution. In all that he did 
 and said he showed a dignity and an entire suffi- 
 ciency, which make this negotiation one of the 
 
SECRETARY OF STATE. 
 
 257 
 
 most creditable — so far as its conduct was con- 
 cerned — in which the United States ever en- 
 gaged. 
 
 While the negotiation was in progress there was 
 a constant murmur among the Whigs about Mr. 
 Webster’s remaining in the cabinet, and as soon 
 as the treaty was actually signed a loud clamor 
 began — both among the politicians and in the 
 newspapers — for his resignation. In the midst 
 of this outcry the Senate met and ratified the 
 treaty by a vote of thirty-nine to nine, — a great 
 triumph for its author. But the debate disclosed 
 a vigorous opposition, Benton and Buchanan both 
 assailing Mr. Webster for neglecting and sacrificing 
 American, and particularly Southern, interests. At 
 the same time the controversy which Mr. Webster 
 called “ the battle of the maps,” and which was 
 made a great deal of in England, began to show 
 itself. A map of 1783, which Mr. Webster ob- 
 tained, had been discovered in Paris, sustaining 
 the English view, while another was afterwards 
 found in London, supporting the American claim. 
 Neither was of the least consequence, as the new 
 line was conventional and arbitrary ; but the dis- 
 coveries caused a great deal of unreasonable ex- 
 citement. Mr. Webster saw very plainly that the 
 treaty was not yet secure. It was exposed to at- 
 tacks both at home and abroad, and had still to 
 pass Parliament. Until it was entirely safe, Mr. 
 Webster determined to remain at his post. The 
 17 
 
258 
 
 DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 clamor continued about his resignation, and rose 
 round him at his home in Marshfield, whither he 
 had gone for rest. At the same time the Whig 
 convention of Massachusetts declared formally a 
 complete separation from the President. In the 
 language of to-day, they “ read Mr. Tyler out of 
 the party.” There was a variety of motives for 
 this action. One was to force Mr. Webster out of 
 the cabinet, another to advance the fortunes of 
 Mr. Clay, in favor of whose presidential candidacy 
 movements had began in Massachusetts, even 
 among Mr. Webster’s personal friends, as well as 
 elsewhere. Mr. Webster had just declined a pub- 
 lic dinner, but he now decided to meet his friends 
 in Faneuil Hall. An immense audience gathered 
 to hear him, many of them strongly disapproving 
 his course, but after he had spoken a few mo- 
 ments, he had them completely under control. 
 He reviewed the negotiation ; he discussed fully 
 the differences in the party ; he deplored, and he 
 did not hesitate strongly to condemn these quar- 
 rels, because by them the fruits of victory were 
 lost, and Whig policy abandoned. With boldness 
 and dignity he denied the right of the convention 
 to declare a separation from the President, and 
 the implied attempt to coerce himself and others. 
 “ I am, gentlemen, a little hard to coax,” he said, 
 “ but as to being driven, that is out of the ques- 
 tion. If I choose to remain in the President’s 
 councils, do these gentlemen mean to say that I 
 
SECRETARY OF STATE. 
 
 259 
 
 cease to be a Massachusetts Whig? I am quite 
 readv to put that question to the people of Massa- 
 chusetts.” He was well aware that he was losing 
 party strength by his action ; he knew that be- 
 hind all these resolutions was the intention to 
 raise his great rival to the presidency ; but he did 
 not shrink from avowing his independence and his 
 intention of doing what he believed to be right, 
 and what posterity admits to have been so. Mr. 
 Webster never appeared to better advantage, and 
 he never made a more manly speech than on this 
 occasion, when, without any bravado, he quietly set 
 the influence and the threats of his party at de- 
 fiance. 
 
 He was not mistaken in thinking that the treaty 
 was not yet in smooth water. It was again attacked 
 in the Senate, and it had a still more severe ordeal 
 to go through in Parliament. The opposition, 
 headed by Lord Palmerston, assailed tbe treaty 
 and Lord Ashburton himself, with the greatest 
 virulence, denouncing the one as a capitulation, 
 and the other as a grossly unfit appointment. 
 Moreover, the language of the President’s message 
 led England to believe that we claimed that the 
 right of search had been abandoned. After much 
 correspondence, this misunderstanding drew forth 
 an able letter from Mr. Webster, stating that the 
 right of search had not been included in the 
 treaty, but that the “ cruising convention ” had 
 rendered the question unimportant. Finally, all 
 
260 
 
 DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 complications were dispersed, and the treaty rati- 
 fied ; and then came an attack from an unexpected 
 quarter. General Cass — our minister at Paris — 
 undertook to protest against the treaty, denounce 
 it, and leave his post on account of it. This 
 wholly gratuitous assault led to a public corre- 
 spondence, in which General Cass, on his own 
 confession, was completely overthrown and broken 
 down by the Secretary of State. This was the 
 last difficulty, and the work was finally accepted 
 and complete. 
 
 During this important and absorbing negotia- 
 tion, other matters of less moment, but still of 
 considerable consequence, had been met by Mr. 
 Webster, and successfully disposed of. He made 
 a treaty with Portugal, respecting duties on wines ; 
 he carried on a long correspondence with our min- 
 ister to Mexico in relation to certain American 
 prisoners ; he vindicated the course of the United 
 States in regard to the independence of Texas, 
 teaching M. de Bocanegra, the Mexican Secretary 
 of State, a lesson as to the duties of neutrality, and 
 administering a severe reproof to that gentleman 
 for imputing bad faith to the United States ; he 
 conducted the correspondence, and directed the 
 policy of the government in regard to the troubles 
 in Rhode Island ; he made an effort to settle the 
 Oregon boundary ; and, finally, he set on foot the 
 Chinese mission, which, after being offered to Mr. 
 Everett, was accepted by Mr. Cushing with the 
 
SECRETARY OF STATE. 
 
 261 
 
 best results. But bis real work came to an end 
 with the correspondence with General Cass at the 
 close of 1842, and in May of the following year 
 he resigned the secretaryship. In the two years 
 during: which he had been at the head of the 
 cabinet, he had done much. His work added to 
 his fame by the ability which it exhibited in a 
 new field, and has stood the test of time. In a 
 period of difficulty, and even danger, he proved 
 himself singularly well adapted for the conduct 
 of foreign affairs, — a department which is most 
 peculiarly and traditionally the employment and 
 test of a highly-trained statesman. It may be 
 fairly said that no one, with the exception of John 
 Quincy Adams, has ever shown higher qualities, 
 or attained greater success in the administration 
 of the State Department, than Mr. Webster did 
 while in Mr. Tyler’s cabinet. 
 
 On his resignation, he returned at once to pri- 
 vate life, and passed the next summer on his farm 
 at Marshfield, — now grown into a large estate, — 
 which was a source of constant interest and delight, 
 and where he was able to have beneath his eyes his 
 beloved sea. His private affairs were in disorder, 
 and required his immediate, attention. He threw 
 himself into his profession, and his practice at once 
 became active, lucrative, and absorbing. To this 
 period of retirement belong the second Bunker Hill 
 oration and the Girard argument, which made so 
 much noise in its day. He kept himself aloof 
 
262 
 
 DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 from politics, but could not wholly withdraw from 
 them. The feeling against him, on account of his 
 continuance in the cabinet, had subsided, and there 
 was a feeble and somewhat fitful movement to drop 
 Clay, and present Mr. Webster as a candidate for 
 the presidency. Mr. Webster, however, made a 
 speech at Andover, defending his course and advo- 
 cating Whig principles, and declared that he was 
 not a candidate for office. He also refused to allow 
 New Hampshire to mar party harmony by bring- 
 ing his name forward. When Mr. Clay was nom- 
 inated, in May, 1844, Mr. Webster, who had be- 
 held with anxiety the rise of the Liberty party 
 and prophesied the annexation of Texas, decided, 
 although he was dissatisfied with the silence of the 
 Whigs on this subject, to sustain their candidate. 
 This was undoubtedly the wisest course ; and, 
 having once enlisted, he gave Mr. Clay a heartl- 
 and vigorous support, making a series of powerful 
 speeches, chiefly on the tariff, and second in vari- 
 ety and ability only to those which he had deliv- 
 ered in the Harrison campaign. Mr. Clay was de- 
 feated largely by the action of the Liberty party, 
 and the silence of the Whigs about Texas and 
 slavery cost them the election. At the beginning 
 of the year Mr. Webster had declined a reelection 
 to the Senate, but it was impossible for him to 
 remain out of politics, and the pressure to return 
 soon became too strong to be resisted. When Mr. 
 Choate resigned in the winter of 1844-45, Mr. 
 
SECRETARY OF STATE. 
 
 263 
 
 Webster was reelected senator from Massachu- 
 setts. On the first of March the intrigue, to per- 
 fect which Mr. Calhoun had accepted the State 
 Department, culminated, and the resolutions for 
 the annexation of Texas passed both branches of 
 Congress. Four days- later Mr. Polk’s adminis- 
 tration, pledged to the support and continuance of 
 the annexation policy, was in power, and Mr. 
 Webster had taken his seat in the Senate for his 
 last term. 
 
CHAPTER IX. 
 
 RETURN TO THE SENATE. — THE SEVENTH OP 
 MARCH SPEECH. 
 
 The principal events of Mr. Polk’s administra- 
 tion belong to or grow out of the slavery agitation, 
 then beginning to assume most terrible propor- 
 tions. So far as Mr. Webster is concerned, they 
 form part of the history of his course on the slav- 
 ery question, which culminated in the famous 
 speech of March 7, 1850. Before approaching 
 that subject, however, it will be necessary to touch 
 very briefly on one or two points of importance in 
 Mr. Webster’s career, which have no immediate 
 bearing on the question of slavery, and no relation 
 to the final and decisive stand which Mr. Webster 
 took in regard to it. 
 
 The Ashburton treaty was open to one just crit- 
 icism. It did not go far enough. It did not set- 
 tle the northwestern as it did the northeastern 
 boundary. Mr. Webster, as has been said, made 
 an effort to deal with the former as well as the 
 latter, but he met with no encouragement, and 
 as he was then preparing to retire from office, the 
 matter dropped. In regard to the northwestern 
 
RETURN TO THE SENATE. 265 
 
 boundary Mr. Webster agreed with the opinion 
 of Mr. Monroe's cabinet, that the forty-ninth par- 
 allel was a fair and proper line ; but the British 
 undertook to claim the line of the Columbia River, 
 and this excited corresponding claims on our side. 
 The Democracy for political purposes became es- 
 pecially warlike and patriotic. They declared in 
 their platform that we must have the whole of 
 Oregon and reoccupy it at once. Mr. Polk em- 
 bodied this view in his message, together with the 
 assertion that our rights extended to the line of 
 54° 4(b north, and a shout of “ fifty-four-forty or 
 fight” went through the land from the entliusias- 
 tic Democracy. If this attitude meant anything 
 it meant war, inasmuch as our proposal for the 
 forty-ninth parallel, and the free navigation of the 
 Columbia River, made in the autumn of 1845, had 
 been rejected by England, and then withdrawn 
 by us. Under these circumstances Mr. Webster 
 felt it his duty to come forward and exert all his 
 influence to maintain peace, and to promote a clear 
 comprehension, both in the United States and in 
 Europe, of the points at issue. His speech on this 
 subject and with this aim was delivered in Faneuil 
 Hall. He spoke of the necessity of peace, of the 
 fair adjustment offered by an acceptance of the 
 forty-ninth parallel, and derided the idea of cast- 
 ing two grfeat nations into war for such a question 
 as this. He closed with a forcible and solemn de- 
 nunciation of the president or minister who should 
 
266 
 
 DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 dare to take the responsibility for kindling the 
 flames of war on such a pretext. The speech was 
 widely read. It was translated into nearly all the 
 languages of Europe, and on the continent had a 
 great effect. About a month later he wrote to 
 Mr. MacGregor of Glasgow, suggesting that the 
 British government should offer to accept the 
 forty-ninth parallel, and his letter was shown to 
 Lord Aberdeen, who at once acted upon the ad- 
 vice it contained. While this letter, however, was 
 on its way, certain resolutions were introduced in 
 tbe Senate relating to the national defences, and 
 to give notice of the termination of the conven- 
 tion for the joint occupation of Oregon, which 
 would of course have been nearly equivalent to a 
 declai’ation of war. Mr. Webster opposed the 
 resolutions, and insisted that, while the Executive, 
 as he believed, had no real wish for war, this talk 
 was kept up about “ all or none,” which left noth- 
 ing to negotiate about. The notice finally passed, 
 but before it could be delivered by our minister in 
 London, Lord Aberdeen’s proposition of the forty- 
 ninth parallel, as suggested by Mr. Webster, had 
 been received at Washington, where it was ac- 
 cepted by the truculent administration, agreed to 
 by the Senate, and finally embodied in a treaty. 
 Mr. Webster’s opposition had served its purpose 
 in delaying action and saving bluster from being 
 converted into actual war, — a practical conclusion 
 by no means desired by the dominant party, who 
 
RETURN TO THE SENATE. 
 
 267 
 
 had talked so loud that they came very near blun- 
 dering into hostilities merely as a matter of self- 
 justification. The declarations of the Democratic 
 convention and of the Democratic President in 
 regard to England were really only sound and 
 fury, although they went so far that the final re- 
 treat was noticeable and not very graceful. The 
 Democratic leaders had had no intention of fights 
 ing with England when all they could hope to 
 gain would be glory and hard knocks, but they 
 had a very definite idea of attacking without blus- 
 ter and in good earnest another nation where there 
 was territory to be obtained for slavery. 
 
 The Oregon question led, however, to an attack 
 upon Mr. Webster which cannot be wholly passed 
 over. He had, of course, his personal enemies in 
 both parties, and his effective opposition to war 
 with England greatly angered some of the most 
 warlike of the Democrats, and especially Mr. 
 C. J. Ingersoll of Pennsylvania, a bitter Anglo- 
 phobist. Mr. Ingersoll, in Februai'3 7 , made a sav- 
 age attack upon the Ashburton negotiation, the 
 treaty of Washington, and upon Mr. Webster per- 
 sonally, alleging that as Secretary of State he 
 had been guilty of a variety of grave misdemean- 
 ors, including a corrupt use of the public money. 
 Some of these charges, those relating to the pay- 
 ment of McLeod’s counsel by our government, 
 to instructions to the Attorney-General to take 
 charge of McLeod’s defence, and to a threat by 
 
268 
 
 DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 Mr. Webster that if McLeod were not released 
 New York would be laid in ashes, were I'epeated 
 in the Senate by Mr. Dickinson of New York. 
 Mr. Webster peremptorily called for all the papers 
 relating to the negotiation of 1842, and on the 
 sixth and seventh of April (1846), he made the 
 elaborate speech in defence of the Ashburton 
 treaty, which is included in his collected works. 
 It is one of the strongest and most virile speeches 
 he ever delivered. He was profoundly indignant, 
 and he had the completest mastery of his subject. 
 In fact, he was so deeply angered by the charges 
 made against him, that he departed from his al- 
 most invariable practice, and indulged in a severe 
 personal denunciation of Ingei’soll and Dickinson. 
 Although he did not employ personal invective in 
 his oratory, it was a weapon which he was capable 
 of using with most terrible effect, and his blows 
 fell with crushing force upon Ingersoll, who writhed 
 under the strokes. Through some inferior officers 
 of the State Department Ingersoll got what he 
 considered proofs, and then introduced resolutions 
 calling for an account of all payments from the 
 secret service fund ; for communications made by 
 Mr. Webster to Messrs. Adams and Cushing of 
 the Committee on Foreign Affairs; for all papers 
 relating to McLeod, and for the minutes of the 
 committee on Foreign Affairs, to show that Mr. 
 Webster had expressed an opinion adverse to our 
 claim in the Oregon dispute. Mr. Ingersoll closed 
 
RETURN TO THE SENATE. 269 
 
 his speech by a threat of impeachment as the result 
 and reward of all this evil-doing, and an angry 
 debate followed, in which Mr. Webster was at- 
 tacked and defended with equal violence. Presi- 
 dent Polk replied to the call of the House by say- 
 ing that he could not feel justified, either morally 
 or legally, in revealing the uses of the secret ser- 
 vice fund. Meantime a similar resolution was de- 
 feated in the Senate by a vote of forty-four to one, 
 Mr. Webster remarking that he was glad that the 
 President had refused the request of the House ; 
 that he should have been sorry to have seen an 
 important principle violated, and that he was not 
 in the least concerned at being thus left without 
 an explanation ; he needed no defence, he said, 
 against such attacks. 
 
 Mr. Ingei-soll, rebuffed by the President, then 
 made a personal explanation, alleging specifically 
 that Mr. Webster had made an unlawful use of 
 the secret service money, that he had employed 
 it to corrupt the press, and that he was a defaulter. 
 Mr. Ashmun of Massachusetts replied with great 
 bitterness, and the charges were referred to a com- 
 mittee. It appeared, on investigation, that Mr. 
 Webster had been extremely careless in his ac- 
 counts, and had delayed in making them up and in 
 rendering vouchers, faults to which he was natu- 
 rally prone ; but it also appeared that the money 
 had been properly spent, that the accounts had ulti- 
 mately been made up, and that there was no evi- 
 
270 
 
 DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 dence of improper use. The committee’s report was 
 laid upon the table, the charges came to nothing, 
 and Mr. Ingersoll was left in a very unpleasant po- 
 sition with regard to the manner in which he had 
 obtained his information from the State Depart- 
 ment. The affair is of interest now merely as 
 showing how deeply rooted was Mr. Webster’s 
 habitual carelessness in money matters, even 
 when it was liable to expose him to very grave 
 imputations, and what a very dangerous man he 
 was to arouse and put on the defensive. 
 
 Mr. Webster was absent when the intrigue and 
 scheming of Mr. Polk culminated in war with 
 Mexico, and so his vote was not given either for 
 or against it. He opposed the volunteer system 
 as a mongrel contrivance, and resisted it as he had 
 the conscription bill in the war of 1812, as uncon- 
 stitutional. He also opposed the continued prose- 
 cution of the war, and, when it drew toward a 
 close, was most earnest against the acquisition of 
 new territory. In the summer of 1847 he made 
 an extended tour through the Southern States, and 
 was received there, as he had been in the West, 
 with every expression of interest and admiration. 
 
 The Mexican war, however, cost Mr. Webster 
 far more than the anxiety and disappointment 
 which it brought to him as a public man. His 
 second son, Major Edward Webster, died near the 
 City of Mexico, from disease contracted by expos- 
 ure on the march. This melancholy news reached 
 
RETURN TO THE SENATE. 271 
 
 Mr. Webster when important matters which de- 
 manded his attention were pending in Congress. 
 Measures to continue the war were before the Sen- 
 ate even after they had ratified the peace. These 
 measures Mr. Webster strongly resisted, and he 
 also opposed, in a speech of great power, the ac- 
 quisition of new territories by conquest, as threat- 
 ening the very existence of the nation, the princi- 
 ples of the Constitution, and the Constitution 
 itself. The increase of senators, which was, of 
 course, the object of the South in annexing Texas 
 and in the proposed additions from Mexico, he 
 regarded as destroying the balance of the govern- 
 ment, and therefore he denounced the plan of ac- 
 quisition by conquest in the strongest terms. The 
 course about to be adopted, he said, will turn the 
 Constitution into a deformity, into a curse rather 
 than a blessing ; it will make a frame of govern- 
 ment founded on the grossest inequality, and 
 will imperil the existence of the Union. With 
 this solemn warning he closed his speech, and im- 
 mediately left Washington for Boston, where his 
 daughter, Mrs. Appleton, was sinking in con- 
 sumption. She died on April 28th and was buried 
 on May 1st. Three days later, Mr. Webster fol- 
 lowed to the grave the body of his son Edward, 
 which had been brought from Mexico. Two such 
 terrible blows, coming so near together, need no 
 comment. They tell their own sad story. One 
 child only remained to him of all who had gath- 
 
272 
 
 • DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 ered about his knees in the happy days at Ports- 
 mouth and Boston, and his mind turned to 
 thoughts of death as he prepared at Marshfield a 
 final resting-place for himself and those he had 
 loved. Whatever successes or defeats were still 
 in store for him, the heavy cloud of domestic sor- 
 row could never he dispersed in the years that re- 
 mained, nor could the gaps which had been made 
 he filled or forgotten. 
 
 But the sting of personal disappointment and of 
 frustrated ambition, trivial enough in comparison 
 with such griefs as these, was now added to this 
 heavy burden of domestic affliction. The success 
 of General Taylor in Mexico rendered him a most 
 tempting candidate for the Whigs to nominate. 
 His military services and his personal popularity 
 promised victory, and the fact that no one knew 
 Taylor’s political principles, or even whether he 
 was a Whig or a Democrat, seemed rather to in- 
 crease than diminish his attractions in the eyes of 
 the politicians. A movement was set on foot to 
 bring about this nomination, and its managers 
 planned to make Mr. Webster Vice-President on 
 the ticket with the victorious soldier. Such an 
 offer was a melancholy commentary on his ambi- 
 tious hopes. He spurned the proposition as a per- 
 sonal indignity, and, disapproving always of the se- 
 lection of military men for the presidency, openly 
 refused to give his assent to Taylor’s nomination 
 Other trials, however, were still in store for him. 
 
RETURN TO THE SENATE. 273 
 
 Mr. Clay was a candidate for the nomination, and 
 many Whigs, feeling that his success meant another 
 party defeat, turned to Taylor as the only instru- 
 ment to prevent this danger. In February, 1848, 
 a call was issued in New York for a public meeting 
 to advance General Taylor's candidacy, which 
 was signed by many of Mr. Webster’s personal 
 and political friends. Mr. Webster was surprised 
 and grieved, and bitterly resented this action. 
 His biographer, Mr. Curtis, speaks of it as a blun- 
 der which rendered Mr. Webster's nomination 
 hopeless. The truth is, that it was a most signifi- 
 cant illustration of the utter futility of Mr. Web- 
 ster’s presidential aspirations. These friends in 
 New York, who no doubt honestly desired his 
 nomination, were so well satisfied that it was per- 
 fectly impracticable, that they turned to General 
 Taylor to avoid the disaster threatened, as they 
 believed, by Mr. Clay's success. Mr. Webster 
 predicted truly that Clay and Taylor would be 
 the leading candidates before the convention, but 
 he was wholly mistaken in supposing that the 
 movement in New York would bring about the 
 nomination of the former. His friends had judged 
 rightly. Taylor -was the only man who could de- 
 feat Clay, and he was nominated on the fourth 
 ballot. Massachusetts voted steadily for Webster, 
 but he never approached a nomination. Even 
 Scott had twice as many votes. The result of the 
 convention led Mr. Webster to take a very gloomy 
 18 
 
274 
 
 DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 view of the prospects of the Whigs, and he was 
 strongly inclined to retire to his tent and let them 
 go to deserved ruin. In private conversation he 
 spoke most disparagingly of the nomination, the 
 Whig party, and the Whig candidate. His stric- 
 tures were well deserved, but, as the election drew 
 on, he found or believed it to be impossible to 
 live up to them. He was not ready to go over to 
 the Free-Soil partj r , he could not remain silent, 
 yet he could not give Taylor a full support. In 
 September, 1848, he made his famous speech at 
 Marshfield, in which, after declaring that the “ sa- 
 gacious, wise, far-seeing doctrine of availability 
 lay at the root of the whole mattei’,” and that 
 “ the nomination was one not fit to be made,” he 
 said that General Taylor was personally a brave 
 and honorable man, and that, as the choice lay 
 between him and the Democratic candidate, Gen- 
 eral Cass, he should vote for the former and ad- 
 vised his friends to do the same. He afterwards 
 made another speech, in a similar but milder 
 strain, in Faneuil Hall. Mr. Webster’s attitude 
 was not unlike that of Hamilton when he pub- 
 lished his celebrated attack on Adams, which 
 ended by advising all men to vote for that objec- 
 tionable man. The conclusion was a little impo- 
 tent in both instances, but in Mr. Webster’s case 
 the results were better. The politicians and lovers 
 of availability had judged wisely, and Taylor was 
 triumphantly elected. 
 
RETURN TO THE SENATE. 
 
 275 
 
 Before tlie new President was inaugurated, in 
 the winter of 1848-49, the struggle began in 
 Congress, which led to the delivery of the 7th of 
 March speech by Mr. Webster in the following 
 year. At this point, therefore, it becomes neces- 
 sary to turn back and review briefly and rapidly 
 Mr. Webster's course in regard to the question of 
 slavery. 
 
 His first important utterance on this momentous 
 question was in 1819, when the land was distracted 
 with the conflict which had suddenly arisen over 
 the admission of Missouri. Massachusetts was 
 strongly in favor of the exclusion of slavery from 
 the new States, and utterly averse to any com- 
 promise. A meeting was held in the state-house 
 at Boston, and a committee was appointed to draft 
 a memorial to Congress, on the subject of the pro- 
 hibition of slavery in the territories. This me- 
 morial, — which was afterwards adopted, — was 
 drawn by Mr. Webster, as chairman of the com- 
 mittee. It set forth, first, the belief of its signers 
 that Congress had the constitutional power “ to 
 make such a prohibition a condition on the admis- 
 sion of a new State into the Union, and that it 
 is just and proper that they should exercise that 
 power.” Then came an argument on the consti- 
 tutional question, and then the reasons for the ex- 
 ercise of the power as a general policy. The first 
 point was that it would prevent further inequal- 
 ity of representation, such as existed under the 
 
276 
 
 DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 Constitution in the old States, but which could 
 not be increased without danger. The next argu- 
 ment went straight to the merits of the question, 
 as involved in slavery as a system. After pointing 
 out the value of the ordinance of 1787 to the North- 
 west, the memorial continued : — 
 
 “We appeal to the justice and the wisdom of the 
 national councils to prevent the further progress of a 
 great and serious evil. We appeal to those who look 
 forward to the remote consequences of their measures, 
 and who cannot balance a temporary or trilling con- 
 venience, if there were such, against a permanent grow- 
 ing and desolating evil. 
 
