340 .0 '0 \ ^ * s ^ . # >J> . ^''c^ > ^-. >> ^^ ^^ ^ A^ ^^ .<>^^' % V o. ' « « -^^ v^~^ ^X, ^' % ^ * .^■^' Y^ '/ '^A 4^^'' V 0^ 0^ -^.v. o4 -7 V^' ^^ ,0 c V . ) ' OQ- O ''rial.'* ^0 -^^ ■'''/ .'X '^ ' ' ^V s ' ' / '•^;- "oo'' : A^«-' :t V 1^ '^ V-. >? .^^ ''^.. ■II * '>.. THE BEACON BIOGRAPHIES IDITED BY M. A. DeWOLFE HOWE DANIEL WEBSTER BY NORMAN HAPGOOD /;^^^>^^s^ 'ri,/,uu<^/i'. ■^>iy>//,. f^jyn^J*/-/ 7''^M'^n/!ji'yTy ^mreM>T~~^ -iJffljait of Beacon HUL^^^- vb- ^ __ PtlBLISHi:!) J gr <5 ISeacon Stipeet DANIEL WEBSTER BY NORMAN HAPGOOD BOSTON SMALL, MAYNARD ^ COMPANY MDCCCXCIX •Uj. Copyright^ i8gg By Small^ Maynard ^ Company U 'J Entered at Stationers^ Hall i 'r .V r^.r'- Press of George H. Ellis^ Boston 1 The photogravure used as a frontispiece ♦ this volume is from a daguerreotype taken ipril 29 J 1850y by Josiah J. JECawes, Bos- ^ m. The present engraving is by John Andrew & Son, Boston, } i* I PEEFACE. A very short biography ^ which aims to sketch the most important features of Daniel Webster^ s story for the general reader , pre- sumably aims paHicularly at presenting two aspects of his mind and character ^ one of which shows why he is so large a figure in a vital period of American history^ while the othet^ explains what kept his from being the greatest name on the records of the Neio World. The sources of information about his genius are sufficient and exact That story lies written in his works and in the history of his country, On the other handy he has been unfortunate in those of his biog- raphers who might have left a speaking nage of the man. Mr. Curtis, the author f the official life, has loyally blurred the portrait. Peter Harvey, in his little book of intimate impressions, shoivs his oton mind too small to reflect, without distortion, tfie features of his great friend. Mr. Lan- man, who has left some facts, was hardly an observer. Of course, the admirers of viii PREFACE every genius sigh over the absence of a Bos- well; hut probably feio need one more than Webster, The best short life of him, that written by Senator Lodge, makes a judi- cious use of the materials available. The solidest critical estimate is that of James Farton, The most famous attacks are those of Theodore Parker and Ealph Waldo Emerson, In this brief narrative the attempt is to name without elaboration the more difficult . and abstract accomplishments of Webster, in the realms of law, finance, and diplo- macy, and to give more fully the simpler and more popular feats, which happen in i this case to be the greatest and the most pro- foundly influential. In treating his per- sonal life and private traits, the desire hi\ vs i been to select what is reasonably beyond dii s- • pute, and wlmt at the same time is with some of the best legal minds of the country, especially with Jeremiah Mason, who used to win all his cases, — a gigantic body, with a mind so penetrating and firm that Mr. Webster said in later years that not even Marshall surpassed Mason in original power, however superior the great chief justice might be in training. Mr. Webster tells us that Mason's success with juries first taught him to drop all high-sounding phrases and talk in simple iianguage straight at the minds before him. The trend of his own taste was already strong in that direction, but he 22 DANIEL WEBSTEE learned from Mason as lie learned fro every strong man he met. The young man's strides upward, botl in law and in oratory, were very rapidj] His appearance at this stage — the loo^ and bearing which were always his,, powerful allies — is described by a num- ber of keen witnesses: ^^When Mr, Webster began to speak, his voice was low, his head was sunk upon his breast, his eyes were fixed upon the floor, and he moved his feet incessantly, backward and forward, as if trying to secure a firmer position. His voice soon in- creased in power and volume till it filled the whole house. His attitude' became erect, his eyes dilated, and his whole countenance was radiant with emotion. ' ' ^^He was a black, raven-haired fel- low, with an eye as black as death, and as heavy as a lion's,— and no lion in^ Africa ever had a voice like him ; and his look was like a lion's,— that same DANIEL WEBSTER 23 heavy look, not sleepy, but as if he Hlidn't care about anything that was going on about him or anything any- where else. He didn't look as if he was thinking about anjrthing, but as if he would think like a hurricane if he once Igot waked up to it. They say the lion !"Ooks so when he is quiet. It wasn't an empty look, this of Webster's, but one that didn't seem to see anything going on worth his while." This last is not unlike the impression which Thomas Oarlyle got of him years after : — ^^Not many days ago I saw at break- fast the notablest of all your notabilities, Daniel Webster. He is a magnificent jpecimen. You might say to all the World, ^ This is our Yankee Englishman, >uch limbs we make in Yankee land ! ' As a logic fencer, or parliamentary Her- 3ules, one would be inclined to back 'lim at first sight against all the extant i^orld. The tanned complexion, that 24 DAOTEL WEBSTEE amorphous crag-like face, the dull blacks eyes under the precipice of brows, likap dull anthracite furnaces, needing only to be hloion, the mastiff mouth accu- rately closed, — I have not traced so mucht of silent BerserJcir rage that I remember in any man.'' An old friend of his father's on meeting the son once re^^' marked ; ^^n the war we could not tell whether Captain Webster's face was a natural color or blackened by powder. You must be his son, for you are a cursed