 . . . The Missouri territory is a new country. If its 
 extensive and fertile fields shall be opened as a market 
 for slaves, the government will seem to become a party 
 to a traffic, which in so many acts, through so many 
 years, it has denounced as impolitic, unchristian, and in- 
 human. . . . The laws of the United States have de- 
 nounced heavy penalties against the traffic in slaves, 
 because such traffic is deemed unjust and inhuman. 
 We appeal to the spirit of these laws; we appeal to 
 this justice and humanity; we ask whether they ought 
 not to operate, on the present occasion, with all their 
 force? We have a strong feeling of the injustice of 
 any toleration of slavery. Circumstances have entailed 
 it on a portion of our community, which cannot be im- 
 mediately relieved from it without consequences more 
 injurious than the suffering of the evil. But to permit 
 it in a new country, where yet no habits are formed 
 which render it indispensable, what is it but to en- 
 
RETURN TO THE SENA TE. 
 
 277 
 
 courage that rapacity and fraud and violence against 
 which we have so long pointed the denunciation of 
 our penal code ? What is it but to tarnish the proud 
 fame of the country ? What is it but to render ques- 
 tionable all its professions of regard for the rights of 
 humanity and the liberties of mankind.” 
 
 A year later Mr. "Webster again spoke on one 
 portion of this subject, and in the same tone of 
 deep hostility and reproach. This second instance 
 was that famous and much quoted passage of his 
 Plymouth oration in which he denounced the Af- 
 rican slave-trade. Every one remembers the ring- 
 ing words : — 
 
 “ I hear the sound of the hammer, I see the smoke of 
 the furnaces where manacles and fetters are still forged 
 for human limbs. I see the visages of those who, by 
 stealth and at midnight, labor in this work of hell, — 
 foul and dark as may become the artificers of such in- 
 struments of misery and torture. Let that spot be puri- 
 fied, or let it cease to be of New England. Let it be 
 purified, or let it be set aside from the Christian world ; 
 let it be put out of the circle of human sympathies and 
 human regards, and let civilized man henceforth have 
 no communion with it.” 
 
 This is directed against the African slave-trade, 
 the most hideous feature, perhaps, in the system. 
 But there was no real distinction between slavers 
 plying from one American port to another and 
 those which crossed the ocean for the same pur- 
 pose. There was no essential difference between 
 
278 
 
 DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 slaves raised for the market in Virginia — whence 
 they were exported and sold — and those kid- 
 napped for the same object on the Guinea coast. 
 The physical suffering of a land journey might 
 be less than that of a long sea-voyage, but the an- 
 guish of separation between mother and child was 
 the same in all cases. The chains which clanked 
 on the limbs of the wretched creatures, driven from 
 the auction block along the road which passed be- 
 neath the national capitol, and the fetters of the 
 captured fugitive were no softer or lighter than 
 those forged for the cargo of the slave-ships. Yet 
 the man who so magnificently denounced the one in 
 1820, found no cause to repeat the denunciation in 
 1850, when only domestic traffic was in question. 
 The memorial of 1819 and the oration of 1820 place 
 the African slave-trade and the domestic branch 
 of the business on precisely the same ground of 
 infamy and cruelty. In 1850 Mr. Webster seems 
 to have discovered that there was a wide gulf fixed 
 between them, for the latter wholly failed to ex- 
 cite the stern condemnation poured forth by the 
 memorialist of 1819 and the orator of 1820. The 
 Fugitive Slave Law, more inhuman than either of 
 the forms of traffic, was defended in 1850 on good 
 constitutional grounds; but the eloquent invective 
 of the early days against an evil which constitu- 
 tions might necessitate but could not alter or jus- 
 tify, does not go hand in hand with the legal argu- 
 ment. 
 
RETURN TO THE SENATE. 
 
 279 
 
 The next occasion after the Missouri Compro- 
 mise, on which slavery made its influence strongly 
 felt at Washington, was when Mr. Adams’s scheme 
 of the Panama mission aroused such bitter and 
 unexpected resistance in Congress. Mr. Webster 
 defended the policy of the President with great 
 ability, but he confined himself to the interna- 
 tional and constitutional questions which it in- 
 volved, and did not discuss the underlying motive 
 and true source of the opposition. The debate 
 on Foote's resolution in 1830, in the wide range 
 which it took, of course included slavery, and Mr. 
 Hayne had a good deal to say on that subject, 
 which lay at the bottom of the tariff agitation, as 
 it did at that of every Southern movement of anj 7 
 real importance. In his reply, Mr. Webster said 
 that he had made no attack upon this sensitive 
 institution, that he had simply stated that the 
 Northwest had been greatly benefited by the ex- 
 clusion of slavery, and that it would have been 
 better for Kentucky if she had come within the 
 scope of the ordinance of 1787. The weight of 
 his remarks was directed to showing that the com- 
 plaint of Northern attacks on slavery as existing 
 in the Southern States, or of Northern schemes to 
 compel the abolition of slavery, was utterly ground- 
 less and fallacious. At the same time he pointed 
 out the way in which slavery was continually used 
 to unite the South against the North. 
 
 “ This feeling,” he said, “ always carefully kept alive, 
 

 280 DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 and maintained at too intense a heat to admit discrim- 
 ination or reflection, is a lever of great power in our 
 political machine. There is not and never has been a 
 disposition in the North to interfere with these interests 
 of the South. Such interference has never been sup- 
 posed to be within the power of government ; nor has it 
 been in any way attempted. The slavery of the South 
 has always been regarded as a matter of domestic policy 
 left with the States themselves, and with which the Fed- 
 eral government had nothing to do. Certainly, sir, I 
 am and ever have been of that opinion. The gentle- 
 man, indeed, argues that slavery, in the abstract, is no 
 evil. Most assuredly, I need not say I differ with him 
 altogether and most widely on that point. I regard do- 
 mestic slavery as one of the greatest evils, both moral 
 and political.” 
 
 His position is here clearly defined. He admits 
 fully that slavery within the States cannot be 
 interfered with by the general government, under 
 the Constitution. But he also insists that it is a 
 great evil, and the obvious conclusion is, that its 
 extension, over which the government does have 
 control, must and should be checked. This is the 
 attitude of the memorial and the oration. Nothing 
 has yet changed. There is less fervor in the de- 
 nunciation of slavery, but that may be fairly attrib- 
 uted to circumstances which made the maintenance 
 of the general government and the enforcement of 
 the revenue laws the main points in issue. 
 
 In 1886 the anti-slavery movement, destined to 
 grow to such vast proportions, began to show it- 
 
RETURN TO THE SENATE. 
 
 281 
 
 self in the Senate. The first contest came on the 
 reception of petitions for the abolition of slavery- 
 in the District of Columbia. Mr. Calhoun moved 
 that these petitions should not be received, but his 
 motion was rejected by a large majority. The 
 question then came on the petitions themselves, 
 and, by a vote of thirty-four to six, their prayer 
 was rejected, Mr. Webster voting with the minor- 
 ity because he disapproved this method of disposing 
 of the matter. Soon after, Mr. AYebster presented 
 three similar petitions, two from Massachusetts 
 and one from Michigan, and moved their reference 
 to a committee of inquiry. He stated that, while 
 the government had no power whatever over slav- 
 ery in the States, it had complete control over 
 slavery in the District, which was a totally dis- 
 tinct affair. He urged a respectful treatment of 
 the petitions, and defended the right of petition 
 and the motives and characters of the petitioners. 
 He spoke briefly, and, except when he was charged 
 with placing himself at the head of the petition- 
 ers, coldly, and did not touch on the merits of the 
 question, either as to the abolition of slavery in 
 the District or as to slavery itself. 
 
 The Southerners, especially the extremists and 
 the nullifiers, were always more ready than any 
 one else to strain the powers of the central gov- 
 ernment to the last point, and use them most ty- 
 rannically and illegally in their own interest and in 
 that of their pet institution. The session of 1836 
 
282 
 
 DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 furnished a striking example of this characteristic 
 quality. Mr. Calhoun at that time introduced his 
 monstrous bill to control the United States mails 
 in the interests of slavery, by authorizing post- 
 masters to seize and suppress all anti-slavery 
 documents. Against this measure Mr. Webster 
 spoke and voted, resting his opposition on general 
 grounds, and sustaining it by a strong and effect- 
 ive argument. In the following year, on his way 
 to the North, after the inauguration of Mr. Van 
 Bureh, a great public reception was given to him 
 in New York, and on that occasion he made the 
 speech in Niblo’s Garden, where he defined the 
 Whig principles, arraigned so powerfully the pol- 
 icy of Jackson, and laid the foundation for the 
 triumphs of the Harrison campaign. In the course 
 of that speech he referred to Texas, and strongly 
 expressed his belief that it should remain inde- 
 pendent and should not be annexed. This led him 
 to touch upon slavery. He said : — 
 
 “ I frankly avow my entire unwillingness to do any- 
 thing that shall extend the slavery of the African race on 
 this continent, or add other slave-holding States to the 
 Union. When I say that I regard slavery in itself as a 
 great moral, social, and political evil, I only use the lan- 
 guage which has been adopted by distinguished men, 
 themselves citizens of slave-holding States. I shall do 
 nothing, therefore, to favor or encourage its further ex- 
 tension. We have slavery already amongst us. The 
 Constitution found it in the Union, it recognized it, and 
 
RETURN TO THE SENATE. 
 
 283 
 
 gave it solemn guaranties. To the full extent of the 
 guaranties we are all bound in honor, in justice, and by 
 the Constitution. . . . But when we come to speak of 
 admitting new States, the subject assumes an entirely 
 different aspect. ... In my opinion, the people of the 
 United States will not consent to bring into the Union a 
 new, vastly extensive, and slave-holding country, large 
 enough for half a dozen or a dozen States. In my 
 opinion, they ought not to consent to it. . . . On the 
 general question of slavery a great portion of the com- 
 munity is already strongly excited. The subject has 
 not only attracted attention as a question of politics, but 
 it has struck a far deeper-toned chord. It has arrested 
 the religious feeling of the country ; it has taken strong 
 hold on the consciences of men. He is a rash man, in- 
 deed, and little conversant with human nature, and espe- 
 cially has he a very erroneous estimate of the character 
 of the people of this country, who supposes that a feel- 
 ing of this kind is to be trifled with or despised. It will 
 assuredly cause itself to be respected. It may be rea- 
 soned with, it may be made willing — I believe it is 
 entirely willing — to fulfil all existing engagements and 
 all existing duties, to uphold and defend the Constitution 
 as it is established, with whatever regrets about some 
 provisions which it does actually contain. But to co- 
 erce it into silence, to endeavor to restrain its free 
 expression, to seek to compress and confine it, warm as 
 it is and more heated as such endeavors would inevita- 
 bly render it, — should this be attempted, I know noth- 
 ing, even in the Constitution or in the Union itself, 
 which would not be endangered by the explosion which 
 might follow.” 
 
284 
 
 DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 Thus Mr. Webster spoke on slavery and upon 
 the agitation against it, in 1837. The tone was 
 the same as in 1820, and there was the same ring 
 of dignified courage and unyielding opposition to 
 the extension and perpetuation of a crying evil. 
 
 In the session of Congress preceding the speech 
 at Niblo’s Garden, numerous petitions for the abo- 
 lition of slavery in the District had been offei’ed. 
 Mr. Webster reiterated his views as to the proper 
 disposition to be made of them ; but announced 
 that he had no intention of expressing an opinion 
 as to the merits of the question. Objections were 
 made to the reception of the petitions, the ques- 
 tion was stated on the reception, and the whole 
 matter was laid on the table. The Senate, under 
 the lead of Calhoun, was trying to shut the door 
 against the petitioners, and stifle the right of peti- 
 tion ; and there was no John Quincy Adams among 
 them to do desperate battle against this infamous 
 scheme. 
 
 In the following year came more petitions, and 
 Mr. Calhoun now attempted to stop the agitation 
 in another fashion. He introduced a resolution to 
 the effect that these petitions were a direct and 
 dangerous attack on the “ institution ” of the slave- 
 holding States. This Mr. Clay improved in a 
 substitute, which stated that any act or measure 
 of Congress looking to the abolition of slavery in 
 the District would be a violation of the faith im- 
 plied in the cession by Virginia and Maryland, — 
 
RETURN TO THE SENATE. 
 
 285 
 
 a just cause of alarm to tlie South, and having a 
 direct tendency to disturb and endanger the Union. 
 Mr. Webster wrote to a friend that this was an at- 
 tempt to make a new Constitution, and that the 
 proceedings of the Senate, when they passed the 
 resolutions, { drew a line which could never be ob- 
 literated. Mr. Webster also spoke briefly against 
 the resolutions, confining himself strictly to demon- 
 strating the absurdity of Mr. Clay’s doctrine of 
 “plighted faith.” He disclaimed carefully, and 
 even anxiously, any intention of expressing an 
 opinion on the merits of the question ; although 
 he mentioned one or two reasonable arguments 
 against abolition. The resolutions were adopted 
 by a large majority, Mr. Webster voting against 
 them oii the grounds set forth in his speech. 
 Whether the approaching presidential election 
 had any connection with his careful avoidance of 
 everything except the constitutional point, which 
 contrasted so strongly with his recent utterances 
 at Niblo’s Garden, it is, of course, impossible to 
 determine. John Quincy Adams, who had no 
 love for Mr. Webster, and who was then in the 
 midst of his desperate struggle for the right of 
 petition, says, in his diary, in March, 1838, speak- 
 ing of the delegation from Massachusetts : — 
 
 “ Their policy is dalliance with the South ; and they 
 care no more for the right of petition than is absolutely 
 necessary to satisfy the feeling of their constituents 
 They are jealous of Cushing, who, they think, is playing 
 
286 
 
 DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 a double game. They are envious of my position as 
 the supporter of the right of petition ; and they truckle 
 to the South to court their favor for Webster. He is 
 now himself tampering with the South on the slavery and 
 the Texas question.” 
 
 This harsh judgment may or may fiot be cor- 
 rect, but it shows very plainly that Mr. Webster’s 
 caution in dealing with these topics was noticed 
 and criticised at this period. The annexation of 
 Texas, moreover, which he had so warmly opposed, 
 seemed to him, at this juncture, and not without 
 reason, to be less threatening, owing to the course 
 of events in the young republic. Mr. Adams did 
 not, however, stand alone in thinking that Mr. 
 Webster, at this time, was lukewarm on the sub- 
 ject. In 1839 Mr. Giddings says “that it was im- 
 possible for any man, who submitted so quietly to 
 the dictation of slavery as Mr. Webster, to com- 
 mand that influence which was necessary to con- 
 stitute a successful politician.” How much Mr. 
 Webster’s attitude had weakened, just at this 
 period, is shown better by his own action than by 
 anything Mr. Giddings could say. The ship En- 
 terprise, engaged in the domestic slave-trade from 
 Virginia to New Orleans, had been driven into 
 Port Hamilton, and the slaves had escaped. 
 Great Britain refused compensation. Thereupon, 
 early in 1840, Mr. Calhoun introduced resolutions 
 declaratory of international law on this point, and 
 setting forth that England had no right to inter- 
 
RETURN TO THE SENATE. 
 
 287 
 
 fere with, or to permit, the escape of slaves from 
 vessels driven into her ports. The resolutions 
 were idle, because they could effect nothing, and 
 mischievous because they represented that the sen- 
 timent of the Senate was in favor of protecting the 
 slave-trade. Upon these resolutions, absurd in 
 character and barbarous in principle, Mr. Webster 
 did not even vote. There is a strange contrast 
 here between the splendid denunciation of the 
 Plymouth oration and this utter lack of opinion, 
 upon resolutions designed to create a sentiment 
 favorable to the protection of slave-ships engaged 
 in the domestic traffic. Soon afterwards, when 
 Mr. Webster was Secretary of State, he advanced 
 much the same doctrine in the discussion of the 
 Creole case, and his letter was approved by Cal- 
 houn. There may be merit in the legal argument, 
 but the character of the cargo, which it was sought 
 to protect, put it beyond the reach of law. We 
 have no need to go farther than the Plymouth 
 oration to find the true character of the ti’ade in 
 human beings as carried on upon the high seas. 
 
 After leaving the cabinet, and resuming his 
 law practice, Mr. Webster, of course, continued 
 to watch with attention the progress of events. 
 The formation of the Liberty party, in the sum- 
 mer of 1843, appeared to him a very grave cir- 
 cumstance. He had always understood the force 
 of the anti-slavery movement at the North, and 
 it was with much anxiety that he now saw it take 
 
288 
 
 DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 definite shape, and assume extreme grounds of op- 
 position. This feeling of anxiety was heightened 
 when he discovered, in the following winter, while 
 in attendance upon the Supreme Court at Washing- 
 ton, the intention of the administration to bring 
 about the annexation of Texas, and spring the 
 scheme suddenly upon the country. This policy, 
 with its conseqiience of an enormous extension of 
 slave territory, Mr. Webster had always vigorously 
 and consistently opposed, and he was now thor- 
 oughly alarmed. He saw what an effect the an- 
 nexation would produce upon the anti-slavery 
 movement, and he dreaded the results. He there- 
 fore procured the introduction of a resolution in 
 Congress against annexation ; wrote some articles 
 in the newspapers against it himself ; stirred up 
 his friends in Washington and New York to do 
 the same, and endeavored to start public meetings 
 in Massachusetts. His friends in Boston and else- 
 where, and the Whigs generally, were disposed to 
 think his alarm ill-founded. They were absorbed 
 in the coming presidential election, and were too 
 ready to do Mr. Webster the injustice of supposing 
 that his views upon the probability of annexation 
 sprang from jealousy of Mr. Clay. The suspicion 
 was unfounded and unfair. Mr. Webster was 
 wholly right and perfectly sincere. He did a 
 good deal in an attempt to rouse the North. The 
 only criticism to be made is that he did not do 
 more. One public meeting would have been 
 
RETURN TO THE SENATE. 
 
 289 
 
 enough, if he had spoken frankly, declared that he 
 knew, no matter how, that annexation was con- 
 templated, and had then denounced it as he did at 
 Niblo’s Garden. “ One blast upon his bugle-horn 
 were worth a thousand men.” Such a speech 
 would have been listened to throughout the length 
 and breadth of the land ; but perhaps it was too 
 much to expect this of him in view of his delicate 
 relations with Mr. Clay. At a later period, in the 
 course of the campaign, he denounced annexation 
 and the increase of slave territory, but unfortu- 
 nately it was then too late. The Whigs had pre- 
 served silence on the subject at their convention, 
 and it was difficult to deal with it without reflecting 
 on their candidate. Mr. Webster vindicated his 
 own position and his own wisdom, but the mischief 
 could not then be averted. The annexation of 
 Texas after the rejection of the treaty in 1844 
 was carried through, nearly a year later, by a mix- 
 ture of trickery and audacity in the last hours of 
 the Tyler administration. 
 
 Four days after the consummation of this proj- 
 ect Mr. Webster took his seat in the Senate, and 
 on March 11 wrote to his son that, “while we 
 feel as we ought about the annexation of Texas, 
 we ought to keep in view the true grounds of ob- 
 jection to that measure. Those grounds are, — 
 want of constitutional power, — danger of too 
 great an extent of territory, and opposition to the 
 increase of slavery and slave representation. It 
 19 
 
290 
 
 DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 was properly considered, also, as a measure tend- 
 ing to produce war.” He then goes on to argue 
 that Mexico had no good cause for war ; but it is 
 evident that he already dreaded just that result. 
 When Congress assembled again, in the following 
 December, the first matter to engage their attention 
 was the admission of Texas as a State of the Union. 
 It was impossible to prevent the passage of the 
 resolution, but Mr. Webster stated his objections 
 to the measure. His speech was brief and very 
 mild in tone, if compared with the language which 
 he had frequently used in regard to the annexa- 
 tion. He expressed his opposition to this method 
 of obtaining new territory by resolution instead of 
 treaty, and to acquisition of territory as foreign to 
 the true spirit of the Republic, and as endangering 
 the Constitution and the Union by increasing the 
 already existing inequality of representation, and 
 extending the area of slavery. He dwelt on the 
 inviolability of slavery in the States, and did not 
 touch upon the evils of the system itself. 
 
 By the following spring the policy of Mr. Polk 
 had culminated, intrigue had done its perfect work, 
 hostilities had been brought on with Mexico, and 
 in May Congress was invited to declare a war 
 which the administration had taken care should 
 already exist. Mr. Webster was absent at this 
 time, and did not vote on the declaration of war ; 
 and when he returned he confined himself to dis- 
 cussing the war measures, and to urging the cessa- 
 
RETURN TO THE SENATE. 291 
 
 tion of hostilities, and the renewal of efforts to ob- 
 tain peace. 
 
 The next session — that of the winter of 1846- 
 47 — was occupied, of course, almost entirely with 
 the affairs of the war. In these measures Mr. 
 Webster took scarcely any part ; but toward 
 the close of the session, when the terms on which 
 the war should be concluded were brought up, 
 he again came forward. February 1, 1847, 
 Mr. Wilmot of Pennsylvania introduced the fa- 
 mous proviso, which bears his name, as an amend- 
 ment to the bill appropriating three millions of 
 dollars for extraordinary expenses. By this pro- 
 viso slavery was to be excluded from all terri- 
 tory thereafter acquired or annexed by the United 
 States. A fortnight later Mr. Webster, who was 
 opposed to the acquisition of more territory on any 
 terms, introduced two resolutions in the Senate, 
 declaring that the war ought not to be prosecuted 
 for the acquisition of territory, and that Mexico 
 should be informed that we did not aim at seizing 
 her domain. A similar resolution was offered by Mr. 
 Berrien of Georgia, and defeated by a party vote. 
 On this occasion Mr. Webster spoke with great 
 force and in a tone of solemn warning against 
 the whole policy of territorial aggrandizement. 
 He denounced all that had been done in this direc- 
 tion, and attacked with telling force the Northern 
 democracy, which, while it opposed slavery and 
 favored the Wilmot Proviso, was yet ready to ad- 
 
292 
 
 DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 mit new territory, even without the proviso. His 
 attitude at this time, in opposition to any further 
 acquisition of territory on any terms, was strong 
 and determined, but his policy was a terrible con- 
 fession of weakness. It amounted to saying that 
 we must not acquire territory because we had not 
 sufficient courage to keep slavery out of it. The 
 Whigs were in a minority, however, and Mr. Web- 
 ster could effect nothing. When the Wilmot Pro- 
 viso came before the Senate Mr. Webster voted 
 for it, but it was defeated, and the way was clear 
 for Mr. Polk and the South to bring in as much 
 territory as they could get, free of all conditions 
 which could interfere with the extension of slavery. 
 In September, 1847, after speaking and voting as 
 has just been described in the previous session of 
 Congress, Mr. Webster addressed the Whig con- 
 vention at Springfield on the subject of the Wil- 
 mot Proviso. What he then said is of great im- 
 portance in any comparison which may be made 
 between his earlier views and those which he after- 
 wards put forward, in March, 1850, on the same 
 subject. The passage is as follows : — 
 
 “ We hear much just now of a panacea for the dan- 
 gers and evils of slavery and slave annexation, which 
 they call the ‘ Wilmot Proviso.’ That certainly is a just 
 sentiment, but it is not a sentiment to found any new 
 party upon. It is not a sentiment on which Massachu- 
 setts Whigs differ. There is not a man in this hall who 
 holds to it more firmly than I do, nor one who adheres 
 to it more than another. 
 
RETURN TO THE SENATE. 
 
 293 
 
 “ I feel some little interest in this matter, sir. Did I 
 not commit myself in 1837 to the whole doctrine, fully, 
 entirely ? And I must he permitted to say that I can- 
 not quite consent that more recent discoverers should 
 claim the merit, and take out a patent. 
 
 “ I deny the priority of their invention. Allow me 
 to say, sir, it is not their thunder. 
 
 “ There is no one who can complain of the North for 
 resisting the increase of slave representation, because it 
 gives power to the minority in a manner inconsistent 
 with the principles of our government. What is past 
 must stand ; what is established must stand ; and with the 
 same firmness with which I shall resist every plan to 
 augment the slave representation, or to bring the Con- 
 stitution into hazard by attempting to extend our do- 
 minions, shall I contend to allow existing rights to 
 remain. 
 
 “ Sir, I can only say that, in my judgment, we are 
 to use the first, the last, and every occasion which oc- 
 curs, in maintaining our sentiments against the exten- 
 sion of the slave-power.” 
 
 In the following winter Mr. Webster continued 
 his policy of opposition to all acquisitions of ter- 
 ritory. Although the cloud of domestic sorrow 
 was already upon him, he spoke against the legis- 
 lative powers involved in the “ Ten Regiment ” 
 Bill, and on the 23d of March, after the ratifica- 
 tion of the treaty of peace, which carried with it 
 large cessions of territory, he delivered a long and 
 elaborate speech on the “ Objects of the Mexican 
 War.” The weight of his speech was directed 
 
294 
 
 DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 against the acquisition of territory, on account of 
 its effect on the Constitution, and the increased 
 inequality of representation which it involved. 
 He referred to the plan of cutting up Texas so as 
 to obtain ten senators, as “ borough- mongering ” 
 on a grand scale, a course which he proposed to 
 resist to the last ; and he concluded by denouncing 
 the whole project as one calculated to turn the 
 Constitution into a curse rather than a blessing. 
 “ I resist it to-day and always,” he said. “ Who- 
 ever falters or whoever flies, I continue the con- 
 test.” 
 
 In June General Taylor was nominated, and 
 soon after Mr. Webster left Washington, although 
 Congress was still in session. He returned in 
 August, in time to take part in the settlement of 
 the Oregon question. The South, with custom- 
 ary shrewdness, was endeavoring to use the terri- 
 torial organization of Oregon as a lever to help 
 them in their struggle to gain control of the new 
 conquests. A bill came up from the House with 
 no provision in regard to slavery, and Mr. Douglas 
 carried an amendment to it, declaring the Mis- 
 souri Compromise to be in full force in Oregon. 
 The House disagreed, and, on the question of re- 
 ceding, Mr. Webster took occasion to speak on 
 the subject of slavery in the territories. He was 
 disgusted with the nomination of Taylor and with 
 the cowardly silence of the Whigs on the question 
 of the extension of slavery. In this frame of 
 
RETURN TO THE SENATE. 
 
 295 
 
 mind he made one of the strongest and best 
 speeches he ever delivered on this topic. He de- 
 nied that slavery was an “ institution ; ” he denied 
 that the local right to hold slaves implied the 
 right of the owner to carry them with him and 
 keep them in slavery on free soil ; he stated in 
 the strongest possible manner the right of Con- 
 gress to control slavery or to prohibit it in the 
 territories ; and he concluded with a sweeping 
 declaration of his opposition to any extension of 
 slavery or any increase of slave representation. 
 The Oregon bill finally passed under the pressure 
 of the “ Free-Soil ” nominations, with a clause in- 
 serted in the House, embodying substantially the 
 principles of the Wilmot Proviso. 
 
 When Congress adjourned, Mr. Webster re- 
 turned to Marshfield, where he made the speech, 
 on the nomination of General Taylor. It was 
 a crisis in his life. At that moment he could 
 have parted with the Whigs and put himself at 
 the head of the constitutional anti-slavery party. 
 The Free-Soilers had taken the very ground 
 against the extension of slavery which he had so 
 long occupied. He could have gone consistently, 
 he could have separated from the Whigs on a great 
 question of principle, and such a course would 
 have been no stronger evidence of personal disap- 
 pointment than was afforded by the declaration 
 that the nomination of Taylor was one not fit to 
 be made. Mr. Webster said that he fully con- 
 
296 
 
 DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 curred in the main object of the Buffalo Conven- 
 tion, that he was as good a Free-Soiler as any of 
 them, but that the Free-Soil party presented noth- 
 ing new or valuable, and he did not believe in 
 Mr. Van Buren. He then said it was not true 
 that General Taylor was nominated by the South, 
 as charged by the Free-Soilers ; but he did not 
 confess, what w^as equally true, that Taylor was 
 nominated through fear of the South, as was 
 shown by his election by Southern votes. Mr. 
 Webster’s conclusion was, that it was safer to 
 trust a slave-holder, a man without known politi- 
 cal opinions, and a party which had not the cour- 
 age of its convictions, than to run the risk of the 
 election of another Democrat. Mr. Webster’s place 
 at that moment was at the head of a new party 
 based on the principles which he had himself for- 
 mulated against the extension of slavery. Such a 
 change might have desti’oyed his chances for the 
 presidency, if he had any, but it would have given 
 him one of the greatest places in American his- 
 tory and made him the leader in the new period. 
 He lost his opportunity. He did not change his 
 party, but he soon after accepted the other alter- 
 native and changed his opinions. 
 
 His course once taken, he made the best of it, 
 and delivered a speech in Faneuil Hall, in which 
 it is painful to see the effort to push aside slavery 
 and bring forward the tariff and the sub-treasury. 
 He scoffed at this absorption in “ one idea,” and 
 
RETURN TO THE SENATE. 
 
 297 
 
 strove to thrust it away. It was the cry of “ peace, 
 peace,” when there was no peace, and when Dan- 
 iel Webster knew there could be none until the 
 momentous question had been met and settled. 
 Like the great composer who heard in the first 
 notes of his symphony “the hand of Fate knock- 
 ing at the door,” the great New England states- 
 man heard the same warning in the hoarse mur- 
 mur against slavery, but he shut his ears to the 
 dread sound and passed on. 
 
 When Mr. Webster returned to Washington, 
 after the election of General Taylor, the strife had 
 already begun over our Mexican conquests. The 
 South had got the territory, and the next point 
 was to fasten slavery upon it. The North was 
 resolved to prevent the further spread of slavery, 
 but was by no means so determined or so clear in 
 its views as its opponent. President Polk urged 
 in his message that Congress should not legislate 
 on the question of slavery in the territories, but 
 that if they did, the right of slave-holders to carry 
 their slaves with them to the new lands should be 
 recognized, and that the best arrangement was to 
 extend the line of the Missouri Compromise to 
 the Pacific. For the originator and promoter of 
 the Mexican war this was a very natural solution, 
 and was a fit conclusion to one of the worst presi- 
 dential careers this country has ever seen. The 
 plan had only one defect. It would not work. 
 One scheme after another was brought before the 
 
298 
 
 DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 Senate, only to fail. Finally, Mr. Webster intro- 
 duced his own, which was merely to authorize mil- 
 itary government and the maintenance of existing 
 laws in the Mexican cessions, and a consequent 
 postponement of the question. The proposition 
 was reasonable and sensible, but it fared little 
 better than the others. The Southerners found, 
 as they always did sooner or later, that facts were 
 against them. The people of New Mexico peti- 
 tioned for a territorial government and for the ex- 
 clusion of slaveiy. Mr. Calhoun pronounced this 
 action “ insolent.” Slavery was not only to be per- 
 mitted, but the United States government was to be 
 made to force it upon the people of the territories. 
 Finally, a resolution was offered “ to extend the 
 Constitution” to the territories, — one of those 
 utterly vague propositions in which the South de- 
 lighted to hide well-defined schemes for extending, 
 not the Constitution, but slave-holding, to fresh 
 fields and virgin soil. This gave rise to a sharp 
 debate between Mr. Webster and Mr. Calhoun as 
 to whether the Constitution extended to the terri- 
 tories or not. Mr. Webster upheld the latter 
 view, and the discussion is chiefly interesting from 
 the fact that Mr. Webster got the better of Mr. 
 Calhoun in the argument, and as an example of 
 the latter’s excessive ingenuity in sustaining and 
 defending a more than doubtful proposition. The 
 result of the whole business was, that nothing was 
 done, except to extend the revenue laws of the 
 United States to New Mexico and California. 
 
RETURN TO THE SENATE. 
 
 299 
 
 Before Congress again assembled, one of the 
 subjects of their debates had taken its fortunes 
 into its own hands. California, rapidly peopled 
 by the discoveries of gold, had held a convention 
 and adopted a frame of government with a clause 
 prohibiting slavery. When Congress met, the 
 Senators and Representatives of California were 
 in Washington with their free Constitution in 
 their hands, demanding the admission of their 
 State into the Union. 
 
 New Mexico was involved in a dispute with 
 Texas as to boundaries, and if the claim of Texas 
 was sanctioned, two thirds of the disputed terri- 
 tory would come within the scope of the annexa- 
 tion resolutions, and be slave-holding States. 
 Then there was the further question whether the 
 Wilmot Proviso should be applied to New Mexico 
 on her organization as a territory. 
 
 The President, acting under the influence of 
 Mr. Seward, advised that California should be ad- 
 mitted, and the question of slavex-y in the other 
 territories be decided when they should apply 
 for admission. Feeling was running very high 
 in Washington, and there was a bitter and pro- 
 tracted struggle of three weeks, before the House 
 succeeded in choosing a Speaker. The State Leg- 
 islatures on both sides took up the burning ques- 
 tion, and debated and resolved one way or the 
 other with great excitement. The Southern mem- 
 bers held meetings, and talked about secession and 
 
300 
 
 DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 about withdrawing from Congress. The air was 
 full of murmurs of dissolution and intestine strife. 
 The situation was gi'ave and even threatening. 
 
 In this state of affairs Mr. Clay, now an old 
 man, and with but a short term of life before him, 
 resolved to try once more to solve the problem 
 and tide over the dangers by a grand compromise. 
 The main features of his plan were : the admission 
 of California with her free Constitution ; the organ- 
 ization of territorial governments in the Mexican 
 conquests without any reference to slavery; the 
 adjustment of the Texan boundary; a guaranty 
 of the existence of slavery in the District of 
 Columbia until Maryland should consent to its 
 abolition ; the prohibition of the slave-trade in 
 the District ; provision for the more effectual en- 
 forcement of the Fugitive Slave Law, and a dec- 
 laration that Congress had no power over the 
 slave-trade between the slave-holding States. As 
 the admission of California was certain, the prop- 
 osition to bring about the prohibition of the slave- 
 trade in the District was the only concession to 
 the North. Everything else was in the interest 
 of the South ; but then that was always the man- 
 ner in which compromises with slavery were made. 
 They could be effected in no other way. 
 
 This outline Mr. Clay submitted to Mr. Web- 
 ster January 21, 1850, and Mr. Webster gave it 
 his full approval, subject, of course, to further 
 and more careful consideration. February 5 Mr. 
 
THE SEVENTH OF MARCH SPEECH. 301 
 
 Clay introduced his plan in the Senate, and sup- 
 ported it in an eloquent speech. On the 13th the 
 President submitted the Constitution of Califor- 
 nia, and Mr. Foote moved to refer it, together with 
 all matters relating to slavery, to a select commit- 
 tee. It now became noised about that Mr. Web- 
 ster intended to address the Senate on the pending 
 measures, and on the Tth of March he delivered 
 the memorable speech which has always been 
 known by its date. 
 
 It may be premised that in a literary and 
 rhetorical point of view the speech of the 7th 
 of March was a fine one. The greater part of 
 it is taken np with argument and statement, and 
 is very quiet in tone. But the famous passage 
 beginning “ peaceable secession,” which came 
 straight from the heart, and the peroration also, 
 have the glowing eloquence which shone with so 
 much splendor all through the reply to Hayne. 
 The speech can be readily analyzed. With ex- 
 treme calmness of language Mr. Webster dis- 
 cussed the whole history of slavery in ancient 
 and modern times, and under the Constitution 
 of the United States. His attitude is so judicial 
 and historical,- that if it is clear he disapproved 
 of the system, it is not equally evident that he 
 condemned it. He reviewed the history of the 
 annexation of Texas, defended his own consis- 
 tency, belittled the W ilmot Proviso, admitted sub- 
 stantially the boundary claims of Texas, and de- 
 
302 
 
 DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 dared that the character of every part of the 
 country, so far as slavery or freedom was con- 
 cerned, was now settled, either by law or nature, 
 and that he should resist the insertion of the Wil- 
 mot Proviso in regard to New Mexico, because it 
 would be merely a wanton taunt and reproach to 
 the South. He then spoke of the change of feel- 
 ing and opinion both at the North and the South 
 in regard to slavery, and passed next to the ques- 
 tion of mutual grievances. He depicted at length 
 the grievances of the South, including the tone of 
 the Northern press, the anti-slavery resolutions 
 of the Legislature, the utterances of the abolition- 
 ists, and the resistance to the Fugitive Slave Law. 
 The last, which he thought the only substantial 
 and legally remediable complaint, he dwelt on at 
 great length, and severely condemned the refusal 
 of certain States to comply with this provision of 
 the Constitution. Then came the grievances of the 
 North against the South, which were dealt with 
 very briefly. In fact, the Northern grievances, ac- 
 cording to Mr. Webster, consisted of the tone of 
 the Southern press and of Southern speeches which, 
 it must be confessed, were at times a little violent 
 and somewhat offensive. The short paragraph re- 
 citing the unconstitutional and high-handed action 
 of the South in regard to free negroes employed as 
 seamen on Northern vessels, and the outrageous 
 treatment of Mr. Hoar at Charleston in connec- 
 tion with this matter, was not delivered, Mr. Gid- 
 
THE SEVENTH OF MARCH SPEECH. 303 
 
 dings says, but was inserted afterwards and before 
 publication, at the suggestion of a friend. After 
 this came the fine burst about secession, and a 
 declaration of faith that the Southern convention 
 called at Nashville would prove patriotic and con- 
 ciliatory. The speech concluded with a strong 
 appeal in behalf of nationality and union. 
 
 Mr. Curtis correctly says that a great majority 
 of Mr. Webster’s constituents, if not of the whole 
 North, disapproved this speech. He might have 
 added that that majority has steadily increased. 
 The popular verdict has been given against the 
 7th of March speech, and that verdict has passed 
 into history. Nothing can now be said or written 
 which will alter the fact that the people of this 
 country who maintained and saved the Union 
 have passed judgment upon Mr. Webster and con- 
 demned what he said on the 7th of March, 1850, 
 as wrong in principle and mistaken in policy. 
 This opinion is not universal, — no opinion is, — 
 but it is held by the great body of mankind who 
 know or care anything about the subject, and it 
 cannot be changed or substantially modified, be- 
 cause subsequent events have fixed its place and 
 worth irrevocably. It is only necessary, there- 
 fore, to examine very briefly the grounds of this 
 adverse judgment, and the pleas put in against it 
 by Mr. Webster and by his most devoted partisans. 
 
 From the sketch which has been given of Mr. 
 Webster’s course on the slavery question, we see 
 
804 
 
 DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 that in 1819 and 1820 he denounced in the strong- 
 est terms slavery and every form of slave-trade; 
 that while he fully admitted that Congress had no 
 power to touch slavery in the States, he asserted 
 that it was their right and their paramount duty 
 absolutely to stop any further extension of slave 
 territory. In 1 820 he was opposed to any compro- 
 mise on this question. Ten years later he stood 
 out to the last, unaffected by defeat, against the 
 principle of compromise which sacrificed the rights 
 and the dignity of the general government to the 
 resistance and threatened secession of a State. 
 
 After the reply to Hayne in 1830, Mr. Webster 
 became a standing candidate for the presidency, 
 or for the Whig nomination to that office. From 
 that time forth the sharp denunciation of slavery 
 and traffic in slaves disappears, although there is 
 no indication that he ever altered his original 
 opinion on these points ; but he never ceased, 
 sometimes mildly, sometimes in the most vigorous 
 and sweeping manner, to attack and oppose the 
 extension of slavery to new regions, and the in- 
 crease of slave territory. If, then, in the 7th of 
 March speech, he was inconsistent with his past, 
 such inconsistency must appear, if at all, in his 
 general tone in regard to slavery, in his views as 
 to the policy of compromise, and in his attitude 
 toward the extension of slavery, the really crucial 
 question of the time. 
 
 As to the first point, there can be no doubt that 
 
THE SEVENTH OF MARCH SPEECH. 305 
 
 there is a vast difference between the tone of the 
 Plymouth oration and the Boston memorial toward 
 slavery and the slave-trade, and that of the 7th of 
 March speech in regard to the same subjects. For 
 many years Mr. Webster had had but little to say 
 against slavery as a system, but in the 7th of 
 March speech, in reviewing the history of slavery, 
 he treats the matter in such a very calm manner, 
 that he not only makes the best case possible for 
 the South, but his tone is almost apologetic when 
 speaking in their behalf. To the grievances of 
 the South he devotes more than five pages of his 
 speech, to those of the North less than two. As 
 to the infamy of making the national capital a 
 great slave-mart, he has nothing to say — although 
 it was a matter which figured as one of the ele- 
 ments in Mr. Clay’s scheme. 
 
 But what most shocked the North in this con- 
 nection were his utterances in regard to the Fu- 
 gitive Slave Law. There can be no doubt that 
 under the Constitution the South had a perfect 
 right to claim the extradition of fugitive slaves. 
 The legal argument in support of that right was 
 excellent, but the Northern people could not feel 
 that it was necessary for Daniel Webster to make 
 it. The Fugitive Slave Law was in absolute con- 
 flict with the awakened conscience and moral sen- 
 timent of the North. To strengthen that law, 
 and urge its enforcement, was a sure way to make 
 the resistance to it still more violent and intol- 
 
 20 
 
306 
 
 DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 erant. Constitutions and laws will prevail over 
 much, and allegiance to them is a high duty, but 
 when they come into conflict Avith a deep-rooted 
 moral sentiment, and with the principles of liberty 
 and humanity, they must be modified, or else they 
 will be broken to pieces. That this should have 
 been the case in 1850 was no doubt to be regretted, 
 but it was none the less a fact. To insist upon the 
 constitutional duty of returning fugitive slaves, 
 to upbraid the North with their opposition, and 
 to urge upon them and upon the country the 
 strict enforcement of the extradition law, was cer- 
 tain to embitter and intensify the opposition to it. 
 The statesmanlike course was to recognize the 
 ground of Northern resistance, to show the South 
 that a too violent insistence upon their constitu- 
 tional rights would be fatal, and to endeavor to 
 obtain such concessions as would allay excited feel- 
 ings. Mr. Webster’s strong argument in favor of 
 the Fugitive Slave Law pleased the South, of course ; 
 but it irritated and angered the North. It pro- 
 moted the very struggle which it proposed to al- 
 lay, for it admitted the existence of only one side 
 to the question. The consciences of men cannot 
 be coerced; and when Mr. Webster undertook to 
 do it he dashed himself against the rocks. People 
 did not stop to distinguish between a legal argu- 
 ment and a defence of the merits of catching run- 
 away slaves. To refer to the original law of 1793 
 was idle. Public opinion had changed in half a 
 
THE SEVENTH OF MARCH SPEECH. 307 
 
 century; and what bad seemed reasonable at the 
 close of the eighteenth century was monstrous in 
 the middle of the nineteenth. 
 
 All this Mr. Webster declined to recognize. 
 He upheld without diminution or modification 
 the constitutional duty of sending escaping slaves 
 back to bondage ; and from the legal soundness of 
 this position there is no escape. The trouble was 
 that he had no word to say against the cruelty 
 and barbarity of the system. To insist upon the 
 necessity of submitting to the hard and repulsive 
 duty imposed by the Constitution was one thing. 
 To urge submission without a word of sorrow or 
 regret was another. The North felt, and felt 
 rightly, that while Mr. Webster could not avoid 
 admitting the force of the constitutional provisions 
 about fugitive slaves, and was obliged to bow to 
 their behest, yet to defend them without reserva- 
 tion, to attack those who opposed them, and to 
 urge the rigid enforcement of a Fugitive Slave 
 Law, was not in consonance with his past, his 
 conscience, and his duty to his constituents. The 
 constitutionality of a Fugitive Slave Law may be 
 urged and admitted over and over again, but this 
 could not make the North believe that advocacy of 
 slave-catching was a task suited to Daniel Webster. 
 The simple fact was that he did not treat the gen- 
 eral question of slavery as he always had treated 
 it. Instead of denouncing and deploring it, and 
 striking at it whenever the Constitution per 
 
308 
 
 DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 mitted, lie apologized for its existence, and urged 
 the enforcement of its most obnoxious laws. This 
 was not his attitude in 1820; this was not what 
 the people of the North expected of him in 1850. 
 
 In regard to the policy of compromise there is a 
 much stronger contrast between Mr. Webster’s 
 attitude in 1850 and his earlier course than in the 
 case of his views on the general subject of slavery. 
 In 1819, although not in public life, Mr. Webster, 
 as is clear from the tone of the Boston memorial, 
 was opposed to any compromise involving an ex- 
 tension of slavery. In 1832-33 he was the most 
 conspicuous and unyielding enemy of the principle 
 of compromise in the country. He then took the 
 ground that the time had come to test the strength 
 of the Constitution and the Union, and that any 
 concession would have a fatally weakening effect. 
 In 1850 he supported a compromise which was so 
 one-sided that it hardly deserves the name. The 
 defence offered by his friends on this subject — 
 and it is the strongest point they have been able 
 to make — is that these sacrifices, or compromises, 
 were necessary to save the Union, and that — al- 
 though they did not prevent ultimate secession — 
 they caused a delay of ten years, which enabled 
 the North to gather sufficient strength to carry 
 the civil war to a successful conclusion. It is not 
 difficult to show historically that the policy of 
 compromise between the national principle and 
 unlawful opposition to that principle was an en- 
 
THE SEVENTH OF MARCH SPEECH. 309 
 
 tire mistake from the very outset, and that if ille- 
 gal and partisan State resistance had always been 
 put down with a firm hand, civil war might have 
 been avoided. Nothing strengthened the general 
 government more than the well-judged and well- 
 timed display of force by which Washington and 
 Hamilton crushed the Whiskey Rebellion, or than 
 the happy accident of peace in 1814, which brought 
 the separatist movement in New England to a sud- 
 den end. After that period Mr. Clay’s policy of 
 compromise prevailed, and the result was that the 
 separatist movement was identified with the main- 
 tenance of slavery, and steadily gathered strength. 
 In 1819 the South threatened and blustered in 
 order to prevent the complete prohibition of slav- 
 ery in the Louisiana purchase. In 1832 South 
 Carolina passed the nullification ordinance because 
 she suffered by the operation of a protective tariff. 
 In 1850 a great advance had been made in their 
 pretensions. Secession was threatened because 
 the South feared that the Mexican conquests would 
 not be devoted to the service of slavery. Nothing 
 had been done, nothing was proposed even, preju- 
 dicial to Southern interests ; but the inherent weak- 
 ness of slavery, and the mild conciliatory attitude 
 of Northern statesmen, incited the South to make 
 imperious demands for favors, and seek for positive 
 gains. They succeeded in 1850, and in 1860 they 
 had reached the point at which they were ready 
 to plunge the country into the horrors of civil war 
 
310 
 
 DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 solely because they lost an election. They be- 
 lieved, first, that the North would yield every- 
 thing for the sake of union, and secondly, that if 
 there was a limit to their capacity for surrender in 
 this direction, yet a people capable of so much 
 submission in the past would never fight to main- 
 tain the Union. The South made a terrible mis- 
 take, and was severely punished for it; but the 
 compromises of 1820, 1833, and 1850 furnished 
 some excuse for the wild idea that the North 
 would not and could not fight. Whether a strict 
 adherence to the strong, fearless policy of Hamil- 
 ton, which was adopted by Jackson and advocated 
 by Webster in 1832-33, would have prevented 
 civil war, must, of course, remain matter of con- 
 jecture. It is at least certain that in that way 
 alone could war have been avoided, and that the 
 Clay policy of compromise made war inevitable 
 by encouraging slave-holders to believe that they 
 could always obtain anything they wanted by a 
 sufficient show of violence. 
 
 It is urged, however, that the policy of com- 
 promise having been adopted, a change in 1850 
 would have simply precipitated the sectional con- 
 flict. In judging Mr. Webster, the practical ques- 
 tion, of course, is as to the best method of deal- 
 ing with matters as they actually were and not 
 as they might have been had a different course 
 been pursued in 1820 and 1832. The partisans 
 of Mr. Webster have always taken the ground 
 
THE SEVENTH OF MARCH SPEECH. 311 
 
 that in 1850 the choice was between compromise 
 and secession; that the events of 1861 showed 
 that the South, in 1850, was not talking for mere 
 effect; that the maintenance of the Union was the 
 paramount consideration of a patriotic statesman ; 
 and that the only practicable and proper course 
 was to compromise. Admitting fully that Mr. 
 Webster’s first and highest duty was to preserve 
 the Union, it is perfectly clear now, when all these 
 events have passed into history, that he took the 
 surest way to make civil war inevitable, and that 
 the position of 1832 should not have been aban- 
 doned. In the first place, the choice was not con- 
 fined to compromise or secession. The President, 
 the official head of the Whig party, had recom- 
 mended the admission of California, as the only 
 matter actually requiring immediate settlement, 
 and that the other questions growing out of the 
 new territories should be dealt with as they arose. 
 Mr. Curtis, Mr. Webster’s biographer, says this 
 was an impracticable plan, because peace could 
 not be kept between New Mexico and Texas, and 
 because there was great excitement about the 
 slavery question throughout the country. These 
 seem very insufficient reasons, and only the first 
 has any practical bearing on the matter. Gen- 
 eral Taylor said : Admit California, for that is an 
 immediate and pressing duty, and I will see to it 
 that peace is preserved on the Texan boundary. 
 Zachary Taylor may not have been a great states- 
 
312 
 
 DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 man, but be was a brave and skilful soldier, and 
 an honest man, resolved to maintain the Union, 
 even if lie had to shoot a few Texans to do it. 
 His policy was bold and manly, and the fact that 
 it was said to have been inspired by Mr. Seward, 
 a leader in the only Northern party which had 
 any real principle to fight for, does not seem such 
 a monstrous idea as it did in 1850 or does still to 
 those who sustain Mr. Webster’s action. That 
 General Taylor’s policy was not so wild and im- 
 practicable as Mr. Webster’s friends would have 
 us think, is shown by the fact that Mr. Benton, 
 Democrat and Southerner as he was, but imbued 
 with the vigor of the Jackson school, believed that 
 each question should be taken up by itself and 
 settled on its own merits. A policy which seemed 
 wise to three such different men as Taylor, Sew- 
 ard, and Benton, could hardly have been so utterly 
 impracticable and visionary as Mr. Webster’s par- 
 tisans would like the world to believe. It was in 
 fact one of the cases which that extremely practical 
 statesman Nicolo Machiavelli had in mind when 
 he wrote that, “ Dangers that are seen afar off 
 are easily prevented ; but protracting till they are 
 near at hand, the remedies grow unseasonable and 
 the malady incurable.” 
 