sight blacker than he was ! " A navvy in the streets of Liverpool, point- ing to Mr. Webster, exclaimed, ^^ There, goes a king!" James Russell Lowell says that President Tyler in his carriage ! with Webster looked like a swallow against a thunder- cloud, and Sydney Smith called him a cathedral. His look, his voice, his brain, which f played easily with large subjects, ab- sorbed rapidly, and seized the best in the minds about him, brought him a DANIEL WEBSTER 25 success which soon carried him to a still larger field. His marriage in May of 1808 to Grace Fletcher was a strength- ening influence in his life ; for she was a woman of good mind and strong and pure character. His first interference in public matters was also in 1808, when he wrote a pamphlet, which was widely- read, against the embargo of the pre- ceding year. Four years later, after keeping away from politics in the mean time, he delivered a Fourth of July ad- dress, in which he spoke for a larger navy, in the spirit of Washington, elo- quently pictured the importance of com- merce, and attacked France for trying to trick us into a war with England, the result being that he was made a del- egate to a convention held in August of 1812, by the people of Rockingham County, to oppose the war. On this oc- casion he wrote, as the report of a com- mittee, the ^^ Rockingham Memorial,'' a work with which he was pleased even at 26 DANIEL WEBSTER the height of his powers, and which so clearly expressed the Federalist views in favor of peace that the author of it was sent by his party to the Thirteenth Con- gress. Here he took his seat in May, 1813. II. So soon as Webster set foot in the House of Representatives, he began to make himself felt by striking at the weakest points in the administration policy. His reputation at thirty-one was already so high, through his legal career, his occasional addresses, and his ^^ Rockingham Memorial," that on his entrance the Speaker, Henry Clay, im- mediately put him on the Committee of Foreign Relations, the most important of all the committees in time of war, then having at its head John C. Cal- houn. Mr. Webster's first resolution called upon the administration for infor- mation regarding the publication in the United States of Napoleon's repeal of the French decrees against American shipping. Of course, the object of this resolution was to show that those de- crees had never been repealed, and that France, for its own benefit, was tricking 28 DANIEL WEBSTEE the United States into war with Great Britain. By this first resolution Web- ster showed not only his lasting faculty of letting side issues alone and striking hard at the centre, but also his strict Federalism. The Federalists were op- posed to the war ; and, although the two Adamses deserted the party because they felt the strength of the national spirit, Daniel Webster stood almost as rigid a Federalist as his father. He was not extreme, however, in the measures he advocated ; for he had already too much moderation and too much breadth to approach as near the edge of dan- gerous opposition in war-time as other Federalists ventured. He really con- tented himself with attacking those government measures which might still be wisely changed. He continued his opposition to the destructive embargo, which Calhoun himself, spokesman of the administration, soon had to aban- don to repeal. DANIEL WEBSTER 29 In this first session Mr. Webster un- furled many of the banners which were to be his standards through the more glorious part of his career. He showed at once that on constitutional interpreta- tion he stood for strictness in upholding the defensive features of the national government as well as for liberality in construing its powers. He believed that a tariff for protection was unconstitu- tional, but he also believed that the government had a free hand in internal improvements. Whatever he touched he made alive, for in his clear vision the legal framework of an argument was always covered with living truth. ^^I am not anxious," he said, in opposing the tariff, 'Ho accelerate the approach of the period when the great mass of American labor shall not find its em- ployment in the field j when the young men of the country shall be obliged to shut their eyes upon external nature, upon the heavens and the earth, and 30 DAKIEL WEBSTEE immure themselves in close, unwhole- some workshops ; when they shall be obliged to shut their ears to the bleat- ings 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 ! ' ' He spoke for individual liberty against President Monroe's con- scription, an Enlistment Bill calling for a forced draft ; and in April, 1816, he introduced a resolution which re- vealed a position in favor of sound finance from which he never wavered, — a resolution that all payments to the national treasury must be made in specie or its equivalent. There were then three parties on the question of a national bank : one opposed any bank ; another, led by Calhoun, favored a paper-money institution ; and the third, in which Webster was the strongest fig- DANIEL WEBSTEE 31 ure, was for a bank on a specie basis. When the paper- money institution had been defeated, Calhoun came to Webster, and with tears in his eyes begged him to allow the government a bank on his own terms ; and the sound- money contest was won. One incident of this session shows the young orator in the full possession of that independent dignity which was so impressive a feature of his best years. That irritable little man, John Ean- dolph, of Eoanoke, provoked by one of his speeches, sent a challenge. He re- ceived in reply from his formidable looking opponent a brief note, of which the last half read : — ^'It is enough that I do not feel my- self bound, at all times and under any circumstances, to accept from any man who chooses to risk his own life an invi- tation of this sort ; although I shall be always prepared to repel in a suitable 32 DANIEL WEBSTEE manner the aggression of any man who may presume upon such a refusal. ^ ^ Your obedient servant, ^^ Daniel Webster. ^^ A growing law practice brought him from Portsmouth to Boston in 1816 ; and the need of money caused him to devote himself to it, and retire from public life in 1817, at the end of his second term. Then it was that within a few years he completed the imposing structure of his legal fame. Of the three departments of his reputation, oratory of course is first, and probably statesmanship is next j but, nevertheless, few lawyers, in the history of our country, have stood so high in the profession. On his retire- ment from Congress to devote himself to practice, Mr. Webster's position already brought him the best cases, so that he constantly faced the foremost lawyers, from the head of the bar, William Pink- ney, of Maryland, down j but powerful DANIEL WEBSTER 33 arguments in conspicuous cases now rap- idly extended his fame. Among the first was a criminal mystery, in which Mr. Webster's shrewd and daring surmises into motives, his eloquent defence of those surmises, and, above all, his cross- examination, in which keen vision into the human mind, a manner to inspire awe and fright, and the tact to strike always at the weakest place were evenly combined, led a jury to believe that the prosecutor, Goodridge, had, for some un- known reason, robbed himself, wounded his own arm with a bullet, and then endeavored to cast the odium on the defendants. Goodridge, threatened with an action for malicious prosecution, fled. Twenty years later, when Webster was travelling, he asked for a drink at a tavern. The hand which held the glass shook like a leaf. Mr. Webster took it, and left without a word. The man was Goodridge. From this case, in April, 1817, to what is his greatest effort in the 34 DANIEL WEBSTEE criminal law, the prosecution of the- murderer of Captain White thirteen i| years after, he made some of the strong- ' est jury arguments on record. The White trial was the first occasion on which Mr. Webster pleaded against a man's life, and the opening pages of that argument are probably as nearly perfect a specimen of moving and simple elo- quence as can be found in the records of the law. Few bits in American prose can stand comparison with this for dra- matic vividness combined with the severest taste and the most convincing thought. ) Mr. Webster has done much for the" American school-boy, and that impor- tant creature loves to declaim these ter- rible sentences almost as keenly as he " delights in the ^^ Venerable Men'' of ^j the first Bunker Hill oration. But in this bit, as in Mr. Webster's other highest flights, the school-boy shares his rapture with the lawyer, the scholar, DANIEL WEBSTER 35 7and the man of taste. The qualities are ► not only striking, they are universal. From the opening words, — telling why the orator has consented for the first time in his life to plead for the death ! of a fellow-being, through the picture in fthe moonlight of the midnight murder [and its hire and salary motives, through the words which tell how conscience struggles hardest to betray the victim when the deadly net of circumstance is binding itself about him, down to the final burst about suicide and confession, - this is surely a masterpiece of human Speech ; and when we imagine how the orator must have stood, with his blazing eyes, and black, enormous head, giving forth his sentences in a voice that could bring tears and start terror, even had its words meant nothing, — it is not wonder- ful to read of the fright and complete surrender of the men who sat facing the speaker in the jury-box. Mr. Webster understood the workings 36 DANIEL WEBSTER of the average mind. At this higM period of his genius, he swept like an) eagle upon the realities of his case, hold- ing up the central facts as seen from the simi)le human standpoint, as visibly to^ the plain juryman as to the Supreme' Court of the land ; and his best jury' speeches, therefore, have a force and beauty not surpassed by his ablest con- stitutional arguments. In one quality, indeed, the jury work stands higher. It is more original. He selected his law from the fullest men about him, so sort- ing and marshalling their thoughts as^ to give them victory ; but this power ( f statement, which gave his constitutional" arguments their greatest virtue, sprung | in the jury cases direct from his own ' vision of the facts, with no aid from more scholaily minds. He was always^ fair, never shirked or obscured the issues, and won the jury almost as much by his" candor and justice as by his bearing, eloquence, and coherent argument. DANIEL WEBSTER 37 It is because they are on more impor- tant topics that his leading Supreme Court arguments stand even higher. Mr. Webster himself believed, at least in some expressive moods, that the best of all his work was in the Dartmouth College case, 1818, and in Gibbons v. Ogden, 1824. The college case owes its immense importance to the fact that the point on which it finally rested settled the relations of the States to the national Constitution. No State legislature, it was contended and decided, had the con- stitutional right to interfere