 It may be readily admitted that there was a 
 great and perilous political crisis in 1850, as Mr. 
 Webster said. In certain quarters, in the excite- 
 ment of party strife, there was a tendency to de- 
 
THE SEVENTH OF MARCH SPEECH. '313 
 
 ride Mr. Webster as a “ Union-saver,” and to take 
 the ground that there had been no real danger of 
 secession. This, as we can see now very plainly, 
 was an unfounded idea. When Congress met, the 
 danger of secession was very real, although per- 
 haps not very near. The South, although they 
 intended to secede as a last resort, had no idea 
 that they should be brought to that point. Men- 
 aces of disunion, ominous meetings and conven- 
 tions, they probably calculated, would effect their 
 purpose and obtain for them what they wanted, 
 and subsequent events proved that they were per- 
 fectly right in this opinion. On February 14 Mi\ 
 Webster wrote to Mr. Harvey : — 
 
 “ I do not partake in any degree in those apprehen- 
 sions which you say some of our friends entertain of the 
 dissolution of the Union or the breaking up of the gov- 
 ernment. I am mortified, it is true, at the violent tone 
 assumed here by many persons, because such violence in 
 debate only leads to irritation, and is, moreover, dis- 
 creditable to the government and the country. But 
 there is no serious danger, be assured, and so assure our 
 friends.” 
 
 The nest day he wrote to Mr. Furness, a leader 
 of the anti-slavery party, expressing his abhor- 
 rence of slavery as an institution, his unwilling- 
 ness to break up the existing political system to 
 secure its abolition, and his belief that the whole 
 matter must be left with Divine Providence. It 
 is clear from this letter that he had dismissed any 
 
314 
 
 DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 thought of assuming an aggressive attitude toward 
 slavery, but there is nothing to indicate that lie 
 thought the Union could be saved from wreck 
 only by substantial concessions to the South. Be- 
 tween the date of the letter to Harvey and March 
 7, Mr. Curtis says that the aspect of affairs had 
 materially changed, and that the Union was in 
 serious peril. There is nothing to show that Mr. 
 Webster thought so, or that he had altered the 
 opinion which he had expressed on February 14. 
 In fact, Mr. Curtis’s view is the exact reverse of 
 the true state of affairs. If there was any real 
 and immediate danger to the Union, it existed on 
 February 14, and ceased immediately afterwards, 
 on February 16, as Dr. Yon Holst correctly says, 
 when the House of Representatives laid on the 
 table the resolution of Mr. Root of Ohio, prohib- 
 iting the extension of slavery to the territories. 
 By that vote, the victory was won by the slave- 
 power, and the peril of speedy disunion vanished. 
 Nothing remained but to determine how much the 
 South would get from their victory, and how hard 
 a bargain they could drive. The admission of 
 California was no more of a concession than a res- 
 olution not to introduce slavery in Massachusetts 
 would have been. All the rest of the compromise 
 plan, with the single exception of the prohibition 
 of the slave-trade in the District of Columbia, was 
 made up of concessions to the Southern and slave- 
 holding interest. That Henry Clay should have 
 
THE SEVENTH OF MARCH SPEECH. 815 
 
 originated and advocated this scheme was per- 
 fectly natural. However wrong or mistaken, this 
 had been his steady and unbroken policy from the 
 outset, as the best method of preserving the Union 
 and advancing the cause of nationality. Mr. Clay 
 was consistent and sincere, and, however much he 
 may have erred in his general theory, he never 
 swerved from it. But with Mr. Webster the case 
 was totally different. He had opposed the prin- 
 ciple of compromise from the beginning, and in 
 1833, when concession was more reasonable than 
 in 1850, he had offered the most strenuous and un- 
 bending resistance. Now he advocated a compro- 
 mise which was in reality little less than a com- 
 plete surrender on the part of the North. On the 
 general question of compromise he was, of course, 
 grossly inconsistent, and the history of the time, 
 as it appears in the cold light of the present day, 
 shows plainly that, while he was brave and true 
 and wise in 1833, in 1850 he was not only incon- 
 sistent, but that he erred deeply in policy and 
 statesmanship. It has also been urged in behalf 
 of Mr. Webster that he went no farther than the 
 Republicans in 1860 in the way of concession, and 
 that as in 1860 so in 1850, anything was permis- 
 sible which served to gain time. In the first 
 place, the tu quoque argument proves nothing 
 and has no weight. In the second place, the situ- 
 ations in 1850 and in 1860 were very different. 
 
 There were at the former period, in reference to 
 
316 
 
 DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 slavery, four parties in the country — the Demo- 
 crats, the Free-Soilers, the Abolitionists, and the 
 Whigs. The three first had fixed and widety- 
 varying opinions ; the last was trying to live with- 
 out opinions, and soon died. The pro-slavery 
 Democrats were logical and practical; the Aboli- 
 tionists were equally logical but thoroughly im- 
 practicable and unconstitutional, avowed nullifiers 
 and secessionists; the Free-Soilers were illogical, 
 constitutional, and perfectly practical. As Repub- 
 licans, the Free-Soilers proved the correctness and 
 good sense of their position by bringing the great 
 majority of the Northern people to their support. 
 But at the same time their position was a diffi- 
 cult one, for while they were an anti-slavery party 
 and had set on foot constitutional opposition to 
 the extension of slavery, their fidelity to the Con- 
 stitution compelled them to admit the legality of 
 the Fugitive Slave Law and of slavery in the 
 States. They aimed, of course, first to cheek the 
 extension of slavery and then to efface it by grad- 
 ual restriction and full compensation to slave-hold- 
 ers. When they had carried the country in 1860, 
 they found themselves face to face with a break- 
 ing Union and an impending war. That many of 
 them were seriously frightened, and, to avoid war 
 and dissolution, would have made great conces- 
 sions, cannot be questioned ; but their controlling 
 motive was to hold things together by any means, 
 no matter how desperate, until they could get 
 
THE SEVENTH OF MARCH SPEECH. 
 
 317 
 
 possession of the government. This was the only 
 possible and the only wise policy, but that it 
 involved them in some contradictions in that win- 
 ter of excitement and confusion is beyond doubt. 
 History will judge the men and events of 1860 ac- 
 cording to the circumstances of the time, but noth- 
 ing that happened then has any bearing on Mr. 
 Webster’s conduct. He must be judged according 
 to the circumstances of 1850, and the first and most 
 obvious fact is, that he was not fighting merely to 
 gain time and obtain control of the general gov- 
 ernment. The crisis was grave and serious in the 
 extreme, but neither war nor secession were im- 
 minent or immediate, nor did Mr. Webster ever 
 assert that they were. He thought war and seces- 
 sion might come, and it was against this possibility 
 and probability that he sought to provide. He 
 wished to solve the great problem, to remove the 
 source of danger, to set the menacing agitation 
 at rest. He aimed at an enduring and definite 
 settlement, and that was the purpose of the 7th 
 of March speech. His reasons — and of course 
 they were clear and weighty in his own mind — 
 proceeded from the belief that this wretched com- 
 promise measure offered a wise, judicious, and 
 permanent settlement of questions which, in their 
 constant recurrence, threatened more and more the 
 stability of the Union. History has shown how 
 wofully mistaken he was in this opinion. 
 
 The last point to be considered in connection 
 
318 
 
 DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 with the 7th of March speech is the ground then 
 taken by Mr. Webster with reference to the ex- 
 tension of slavery. To this question the speech 
 was chiefly directed, and it is the portion which 
 has aroused the most heated discussion. What 
 Mr. Webster’s views had always been on the sub- 
 ject of slavery extension every one knew then and 
 knows now. He had been the steady and uncom- 
 promising opponent of the Southern policy, and in 
 season and out of season, sometimes vehemently 
 sometimes gently, but always with firmness and 
 clearness, he had declared against it. The only 
 question is, whether he departed from these often- 
 expressed opinions on the 7th of March. In the 
 speech itself he declared that he had not abated 
 one jot in his views in this respect, and he argued 
 at great length to prove his consistency, which, if 
 it were to be easily seen of men, certainly needed 
 neither defence nor explanation. The crucial point 
 was, whether, in organizing the new territories, 
 the principle of the Wilmot Proviso should be 
 adopted as part of the measure. This famous pro- 
 viso Mr. Webster had declared in 1847 to repre- 
 sent exactly his own views. He had then denied 
 that the idea was the invention of any one man, 
 and scouted the notion that on this doctrine there 
 could be any difference of opinion among Whigs. 
 On March 7 he announced that he would not 
 have the proviso attached to the territorial bills, 
 and should oppose any effort in that direction. 
 
THE SEVENTH OF MARCH SPEECH. 319 
 
 The reasons lie gave for this apparent change were, 
 that nature had forbidden slavery in the newly- 
 conquered regions, and that the proviso, under 
 such circumstances, would be a useless taunt and 
 wanton insult to the South. The famous sentence 
 in which he said that he “ would not take pains 
 uselessly to reaffirm an ordinance of nature, nor 
 to reenact the will of God,” was nothing but spe- 
 cious and brilliant rhetoric. It was perfectly easy 
 to employ slaves in California, if the people had 
 not prohibited it, and in New Mexico as well, even 
 if there were no cotton nor sugar nor rice planta- 
 tions in either, and but little arable land in the 
 latter. There was a classic form of slave-labor 
 possible in those countries. Any school-boy could 
 have reminded Mr. Webster of 
 
 “ Seius whose eight hundred slaves 
 Sicken in Ilva’s mines.” 
 
 Mining was one of the oldest uses to which 
 slave-labor had been applied, and it still flourished 
 in Siberia as the occupation of serfs and criminals. 
 Mr. Webster, of course, was not ignorant of this 
 very obvious fact ; and that nature, therefore, 
 instead of forbidding slave-labor in the Mexican 
 conquests, opened to it a new and almost unlim- 
 ited field in a region which is to-day one of the 
 greatest mining countries in the world. Still less 
 could he have failed to know that this form of 
 employment for slaves was eagerly desired by the 
 South ; that the slave-holders fully recognized 
 
320 
 
 DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 their opportunity, announced their intention of 
 taking advantage of it, and were particularly in- 
 dignant at the action of California because it had 
 closed to them this inviting field. Mr. Clingman 
 of North Carolina, on January 22, when engaged 
 in threatening war in order to bring the North to 
 terms, had said, in the House of Representatives : 
 “ But for the anti-slavery agitation our Southern 
 slave-lioldei’s would have carried their negroes into 
 the mines of California in such numbers that I have 
 no doubt but that the majority there would have 
 made it a slave-holding State.” 1 At a later period 
 Mr. Mason of Virginia declared, in the Senate, 
 that he knew of no law of nature which excluded 
 slavery from California. “ On the contrary,” he 
 said, “ if California had been organized with a ter- 
 ritorial form of government only, the people of the 
 Southern States would have gone there freely, and 
 have taken their slaves there in great numbers. 
 They would have done so because the value of the 
 labor of that class would have been augmented 
 to them many hundred fold.” 2 These were the 
 views of practical men and experienced slave-own- 
 ers who represented the opinions of their con- 
 stituents, and who believed that domestic slavery 
 could be employed to advantage anywhere. More- 
 over, the Southern leaders openly avowed their 
 opposition to securing any region to free labor 
 
 1 Congressional Globe, 31st Congress, 1st Session, p. 203. 
 
 2 Ibid., Appendix, p. 510. 
 
THE SEVENTH OF M ARCH SPEECH. 321 
 
 exclusively, no matter what the ordinances of 
 nature might be. In 1848, it must be remem- 
 bered in this connection, Mr. Webster not only 
 urged the limitation of slave area, and sustained 
 the power of Congress to regulate this matter in 
 the territories, but he did not resist the final em- 
 bodiment of the principle of the Wilmot Proviso in 
 the bill for the organization of Oregon, where the 
 introduction of slavery was infinitely more unlikely 
 than in New Mexico. Cotton, sugar, and rice were 
 excluded, perhaps, by nature from the Mexican 
 conquests, but slavery was not. It was worse than 
 idle to allege that a law of nature forbade slaves 
 in a country where mines gaped to receive them. 
 The facts are all as plain as possible, and there is 
 no escape from the conclusion that in opposing the 
 Wilmot Proviso, in 1850, Mr. Webster abandoned 
 his principles as to the extension of slavery. He 
 practically stood forth as the champion of the 
 Southern policy of letting the new territories 
 alone, which could only result in placing them 
 in the grasp of slavery. The consistency which 
 he labored so hard to prove in his speech was 
 hopelessly shattered, and no ingenuity, either then 
 or since, can restore it. 
 
 A dispassionate examination of Mr. Webster’s 
 previous course on slavery, and a careful com- 
 parison of it with the ground taken in the 7th 
 of March speech, shows that he softened his ut- 
 terances in regard to slavery as a system, and 
 21 
 
322 
 
 DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 that lie changed radically on the policy of com- 
 promise and on the question of extending the area 
 of slavery. There is a confused story that in the 
 winter of 1847— 48 he had given the anti-slavery 
 leaders to understand that he proposed to come 
 out on their ground in regard to Mexico, and to 
 sustain Corwin in his attack on the Democratic 
 policy, but that he failed to do so. The evidence 
 on this point is entirely insufficient to make it of 
 importance, but there can be no doubt that in the 
 winter of 1850 Mr. Webster talked with Mr. Gid- 
 dings, and led him, and the other Free-Soil leaders, 
 to believe that he was meditating a strong anti- 
 slavery speech. This fact was clearly shown in 
 the recent newspaper controversy which grew out 
 of the celebration of the centennial anniversary of 
 Webster’s birth. It is a little difficult to under- 
 stand why this incident should have roused such 
 bitter resentment among Mr. Webster’s surviving 
 partisans. To suppose that Mr. Webster made 
 the 7th of March speech after long deliberation, 
 without having a moment’s hesitation in the mat- 
 ter, is to credit him with a shameless disregard of 
 principle and consistency, of which it is impossi- 
 ble to believe him guilty. He undoubtedly hesi- 
 tated, and considered deeply whether he should 
 assume the attitude of 1833, and stand out un- 
 relentingly against the encroachments* of slavery. 
 He talked with Mr. Clay on one side. He talked 
 with Mr. Giddings, and other Free-Soilers, on the 
 
THE SEVENTH OF MARCH SPEECH. 323 
 
 other. With the latter the wish was no doubt 
 father to the thought, and they may well have 
 imagined that Mr. Webster had determined to 
 go with them, when he was still in doubt and 
 merely trying the various positions. There is 
 no need, however, to linger over matters of this 
 sort. The change made by Mr. Webster can be 
 learned best by careful study of his own utter- 
 ances, and of his whole career. Yet, at the same 
 time, the greatest trouble lies not in the shifting 
 and inconsistency revealed by an examination of 
 the specific points which have just been discussed, 
 but in the speech as a whole. In that speech Mr. 
 Webster failed quite as much by omissions as 
 by the opinions which he actually announced. 
 He was silent when he should have spoken, and he 
 spoke when he should have held his peace. The 
 speech, if exactly defined, is, in reality, a powerful 
 effort, not for compromise or for the Fugitive Slave 
 Law, or any other one thing, but to arrest the whole 
 anti-slavery movement, and in that way put an end 
 to the dangers which threatened the Union and 
 restore lasting harmony between the jarring sec- 
 tions. It was a mad project. Mr. Webster might 
 as well have attempted to stay the incoming tide 
 at Marshfield with a rampart of sand as to seek 
 to check the anti-slavery movement by a speech. 
 Nevertheless, he produced a great effect. His 
 mind once made up, he spared nothing to win the 
 cast. He gathered all his forces ; his great intel- 
 
324 
 
 DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 lect, his splendid eloquence, liis fame which had 
 become one of the treasured possessions of his 
 country, — all were given to the work. The blow 
 fell with terrible force, and here, at last, we come 
 to the real mischief which was wrought. The 7th 
 of March speech demoralized New England and 
 the whole North. The abolitionists showed by 
 bitter anger the pain, disappointment, and dismay 
 which this speech brought. The Free-Soil party 
 quivered and sank for the moment beneath the 
 shock. The whole anti-slaver}'' movement recoiled. 
 The conservative reaction which Mr. Webster en- 
 deavored to produce came and triumphed. Chiefly 
 by his exertions the compromise policy was ac- 
 cepted and sustained by the country. The conser- 
 vative elements everywhere rallied to his support, 
 and by his ability and eloquence it seemed as if he 
 bad prevailed and brought the people over to his 
 opinions. It was a wonderful tribute to his power 
 and influence, but the triumph was hollow and 
 short-lived. He had attempted to compass an im- 
 possibility. Nothing could kill the principles of hu- 
 man liberty, not even a speech by Daniel Webster, 
 backed by all his intellect and knowledge, his elo- 
 quence and his renown. The anti-slavery move- 
 ment was checked for the time, and pro-slavery 
 democracy, the only other positive political force, 
 reigned supreme. But amid the falling ruins of 
 the Whig party, and the evanescent success of the 
 Native Americans, the party of human rights re- 
 
THE SEVENTH OF MARCH SPEECH. 325 
 
 vived; and when it rose again, taught by the 
 trials and misfortunes of 1850, it rose with a 
 strength which Mr. Webster had never dreamed of, 
 and, in 1856, polled nearly a million and a half 
 of votes for Fremont. The rise and final triumph 
 of the Republican party was the condemnation 
 of the 7th of March speech and of the policy 
 which put the government of the country in the 
 hands of Franklin Pierce and Janies Buchanan. 
 When the war came, inspiration was not found in 
 the 7th of March speech. In that dark hour, men 
 remembered the Daniel Webster who replied to 
 Hayne, and turned away from the man who had 
 sought for peace by advocating the great compro- 
 mise of Henry Clay. 
 
 The disapprobation and disappointment which 
 were manifested in the North after the 7th of 
 March speech could not be overlooked. Men 
 thought and said that Mr. Webster had spoken in 
 behalf of the South and of slavery. Whatever his 
 intentions may have been, this was what the speech 
 seemed to mean and this was its effect, and the 
 North saw it more and more clearly as time went 
 on. Mr. Webster never indulged in personal at- 
 tacks, but at the same time he was too haughty a 
 man ever to engage in an exchange of compliments 
 in debate. He never was in the habit of saying 
 pleasant things to his opponents in the Senate 
 merely as a matter of agreeable courtesy. In this 
 direction, as in its opposite, he usually maintained 
 
826 
 
 DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 a cold silence. But on the 7th of March he elab- 
 orately complimented Calhoun, and went out of 
 his way to flatter Virginia and Mr. Mason person- 
 ally. This struck close observers with surprise, 
 but it was the real purpose of the speech which 
 went home to the people of the North. He had 
 advocated measures which with slight exceptions 
 were altogether what the South wanted, and the 
 South so understood it. On the 30th of March 
 Mr. Morehead wrote to Mr. Crittenden that Mr. 
 Webster’s appointment as Secretary of State 
 would now be very acceptable to the South. No 
 more bitter commentary could have been made. 
 The people were blinded and dazzled at first, but 
 they gradually awoke and perceived the error that 
 had been committed. 
 
 Mr. Webster, however, needed nothing from 
 outside to inform him as to his conduct and its 
 results. At the bottom of his heart and in the 
 depths of his conscience he knew that he had made 
 a dreadful mistake. He did not flinch. He went 
 on in his new path without apparent faltering. 
 His speech on the compromise measures went fai’- 
 ther than that of the 7th of March. But if we 
 study his speeches and letters between 1850 and 
 the day of his death, we can detect changes in 
 them which show plainly enough that the writer 
 was not at ease, that he was not master of that 
 real conscience of which he boasted. 
 
 His friends, after the first shock of surprise, ral 
 
THE SEVENTH OF MARCH SPEECH. 327 
 
 lied to bis support, and be spoke frequently at 
 union meetings, and undertook, by making im- 
 mense efforts, to convince tbe country that the 
 compromise measures were right and necessary, 
 and that tbe doctrines of the 7th of March speech 
 ought to be sustained. In pursuance of this ob- 
 ject, during the winter of 1850 and the summer 
 of the following year, he wrote several public let- 
 ters on the compromise measures, and he ad- 
 dressed great meetings on various occasions, in 
 New England, New York, and as far south as Vir- 
 ginia. We are at once struck by a marked change 
 in the character and tone of these speeches, which 
 produced a great effect in establishing the compro- 
 mise policy. It had never been Mr. Webster’s 
 habit to misrepresent or abuse his opponents. 
 Now he confounded the extreme separatism of the 
 abolitionists and the constitutional opposition of 
 the Free-Soil party, and involved all opponents 
 of slavery in a common condemnation. It was 
 wilful misrepresentation to talk of the Free-Soil- 
 ers as if they were identical with the abolitionists, 
 and no one knew better than Mr. Webster the 
 distinction between the two, one being ready to 
 secede to get rid of slavery, the other offering only 
 a constitutional resistance to its extension. His 
 tone toward his opponents was correspondingly 
 bitter. When he first arrived in Boston, after his 
 speech, and spoke to the great crowd in front of 
 the Revere House, he said, “ I shall support no 
 
328 
 
 DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 agitations having their foundations in unreal, 
 ghostly abstractions.” Slavery had now become 
 “an unreal, ghostly abstraction,” although it must 
 still have appeared to the negroes something very 
 like a hard fact. There were men in that crowd, 
 too, who had not forgotten the noble words with 
 which Mr. Webster in 1837 had defended the 
 character of the opponents of slavery, and the 
 sound of this new gospel from his lips fell 
 strangely on their ears. So he goes on from one 
 union meeting to another, and in speech after 
 speech there is the same bitter tone which had 
 been so foreign to him in all his previous utter- 
 ances. The supporters of the anti-slavery move- 
 ment he denounces as insane. He reiterates his 
 opposition to slave extension, and in the same 
 breath argues that the Union must be preserved 
 by giving way to the South. The feeling is upon 
 him that the old parties are breaking down under 
 the pressure of this “ghostly abstraction,” this agi- 
 tation which he tries to prove to the young men 
 of the country and to his fellow-citizens every- 
 where is “ wholly factitious.” The Fugitive Slave 
 Law is not in the form which he wants, but still he 
 defends it and supports it. The first fruits of his 
 policy of peace are seen in riots in Boston, and he 
 personally advises with a Boston lawyer who has 
 undertaken the cases against the fugitive slaves. 
 It was undoubtedly his duty, as Mr. Curtis says, to 
 enforce and support the law as the President’s ad* 
 
THE SEVENTH OF MARCH SPEECH. 329 
 
 viser, but his personal attention and interest were 
 not required in slave cases, nor would they have 
 been given a year before. The Wilmot Proviso, 
 that doctrine which he claimed as his own in 
 1847, when it was a sentiment on which Whigs 
 
 7 o 
 
 could not differ, he now calls “ a mere abstrac- 
 tion.” He struggles to put slavery aside for the 
 tariff, but it will not down at his bidding, and he 
 himself cannot leave it alone. Finally he con- 
 cludes this compromise campaign with a great 
 speech on laying the foundation of the capitol ex- 
 tension, and makes a pathetic appeal to the South 
 to maintain the Union. They are not pleasant 
 to read, these speeches in the Senate and before 
 the people in behalf of the compromise policy. 
 They are harsh and bitter ; they do not ring true. 
 Daniel Webster knew when he was delivering 
 them that that was not the way to save the Union, 
 or that, at all events, it was not the right way 
 for him to do it. 
 
 The same peculiarity can be discerned in his 
 letters. The fun and humor which had hitherto 
 run through his correspondence seems now to fade 
 away as if blighted. On September 10, 1850, 
 he writes to Mr. Harvey that since March 7 
 there has not been an hour in which he has not 
 felt a “crushing sense of anxiety and responsibil- 
 ity.” He couples this with the declaration that 
 his own part is acted and he is satisfied ; but if 
 his anxiety was solely of a public nature, why 
 
330 
 
 DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 did it date from March 7, when, prior to that 
 time, there was much greater cause for alarm than 
 afterwards. In everything he said or wrote he 
 continually recurs to the slavery question and al- 
 ways in a defensive tone, usually with a sneer or 
 a fling at the abolitionists and anti-slavery party. 
 The spirit of unrest had seized him. He was dis- 
 turbed and ill at ease. He never admitted it, 
 even to himself, but his mind was not at peace, 
 and he could not conceal the fact. Posterity can 
 see the evidences of it plainly enough, and a man 
 of his intellect and fame knew that with posterity 
 the final reckoning must be made. No man can 
 say that Mr. Webster anticipated the unfavorable 
 judgment which his countrymen have passed upon 
 his conduct, but that in his heart he feared such 
 a judgment cannot be doubted. 
 