in the affairs of an institution like Dartmouth College, established by private persons for spe- cial pui'poses. Mr. Webster claimed no credit for the analysis of this case, but freely admitted his indebtedness to the able lawyers who prepared it, whose conclusions he merely fortified and ex- pounded. But his arrangement and his exposition, in all probability, decided the issue, and led the Supreme Court to 38 DANIEL WEBSTER lay down, against the previous convic- tion of the majority, one of the most far- reaching principles of our government. When Mr. Webster argued the case at Exeter, he left the ]^ew Hampshire judges in tears ; but they decided against ' him, and he learned much from their opinions. The most intelligent witness who has recorded what happened when the case went to the Supreme Court, was prejudiced by what he had heard of the result in :N"ew Hampshire, as he was no believer in pathos as a factor in legal argument. This observer saw Justice Story prepare pencil and paper for notes against the orator's position. He saw that justice sit through the argument without lifting his pencil. Afterward Justice Story explained that there was nothing to write, the whole train of J thought being unfolded with such sim- ^ plicity and sequence that no one could - forget it. The court-room was full of women, as it frequently was when Mr. i DANIEL WEBSTER 39 Webster spoke even on questions which they could not understand. They came to hear those appeals to conscience and feeling, which every now and then re- lieved the technical discussion, and to listen to the voice and keep their eyes on the commanding presence. At the end of this argument, Marshall, the greatest legal mind in the history of our country, was leaning forward, ^^ 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 suffused with tears." Mr. Webster had finished the theory of his case. He had explained the authority of the Constitution and the ('dangers that might arise from allowing any State laws to infringe it. He now turned toward the chief justice. ^^Sir, tyou 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. You may put 40 DAl^IEL WEBSTER it out. But, if you do, you must carryi out your work. You must extinguish/ one after another, all those greater light of science which, for more than a cen tury, have thrown their radiance oven our land. It is, sir, as I have said, a small college. And yet there are those who love if Here the orator himself broke down.. His voice failed. He could not go on. . When he recovered, and ended in a few. words of almost equal power, he hadl completed an argument in which grasps of his subject, persuasive distinctness off thought, and adroit appeal to the preju- " dices of the great lawyers on the bench - were so mingled that in this end the far-reaching doctrine of our government was established. Mr. Pinkney, the lead- ing lawyer in the land, believed the I case was won more by eloquence than^ by law. Other cases followed, confirming the reputation already made. One of them i DANIEL WEBSTER 41 should be mentioned for an anecdote connected with it which lights up the nature of Mr. Webster's legal thought. In what is know as the Ehode Island case, a young attorney named Bosworth was sent to explain the facts and the conclusions reached by the lawyers who had prepared the case. Mr. Webster listened to the explanation, and felt that something was wanting. ' ^ Is that all ? " he asked. The young attorney then modestly offered a theory of his own, which his superiors had rejected. ^^Mr. Bosworth,'' exclaimed Webster, ^^by the blood of all the Bosworths who fell on Bosworth field, that is the point of the case." That, in the law as in poli- tics, was the nature of his mind. With judgment and tact he listened to what others contributed, and then he picked out the point and brought all his powers to bear on that. Hence the success of that fairness to opponents, which made Mm state their arguments better than 42 DAl^IEL WEBSTER they had been able to formulate them for themselves. He coiild afford to give the opposition a powerful statement ; for he relied on no trick or subtlety, but on the clear presentation of deep-seated truths. This distinct vision far into the life of the great themes which he was called upon to treat is the highest qual- ity of his mind, and it was in control of an eloquence which had become as pure as it was magnificent. ^^When I was a young man," once said Mr. Webster, ^^and first entered the law, my style of oratory was as roimd and florid as Choat^'s. I do not think it is the best. It is not according to my taste." That taste, once acquired, almost never left him, — never, perhaps, before that turn in his life which made him the defender of errors which he had done so much to expose, and then but seldom. At this high noon of his gifts and character he planted himself firmly on great general principles, rely- DANIEL WEBSTEE 43 ing almost wholly on a well - stored memory for what support they needed. Occasional bursts of grandeur, always timed with judgment, and alluring di- gressions to refresh the attention, chosen with the same instinct, relieve the steady march of his exposition. When he was a law student in Boston, he gave his best analysis to the characters of men and the methods of successful lawyers ; and at the height of his fame it was in the knowledge of the human mind and heart that he most excelled. The years in which these law cases were being argued also saw the delivery of the memorial addresses on which so much of their author's renown is built. The first — and, in the orator's own opin- ion, the best — was made at Plymouth in 1820, to commemorate the landing of the Pilgrims. John Adams, who lis- tened to the oration and who had heard Pitt, Fox, Burke, and Sheridan, wrote to Mr, Webster that Burke was no longer 44 DANIEL WEBSTER entitled to be called the most consum- mate orator of modern times. ^'This oration/' he said, ^^will be read five hundred years hence with as much rapt- ure as it was heard. It ought to be read at the end of every century, and indeed at the end of every year, forever and ever.'' And he also said, ^^ If there be an American who can read it without tears, I am not that American. ' ' The subject gave Mr. Webster an op- portunity to put into an eloquent pop- ular form, which should move a large gathering, those principles of American nationality which were the basis of his thought as a statesman and as an orator. The orator's power of voice and presence did much, of course, to melt and thrill the audience before him ; but the imme- diate effect was so nearly equalled by the lasting influence that Adams's prophecy has been a fair statement of the truth. One passage above all probably worked more potently on after events than any DANIEL WEBSTEE 45 other single burst of indignation against the traffic in slaves : — ^^In the sight of our law the African ^slave-trader is a pirate and a felon ; and, in the sight of Heaven, an offender far beyond the ordinary depth of human guilt. There is no brighter page of our , history than that which records the measures which have been adopted by 'the government at an early day, and at different times since, for the suppression of this traffic ; and I would call on all the true sons of New England to co- operate with the laws of man and the justice of Heaven. If there be, within the extent of our knowledge or influ- ence, any participation in this traffic, let us pledge ourselves here, upon the rock of Plymouth, to extirpate and destroy it. It is not fit that the land of the Pil- grims should bear the shame longer. I hear the sound of the hammer, I see the smoke of the furnaces where manacles and fetters are still forged for human 46 DANIEL WEBSTER limbs. I see the visages of those who by stealth and at midnight labor in this; work of hell, foul and dark, as may be- come the artificers of such instruments^ of misery and torture. Let that spot be purified, or let it cease to be of New England. Let it be purified, or let itt 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 com- munion with it. ' ' Years after, when he was forced to explain them away, those sentences met Mr. Webster at every turn. With it went hand in hand this other passage from the same oration : — ^'Conscience, in the cause of religion i and the worship of the Deity, prepares the mind to act and to suffer beyond almost all other causes. It sometimes > gives an impulse so irresistible that no i! fetters of power or of opinion can with-^, stand it. History instructs us that this DANIEL WEBSTER 47 love of religious liberty, a compound sentiment in the breast of man, made up of the clearest sense of right and the highest conviction of duty, is able to look the sternest despotism in the face, and, with means apparently most in- adequate, to shake principalities and powers. There is a boldness, a spirit of daring, in religious reformers not to be measured by the general rules which control men's purposes and actions. If the hand of power be laid upon it, this only seems to augment its force and its elasticity, and to cause its action to be more formidable and violent. Human invention has devised nothing, human power has compassed nothing, that can forcibly restrain it, when it breaks forth. Nothing can stop it but to give way to it : nothing can check it but indul- gence. It loses its power only when it has gained its object. The principle of toleration, to which the world has come so slowly, is at once the most just and 48 DAl^riEL WEBSTER the most wise of all principles. Even when religious feeling takes a character of extravagance and enthusiasm, and seems to threaten the order of society and shake the columns of the social edi- fice, its principal danger is in its re- straint. If it be allowed indulgence and expansion, like the elemental fires, it only agitates, and, perhaps, purifies the atmosphere ; while its efforts to throw off restraint would burst the world asunder. ' ^ One of the most brilliant prophecies in history was made in this oration, and of no part of it did Mr. Webster him- self seem more proud. It was when, explaining what influence subdivision of property had on government, he met the apparent exception of France by de- claring that, ^ ^ if the government do not change the law, the law in half a cen- tury will change the government ; and that this change will be, not in favor of the power of the crown, as some Euro- DANIEL WEBSTEE 49 pean writers have supposed, but against it.