 It is impossible to determine with perfect accu- 
 racy any man’s motives in what he says or does. 
 They are so complex, they are so often undefined, 
 even in the mind of the man himself, that no one 
 can pretend to make an absolutely correct analy- 
 sis. There have been many theories as to the 
 motives which led Mr. Webster to make the 7th 
 of March speech. In the heat of contemporary 
 strife his enemies set it down as a mere bid to se- 
 cure Southern support for the presidency, but this 
 is a harsh and narrow view. The longing for the 
 presidency weakened Mr. Webster as a public man 
 from the time when it first took possession of him 
 
THE SEVENTH OF MARCH SPEECH. 331 
 
 after the reply to Hayne. It undoubtedly had a 
 weakening effect upon him in the winter of 1850, 
 and had some influence upon the speech of the 7th 
 of March. But it is unjust to say that it did more. 
 It certainly was far removed from being a control- 
 ling motive. His friends, on the other hand, de- 
 clare that he was governed solely by the highest 
 and most disinterested patriotism, by the truest 
 wisdom. This explanation, like that of his foes, 
 fails by going too far and being too simple. His 
 motives were mixed. His chief desire was to pre- 
 serve and maintain the Union. He wished to stand 
 forth as the great saviour and pacificator. On 
 the one side was the South, compact, aggressive, 
 bound together by slavery, the greatest political 
 force in the country. On the other was a weak 
 Free-Soil party, and a widely diffused and earnest 
 moral sentiment without organization or tangible 
 political power. Mr. Webster concluded that the 
 way to save the Union and the Constitution, and 
 to achieve the success which he desired, was to go 
 with the heaviest battalions. He therefore es- 
 poused the Southern side, for the compromise was 
 in the Southern interest, and smote the anti-slav- 
 ery movement with all his strength. He reasoned 
 correctly that peace could come only by adminis- 
 tering a severe check to one of the two contending 
 parties. He erred in attempting to arrest the one 
 which all modern history showed was irresistible. 
 It is no doubt true, as appears by his cabinet opin> 
 
332 
 
 DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 ion recently printed, that he stood ready to meet 
 the first overt act on the part of the South with 
 force. Mr. Webster would not have hesitated to 
 have struck hard at any body of men or any State 
 which ventured to assail the Union. But he also 
 believed that the true way to prevent any overt 
 act on the part of the South was by concession, 
 and that was precisely the object which the South- 
 ern leaders sought to obtain. We may grant all 
 the patriotism and all the sincere devotion to the 
 cause of the Constitution which is claimed for him, 
 but nothing can acquit Mr. Webster of error in the 
 methods which he chose to adopt for the mainte- 
 nance of peace and the preservation of the Union. 
 If the 7th of March speech was right, then all 
 that had gone before was false and wrong. In 
 that speech he broke from his past, from his own 
 principles and from the principles of New Eng- 
 land, and closed his splendid public career with a 
 terrible mistake. 
 
CHAPTER X. 
 
 THE LAST YEARS. 
 
 The story of the remainder of Mr. Webster’s 
 public life, outside of and apart from the slavery 
 question, can be quickly told. General Taylor 
 died suddenly on July 9, 1850, and this event led 
 to an immediate and complete reorganization of 
 the cabinet. Mr. Fillmore at once offered the 
 post of Secretary of State to Mr. Webster, who 
 accepted it, resigned his seat in the Senate, and, 
 on July 23, assumed his new position. No great 
 negotiation like that with Lord Ashburton marked 
 this second term of office in the Department of 
 State, but there were a number of important and 
 some very complicated affairs, which Mr. Web- 
 ster managed with the wisdom, tact, and dignity 
 which made him so admirably fit for this high po- 
 sition. 
 
 The best-known incident of this period was 
 that which gave rise to the famous “ Hulsemann 
 letter.” President Taylor had sent an agent to 
 Hungary to report upon the condition of the revo- 
 lutionary government, with the intention of recog- 
 nizing it if there were sufficient grounds for doing 
 so. When the agent arrived, the revolution was 
 
334 
 
 DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 crushed, and he reported to the President against 
 recognition. These papers were transmitted to the 
 Senate in March, 1850. Mr. Hiilsemann, the Aus- 
 trian charge , thereupon complained of the action 
 of our administration, and Mr. Clayton, then Sec- 
 retary of State, replied that the mission of the 
 agent had been simply to gather information. On 
 receiving further instructions from his government, 
 Mr. Hiilsemann rejoined to Mr. Clayton, and it 
 fell to. Mr. W ebster to reply, which he did on De- 
 cember 21, 1850. The note of the Austrian charg6 
 was in a hectoring and highly offensive tone, and 
 Mr. Webster felt the necessity of administering a 
 sharp rebuke. “ The Hiilsemann letter,” as it 
 was called, was accordingly dispatched. It set 
 forth strongly the right of the United States and 
 their intention to recognize any de facto revolu- 
 tionary government, and to seek information in all 
 proper ways in order to guide their action. The 
 argument on this point was admirably and forcibly 
 stated, and it was accompanied by a bold vindica- 
 tion of the American policy, and by some severe 
 and wholesome reproof. Mr. Webster had two 
 objects. One was to awaken the people of Europe 
 to a sense of the greatness of this country, the 
 other to touch the national pride at home. He 
 did both. The foreign representatives learned a 
 lesson which they never forgot, and which opened 
 their eyes to the fact that we were no longer col- 
 onies, and the national pride was also aroused 
 
THE LAST TEALS. 
 
 835 
 
 Mr. Webster admitted that the letter was, in some 
 respects, boastful and rough. This was a fair crit- 
 icism, and it may be justly said that such a tone 
 was hardly worthy of the author. But, on the 
 other hand, Hulsemann’s impertinence fully justi- 
 fied such a reply, and a little rough domineering 
 was, perhaps, the very thing needed. It is certain 
 that the letter fully answered Mr. Webster’s pur- 
 pose, and excited a great deal of popular enthusi- 
 asm. The affair did not, however, end here. Mr. 
 Hiilsemann became very mild, but he soon lost his 
 temper again. Kossuth and the refugees in Tur- 
 key were brought to this country in a United 
 States frigate. The Hungarian hero was received 
 with a burst of enthusiasm that induced him to 
 hope for substantial aid, which was, of course, 
 wholly visionary. The popular excitement made 
 it difficult for Mr. Webster to steer a proper 
 course, but he succeeded, by great tact, in showing 
 his own sympathy, and, so far as possible, that of 
 the government, for the cause of Hungarian inde- 
 pendence and for its leader, without going too far 
 or committing any indiscretion which could justify 
 a breach of international relations with Austria. 
 Mr. Webster's course, including a speech at a 
 dinner in Boston, in which he made an eloquent 
 allusion to Hungary and Kossuth, although care- 
 fully guarded, aroused the ire of Mr. Hiilsemann, 
 who left the country, after writing a letter of in- 
 dignant farewell to the Secretary of State. Mr. 
 
336 
 
 DANIEL WEBS TER. 
 
 Webster replied, through Mr. Hunter, with ex- 
 treme coolness, confining himself to an approval 
 of the gentleman selected by Mr. Hiilsemann to 
 represent Austria after the latter's departure. 
 
 The other affairs which occupied Mr. Webster’s 
 official attention at this time made less noise than 
 that with Austria, but they were more compli- 
 cated and some of them far more perilous to the 
 peace of the country. The most important was 
 that growing out of the Clayton-Bulwer treaty in 
 regard to the neutrality of the contemplated canal 
 in Nicaragua. This led to a prolonged correspond- 
 ence about the protectorate of Great Britain in 
 Nicaragua, and to a withdrawal of her claim to 
 exact port-charges. It is interesting to observe 
 the influence which Mr. Webster at once obtained 
 with Sir Henry Bulwer and the respect in which 
 he was held by that experienced diplomatist. Be- 
 sides this discussion with England, there was a 
 sharp dispute with Mexico about the right of way 
 over the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, and the troubles 
 on the Texan boundary before Congress had acted 
 upon the subject. Then came the Lopez invasion 
 of Cuba, supported by bodies of volunteers en- 
 listed in the United States, which, by its failure 
 and its results, involved our goveniment in a num- 
 ber of difficult questions. The most serious was 
 the riot at New Orleans, where the Spanish consul- 
 ate was sacked by a mob. To render due reparation 
 for this outrage without wounding the national 
 
THE LAST YEARS. 
 
 337 
 
 pride by apparent humiliation was no easy task. 
 Mr. Webster settled everything, however, with a 
 judgment, tact, and dignity which prevented war 
 with Spain and yet excited no resentment at home. 
 At a later period, when the Kossuth affair was 
 drawing to an end, the perennial difficulty about 
 the fisheries revived and was added to our Central 
 American troubles with Great Britain, and this, 
 together with the affair of the Lobos Islands, oc- 
 cupied Mr. Webster's attention, and drew forth 
 some able and important dispatches during the 
 summer of 1852, in the last months of his life. 
 
 While the struggle was in progress to convince 
 the country of the value and justice of the com- 
 promise measures and to compel their acceptance, 
 another presidential election drew on. It was the 
 signal for the last desperate attempt to obtain the 
 Whig nomination for Mr. Webster, and it seemed 
 at first sight as if the party must finally take up the 
 New England leader. Mr. Clay was wholly out 
 of the race, and his last hour was near. Thei’e 
 was absolutely no one who, in fame, ability, pub- 
 lic services, and experience could be compared for 
 one moment with Mr. Webster. The opportunity 
 was obvious enough ; it awakened all Mr. Web- 
 ster’s hopes, and excited the ardor of his friends. 
 A formal and organized movement, such as had 
 never before been made, was set on foot to pro- 
 mote his candidacy, and a vigorous and earnest 
 address to the people was issued by his friends in 
 
338 
 
 DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 Massachusetts. The result demonstrated, if dem- 
 onstration were needed, that Mr. Webster had 
 not, even under the most favorable circumstances, 
 the remotest chance for the presidency. His 
 friends saw this plainly enough before the con- 
 vention met, but he himself regarded the great 
 prize as at last surely within his grasp. Mr. 
 Choate, who was to lead the Webster delegates, 
 went to Washington the day before the convention 
 assembled. He called on Mr. Webster and found 
 him so filled with the belief that he should be 
 nominated that it seemed cruel to undeceive him. 
 Mr. Choate, at all events, had not the heart for the 
 task, and went back to Baltimore to lead the forlorn 
 hope with gallant fidelity and with an eloquence 
 as brilliant if not so grand as that of Mr. Web- 
 ster himself. A majority 1 of the convention di- 
 vided their votes very unequally between Mr. 
 Fillmore and Mr. Webster, the former receiving 
 133, the latter 29, on the first ballot, while Gen- 
 eral Scott had 131. Forty-five ballots were taken, 
 without any substantial change, and then General 
 Scott began to increase his strength, and was nomi- 
 nated on the fifty-third ballot, receiving 159 votes. 
 Most of General Scott’s supporters were opposed 
 
 1 Mr. Curtis says a “ great majority continued to divide their 
 votes between Mr. Fillmore and Mr. Webster.” The highest 
 number reached by the combined Webster and Fillmore votes, on 
 any one ballot, was 162, three more than was received on the 
 last ballot by General Scott, who, Mr. Curtis correctly says, ob< 
 tained only a “ few votes more than the necessary majority.” 
 
THE LAST YEARS. 
 
 389 
 
 to resolutions sustaining the compromise meas- 
 ures, while those who voted for Mr. Fillmore and 
 Mr. Webster favored that policy. General Scott 
 owed his nomination to a compromise, which con- 
 sisted in inserting in the platform a clause 
 strongly approving Mr. Clay’s measui’es. Mr. 
 Webster expected the Fillmore delegates to come 
 to him, an unlikely event when they were so 
 much more numerous than his friends, and, more- 
 over, they never showed the slightest inclination 
 to do so. They were chiefly from the South, and 
 as they chose to consider Mr. Fillmore and not 
 his secretary the representative of compromise, 
 they reasonably enough expected the latter to give 
 way. The desperate stubbornness of Mr. Web- 
 ster's adherents resulted in the nomination of 
 Scott. It seemed hard that the Southern Whigs 
 should have done so little for Mr. Webster after 
 he had done and sacrificed so much to advance 
 and defend their interests. But the South was 
 practical. In the 7tli of March speech they had 
 got from Mr. Webster all they could expect or 
 desire. It was quite possible, in fact it was highly 
 probable, that, once in the presidency, he could 
 not be controlled or guided by the slave-power or 
 by any other sectional influence. Mr. Fillmore, 
 inferior in every way to Mr. Webster in intellect, 
 in force, in reputation, would give them a mild, 
 safe administration and be easily influenced by 
 the South. Mr. Webster had served his turn, and 
 
340 
 
 DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 the men whose cause he had advocated and whose 
 interests he had protected cast him aside. 
 
 The loss of the nomination was a bitter disap- 
 pointment to Mr. Webster. It was the fashion in 
 certain quarters to declare that it killed him, but 
 this was manifestly absurd. The most that can be 
 said in this respect was, that the excitement and 
 depression caused by his defeat preyed upon his 
 mind and thereby facilitated the inroads of disease, 
 while it added to the clouds which darkened round 
 him in those last days. But his course of action 
 after the convention cannot be passed over with- 
 out comment. He refused to give his adhesion to 
 General Scott’s nomination, and he advised his 
 friends to vote for Mr. Pierce, because the Whigs 
 were divided, while the Democrats were unani- 
 mously determined to resist all attempts to renew 
 the slavery agitation. This course was absolutely 
 indefensible. If the Whig party was so divided 
 on the slavery question that Mr. Webster could 
 not support their nominee, then he had no busi- 
 ness to seek a nomination at their hands, for they 
 wei’e as much divided before the convention as 
 afterwards. He chose to come before that conven- 
 tion, knowing perfectly well the divisions of the 
 party, and that the nomination might fall to Gen- 
 eral Scott. He saw fit to play the game, and 
 was in honor bound to abide by the rules. He 
 had no right to say “it is heads I win, and tails 
 you lose.” If he had been nominated he would 
 
THE LAST YEARS. 
 
 341 
 
 have indignantly and justly denounced a refusal 
 on the part of General Scott and his friends to 
 support him. It is the merest sophistry to say 
 that Mr. Webster was too great a man to be 
 bound by party usages, and tbat he owed it to 
 himself to rise above them, and refuse his support 
 to a poor nomination and to a wrangling party. 
 If Mr. Webster could no longer act with the 
 Whigs, then his name had no business in that 
 convention at Baltimore, for the conditions were 
 the same before its meeting as afterward. Great 
 man as he was, he was not too great to behave 
 honorably ; and his refusal to support Scott, after 
 having been his rival for a nomination at the 
 hands of their common party, was neither honor- 
 able nor just. If Mr. Webster had decided to 
 leave the Whigs and act independently, he was in 
 honor bound to do so before the Baltimore conven- 
 tion assembled, or to have warned the delegates 
 that such was his intention in the event of Gen- 
 eral Scott's nomination. He had no right to stand 
 the hazard of the die, and then refuse to abide by 
 the result. The Whig party, in its best estate, 
 was not calculated to excite a very warm enthusi- 
 asm in the breast of a dispassionate posterity, and 
 it is perfectly true that it was on the eve of ruin 
 in 1852. But it appeared better then, in the 
 point of self-respect, than four years before. In 
 1848 the Whigs nominated a successful soldier 
 conspicuous only for his availability and without 
 
342 
 
 DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 knowing to what part} 7 he belonged. They main- 
 tained absolute silence on the great question of 
 the extension of slavery, and carried on their 
 campaign on the personal popularity of their can- 
 didate. Mr. Webster was righteously disgusted 
 at their candidate and their negative attitude. 
 He could justly and properly have left them on 
 a question of principle ; but he swallowed the 
 nomination, “ not fit to be made,” and gave to 
 his party a decided and public support. In 1852 
 the Whigs nominated another successful soldier, 
 who was known to be a Whig, and who had been 
 a candidate for their nomination before. In their 
 platform they formally adopted the essential prin- 
 ciple demanded by Mr. Webster, and declared their 
 adhesion to the compromise measures. If there 
 was disaffection in regard to this declaration of 
 1852, there was disaffection also about the silence 
 of 1848. In the former case, Mr. Webster ad- 
 hered to the nomination ; in the latter, he rejected 
 it. In 1848 he might still hope to be President 
 through a Whig nomination. In 1852 he knew 
 that, even if he lived, there would never be another 
 chance. He gave vent to his disappointment, put 
 no constraint upon himself, prophesied the down- 
 fall of his party, and advised his friends to vote 
 for Franklin Pierce. It was perfectly logical, after 
 advocating the compromise measures, to advise 
 giving the government into the hands of a party 
 controlled by the South. Mr. Webster would have 
 
TEE LAST TEARS. 
 
 348 
 
 been entirely reasonable in taking such a course 
 before the B altimore convention. He had no right 
 to do so after he had sought a nomination from the 
 Whigs, and it was a breach of faith to act as he 
 did. to advise his friends to desert a falling party 
 and vote for the Democratic candidate. 
 
 After the acceptance of the Department of 
 State, Air. Webster's health became seriously im- 
 paired. His exertions in advocating the compro- 
 mise measures, his official labors, and the in- 
 creased severity of his annual hay-fever, — all 
 contributed to debilitate him. His iron consti- 
 tution weakened in various ways, and especially 
 by frequent periods of intense mental exertion, to 
 which were superadded the excitement and ner- 
 vous strain inseparable from his career, was be- 
 ginning to give way. Slowly but surely he lost 
 ground. His spirits began to lose their elasticity, 
 and he rarely spoke without a tinge of deep sad- 
 ness being apparent in all he said. In May, 1852, 
 while driving near Marshfield, he was thrown 
 from his carriage with much violence, injuring 
 his wrists, and receiving other severe contusions. 
 The shock was very great, and undoubtedly accel- 
 erated the progress of the fatal organic disease 
 which was sapping his life. This physical injury 
 was followed, by the keen disappointment of his 
 defeat at Baltimore, which preyed upon his heart 
 and mind. During the summer of 1852 his health 
 gave way more rapidly. He longed to resign, but 
 
344 
 
 DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 Mr. Fillmore insisted on his retaining his office. 
 In July he came to Boston, where he was wel- 
 comed by a great public meeting, and hailed with 
 enthusiastic acclamations, which did much to 
 soothe his wounded feelings. He still continued 
 to transact the business of his department, and in 
 August went to Washington, where he remained 
 until the 8th of September, when he returned to 
 Marshfield. On the 20th he went to Boston, for 
 the last time, to consult his physician. He ap- 
 peared at a friend’s house, one evening, for a few 
 moments, and all who then saw him were shocked 
 at the look of illness and suffering in his face. It 
 was his last visit. He went back to Marshfield the 
 next day, never to return. He now failed rapidly. 
 His nights were sleepless, and there were scarcely 
 any intervals of ease or improvement. The decline 
 was steady and sure, and as October wore away 
 the end drew near. Mr. Webster faced it with 
 courage, cheerfulness, and dignity, in a religious 
 and trusting spirit, with a touch of the personal 
 pride which was part of his nature. He remained 
 perfectly conscious and clear in his mind almost 
 to the very last moment, bearing his sufferings 
 with perfect fortitude, and exhibiting the tender- 
 est affection toward the wife and son and friends 
 who watched over him. On the evening of Octo- 
 ber 23 it became apparent that he was sinking, 
 but his one wish seemed to be that he might be 
 conscious when he was actually dying. After 
 
TEE LAST TEARS. 
 
 345 
 
 midnight he roused from an uneasy sleep, strug- 
 gled for consciousness, and ejaculated, “ I still 
 live.” These were his last words. Shortly after 
 three o’clock the labored breathing ceased, and all 
 was over. 
 
 A hush fell upon the country as the news of his 
 death sped over the land. A great gap seemed to 
 have been made in the existence of every one. 
 Men remembered the grandeur of his form and 
 the splendor of his intellect, and felt as if one of 
 the pillars of the state had fallen. The profound 
 grief and deep sense of loss produced by his death 
 were the highest tributes and the most convinc-^ 
 ing proofs of his greatness. 
 
 In accordance with his wishes, all public forms 
 and ceremonies were dispensed with. The fu- 
 neral took place at his home on Friday, Octo- 
 ber 29. Thousands flocked to Marshfield to do 
 honor to his memory, and to look for the last 
 time at that noble form. It was one of those beau- 
 tiful days of the New England autumn, when the 
 sun is slightly veiled, and a delicate haze hangs 
 over the sea, shining with a tender silvery light. 
 There is a sense of infinite rest and peace on such 
 a day which seems to shut out the noise of the 
 busy world and breathe the spirit of unbroken 
 calm. As the crowds poured in through the gates 
 of the farm, they saw before them on the lawn, 
 resting upon a low mound of flowers, the majestic 
 form, as impressive in the repose of death as it 
 
846 
 
 DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 had been in the fullness of life and strength. 
 There was a wonderful fitness in it all. The 
 vault of heaven and the spacious earth seemed in 
 their large simplicity the true place for such a man 
 to lie in state. There was a brief and simple ser- 
 vice at the house, and then the body was borne on 
 the shoulders of Marshfield farmers, and laid in 
 the little graveyard which already held the wife 
 and children who had gone before, and where 
 could be heard the eternal murmur of the sea. 
 
 In May, 1852, Mr. Webster said to Professor Sil- 
 liman : “I have given my life to law and politics. 
 Law is uncertain and politics are utterly vain.” 
 It is a sad commentary for such a man to have 
 made on such a career, but it fitly represents Mr. 
 Webster’s feelings as the end of life approached. 
 His last years were not his most fortunate, and still 
 less his best years. Domestic sorrows had been 
 the prelude to a change of policy, which had 
 aroused a bitter opposition, and to the pangs of 
 disappointed ambition. A sense of mistake and 
 failure hung heavily upon his spirits, and the cry 
 of “vanity, vanity, all is vanity,” came readily to 
 his lips. There is an infinite pathos in those 
 melancholy words which have just been quoted. 
 The sun of life, which had shone so splendidly at 
 its meridian, was setting amid clouds. The dark- 
 ness which overspread him came from the action 
 of the 7th of March, and the conflict which it had 
 
THE LAST YEARS. 
 
 347 
 
 caused. If there were failure and mistake they 
 were there. The presidency could add nothing, its 
 loss could take away nothing from the fame of 
 Daniel Webster. He longed for it eagerly; he 
 had sacrificed much to his desire for it ; his disap- 
 pointment was keen and bitter at not receiving 
 what seemed to him the fit crown of his great 
 public career. But this grief was purely personal, 
 and will not be shared by posterity, who feel only 
 the errors of those last years coining after so much 
 glory, and who care very little for the defeat of 
 the ambition which went with them. 
 
 Those last two years awakened such fierce dis- 
 putes, and had such an absorbing interest, that 
 they have tended to overshadow the half century 
 of distinction and achievement which preceded 
 them. Failure and disappointment on the part 
 of such a man as Webster seem so great, that 
 they too easily dwarf everything else, and hide 
 from us a just and well proportioned view of the 
 whole career. Mr. Webster's success had, in 
 truth, been brilliant, hardly equalled in measure 
 or duration by that of any other eminent man in 
 our history. For thirty years he had stood at the 
 head of the bar and of the Senate, the first lawyer 
 and the first statesman of the United States. 
 This is a long tenure of power for one man in two 
 distinct departments. It would be remarkable 
 anywhere. It is especially so in a democracy. 
 This great success Mr. Webster owed solely to his 
 
848 
 
 DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 intellectual power supplemented by great physical 
 gifts. No man ever was born into the world bet- 
 ter formed by nature for the career of an orator 
 and statesman. lie had everything to compel the 
 admiration and submission of his fellow-men : — ' 
 
 “ The front of Jove himself ; 
 
 An eye like Mars to threaten and command; 
 
 A station like the herald Mercury 
 New-lighted on a heaven-kissing hill; 
 
 A combination and a form indeed, 
 
 Where everv god did seem to set his seal, 
 
 To give the world assurance of a man.” 
 
 Hamlet’s words are a perfect picture of Mr. Web- 
 ster’s outer man, and we have but to add to the 
 description a voice of singular beauty and power 
 with the tone and compass of an organ. The look 
 of his face and the sound of his voice were in 
 themselves as eloquent as anything Mr. Webster 
 ever uttered. 
 
 But the imposing presence was only the out- 
 ward sign of the man. Within was a massive and 
 powerful intellect, not creative or ingenious, but 
 with a wonderful vigor of grasp, capacious, pene- 
 trating, far-reaching. Mr. Webster’s strongest 
 and most characteristic mental qualities were 
 weight and force. He was peculiarly fitted to 
 deal with large subjects in a large Avay. He was 
 by temperament extremely conservative. There 
 was nothing of the reformer or the zealot about 
 him. He could maintain or construct where other 
 men had built ; he could not lay new foundations 
 
THE LAST YEARS. 
 
 349 
 
 or invent. We see this curiously exemplified in 
 his feeling toward Hamilton and Madison. He 
 admired them both, and to the former he paid a 
 compliment which has become a familiar quota- 
 tion. But Hamilton’s bold, aggressive genius, his 
 audacity, fertility, and resource, did not appeal to 
 Mr. Webster as did the prudence, the constructive 
 wisdom, and the safe conservatism of the gentle 
 Madison, whom he never wearied of praising. 
 The same description may be given of his imagi- 
 nation, which was warm, vigorous, and keen, but 
 not poetic. He used it well, it never led him 
 astray, and was the secret of his most conspicuous 
 oratorical triumphs. 
 
 He had great natural pride and a strong sense 
 of personal dignity, which made him always im- 
 pressive, but apparently cold, and sometimes sol- 
 emn in public. In his later years this solemnity 
 degenerated occasionally into pomposity, to which 
 it is always perilously near. At no time in his 
 life was he quick or excitable. He was indolent 
 and dreamy, working always under pressure, and 
 then at a high rate of speed. This indolence in- 
 creased as he grew older ; he would then postpone 
 longer and labor more intensely to make up the 
 lost time than in his earlier days. When he was 
 quiescent, he seemed stern, cold, and latterly 
 rather heavy, and some outer incentive was needed 
 to rouse his intellect or touch his heart. Once 
 stirred, he blazed forth, and, when fairly engaged, 
 
350 
 
 DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 with his intellect in full play, he was as grand and 
 effective in his eloquence as it is given to human 
 nature to be. In the less exciting occupations of 
 public life, as, for instance, in foreign negotiations, 
 lie showed the same grip upon his subject, the 
 same capacity and judgment as in his speeches, 
 and a mingling of tact and dignity which pi’oved 
 the greatest fitness for the conduct of the gravest 
 public affairs. As a statesman Mr. Webster was 
 not an “ opportunist,” as it is the fashion to call 
 those who live politically from day to day, deal- 
 ing with each question as it arises, and exhibiting 
 often the greatest skill and talent. Still less was 
 he a statesman of the type of Charles Fox, who 
 preached to the deaf ears of one generation great 
 principles which became accepted truisms in the 
 next. Mr. Webster stands between the two 
 classes. He viewed the present with a strong per- 
 ception of the future, and shaped his policy not 
 merely for the daily exigency, but with a keen eye 
 to subsequent effects. At the same time lie never 
 put forward and defended single-handed a great 
 principle or idea which, neglected then, was grad- 
 ually to win its way and reign supreme among a 
 succeeding generation. 
 