^^ In these great popular orations such clear perception as this is scattered throughout. One sober passage, answer- ing the objection that American society furnishes no class of men of fortune and leisure, boldly declares that the promo- tion of taste and literature are not pri- mary objects of political institutions. The second in time among the re- nowned memorial addresses was deliv- ered in 1825, to commemorate the battle of Bunker Hill. Standing on a platform at the foot of the hill on which the vic- tory was won, Mr. Webster addressed a multitude rising on the slopes above him. It was an occasion which appealed intensely to the orator's imagination, and his mind dwelt on it for some time before the day. The address to the soldiers, beginning, ^^ Venerable men,'' gave him little trouble ; for, as he said, he had lived in times that taught him how to appeal to men like them. What 50 DANIEL WEBSTER caused him anxiety was the opening and the address to LaFayette. Any one looking over the speech, and seeing the differing tones in which each part of the audience is addressed, will be reminded of the solidity with which the speaker studied his audience. The crowd wept and cheered ; but two passages, above all the rest, brought intense emotion. One was the often quoted tribute to the vet- erans : the other, that final touch of beauty in the reasons for the monument. This, like all of Mr. \Yebster's effects, loses by standing alone ; for even to the reader he has, to a peculiar degree, the power of accumulation, of stirring the emotions gradually to the point where, rising to a warmer glow, he starts the tears or touches off the accumulated en- thusiasm. Nevertheless, a few lines may stand here to mark the first point at which the great assembly was carried away by the orator : ^' We wish, finally, that the last object to the sight of him DANIEL WEBSTER 51 who leaves his native shore, and the first to gladden him who revisits it, may be something which shall remind him of the liberty and glory of his country. Let it rise ! Let it rise, till it meet the sun in his coming ! Let the earliest light of the morning gild it, and parting day linger and play on its summit ! ' ' This oration, in Mr. Webster's opinion, expressed just before its delivery, was a failure, — a kind of soft thaw, like the weather in which it was composed ; and he continued to prefer the earlier effort. Like his other speeches celebrating occa- / sions, and unlike his arguments in the Senate and in the couils of law, it is less a logical than an emotional whole. It is a series of subjects strung together loosely, but so handled as to give hearers of every sort the keen glow of pathetic fervor. Two anecdotes about the com- position of this address illustrate Mr. Webster's habit of thought. Devoted to country life, even to the very last, he 52 DAKIEL \yEBSTER composed some of his most renowned out- bursts standing in brooks with rod in hand. His son Fletcher, approaching from behind, saw his father, holding the gun in his left hand, step impressively forward, raise his right hand, and break out with ^'Venerable men!" Another tale recounts that the address to La- Fayette had a similar origin. After long hours of empty fishing in his yacht, the orator landed a prize; and, as it dangled in the air, he cried, ' ^ Welcome ! all hail ! and thrice welcome, citizen of two hemispheres ! " In their manner of birth also, these patriotic orations dif- fered from the argumentatic speeches. Here he studied the language at the centres of effect ; but, in such master- pieces as the reply to Hayne, he jotted down a few topics, and trusted to the moment for the words. The result is not accurately to be decided, for Mr. Web- ster corrected a good deal. The glowing end of the great reply has been quieted, DANIEL AYEBSTER 53 the melting appeals to sentiment in the Dartmouth College case have been elided, and his general practice was to go over every speech and argument to soften the passages brought out by the moment in a blaze too bright for his classic taste. There is a tale that on the morning following the Adams and Jeffer- son eulogy he threw the manuscript to a student with the request, '''- Please take that discourse, and cut out all the Latin words." This tribute to Adams and Jefferson, which came a year after the Bunker Hill oration, left Mr. Webster's renown as a memorial speaker as high as it ever rose. There were famous speeches later, such as the second Bunker Hill, June 17, > 1843, and the Character of Washington, February 22, 1832 ; but none of them carried his reputation higher. In this tribute the best-known bit is the imagi- nary speech, ^^Sink or swim, live or die, survive or perish, I give my hand and 54 DANIEL WEBSTER my heart to this vote," put into the' mouth of John Adams in favor of de- claring independence. Nothing in all his writings shows more clearly his his- torical imagination, the vividness with , which he saw past scenes, became alive with their spirit, and filled himself with the souls of other men. He ended this speech in the early morning, and the page was wet with tears. This confes- sion, made by him later to President Fillmore, is the most direct testimony we have to his mood in composition ; but without it we could guess that so completely oratorical a temperament — especially when the talent excited the emotions not by barbaric splendor of language so much as by simple words alive with the fire of their meaning — must compose successfully only when its own nature vibrated finely and deeply to the workings of its own genius. So wholly had the orator identified himself with the intense scene which he lived DANIEL WEBSTER 55 through as the soul of Adams that letters from all sides sought the origin of the speech, and scepticism met the statement that it was imagined. From another point of view, also, this oration turns an entertaining light on Mr. Webster's character. Few read it without being struck by the change in treatment marked by the change in sub- ject. For Adams is all the real ardor and most of the space, for Jefferson only decorous praise, so that a hearer or reader, learning only from these words, might well suppose that Jefferson's