 His speeches have a heat and glow which we 
 can still feel, and a depth and reality of thought 
 which have secured them a place in literature. 
 He had not a fiery nature, although there is often 
 so much warmth in what he said. He was neither 
 
THE LAST YEARS. 
 
 351 
 
 high tempered nor quick to anger, hut lie could be 
 fierce, and, when adulation had warped him in 
 those later years, he was capable of striking ugly 
 blows which sometimes wounded friends as well 
 as enemies. 
 
 There remains one marked quality to be noticed 
 in Mr. Webster, which was of immense negative 
 service to him. This was his sense of humor. 
 Mr. Nichol, in his recent history of American lit- 
 erature, speaks of Mr. Webster as deficient in this 
 respect. Either the critic himself is deficient in 
 humor or he has studied only Webster’s collected 
 works, which give no indication of the real humor 
 in the man. That Mr. Webster was not a humor- 
 ist is unquestionably true, and although he used 
 a sarcasm which made his opponents seem absurd 
 and even ridiculous at times, and in his more un- 
 studied efforts would provoke mirth by some 
 happy and playful allusion, some felicitous quota- 
 tion or ingenious antithesis, he was too statel3 r in 
 every essential respect ever to seek to make mere 
 fun or to excite the laughter of his hearers by de- 
 liberate exertions and with malice aforethought. 
 He had, nevertheless, a real and genuine sense of 
 humor. We can see it in his letters, and it comes 
 out in a thousand ways in the details and incidents 
 of his private life. When he had thrown aside the 
 cares of professional or public business, he revelled 
 in hearty, boisterous fun, and he had that sanest 
 of qualities, an honest, boyish love of pure non- 
 
352 
 
 DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 sense. He delighted in a good story and dearly 
 loved a joke, although no jester himself. This 
 sense of humor and appreciation of the ridiculous, 
 although they give no color to his published 
 works, where, indeed, they would have been out 
 of place, improved his judgment, smoothed his 
 path through the world, and saved him from those 
 blunders in taste and those follies in action which 
 are ever the pitfalls for men with the fervid, ora- 
 torical temperament. 
 
 This sense of humor gave, also, a great charm 
 to his conversation and to all social intercourse 
 with him. He was a good, but never, so far 
 as can be judged from tradition, an overbearing 
 talker. He never appears to have crushed opposi- 
 tion in conversation, nor to have indulged in mon- 
 ologue, which is so apt to be the foible of famous 
 and successful men who have a solemn sense of 
 their own dignity and importance. What Lord 
 Melbourne said of the great Whig historian, “ that 
 he wished he was as sure of anything as Tom Ma- 
 caulay w'as of everything,” could not be applied 
 to Mr. Webster. He owed his freedom from such 
 a weakness partly, no doubt, to his natural indo- 
 lence, but still more to the fact that he was not 
 only no pedant, but not even a very learned man. 
 He knew no Greek, but was familiar with Latin. 
 His quotations and allusions were chiefly drawn 
 from Shakespeare, Milton, Homer, and the Bible, 
 where he found what most appealed to him — • 
 
THE LAST YEARS. 
 
 353 
 
 simplicity and grandeur of thought and diction. 
 At the same time, he was a great reader, and pos- 
 sessed wide information on a vast variety of sub- 
 jects, which a clear and retentive memory put 
 always at his command. The result of all this 
 was that he was a most charming and entertain- 
 ing companion. 
 
 These attractions were heightened by his large 
 nature and strong animal spirits. He loved out- 
 door life. He was a keen sportsman and skilful 
 fisherman. In all these ways he was healthy and 
 manly, without any tinge of the mere student 
 or public official. He loved everything that was 
 large. His soul expanded in the free air and 
 beneath the blue sky. All natural scenery ap- 
 pealed to him, — Niagara, the mountains, the roll- 
 ing prairie, the great rivers, — but he found most 
 contentment beside the limitless sea, amid brown 
 marshes and sand-dunes, where the sense of infi- 
 nite space is strongest. It was the same in regard 
 to animals. He cared but little for horses or 
 dogs, but he rejoiced in great herds of cattle, and 
 especially in line oxen, the embodiment of slow 
 and massive strength. In England the things 
 which chiefly appealed to him were the Tower 
 of London, Westminster Abbey, Smithfield cattle 
 market, and English agriculture. So it was al- 
 ways and everywhere. He loved mountains and 
 great trees, wide horizons, the ocean, the western 
 plains, and the giant monuments of literature and 
 23 
 
354 
 
 DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 art. He rejoiced in his strength and the over- 
 flowing animal vigor that was in him. He was so 
 big and so strong, so large in every way, that 
 people sank into repose in his presence, and felt 
 rest and confidence in the mere fact of his exist- 
 ence. He came to be regarded as an institution, 
 and when he died men paused with a sense of 
 helplessness, and wondered how the country would 
 get on without him. To have filled so large a 
 space in a country so vast, and in a great, hurry- 
 ing, and pushing democracy, implies a personality 
 of a most uncommon kind. 
 
 He was, too, something more than a charming 
 companion in private life. He was generous, lib- 
 eral, hospitable, and deeply affectionate. He was 
 adored in his home, and deeply loved his children, 
 who were torn from him, one after another. His 
 sorrow, like his joy, was intense and full of force. 
 He had many devoted friends, and a still greater 
 body of unhesitating followers. To the former 
 he showed, through nearly all his life, the warm 
 affection which was natural to him. It was not 
 until adulation and flattery had deeply injured 
 him, and the frustrated ambition for the presi- 
 dency had poisoned both heart and mind, that he 
 became dictatorial and overbearing. Not till then 
 did he quarrel with those who had served and fol- 
 lowed him, as when he slighted Mr. Lawrence for 
 expressing independent opinions, and refused to 
 do justice to the memory of Story because it 
 
THE LAST YEARS. 
 
 355 
 
 might impair his own glories. They do not pre- 
 sent a pleasant picture, these quarrels with friends, 
 but they were part of the deterioration of the last 
 years, and they furnish in a certain way the key 
 to his failure to attain the presidency. The coun- 
 try was proud of Mr. Webster ; proud of his intel- 
 lect, his eloquence, his fame. He was the idol of the 
 capitalists, the merchants, the lawyers, the clergy, 
 the educated men of all classes in the East. The 
 politicians dreaded and feared him because he was 
 so great, and so little in sympathy with them, but 
 his real weakness was with the masses of the peo- 
 ple. He was not popular in the true sense of the 
 word. For years the Whig party and Henry 
 Clay were almost synonymous terms, but this 
 could never be said of Mr. Webster. His follow- 
 ing was strong in quality, but weak numerically. 
 Clay touched the popular heart. Webster never 
 did. The people were proud of him, wondered at 
 him, were awed by him, but they did not love 
 him, and that was the reason he was never Presi- 
 dent, for he was too great to succeed to the high 
 office, as many men have, by happy or unhappy 
 accident. There was also another feeling which 
 is suggested by the differences with some of his 
 closest friends. There was a lurking distrust of 
 Mr. Webster’s sincerity. We can see it plainly in 
 the correspondence of the Western Whigs, who 
 were not, perhaps, wholly impartial. But it ex- 
 isted, nevertheless. There was a vague, ill-defined 
 
356 
 
 DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 feeling of doubt in the public mind ; a suspicion 
 that the spirit of the advocate was the ruling spirit 
 in Mr. Webster, and that he did not believe with 
 absolute and fervent faith in one side of any ques- 
 tion. There was just enough correctness, just a 
 sufficient grain of truth in this idea, when united 
 with the coldness and dignity of his manner and 
 with his greatness itself, to render impossible that 
 popularity which, to be real and lasting in a de- 
 mocracy, must come from the heart and not from 
 the head of the people, which must be instinctive 
 and emotional, and not the offspring of reason. 
 
 There is no occasion to discuss, or hold up to 
 reprobation, Mr. Webster’s failings. He was a 
 splendid animal as well as a great man, and he 
 had strong passions and appetites, which he in- 
 dulged at times to the detriment of his health and 
 reputation. These errors may be mostly fitly con- 
 signed to silence. But there was one failing which 
 cannot be passed over in this way. This was in 
 regard to money. His indifference to debt was 
 perceptible in his youth, and for many years 
 showed no sign of growth. But in his later years 
 it increased with terrible rapidity. He earned 
 twenty thousand a year when he first came to 
 Boston, — a very great income for those days. 
 His public career interfered, of course, with his 
 law practice, but there never was a period when 
 he could not, with reasonable economy, have laid 
 up something at the end of every year, and grad 
 
TEE LAST YEARS. 
 
 357 
 
 ually amassed a fox-tune. But he not only never 
 saved, he lived habitually beyond his means. He 
 did not become poor by his devotion to the public 
 service, but by his own extravagance. He loved 
 to spend money and to live well. He had a fine 
 librai-y and handsome plate; he bought fancy 
 cattle ; he kept open house, and indulged in that 
 most expensive of all luxuries, “ gentleman-farm- 
 ing.” He never stinted himself in any way, and 
 he gave away money with reckless generosity and 
 heedless profusion, often not stopping to inquire 
 who the recipient of his bounty might be. The 
 result was debt ; then subscriptions among his 
 fx-iends to pay his debts ; then a fresh start and 
 more debts, and moi'e subscriptions and funds for 
 his benefit, and gifts of moixey for his table, and 
 checks or notes for several thousand dollai’s in 
 token of admiration of the 7th of March speech. 1 
 
 1 The story of the gift of ten thousand dollars in token of ad- 
 miration of the 7th of March speech, referred to by Dr. Von 
 Holst (Const. Hist, of the United States) may be found in a vol- 
 ume entitled, In Memoriam, B. Ogle Tayloe, p. 109, and is as fol- 
 lows : “My opulent and munificent friend and neighbor Mr. Wil- 
 liam W. Corcoran,” says Mr. Tayloe, “ after the perusal of Web- 
 ster’s celebrated March speech in defence of the Constitution and 
 of Southern rights, inclosed to Mrs. Webster her husband’s note 
 for ten thousand dollars given him for a loan to that amount. 
 Mr. Webster met Mr. Corcoran the same evening, at the Presi- 
 dent’s, and thanked him for the ‘ princely favor.’ Next day he 
 addressed to Mr. Corcoran a letter of thanks which I read at Mr. 
 Corcoran’s request.” This version is substantially correct. The 
 morning of March 8 Mr. Corcoran inclosed with a letter of con- 
 gratulation some notes of Mr. Webster’s amounting to some six 
 
358 
 
 DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 This was, of course, utterly wrong and demoral- 
 izing, but Mr. Webster came, after a time, to look 
 upon such transactions as natural and proper. In 
 the Ingersoll debate, Mr. Yancey accused him of 
 being in the pay of the New England manufactur- 
 ers, and his biographer has replied to the charge 
 at length. That Mr. Webster was in the pay of 
 the manufacturers in the sense that they hired 
 him, and bade him do certain things, is absurd. 
 That he was maintained and supported in a large 
 degree by New England manufacturers and capi- 
 talists cannot be questioned ; but his attitude to- 
 ward them was not that of servant and dependent. 
 
 thousand dollars. Reflecting that this was not a very solid trib- 
 ute, he opened his letter and put in a check for a thousand dol- 
 lars, and sent the notes and the check to Mr. Webster, who wrote 
 him a letter expressing his gratitude, which Mr. Tayloe doubtless 
 saw, and which is still in existence. I give the facts in this way 
 because Mr. George T. Curtis, in a newspaper interview, referring 
 to an article of mine in the Atlantic Monthly , said, “ With regard 
 to the story of the ten thousand dollar check, which story Mr. 
 Lodge gives us to understand he found in the pages of that very 
 credulous writer Dr. Von Holst, although I have not looked into 
 his volumes to see whether he makes the charge, I have only to 
 say that I never heard of such an occurrence before, and that it 
 would require the oath of a very credible witness to the fact to 
 make me believe it.” I may add that I have taken the trouble 
 not only to look into Dr. Von Holst’s volumes but to examine the 
 whole matter thoroughly. The proof is absolute and indeed it is 
 pot necessary to go beyond Mr. Webster’s own letter of acknowl- 
 edgment in search of evidence, were there the slightest reason to 
 doubt the substantial correctness of Mr. Tayloe’s statement. The 
 point is a small one, but a statement of fact, if questioned, ought 
 always to be sustained or withdrawn. 
 
THE LAST YEARS. 
 
 859 
 
 He seems to have regarded the merchants and 
 bankers of State Street very much as a feudal 
 baron regarded his peasantry. It was their privi- 
 lege and duty to support him, and he repaid them 
 with an occasional magnificent compliment. The 
 result was that he lived in debt and died insolvent, 
 and this was not the position which such a man as 
 Daniel Webster should have occupied. 
 
 He showed the same indifference to the source 
 of supplies of money in other ways. He took a 
 fee from Wheelock, and then deserted him. He 
 came down to Salem to prosecute a murderer, and 
 the opposing counsel objected that he was brought 
 there to hurry the jury beyond the law and the 
 evidence, and it was even murmured audibly in 
 the court-room that he had a fee from the rela- 
 tives of the murdered man in his pocket. A fee 
 of that sort he certainly received either then or 
 afterwards. Every ugly public attack that was 
 made upon him related to money, and it is pain- 
 ful that the biographer of such a man as Webster 
 should be compelled to give many pages to show 
 that his hero was not in the pay of manufactur- 
 ers, and did not receive a bribe in carrying out the 
 provisions of the treaty of Guadaloupe-Hidalgo. 
 The refutation may be perfectly successful, but 
 there ought to have been no need of it. The rep- 
 utation of a man like Mr. Webster in money mat- 
 ters should have been so far above suspicion that 
 no one would have dreamed of attacking it. Debts 
 
360 
 
 DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 and subscriptions bred the idea that there might 
 be worse behind, and although there is no reason 
 to believe that such was the case, these things are 
 of themselves deplorable enough. 
 
 When Mr. Webster failed it was a moral fail- 
 ure. His moral character was not equal to his 
 intellectual force. All the errors he ever com- 
 mitted, whether in public or in private life, in 
 political action or in regard to money obligations, 
 came from moral weakness. He was deficient in 
 that intensity of conviction which carries men be- 
 yond and above all triumphs of statesmanship, and 
 makes them the embodiment of the great moral 
 forces which move the world. If Mr. Webster’s 
 moral power had equalled his intellectual great- 
 ness, he would have had no rival in our history. 
 But this combination and balance are so rare that 
 they are hardly to be found in perfection among 
 the sons of men. The very fact of his greatness 
 made bis failings all the more dangerous and un- 
 fortunate. To be blinded by the splendor of his 
 fame and the lustre of his achievements and prate 
 about the sin of belittling a great man is the falsest 
 philosophy and the meanest cant. The only thing 
 worth having, in history as in life, is truth ; and 
 we do wrong to our past, to ourselves, and to our 
 posterity if we do not strive to render simple 
 justice always. We can forgive the errors and 
 sorrow for the faults of our great ones gone ; we 
 cannot afford to hide or forget their shortcomings. 
 
THE LAST YEARS. 
 
 361 
 
 But after all has been said, the question of most 
 interest is, what Mr. Webster represented, what he 
 effected, and what he means in our history. The 
 answer is simple. He stands to-day as the pre- 
 eminent champion and exponent of nationality. 
 He said once, “ there are no Alleghanies in my 
 politics,” and he spoke the exact truth. Mr. 
 Webster was thoroughly national. There is no 
 taint of sectionalism or narrow local prejudice 
 about him. He towers up as an American, a 
 citizen of the United States in the fullest sense 
 of the word. He did not invent the Union, or dis- 
 cover the doctrine of nationality. But he found 
 the great fact and the great principle ready to his 
 hand, and he lifted them up, and preached the 
 gospel of nationality throughout the length and 
 breadth of the land. In his fidelity to this cause 
 he never wavered nor faltered. From the first 
 burst of boyish oratory to the sleepless nights at 
 Marshfield, when, waiting for death, he looked 
 through the window at the light which showed 
 him the national flag fluttering from its staff, his 
 first thought was of a united country. To his 
 large nature the Union appealed powerfully by the 
 mere sense of magnitude which it conveyed. The 
 vision of future empire, the dream of the destiny 
 of an unbroken union touched and kindled his im- 
 agination. He could hardly speak in public with- 
 out an allusion to the grandeur of American na- 
 tionality, and a fervent appeal to keep it sacred 
 
362 
 
 DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 and intact. For fifty years, with reiteration ever 
 more frequent, sometimes with rich elaboration, 
 sometimes with brief and simple allusion, he 
 poured this message into the ears of a listening 
 people. His words passed into text-hooks, and be- 
 came the first declamations of school-boys. They 
 were in every one’s mouth. They sank into the 
 hearts of the people, and became unconsciously a 
 part of their life and daily thoughts. When the 
 hour came, it was love for the Union and the 
 sentiment of nationality which nerved the arm of 
 the North, and sustained her courage. That love 
 had been fostered, and that sentiment had been 
 strengthened and vivified by the life and words of 
 Webster. No one had done so much, or had so 
 large a share in this momentous task. Here lies 
 the debt which the American people owe to Web- 
 ster, and here is his meaning and importance in 
 his own time and to us to-day. His career, his in- 
 tellect, and bis achievements are inseparably con- 
 nected with the maintenance of a great empire, 
 and the fortunes of a great people. So long as 
 English oratory is read or studied, so long will his 
 speeches stand high in literature. So long as the 
 Union of these States endures, or holds a place in 
 history, will the name of Daniel Webster be 
 honored and remembered, and his stately elo- 
 quence find an echo in the hearts of his country- 
 men. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 Aberdeen, Lord, succeeds Lord Pal- 
 merston as Secretary for Foreign 
 Affair s, 252 ; oilers forty-ninth par- 
 allel, in accordance with Mr. Web- 
 ster’s suggestion, 266. 
 
 Adams, John, in Massachusetts Con- 
 vention, 111 ; letter to Webster on 
 Plymouth oration, 123 ; eulogy on, 
 125 ; supposed speech of. 126. 
 
 Adams, John Quincy, most conspicu- 
 ous man in New England, 129 ; op- 
 posed to Greek mission, 135 ; opin- 
 ion of Webster’s speech against tar- 
 iff of 1824, 136 ; elected President, 
 137, 149; anxious for success of 
 Panama mission, 140 ; message on 
 Georgia and Creek Indians, 142; 
 Webster’s opposition to, 145 ; bit- 
 ter tone toward Webster in Ed- 
 wards’s affair, 147 ; interview with 
 Webster, 148, 149 ; conciliates Web- 
 ster, 149 ; real hostility to Web- 
 ster, 150 ; defeated for presidency, 
 151 ; comment on eulogy on 
 Adams and Jefferson, 153 ; com- 
 pared with Webster as an ora- 
 tor, 201 ; opinion of reply to Hayne, 
 206 ; opinion of Mr. Webster’s 
 attitude toward the South in 1838, 
 285. 
 
 Ames, Fisher, compared with Webster 
 as an orator, 201. 
 
 Appleton, Julia Webster, daughter of 
 Mr. Webster, death of, 271. 
 
 Ashburton, Lord, appointed special 
 commissioner, 251 ; arrives in Wash- 
 ington, 253 ; negotiation with Mr. 
 Webster, 255 ff. ; attacked by Lord 
 Palmerston, 259. 
 
 Ashmun, George, defends Mr. Web- 
 ster, 269. 
 
 Atkinson, Edward, summary of Mr. 
 Webster’s tariff speech of 1824, 163- 
 165. 
 
 Bacourt, M. de, French Minister, de- 
 
 scription of Harrison’s reception of 
 diplomatic corps, 245. 
 
 Baltimore, Whig Convention at, 338. 
 
 Bank of the United States, debate on 
 establishment, and defeat of, in 
 1814-15, 62 ; established, 66 ; be- 
 ginning of attack on, 208. 
 
 Bartlett, Ichabod, counsel for State 
 against College, 79; attack on Mr. 
 Webster, 80. 
 
 Bell, Samuel, remarks to Webster be- 
 fore reply to Hayne, 178. 
 
 Bellamy, Dr., early opponent of Elea- 
 zer Wheelock, 75. 
 
 Benton, Thomas H., account of Mr. 
 Webster in 1S33, 219, 220 ; error in 
 view of Webster, 221 ; fails in first 
 attempt to carry expunging resolu- 
 tion, 232 ; carries second expunging 
 resolution, 234 ; attacks Ashburton 
 treaty, 257 ; supports Taylor’s policy 
 in 1850, 312. 
 
 Bocanegra, M. de, Webster’s corre- 
 spondence with, 260. 
 
 “ Boston Memorial,” 275. 
 
 Bosworth, Mi., junior counsel in 
 Rhode Island case, 105. 
 
 Brown, Rev. Francis, elected presi- 
 dent of Dartmouth College, 78 ; re- 
 fuses to obey new board of trustees, 
 79 ; writes to Webster as to state of 
 public opinion, 94. 
 
 Buchanan, James, taunts Mx. Clay, 
 251 ; attacks Ashburton treaty, 257. 
 
 Bulwer, Sir Henry, respect for Mr . 
 Webster, 336. 
 
 Burke, Edmund, Webster compared 
 with as an orator, 199, 202, 203. 
 
 Calhoun, John C., speech in favor of 
 repealing embargo, 53 ; sustains 
 double duties, 55, 157 ; asks Web- 
 ster’s assistance to establish a bank, 
 63 ; introduces bill to compel reve- 
 nue to be collected in specie, 66; 
 internal improvement bill of, 68; 
 
364 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 visit to Webster, who regards him as 
 his choice for President, 130-145 ; 
 misleads Webster as to Greek mis- 
 sion, 135 ; author of exposition and 
 protest, 171 ; presides over debate 
 on Foote’s resolution, 172 ; com- 
 pared with Webster as an orator, 
 201 ; resigns vice-presidency and re- 
 turns as Senator to support nullifi- 
 cation, 212 ; alarmed at Jackson’s 
 attitude and at Force Bill, 214 ; con- 
 sults Clay, 215 ; nullification speech 
 on Force Bill, 215 ; merits of speech, 
 216; supports compromise, 219 ; al- 
 liance with Clay, 222 ; and Webster, 
 226 ; attitude in regard to France, 
 230 ; change on bank question, 236 ; 
 accepts secretaryship of state to 
 bring about annexation of Texas, 263; 
 moves that anti-slavery petitions be 
 not received, 1836, 281 ; bill to con- 
 trol United States mails, 282 ; tries 
 to stifle petitions, 284 ; resolutions 
 on Enterprise affair, 286 ; approves 
 Webster’s treatment of Creole case, 
 287 ; pronounces anti-slavery peti 
 tion of New Mexico “ insolent,” 298 ; 
 argument as to Constitution in ter- 
 ritories, 298 ; Webster’s compli- 
 ments to on 7th of March, 326. 
 
 California, desires admission as a state, 
 299 ; slavery possible in, 319. 
 
 Carlyle, Thomas, description of Web- 
 ster, 194. 
 
 Caroline, affair of steamboat, 247. 
 
 Cass, Lewis, attack upon Ashburton 
 treaty ; 259 ; Democratic candidate 
 for presidency and defeated, 274. 
 
 Chamberlain, Mellen, comparison of 
 Webster with other orators, 203, 
 note. 
 
 Chatham, Earl of, compared with 
 Webster as an orator, 201. 
 
 Choate, Rufus, compared with Web- 
 ster as an orator, 202 ; resigns sena- 
 torsliip, 262 ; leads Webster dele- 
 gates at Baltimore, 338. 
 
 Clay, Henry, makes Mr. Webster chair- 
 man of Judiciary Committee, 131 ; 
 active support of Greek resolutions, 
 134 ; author of American system and 
 tariff of 1824, 136, 163; desires Pan- 
 ama mission, 140 ; Webster’s op- 
 position to, 145 ; candidate for 
 presidency in 1832, 207 ; bill for re- 
 duction of tariff, 1831-32, 211 ; con- 
 sults with Calhoun, 215 ; introduces 
 Compromise bill, 215 ; carries Com- 
 promise bill, 218, 219 ; alliance with 
 Calhoun, 222 ; opinion of Webster’s 
 course in 1833, 222, 223 ; alliance 
 with Webster, 226 ; introduces reso- 
 
 lutions of censure on Jackson, 228; 
 attitude in regard to France, 230 ; 
 declines to enter Harrison’s cabinet, 
 240 ; attacks President Tyler, 250, 
 251 ; movement in favor of, in Mas- 
 sachusetts, 258 ; nominated for 
 presidency and defeated, 262 ; move- 
 ment to nominate in 1848, 273 ; reso- 
 lutions as to slavery in the District, 
 284 ; plan for compromise in 1850, 
 300 ; introduces Compromise bill in 
 Senate, 301 ; policy of compromise, 
 309, 310 ; consistent supporter of 
 compromise policy, 315 ; not a can- 
 didate for presidency in 1852, 337 ; 
 popularity of, 355. 
 
 Clingman, Thomas L., advocates slav- 
 ery in California, 320. 
 
 Congregational Church, power and 
 politics of, in New Hampshire, 76. 
 
 Congress, leaders in thirteenth, 49 ; 
 leaders in fourteenth, 64. 
 