im- portance in the history of his country was far less than that of his companion statesman. The Federalist prejudices of Ebenezer Webster still lived in Daniel. During these fruitful years, while he was building some of the most enduring pillars of his fame as a lawyer and as a master of patriotic eloquence, his activ- ity had also important results in other fields. , ^Qpn after leaving Congress, he 56 DANIEL WEBSTER opposed the compromise of 1819, — a fact of which the interest lies in his later attitude on the slavery question. A year later, as a delegate to the conven- tion for revising the Constitution of Mas- sachusetts, he made two lucid and effective arguments, one favoring the retention of a property basis for repre- sentation in the Senate, the other aiding an effort to make judicial officers re- movable by the governor and council upon the address of two- thirds instead of a majority of each branch of the legislature. The permanent arguments for an inde- pendent judiciary, at least as preserved in his works, are stated briefly and with little attempt at eloquence. The plea for property representation, a more elab- orate address, is full of ripe thought firmly expounded. He was opposing Democratic prejudices and laying him- self open to suspicion and to the kind of misrepresentation of which he received DANIEL WEBSTER 57 so much later, and of which an example may be found in Theodore Parker's treatment of this address and of Mr. Webster's early speeches in favor of commerce. Whatever may be said of his later relation to material interests, the respect which he showed at this period for property is accepted to-day as a proof of the useful and vital nature of his thought. His argument before the convention was that there ought to be a difference in origin between the two houses, and that, as one branch was based on population, property was the best basis for the other. Shrewdness in answering objections shared by most American citizens is noticeable through- out this argument. ^^It has been said that we propose to give to property, merely as such, a control over the people, universally considered. But this I take to be not at all the true nature of the proposition. The Senate is not to be a check on the people, but 58 DANIEL WEBSTER on the House of Representatives. It is the case of an authority given to one agent to check or control another." He drew a vivid and distinct picture of ^^the mischievous influence of the popular power when disconnected with property," in the case of Rome, at the time when her liberty fell under the arm of Gsesar. The majority could be reached by bribes and largesses, and used to overpower the substantial citi- zens. ^'Property was in the hands of one description of men, and power in those of another ; and the balance of the constitution was destroyed." It was be- cause the popular magistrates repre- sented those who had not a stake in the Commonwealth that Rome laid her neck at the feet of her conqueror. The part of property in the English Revolution of 1688 and in our own war for indepen- dence was also touched upon. With re- strained earnestness the orator pleaded that this question should not be confused DAJS^IEL WEBSTER 59 with the power of a few rich men, but looked upon as concerning the rights of property distributed among many; for the proposal was to continue the prac- tice of apportioning senators according to the entire amount of property in the districts. The victory was won at the time ; but shortly after the principle was wiped out of the American nation, ap- parently forever. in. In 1823 Mr. \yebster returned to Con- gress as a representative from the Boston district, and was put at the head of the Judiciary Committee by Mr. Clay. In preparing and defending a bill to amend the judicial system, he accomplished a valuable task ; but the most brilliant expression of his powers given in the first few years after his return was in the speech which he made in January of 1824, on his own resolution to provide by law for defraying the expense of a commissioner to Greece. Of this speech he wrote, in 1831, ^^ I think I am more fond of this child than of any of the family." The public expected a display of fire, but Mr. Webster had no such intention. The Greek revolution aroused his sym- pathies ; but what he sought was an opportunity to refute the doctrines of the Holy Alliance, affirming the right DANIEL WEBSTEE 61 of absolute governments to form concerts for the purpose of crushing rebellion anywhere, — any insurrection threaten- ing them all by defying the pretensions on which they are founded. A5 Mr. Webster summarized it, ^^The end and scope of this amalgamated policy are neither more nor less than this, — to in- terfere, by force, for any government, against any people who may resist it. Be the state of the people what it may, they shall not rise : be the government what it will, it shall not be opposed. '^ Nowhere, he believed, but in this coun- try, and perhaps in England, were these monstrous principles likely to be re- sisted. ^' Human liberty may yet, per- haps, be obliged to repose its principal hopes on the intelligence and vigor of the Saxon race.'' To the objection that it was not an American affair, that the thunder rolled only at a distance, that, whatever others might suffer, we should remain safe, Mr. Webster replied: ^^I 62 DANIEL WEBSTER think it is a sufficient answer to say to this that we are one of the nations of the earth ; that we have an interest, therefore, in the preservation of that system of national law and national