 Cooper, James Fenimore, Webster’s 
 speech at memorial meeting, 195. 
 
 Corcoran, Wm. W., gift to Mr. Web- 
 ster, 357, note. 
 
 Crawford, William H., attack on by 
 Ninian Edwards, 136, 146, 147 ; bids 
 for support of Webster and Federal- 
 ists, 146 ; defended by Webster, 147 ; 
 fails to get support of Federalists, 
 148. 
 
 Creole, case of the, 253, 255, 287. 
 
 Crimes Act, 138. 
 
 Crittenden, John J., Morehead’s letter 
 to, about 7tli of March speech, 326. 
 
 Cruising Convention, the, 255, 259. 
 
 Cumberland Road, bill for, 137. 
 
 Curtis, George T., biography of Web- 
 ster, 1 , note ; opinion of reply to Cal- 
 houn, 216 ; of expunging resolution, 
 234 ; describes New York movement 
 for Taylor as a blunder, 273 ; says 
 majority disapproved 7th of March 
 speech, 303; considers Taylor’s pol- 
 icy in 1850 impracticable, 311 ; views 
 as to danger of secession in 1850, 
 314. 
 
 Cushing, Caleb, Minister to China, 
 260 ; course in 1838, 285. 
 
 Dartmouth College case, account of, 
 74-97. 
 
 Davis, Daniel, 30. 
 
 Denison, John Evelyn, friendship and 
 correspondence with Mr. Webster, 
 152. 
 
 Dexter, Samuel, a leader at Boston 
 bar, 30 ; practises in New Hamp- 
 shire, 36. 
 
 Dickinson, Daniel S., attack upon Mr. 
 Webster, 268. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 365 
 
 Disraeli, Benjamin, free trade a ques- 
 tion of expediency, 169. 
 
 Douglas. Stephen A., offers amend- 
 ment to Oregon bill, 294. 
 
 Dunham, Josiah, attacks Webster for 
 deserting Wlieelock, 77. 
 
 Durfree, American citizen killed on 
 Caroline, 247. 
 
 Duvall, Judge, opposed to Dartmouth 
 College, S7 ; writes dissenting opin- 
 ion, 98. 
 
 Edwards, Ninian, charges against Mr. 
 Crawford, 136, 146, 147 ; character 
 of, 146, 147. 
 
 Enterprise, case of the, 2S6. 
 
 Erskine, Lord, compared with Web- 
 ster as an orator, 202. 
 
 Everett, Edward, Webster desires ap- 
 pointment of as Commissioner to 
 Greece, 135 ; Minister to England, 
 252 ; refuses Chinese mission, 260. 
 
 Farrar, Timothy, report of Dart- 
 mouth College case, 81, S6. 
 
 Federalists, ruling party in New 
 Hampshire, 76 ; defeated on col- 
 lege issue, 78 ; movement of to get 
 decision for college, 92-94; posi- 
 tion of in 1823, 130, 131 ; hostility 
 to John Quincy Adams, 145, 146 ; 
 attempted alliance with Crawford, 
 146-148 ; to be recognized by Adams, 
 149 ; free-traders in New England, 
 155 ff. 
 
 Fillmore, Millard, offers Mr. Webster 
 secretaryship of state, 333 ; candi- 
 date for Whig nomination, 33S ; 
 urges Mr. Webster to stay in the 
 cabinet, 344. 
 
 Foote, Henry S., moves to refer ad- 
 mission of California to a select 
 committee, 301. 
 
 Foote, Samuel A., resolution regard- 
 ing public lands, 172. 
 
 Force Bill, introduced, 214 ; debated, 
 215, 216. 
 
 Forsyth, John, attacks Mr. Adams’s 
 message on Creek Indians, 142 : an- 
 swered by Webster, 142, 143. 
 
 Fox, Charles James, “no good speech 
 reads well,” 189; compared with 
 Webster as an orator, 202 ; as a 
 statesman, 350. 
 
 Fox, Henry S., British minister at 
 Harrison’s reception of diplomatic 
 corps, 245 ; demands release of 
 McLeod, 248. 
 
 Free-Soil party, nominations in 1S48 
 do not obtain Webster’s support, 
 274, 296 ; attitude in regard to 
 slavery in 1850, 316 ; injured by 7th 
 
 of March speech, 324; revival and 
 victory, 325. 
 
 Fryeburg, Maine, Webster’s school at, 
 26 ; oration before citizens of, 27. 
 
 Gibbons vs. Ogden, case of, 99. 
 
 Giddings, Joshua R., opinion of Mr. 
 Webster’s attitude toward the South 
 in 1S38, 286 ; says Mr. Webster in- 
 serted passage about free negroes 
 and Mr. Hoar after delivery of 7fch 
 of March speech, 303 ; interview 
 with Mr. Webster, 322. 
 
 Girard will case, 101, 261. 
 
 Goodrich, Dr. Chauncey A., descrip- 
 tion of close of Mr. Webster’s ar- 
 gument in Dartmouth case, 89, 90. 
 
 Goodridge, Major, case of, 198. 
 
 Gore, Christopher, admits Mr. Web- 
 ster as a student in his office, 28 ; 
 character of, 29 ; advises Webster 
 to refuse clerkship, moves his ad- 
 mission to the bar, 31. 
 
 Greece, revolution in, 132. 
 
 Hamilton, Alexander, compared with 
 Webster as an orator, 201 ; as a finan- 
 cier, 20S, 226, 228 ; in regard to at- 
 tack on Adams, 274 ; Webster’s opin- 
 ion of, and feeling to, 349. 
 
 Hanover, oration before citizens of, 
 
 20 22 . 
 
 Harrison, William Henry, nominee of 
 Whigs in 1836, 225 : nominated by 
 Whigs again in 1839 ; elected Pres- 
 ident, 240; character of inaugural 
 speech, anecdote, 244 ; reception 
 of diplomatic corps, 245 ; death of, 
 250. 
 
 Hartford Convention, Mr. Webster’s 
 view of, 58. 
 
 Harvey, Peter, character of his rem- 
 iniscences, 95, note. 
 
 Hayne, Robert Y., first attack on 
 New England, 172 ; second speech, 
 173 ; Webster’s reply to, 174 ff., 279 ; 
 effect of reply to, 206. 
 
 Henry, Patrick, compared with Web- 
 I ster as an orator, 200. 
 
 Hoar, Samuel, treatment of at Charles- 
 ton, 302. 
 
 Holmes, John, counsel for State at 
 Washington, poor argument, S4, 91. 
 
 Hopkinson, Joseph, with Mr. Webster 
 in Dartmouth case at Washington, 
 good argument of, S4. 
 
 Hulsemann, Mr., Austrian Charge, Mr. 
 W ebster ’s correspondence with, 334 ; 
 j leaves the country in anger, 335. 
 
 Ingersoll, C. J., attack on Mr. Web- 
 ter, 267-270. 
 
366 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Jackson, Andrew, Webster’s opposition 
 to as candidate for presidency, 145 ; 
 accession to the presidency, 171 ; 
 sweeping removals, 172 ; begins at- 
 tack on bank, 208 ; vetoes bill for 
 renewal of bank charter, 209 ; de- 
 termined to maintain integrity of 
 Union, 212 ; issues his proclamation, 
 213 ; message asking for Force Bill, 
 cannot hold his party, supported by 
 Webster, 214; threatens to hang 
 Calhoun, 215; not sorry for com- 
 promise, 219 ; alliance with Web- 
 ster impossible, 221 ; removes the 
 deposits, 22G ; sends “Protest” to 
 Senate, 228, 229 ; struggle with Sen- 
 ate and policy toward France, 230. 
 
 Jefferson, Thomas, intends an unlim- 
 ited embargo, 45 ; eulogy on, 125. 
 
 Johnson, Judge, adverse at first to 
 Dartmouth college, 87 ; converted 
 to support of college, 93. 
 
 Kent, James, Chancellor, brought 
 over to support of college, 93. 
 
 Kentucky, leaders in, opposed to Web- 
 ster, 224, 225. 
 
 Kossuth, arrival and reception of in 
 United States, 335. 
 
 Laboucherk, Mr., 152. 
 
 Lawrence, Abbot, treatment of by 
 Mr. Webster, 354. 
 
 Leroy, Caroline, Miss, second wife of 
 Mr. Webster, 205. 
 
 Letcher, Robert P., opinion of Web- 
 ster, 225. 
 
 Liberty party, 2G2, 287. 
 
 Lieber, Dr. Francis, opinion of Web- 
 ster’s oratory, 187. 
 
 Lincoln, Levi, elected senator from 
 Massachusetts and declines, 144. 
 
 Livingston, Judge, adverse at first to 
 Dartmouth college, 87 ; converted 
 to support of college, 93. 
 
 Lobos Islands, affair of the, 336. 
 
 Lopez, invasion of Cuba, 336. 
 
 Madison, James, Federalists refuse to 
 call on, GO : vetoes Bank Bill, 64 ; 
 Mr. Webster’s admiration for, 349. 
 
 Macgregor, Mr., of Glasgow, Webster’s 
 letter to, 266. 
 
 Maine, conduct in regard to north- 
 eastern boundary, 248, 254, 256. 
 
 Marshall, John, sympathy for Dart- 
 mouth College, 87 ; his political 
 prejudices aroused by Webster, 88 ; 
 announces that decision is reserved, 
 92 ; declines to hear Pinkney, 95 ; 
 his decision, 96. 
 
 Marshfield, Mr. Webster’s first visit 
 
 to, 152 ; his affection for, 261 ; ac* 
 cident to Mr. Webster at, 343 ; Mr. 
 Webster returns to, to die, 344 ; Mr. 
 Webster buried at, 345, 346. 
 
 Mason, Jeremiah, character and abil- 
 ity, 38 ; effect upon, and friendship 
 for Webster, 39 ; plain style and ef- 
 fect with juries, 40 ; thinks Webster 
 would have made a good actor, 42 ; 
 allied with trustees of college, 76 ; 
 advises delay in removal of Whee- 
 lock, 78 ; appears for college, 79 ; 
 brief in college case, 80 ; attaches 
 but little importance to doctrine of 
 impairing contracts, 81 ; unable to 
 go to Washington, 84 : Webster’s 
 remarks on death of, 127 ; supported 
 by Webster for attorney-generalship, 
 148 ; and for senatorsliip, 150. 
 
 Mason, John Y., advocates slavery in 
 California, 320 ; Webster’s compli- 
 ment to on 7th of March, 326- 
 
 Massachusetts, settlement of, 1, 2 ; 
 constitutional convention of in 1820, 
 110 ; Webster’s defence of, 185 ; con- 
 duct in regard to northeastern 
 boundary, 248, 254 ; Whig conven- 
 tion of, declares against Tyler, 258. 
 
 McDuffie, George, Webster’s reply to, 
 on Cumberland Road Bill, 137, 173. 
 
 McLane, Louis, instructions of Van 
 Buren to, as minister to England, 
 210. 
 
 McLeod, Alexander, boasts of killing 
 Durfree, 247 ; arrested in New York, 
 247 ; habeas corpus refused, 249 ; 
 proves an alibi and is acquitted, 252. 
 
 Melbourne, Lord, ministry of, beaten, 
 252. 
 
 Mexico, war with, declared, 270, 290. 
 
 Mills, E. H., failing health, leaves 
 Senate, 144. 
 
 Monroe, James, visit to the North 
 urged by Webster, 129. 
 
 New Hampshire, settlement of, 2 ; soil, 
 etc., 3 ; people of, 4 ; bar of. 35, 36 ; 
 Webster refuses to have his name 
 brought forward by, in 1844, 262. 
 
 New Mexico, petitions against slavery, 
 298 ; quarrel with Texas, 299 ; slav- 
 ery possible in, 319. 
 
 New Orleans, destruction of Spanish 
 consulate at, 330. 
 
 New York, attitude of, in McLeod af- 
 fair, 248, 249. 
 
 Niagara, Webster’s visit to, and ac- 
 count of, 152. 
 
 Niblo’s Garden, Mr. Webster’s speech 
 at, 238. 
 
 Nicaragua, British protectorate oij 
 336. 
 
INDEX. 367 
 
 Niles, Nathaniel, Judge, pupil of Bel- 
 lamy and opponent of John Wliee- 
 lock, 75. 
 
 Noyes, Parker, early assistance to 
 Webster, 107. 
 
 Nullification, Webster’s discussion and 
 history of, 174 ff. 
 
 Ogden vs . Saunders, case of, 100. 
 
 Oregon, boundary of, Webster’s effort 
 to settle, 260-2(34; Webster’s opin- 
 ion in regard to boundary of, 265 ; 
 claims of British and of Democracy, 
 265 ; territorial organization of, 294. 
 
 Otis, Harrison Gray, a leader at Bos- 
 ton bar, 30. 
 
 Palmerston, Lord, hostile to the 
 United States, 248 ; assails Ashbur- 
 ton treaty and Lord Ashburton, 259. 
 
 Panama Congress, debate on mission 
 to, 140, 279. 
 
 Parker, Isaac, Chief Justice, in Massa- 
 chusetts convention, 111. 
 
 Parsons, Theophilus, Chief Justice of 
 Massachusetts, 30 ; practice in New 
 Hampshire, 36 ; argument as to vis- 
 itatorial powers at Harvard College, 
 81. 
 
 Parton, James, description of Webster 
 at public dinner, 195. 
 
 Peake, Thomas, “ Law of Evidence,” 
 Webster’s attack on, 37. 
 
 Peel, Sir Robert, effect of his obtain- 
 ing office in 1841, 252. 
 
 Pickering, Timothy, unwavering Fed- 
 eralist, 50. 
 
 Pinkney, William, member of four- 
 teenth Congress, 64 ; counsel of State 
 in Dartmouth case, 94, 95 ; anecdote 
 of, with Webster, 95, note. 
 
 Plumer, William, leading lawyer in 
 New Hampshire and early opponent 
 of Webster ; opinion of Webster, 
 36 ; refutes Mr. Webster’s attack on 
 “Peake,” 37 ; in ill health and un- 
 able to act for Wheelock, 76 ; elected 
 Governor and attacks trustees, 78. 
 
 Plymouth, oration at, 117-124, 277. 
 
 Polk, James K., elected President; 
 committed to annexation policy, 263; 
 principal events of his administra- 
 tion connected with slavery, 264 ; 
 declarations as to Oregon, 265 ; ac- 
 cepts Lord Aberdeen’s offer of 
 forty-ninth parallel, 266 ; real inten- 
 tions as to Mexico and England, 267 ; 
 refuses information as to secret ser- 
 vice fund, 269 ; brings on Mexican ' 
 war, 270, 290 ; policy as to slavery 
 in territories, 297. 
 
 Portugal, treaty with, 260. 
 
 Prescott, James, J dge, Webster’s de- 
 fence of, 197. 
 
 Randolph, John, member of fourteenth 
 Congress, 64 ; challenges Webster, 
 67 ; takes part in debate on Greek 
 resolution, 134. 
 
 Rhode Island, case of, 104, 105 ; troub- 
 les in, 260. 
 
 “ Rockingham Memorial,” 48. 
 “Rogers’ Rangers,” 5. 
 
 Root, Mr., of Ohio, resolution against 
 extension of slavery in 1850, 314. 
 
 Scott, Winfield, nominated for presi- 
 dency, 338-343. 
 
 Seaton, Mrs., Webster at house of, 244. 
 Seward, William H , advises Taylor 
 as to policy in 1850, 312. 
 
 Sheridan, R. B., compared with Web- 
 ster as an orator, 201, 202. 
 
 Shirley, John M., history of Dart. 
 
 mouth College causes, 74. 
 
 Silliman, Prof. Benj., Mr. Webster’s 
 remark to on his own career, 346. 
 Smith, Jeremiah, Chief Justice of New 
 Hampshire, 36 ; allied with trustees 
 of the college, 76 ; appears for col- 
 lege, 79, 80 ; unable to go to Wash- 
 ington, 84. 
 
 Smith, Sidney, remark on Webster’s 
 appearance, 134. 
 
 Spanish claims, 152. 
 
 Sparks, Jared, obtains appointment of 
 boundary commissioners by Maine, 
 254. 
 
 “ Specie Circular,” debate on, 233, 234. 
 South Carolina, agitation in against 
 the tariff in 1828, 171 ; ordinance of 
 nullification, 212 ; substantial vic- 
 tory of, in 1833, 219. 
 
 Stanley, Mr., Earl of Derby, 152. 
 Stevenson, Andrew, minister to Eng- 
 land, unconciliatory, 248 ; retires, 
 and is succeeded by Mr. Everett, 252. 
 Story, Joseph, chosen trustee of Dart- 
 mouth College the State, 79 ; ad- 
 verse to Dartmouth College, 87 ; con- 
 verted to support of college, 93 ; 
 writes opinion in Dartmouth case, 
 96 ; opinion of Girard will case ar- 
 gument, 102 ; Webster’s obligations 
 to, 108 ; a member of Massachusetts 
 convention, 111 ; supports property 
 qualification for the Senate, 115; 
 opinion of Webster’s work in the con- 
 vention, 116, 117 ; Webster’s remarks 
 on death of, 127 ; assists Webster in 
 preparing Crimes Act, 138 ; and Ju- 
 diciary Bill, 139 ; description of Mr. 
 Webster after his wife’s death, 155 ; 
 assists Webster in Ashburton nego- 
 
368 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 tiation, 256 ; treatment of, by Web- 
 ster, 354. 
 
 Sullivan, George, leading lawyer in 
 New Hampshire, 36; counsel for 
 Woodward and State trustees, able 
 argument, 79. 
 
 Sullivan, James, 30. 
 
 Taney, Roger, removes the deposits, 
 226. 
 
 Tayloe, B. Ogle, anecdote of Mr. Cor- 
 coran’s gift to Webster, 357. 
 
 Taylor, Zachary, tempting candidate 
 for Whigs, 272 ; movement for, in 
 New York, 273 ; nominated for pres- 
 idency, 273 ; elected President, 274 ; 
 elected by Southern votes, 296 ; ad- 
 vises admission of California, 301 ; 
 attitude and policy in 1850, 311, 
 312 ; death, 333 ; agent sent to Hun- 
 gary by, 333. 
 
 Tazewell, L. W., Mr. Webster’s reply 
 to on Process Bill, 155. 
 
 Tehauntepec, Isthmus of, right of way 
 over, 336. 
 
 Texas, independence of, achieved, 
 232 ; annexation of, 263, 289 ; Mr. 
 Webster’s warning against annexa- 
 tion, 288 ; admission as a State, 290 ; 
 plan to divide, 294 ; troubles with 
 New Mexico, 299. 
 
 Thompson, Thomas W., Webster a 
 student in his office, 27. 
 
 Ticknor, George, account of Plymouth 
 oration, 118, 119 ; impression of 
 Plymouth oration, 120 ; description 
 of Webster at Plymouth, 122 ; ac- 
 count of Webster’s appearance in 
 eulogy on Adams and Jefferson, 152, 
 153. 
 
 Todd, Judge, opposed to Dartmouth 
 College, 87 ; absent at decision, 96. 
 
 Tyler, John, succeeds to presidency on 
 death of Harrison ; vetoes Bank Bill, 
 250 ; quarrels with Whigs, 251 ; read 
 out of party by Massachusetts Whigs, 
 258. 
 
 Van Buren, Martin, instructions to 
 McLane, 210 ; confirmation as min- 
 ister to England, opposed, 210 ; con- 
 firmation of, defeated, 211 ; elected 
 President, character of his admin- 
 istration, 236 ; defeated for a second 
 term, 240 ; candidate of Free-Soil 
 party in 1848, 274, 296. 
 
 Washington, Bushrod, Judge, friendly 
 to college, 87 ; opinion in favor of 
 college, 96. 
 
 Washington, city of, appearance of, 
 and society in, in 1841, 241-243. 
 
 Washington, George, opinion of Eben- 
 ezer Webster, 7 ; oration upon, 127. 
 
 Webster, Abigail Eastman, second 
 wife of Ebenezer and mother of 
 Daniel, 8 ; assents to Ezekiel’s going 
 to college, 24. 
 
 Webster, Daniel. Birth, delicacy, 
 friendship with old sailor, 9 ; at the 
 district schools, 10 ; reads to the 
 teamsters, reads books in circulat- 
 ing library, 11 ; at Exeter Academy, 
 with Dr. Wood, learns that he is to 
 go to college, 12 ; enters Dartmouth 
 College, 13 ; sacrifices made to him 
 in childhood, 14 ; Ezekiel lends him 
 money, manner of accepting devo- 
 tion of those about him, 15 ; studies 
 and scholarship, 16, 17 ; opinions of 
 fellow students ; his general conduct, 
 18 ; eloquence and appearance in 
 college, 19 ; edits newspaper, writes 
 verses, 20 ; oration at Hanover, 20- 
 22 ; other orations in college, begins 
 study of law, 23 ; obtains his fath- 
 er’s consent to Ezekiel’s going to 
 college, 24 ; teaches school at Frye- 
 burg, 25 ; conduct and appearance 
 at Fryeburg, 26 ; delivers oration at 
 Fryeburg ; returns to Salisbury and 
 studies law, 27 ; goes to Boston and 
 is admitted to Mr. Gore’s office, 28 ; 
 sees leaders of Boston bar, 29 ; ap. 
 pointed clerk of his father’s court, 
 30 ; declines the office, 31 ; opens an 
 office at Boscawen ; moves to Ports- 
 mouth, 32 ; early habit of debt, 33 ; 
 first appearance in court, 34 ; early 
 manner, 37 ; described by Mason, 
 opinion of Mason’s ability, 38 ; value 
 of Mason’s example, 40 ; married to 
 Miss Grace Fletcher, at Salisbury, 
 41 ; home in Portsmouth, popular- 
 ity, mimicry, conservatism in re- 
 ligion and politics, 42 ; moderate 
 and liberal Federalist, 43 ; gradual 
 entrance into politics, “appeal to 
 old Whigs,” speeches at Salisbury 
 and Concord, pamphlet on embargo, 
 44; line of argument against embargo, 
 “The State of our Literature,” 
 speech at Portsmouth, 1812, 45 ; 
 character of opposition to war in 
 this speech, 46, 47 ; writes the 
 “ Rockingham Memorial,” 48 ; elect- 
 ed to Congress, placed on Com- 
 mittee on Foreign Relations, 49; 
 introduces resolutions on French 
 decrees , votes steadily with his 
 party, 50 ; dropped from Committee 
 on Foreign Relations, tries to ob. 
 tain debate on his resolutions, 51; 
 strong speech against Enlistment 
 
INDEX. 
 
 369 
 
 Bill, 52 ; speech on repeal of em- 
 bargo, replies to Calhoun, 54; re- 
 marks on double duties, 55 ; charac- 
 ter of these speeches, 56 ; superior- 
 ity to other speakers in Congress, 
 57 ; views as to Hartford Conven- 
 tion, 5S ; votes against war taxes, 
 59 ; partisanship, calls on Mr. Mad- 
 ison, 60 ; conversational manner in 
 debate, 61 ; takes a leading part in 
 debate on establishment of bank, 
 181-^15, 62 ; power of his argument 
 against irredeemable paper, 63 ; 
 opinion of fourteenth Congress, 64 ; 
 speech against Bank Bill in session 
 of 1815-16, 65 ; votes against Bank 
 Bill, introduces specie resolutions, 
 carries them 66 ; challenged by Ran- 
 dolph, 67 ; votes for internal improve- 
 ments, retires from public life, 68; re- 
 moval to Boston, success in Supreme 
 Court of United States, 69 ; grief at 
 the death of his daughter Grace, 70 ; 
 position on leaving Congress, 71 ; 
 reception in Boston, 72 ; impor- 
 tance of period upon which he then 
 entered, 73 ; consulted by John 
 "Wlieelock on troubles with trustees, 
 76 ; refuses to appear before legis- 
 lative committee for Wheelock, and 
 goes over to side of trustees, his ex- 
 cuse, 77 ; advises efforts to soothe 
 Democrats and circulation of ru- 
 mors of founding a new college, 78 ; 
 joins Mason and Smith in re-argu- 
 ment at Exeter, 79; anger at Bart- 
 lett’s attack, fine argument at Exe- 
 ter, 80 ; relies for success on general 
 principles, and has but little faith 
 in doctrine of impairing obligation 
 of contracts, 81, 82 ; gives but little 
 space to this doctrine in his argu- 
 ment at Washington, 83 ; raises 
 money in Boston to defray ex- 
 penses of college case, 84 ; adds 
 but little to argument of Mason 
 and Smith, 85 ; “ something left 
 out” in report of his argument, 
 86 ; dexterous argument, appeal to 
 political sympathies of Marshall, 
 87 ; depicts Democratic attack on 
 the college, 88 ; description of con- 
 cluding passage of his argument, 
 89-91 ; moves for judgment nunc 
 pro tunc , 96 ; true character of 
 success in this case, 97, 98 ; argu- 
 ment in Gibbons vs. Ogden, 99 ; in 
 Ogden vs. Saunders and other cases, 
 100 ; in Girard will case, 101, 102 ; 
 nature of his religious feeling, 103 ; 
 argument in Rhode Island case, 104 ; 
 attracts audiences even to legal ar- 
 
 24 
 
 guments, anecdote of Mr. Bos- 
 wortli, 105 ; skill in seizing vital 
 points, 106 ; capacity for using 
 others, early acknowledgment, la- 
 ter ingratitude, 107 ; refusal to ac- 
 knowledge Judge Story’s assistance, 
 108 ; comparative standing as a law- 
 yer, 109 ; leader of conservative 
 party in Massachusetts Convention, 
 111 ; speech on abolition of religious 
 test, 112 ; on property qualification 
 for the Senate, 113, 115 ; on the in- 
 dependence of the Judiciary, 116 ; 
 Plymouth oration, 117 ; manner and 
 appearance, 118 ; fitness for occa- 
 sional oratory, 120 ; great success 
 at Plymouth, 121, 122 ; improve- 
 ment in first Bunker Hill oration, 
 quality of style, 124 ; ore Mon on 
 Adams and Jefferson, 125 ; sup- 
 posed speech of John Adams, 126 ; 
 oration before Mechanics Institute, 
 other orations, 127 ; oration on lay- 
 ing corner-stone of addition to cap- 
 itol, 128 ; reelected to Congress, 
 129 ; political position in 1823, 130 ; 
 placed at head of Judiciary Com- 
 mittee, 131 ; speech on revolution 
 in Greece, 132 ; its objects and 
 purposes, 133, 134; withdraws his 
 resolutions, success of his speech, 
 135 ; speech against tariff of 1824, 
 defends Sipreme Court, 136 ; speech 
 on the Cumberland Road Bill, 137 ; 
 carries through the Crimes Act, 
 138 ; carries Judiciary Bill through 
 House, lost in Senate, 139 ; supports 
 mission to Panama Congress, 140, 
 141 ; supports reference of message 
 on Georgia and Creek Indians, 142 ; 
 tone of his speech, 143 ; elected sen- 
 ator from Massachusetts, 144 ; early 
 inclination to support Calhoun, op- 
 position to Jackson and Adams, 145 ; 
 to Clay, relations with Crawford, 146; 
 on committee to examine charges of 
 Edwards, defends Crawford, 147 ; 
 wishes Mr. Mason to be Attorney- 
 General, and English mission for 
 himself, takes but little part in 
 election, 148 ; interview with Mr. 
 Adams, 148, 149 ; friendly relations 
 with Mr. Adams, supports adminis- 
 tration, 149 ; real hostility to, feels 
 that he is not properly recognized, 
 and accepts senatorship, 150 ; inac- 
 tive in election, allied with Clay 
 and Adams, and founders of Whig 
 party, 151 ; Spanish claims, first 
 sees Marshfield, English friends, 
 Niagara, oration at Bunker Hill, 
 and eulogy on Adams and Jeffer* 
 
370 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 aon, 152, 153 ; grief on death of his 
 wife, 154 ; appearance in Washing- 
 ton after death of his wife, 155 ; 
 speech on bill for revolutionary of- 
 ficers, on tariff of 1828, 156, 165 ; 
 free-trade Federalist when he en- 
 tered Congress, 157 ; remarks in 
 1814 on protective duties, 158, 150 ; 
 advocates modifications in tariff of 
 1816, 160 ; speech at Faneuil Hall 
 against tariff in 1820, 160-163; speech 
 against tariff of 1824, 163-165 ; 
 reasons for his change of position 
 as to tariff in 1828, 166, 167 ; speech 
 at Boston dinner, 167 ; character of 
 this change of policy, and question 
 of consistency, 168 ; treats free 
 trade or protection as a question 
 of expediency, 169 ; change on the 
 constitutional question, 170 ; op- 
 poses Jackson’s removals from of- 
 fice, 172 ; first speech on Foote’s 
 resolution, 173 ; second speech, re- 
 ply to Hayne, 174 ; argument on 
 nullification, 175 ; weak places in 
 his argument, 176 ; intention in this 
 speech, definition of the Union as it 
 is, 179, 180 ; scene of the speech and 
 feeling at the North, 181 ; opening 
 sentence of the speech, 182 ; man- 
 ner and appearance on that day, 
 1S3 ; variety in the speech, 184 ; 
 sarcasm, defence of Massachusetts, 
 185 ; character of his oratory, 186, 
 187 ; of his imagination, 188 ; of his 
 style, 189 ; preparation of speeches, 
 190 ; physical appearance and at- 
 tributes, 191, 192 ; manner with and 
 effect on children, 193 ; effect of his 
 appearance in England, 194 ; anec- 
 dotes of effect produced by his look 
 and appearance, 195 ; constitutional 
 indolence, needs something to excite 
 him in later life, anecdote, 196 ; de- 
 fence of Prescott, 197 ; Goodridge 
 case, White case, greatness of argu- 
 ment in latter, 198 ; opening pas- 
 sage compared with Burke’s de- 
 scription of Hyder Ali’s invasion, 
 199 ; as a jury lawyer, 200 ; com- 
 pared in eloquence with other great 
 orators, 201, 202 ; perfect taste of as 
 an orator, 203 ; rank as an orator, 
 204 ; change made by death of Eze- 
 kiel and by second marriage, 205 ; 
 general effect on the country of re- 
 ply to Hayne, 206 ; ambition for 
 presidency begins, desires consoli- 
 dation of party, no chance for 
 nomination, 207 ; advocates re- 
 newal of bank charter, 208; over- 
 throws doctrines of bank veto, 
 
 2C9 ; opposes confirmation of Van 
 Buren as minister to England, 210 ; 
 defeats confirmation, 211 ; predicts 
 trouble from tariff, 212 ; sees proc- 
 lamation, wholly opposed to Clay’s 
 first Compromise Bill, 213; sustains 
 the administration and sup poits the 
 Force Bill, 214; reply to Calhoun, 
 “ the Constitution not a compact,” 
 216, 217 ; opposes the Ccmp remise 
 Bill, 218 ; Benton’s view of, 219, 220 ; 
 impossible t^ ally l.imself with Jack- 
 son, 221 ; jcins Clay and Calhoun, 
 222; soundness of his oppo; ition to 
 compromise, 223; falls in behind 
 Clay, tour in the West, nominated 
 by Massachusetts for presidency, 
 224 ; no chance of success, effect of 
 desire for presidency, 225 ; alliance 
 with Clay and Calhoun, opinion as to 
 the bank, 226 ; presents Boston reso- 
 lutions against President’s course, 
 227 ; speaks sixty-four times on bank 
 during session, 228; speech on the 
 “protest,” 229; attitude in regard 
 to troubles with France, 230 ; defeats 
 Fortification Bill, speech on execu- 
 tive patronage, 231 ; defeat of Ben- 
 ton’s first expunging resolution, 232 ; 
 defence of his course on Fortification 
 Bill, 233 ; speech on “Specie Circu- 
 lar ” and against expunging resolu- 
 tion, 234 ; desires to retire from the 
 Senate but is persuaded to remain, 
 235 ; efforts to mitigate panic, 236 ; 
 visits England, hears of Harrison’s 
 nomination for presidency, 237 ; en- 
 ters campaign, speech of 1837 at Nib- 
 lo’s Garden, 238 ; speeches during 
 campaign, 239; accepts secretary- 
 ship of state, 240; modifies Harri- 
 son’s inaugural, “kills proconsuls,” 
 244 ; De Bacourt’s account of, at 
 reception of diplomatic corps, 245, 
 246 ; opinion as to general conduct 
 of difficulties with England, 248 ; 
 conduct of McLeod affair, 249 ; dep- 
 recates quarrel with Tyler, 250 ; de- 
 cides to remain in the cabinet, 252 ; 
 conduct of the Creole case, 253 ; 
 management of Maine and Massa- 
 chusetts, settles boundary, 254 ; ob- 
 tains “ Cruising Convention,” and 
 extradition clause, letter on im- 
 pressment, 255 ; character of nego- 
 tiation and its success, 256 ; treaty 
 signed, “the battle of the maps,” 
 continues in cabinet, 257 ; reluses 
 to be forced from cabinet, 258 ; 
 speech in Faneuil Hall defending 
 his course, 258 ; character of this 
 speech, explains “Cruising Conven* 
 
INDEX. 
 
 371 
 
 tion,”259 ; refutes Cass, other labors 
 in State Department, 260 ; resigns 
 secretaryship of state and resumes 
 his profession, 261 ; anxiety about 
 Texas and Liberty party, supports 
 Clay, 262 ; reelected to the Senate, 
 263 ; efforts to maintain peace with 
 England, speech in Faneuil Hall, 
 265 ; letter to Macgregor suggesting 
 forty-ninth parallel, opposition to 
 war in the Senate, 266 ; attacked by 
 Ingersoll and Dickinson, 267 ; 
 speech in defence of Ashburton 
 treaty, 268; remarks on President 
 Polk’s refusal of information as to 
 secret service fund, careless in his 
 accounts, 269 ; absent when Mexi- 
 can war declared, course on war 
 measures, tour in the South, 270 ; 
 denounces acquisition of territory, 
 death of his son and daughter, visit 
 to Boston for funerals, 271 ; re- 
 fuses nomination for vice-presi- 
 dency and opposes the nomination 
 of Taylor, 272 ; has only a few votes 
 in convention of 1848, 273 ; disgusted 
 with the nomination of Taylor, de- 
 cides to support it, speech at Marsh- 
 field, 274 ; course on slavery, draws 
 Boston memorial. 275; character of 
 this memorial, 276 ; attack on slave- 
 trade in Plymouth oration, 277 ; 
 compared with tone on same sub- 
 ject in 1850, 278 ; silence as to slav- 
 ery in Panama speech, 279 ; treat- 
 ment of slavery in reply to Hayne, 
 279, 280 ; treatment of anti-slavery 
 petitions in 1836, 281 ; treatment of 
 slavery in speech at Niblo’s Garden, 
 282, 283; treatment of anti-slavery 
 petitions in 1837, 284; views as to 
 abolition in the District, 285 ; atti- 
 tude toward the South iu 1838, 286 ; 
 adopts principle of Calhoun’s En- 
 terprise resolutions in Creole case, 
 287 : attempts to arouse the North 
 as to annexation of Texas, 288 ; ob- 
 jections to admission of Texas, 280 ; 
 absent when Mexican war declared, 
 290 ; views on Wilmot Proviso, 291 ; 
 speech at Springfield, 292 ; speech 
 on objects of Mexican war, 293 ; 
 Oregon, speech on slavery in the 
 territories, 294; speech on Oregon 
 Bill, and at Marshfield on Taylor’s 
 nomination, 295 ; adheres to Whigs, 
 declares his belief in Free Soil prin- 
 ciples, 296; effort to put slavery 
 aside, 297 ; plan for dealing with 
 slavery in Mexican conquests, re- 
 futes Calhoun’s argument as to Con- 
 stitution in territories, 298 ; Clay’s 
 
 plan of compromise submitted to, 
 300; delivers 7th of March speech, 
 301 ; analysis of 7th of March speech, 
 301, 302 ; speech disapproved at the 
 North, 303 ; previous course as to 
 slavery summed up, change after re- 
 ply to Hayne, 304 ; grievances of 
 South, 305 ; treatment of Fugitive 
 Slave Law, 305-308 ; course in regard 
 to general policy of compromise ; 
 merits of that policy, 308-312 ; views 
 as to danger of secession, 313, 314 ; 
 necessity of compromise in 1850, 315 ; 
 attitude of various parties in regard 
 to slavery, 316 ; wishes to finally set- 
 tle slavery question, 317 ; treatment 
 of extension of slavery, 318 ; disre- 
 gards use of slaves in mines, 319 ; in- 
 consistent on this point, 321 ; inter- 
 views with Giddings and Free-Soil- 
 ers, 322 ; real object of speech, 323 ; 
 immediate effect of speech in pro- 
 ducing conservative reaction, 324 ; 
 compliments Southern leaders in 
 7th of March speech, 325, 326 ; efforts 
 to sustain the compromise measures, 
 bitter tone, 327 ; attacks anti-slavery 
 movement, 328, 329 ; uneasiness evi- 
 dent, 330; motives of speech, 330- 
 332 ; accepts secretaryship of state, 
 333; writes the Hiilsemann letter, 
 334 ; treatment of Kossuth and 
 Hungarian question, 335 ; of other 
 affairs of the department, 336 ; 
 hopes for nomination for presidency, 
 337 ; belief that he will be nomi- 
 nated, 338 ; loss of the nomination, 
 339 ; refuses to support Scott, 340 ; 
 character of such a course, 341-343 ; 
 declining health, accident at Marsh- 
 field, 343 ; return to Marshfield, sinks 
 steadily, 344 ; death and burial, 345 ; 
 disappointments in his later years, 
 346 ; his great success in life, 347 ; 
 his presence, 348 ; character of his 
 intellect, 348 , 349; dignity, 349; 
 character as a statesman, 350 ; sense 
 of humor, 351 ; charm in conversa- 
 tion, 352 ; large nature, love of large 
 things, 353 ; affection, generosity, 
 treatment of friends, 354 ; admired 
 but not generally popular, 355 ; dis- 
 trust of his sincerity, 355, 356 ; fail- 
 ings, indifference to debt, 356 ; ex- 
 travagance, 357 ; attacked on money 
 matters, 358 ; attitude toward New 
 England capitalists and in regard to 
 sources of money, 359 ; moral force 
 not equal to intellectual, 360 ; devo- 
 tion to Union, place in history, 361- 
 362. 
 
 Webster, Ebenezer, born in Kingston, 
 
372 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 enlists in c< Rangers,” 5 ; settles at 
 Salisbury, 6 ; marries again, serves 
 in Revolution, 7 ; physical and men- 
 tal qualities, 8 ; made a judge, 11 ; 
 resolves to educate Daniel, 12 ; con- 
 sents to let Ezekiel go to college, 
 24 ; disappointment at Daniel's re- 
 fusal of clerkship, 31 ; death, 32 ; 
 strong federalist, anecdote, 43. 
 
 Webster, Edward, Major, death of, 
 270. 
 
 Webster, Ezekiel, anecdote of his 
 lending Daniel money, 15 ; obtains 
 consent of his father to go to col- 
 lege, 24 ; teaches school in Boston, 
 28 ; admitted to bar, 32 : strong Fed- 
 eralist, 43 ; death of, 205. 
 
 Webster, Grace, daughter of Daniel 
 Webster, illness, 65 ; death, 70. 
 
 Webster, Grace Fletcher, first wife of 
 Mr. Webster ; marriage and char- 
 acter, 41, 42 ; death, 154. 
 
 Webster, Thomas, first of name, 5. 
 
 Wheelock, Eleazer, founder of Dart- 
 mouth College, 75. 
 
 Wheelock, John, succeeds his father 
 as President of Dartmouth College, 
 75 ; begins war on trustees ; con- 
 sults Mr. Webster, 76; writes to 
 Webster to appear before legisla- 
 tive committee, 77 ; removed from 
 presidency and. goes over to the 
 Democrats, 78 ; originator of the 
 doctrine of impairing obligation of 
 contracts. 81 \ fees Mr. Webster, 
 359. 
 
 Whig Party, origin of, 151 ; condition 
 in 1836, 235 ; nominate Harrison, 
 237, 238 ; carries the country in 1840, 
 240 ; anger against Tyler, 250 ; mur- 
 murs against Mr. Webster’s re- 
 maining in Tyler’s cabinet, 257 ; at- 
 tacks of, in Massachusetts, upon Ty- 
 ler, 258 ; silence about slavery and 
 Texas, are defeated in 1844, 262, 
 289 ; nominate Taylor, 273 ; indiffer- 
 ence to Mr. Webster’s warning as to 
 Texas, 288 ; attitude in regard to 
 slavery in 1850, 316 ; nomination of 
 Scott by, in 1852, 338-343. 
 
 White, Stephen, case of murder of, 
 Webster’s speech for prosecution, 
 198 if. ; Webster’s fee in, 359. 
 
 Wilmot Proviso, Mr. Webster’s views 
 on, 291-293; embodied in Oregon 
 Bill, 295 ; shall it be applied to New 
 Mexico, 299 ; attacked in 7th of 
 March speech, 301, 302. 
 
 Wirt, William, counsel for State in 
 Dartmouth case at Washington, un- 
 prepared, makes poor argument, 84, 
 91 ; anecdote of daughter of and 
 Mr. Webster, 193. 
 
 Wood, Dr., of Boscawen, Webster’s 
 tutor, 12, 13. 
 
 Woodward, William H., secretary of 
 new board of trustees ; action 
 against, 79. 
 
 Wortley, Mr. Stuart, 152. 
 
 Yancey, William L., attack on Web- 
 ster, 358. 
 
American Statesmen. 
 
 A Series of Biographies of Men famous in the 
 Political History of the United States. Edited by 
 John T. Morse, Jr. Each volume, i6mo, 
 gilt top, gi.25; half morocco, $2.50. 
 
 JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. By John T. Morse , Jr. 
 ALEXANDER HAMILTON By Henry Cabot Lodge. 
 JOHN C. CALHOUN. By Dr. H. Von Holst. 
 ANDRE W JACKSON. By W. G. Sumner. 
 
 JOHN RANDOLPH. By Henry Adams. 
 
 JAMES MONROE. By D. C. Gilman. 
 
 THOMAS JEFFERSON. By John T. Morse , Jr. 
 DANIEL WEBSTER. By Henry Cabot Lodge. 
 ALBERT GALLATIN. By John Austin Stevens. 
 JAMES MADISON. By Sydney Howard Gay. 
 JOHN ADAMS. By John T. Morse , Jr. 
 
 JOHN MARSHALL. By Allan B. Magruder. 
 SAMUEL ADAMS. By Ja?nes K. Hosmer. 
 THOMAS H. BENTON. By Theodore Roosevelt. 
 HENRY CL A Y. By Carl Schurz. 2 vols. 
 
 PATRICK HENRY. By Moses Coit Tyler. 
 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. By Theodore Roosevelt. 
 MARTIN VAN BUREN. By Edward M. Shepard. 
 GEORGE WASHINGTON. By H. C. Lodge. 2 vols. 
 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. By John T. Morse , Jr. 
 JOHN JA Y. By George Pellew. 
 
 LEWIS CASS. By Andrew C. McLaughlin. 
 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. By J. T. Morse, Jr. 2 vols. 
 Others to be announced hereafter. 
 
CRITICAL NOTICES. 
 
 JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. m”„ 
 
 be those of posterity we have very little doubt, and he has set an 
 admirable example to his coadjutors in respect of interesting 
 narrative, just proportion, and judicial candor. — New York 
 Evening Post. 
 
 tta MTT THAT The biography of Mr. Lodge is calm and 
 1 ^ ' dignified throughout. He has the virtue — 
 
 rare indeed among biographers — of impartiality. He has done 
 his work with conscientious care, and the biography of Ham- 
 ilton is a book which cannot have too many readers. It is more 
 than a biography ; it is a study in the science of government. — 
 St. Paul Pioneer Press. 
 
 /-•at JTDTTN Nothing can exceed the skill with which the 
 O i . political career of the great South Carolinian 
 is portrayed in these pages. The work is superior to any other 
 number of the series thus far, and we do not think it can be sur- 
 passed by any of those that are to come. The whole discussion 
 in relation to Calhoun’s position is eminently philosophical and 
 just. — The Dial (Chicago). 
 
 JACKSON. 
 
 Professor Sumner has ... all in all, made 
 the justest long estimate of Jackson that has 
 had itself put between the covers of a book . — New York 
 Times. 
 
 J? A ATT) n T P TT The book has been to me intensely inter- 
 K-™- 1 - u u • esting. ... It is rich in new facts and side 
 fights, and is worthy of its place in the already brilliant series 
 of monographs on American Statesmen. — Prof. Moses Coit 
 Tyler. 
 
 AID A T R O E 1 ° clearness of style, and in all points of liter- 
 
 Ul xi tx . ar y workmanship, from cover to cover, the 
 
 volume is well-nigh perfect. There are also a calmness of judg- 
 ment, a correctness of taste, and an absence of partisanship 
 which are too frequently wanting in biographies, and especially 
 in political biographies. — American Literary Churchman (Bal- 
 timore). 
 
 jfp J 7 JTJ 7 j? C/O \T The book is exceedingly interesting and 
 ■T * ‘ readable. The attention of the reader is 
 
 strongly seized at once, and he is carried along in spite of him- 
 self, sometimes protesting, sometimes doubting, yet unable to lay 
 the book down. — Chicago Standard. 
 
 Ttttq to c ye 7? T be read by students of history ; it will 
 ED S 1 EK. k e invaluable as a work of reference; it 
 will be an authority as regards matters of fact and criticism ; it 
 hits the keynote of Webster’s durable and ever-growing fame ; 
 it is adequate, calm, impartial ; it is admirable. — Philadelphia 
 Press. 
 
C A T T A TTN R ’ s one most carefully prepared of 
 
 C * • these very valuable volumes, . . . abound- 
 ing in information not so readily accessible as is that pertaining 
 to°men more often treated by the biographer. . . . The whole 
 work covers a ground which the political student cannot afford 
 to neglect. — Boston Correspondent Hartford Courant. 
 
 The execution of the work deserves the high- 
 est praise. It is very readable, in a bright 
 and vigorous style, and is marked by unity and consecutiveness 
 of plan. — The Nation (New York). 
 
 JOHN ADAMS. A § ood P iece of work ; ; • • dt 
 
 J covers the ground thoroughly, and 
 
 gives just the sort of simple and succinct account that is wanted. 
 — Evening Post (New York). 
 
 MADISON. 
 
 j>r a u fg A T T Well done, with simplicity, clearness, pre- 
 cision, and judgment, and in a spirit of 
 moderation and equity. A valuable addition to the series. — 
 New York Tribune. 
 
 SAMUEL ADAMS. 
 
 Thoroughly appreciative and sym- 
 pathetic, yet fair and critical . . . 
 This biography is a piece of good work — a clear and simple 
 presentation of a noble man and pure patriot ; it is written in a 
 spirit of candor and humanity. — Worcester Spy. 
 
 BENTON. An ' nterest ' n g addition to our political liter- 
 ature, and will be of great service if it spread 
 an admiration for that austere public morality which was one of 
 the marked characteristics of its chief figure. — The Epoch 
 (New York). 
 
 CfA Y We have in this life of Henry Clay a biography of 
 one of the most distinguished of American states- 
 men, and a political history of the United States for the first 
 half of the nineteenth century. In each of these important and 
 difficult undertakings, Mr. Schurzhas been eminently successful. 
 Indeed, it is not too much to say that, for the period covered, 
 we have no other book which equals or begins to equal this life 
 of Henry Clay as an introduction to the study of American pol- 
 itics. — Political Scie-nce Quarterly (New York). 
 
 JfpppjRY. P ro f essor Tyler has not only made one of the 
 best and most readable of American biographies ; 
 he may fairly be said to have reconstructed the life of Patrick 
 Henry, and to have vindicated the memory of that great man 
 from the unappreciative and injurious estimate which has been * 
 placed upon it. — New York Evening Post. 
 
 MO EE/S Wr. Roosevelt has produced an animated and 
 
 intensely interesting biographical volume. . . . 
 Mr. Roosevelt never loses sight of the picturesque background 
 of politics, war -governments, and diplomacy. — Magazine oj 
 American History (New York). 
 
yAN SUREN. more generous, appreciative, or just 
 
 biography, and no more interesting or 
 philosophical piece of political history has appeared in this valu- 
 able series . . . than this absorbing book. . . . To give any ad- 
 equate idea of the personal interest of the book, or its intimate 
 bearing on nearly the whole course of our political history would 
 be equivalent to quoting the larger part of it. — Brooklyn Eagle. 
 
 IVASHIN GTON ^ r - Lodge has written an admirable 
 
 biography, and one which cannot but 
 confirm the American people in the prevailing e-timate concern- 
 ing the Father of his Country; but its deepest and most impor- 
 tant significance appears to us to consist in its testimony to the 
 exaltation and the uniqueness of a character whose like comes 
 seldom to the world, and only in periods of great stress and cri- 
 sis. — A T ew York Tribune. 
 
 J7R A A T KL I A T . ^ as niana g e d to condense the whole 
 
 mass of matter gleaned from all sources 
 into his volume without losing in a single sentence the freedom 
 or lightness of his style or giving his book in any part the 
 crowded look of an epitome. He has plenty of time and plenty 
 of room for all he wishes to say, and says it in the very best and 
 most interesting manner. — The Independent (New York). 
 
 yA Y. In his long career — as member of the Continental 
 Congress, President of Congress, member of the Con- 
 stitutional Convention, Foreign Secretary, Chief Justice of the 
 United States, governor of New York, Minister to Spain, spe- 
 cial envoy to England — no breath of suspicion or doubt attached 
 to his fame. ... It is an important addition to the admirable 
 series of “American Statesmen,’’ and elevates yet higher the 
 character of a man whom all American patriots must delight to 
 honor. — New York Tribune. 
 
 CASS. Professor McLaughlin has given us one of the most 
 satisfactory volumes in this able and important series. 
 It ought to be read in the East as well as the West, but in the 
 Northwest it ought to be read in every hamlet from Detroit 
 to Puget Sound. The early life of Cass was devoted to the 
 Northwest, and in the transformation which overtook it the 
 work of Cass was the work of a national statesman. — New York 
 Times. 
 
 LINCOLN. Asa Life of Lincoln it has no competitors ; as 
 a political history of the Union side during the 
 Civil War, it is the most comprehensive, and, in proportion to 
 its range, the most compact. — Harvard Graduates’ Magazine. 
 
 *** For Sale by all Booksellers. Sent, post-paid, on receipt of 
 price by the Publishers, 
 
 HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY, 
 
 4 Park St., Boston; ii East 17TH St., New York. 
 

 
 

 
Date Due 
 
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 35\ ■ 
 
 
 
 
 *•52939 
 
 2 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 J... 3 . Cat. No. 1137 
 
Duke University Libraries 
 
 D0093556 
 
 923.273 W378LF 25650 
 Lodge; Amer. Statesmen 
 
 Daniel Webater 
 
 923.273 W378LP 
 
 25650