in- tercourse which has heretofore subsisted, so beneficially for all.'' The increase of the commercial spirit and the intercourse of nations had given us a high concern in the principles upon which that intercourse was founded, but Mr. Webster was not willing to rely only on the ground of direct interest. He appealed to all that we had gained from the principles of lawful resistance, and asked if the duty was not imposed upon us to give our weight to the side of liberty and justice. Our right to in- terfere, if the renewed combination of the European Continental sovereigns against the newly established free States of South America should be made, was no more clear than our right to protest if the same combination were directed DANIEL WEBSTER 63 against the smallest state in Europe. *^We shall not, I trust, act upon the notion of dividing the world with the Holy Alliance, and complain of nothing done by them in their hemisphere if they will not interfere with ours.^^ He did not advise armed intervention, for he drew clearly the line between the practicable and the impossible ; but he did plead for all the help that moral sympathy could give to a struggling people. Of the Holy Alliance he said : ^^They might indeed prefer that we should express no dissent from the doc- trines they have avowed and the appli- cation which they have made of those doctrines to the law of Greece. But I ti'ust we are not disposed to leave them in any doubt as to our sentiments upon these important subjects.'^ The next of the questions of universal interest, then and now, upon which Mr. Webster spoke words which retain their weight through changing times, was the 64 DAXIEL WEBSTER tariff. He made a strong argument for the laissez-faire doctrine in 1824 ; but as lie modified his position radically four years later, it will be well to notice first the changes that about this time dis- turbed his private life, since they are closely connected with the change of tone that, little by little, was to show itself in his public career. Grace Fletcher Webster, often spoken of by the orator in after days as the mother of his children, apparently had no small role in keeping alert, while she lived, those high principles which her husband had breathed in with the New Hampshire mountain air. Her upright New England faith and sweet loyalty must have been one of the strongest bar- riers resisting the temptations which lay before the impressionable statesman. Bits from her latest letters give the feel- ing of her character. One written Jan. 14, 1827, ends : — DANIEL WEBSTER 65 ^^I received with delight Mr. Can- ning's speech in Parliament. He is a jewel in the crown of Great Britain. Such a mind is one of Heaven's best gifts. Every other earthly possession is dross to it. You will think, I fancy, that I am in the heroic vein this morn- ing. I do feel inspired, with two letters from you and reading Mr. Canning's speech. But I am, ' ^^ As ever, entirely yours, ''Grace Webster. '^ Another begins : — Boston, Jan. 18, 1827. ''I have been reading this morning a speech of yours, my beloved husband, which makes me hail this anniversary of your birth with increased delight. May heaven add blessings with years ! and many, many may it add to a life so valued and so valuable ! I pity the man 50 dead to every sentiment, not only of 66 DANIEL WEBSTER j honor, but honesty, that could need an; argument to convince him of the justice^ of the claim you urged ; and I blush fonj the honor of our country, that there "^ should be a majority of such sordid souls * in Congress. I hope you will pardon me i for meddling with such high matters. ^^ ^ In December of the same year, when . she was ill, she begins : — vl Friday Morning, 11 o'clock, ! December, 1827. ' '^The first tribute of my heart is to ° the God who gives me strength to write ; i and the first of my pen to you, my best beloved.^' ^ t The next note is the last. It begins : ''I wrote you yesterday, my beloved'? husband, a very poor letter ; but I flatter i myself that a poor letter from me will {\ be as acceptable as a good one from Jj another. '^ JI f f DANIEL WEBSTER 67 She died in January, 1828 ; and in 829 Mr. Webster married Caroline Le Loy, of New York, who brought him ioney and social position, and nothing f [se that can be traced in his life. In le same year he lost Ezekiel, the strong- Hilled brother, another of those close ifluences that held the early healthy dor of New England ideals about him. Is early as June, 1827, he had been lected, somewhat against his will, to le vacant Massachusetts seat in the ational Senate. During the year fol- )wing his wife's death he voted and )oke for the ' ' tariff of abominations ^ ' ; ad from that period he came to be ^cognized more and more as the repre- imtative of rich New England business len. In the year following EzekiePs eath and his second marriage, he gave le greatest exhibition of all his powers, nd kept himself at his highest level ; bt after this he steadily declined from j ^ height at which his altering nature ould no longer sustain itself. 68 DAKCEL WEBSTEE The character of American statesm* had changed since the shining days Hamilton and Washington, and U nature of American thought was feelii the first results of the rising tide of me cantile excitement. The Boston cor panions of Mr. Webster^ after his greater successes, were worldly and convivia- He has said himself that his health w> lowered by eating and drinking t(^ much, and there is no doubt that li came to absorb alcohol with somethic like the ease with which he absorbe ideas. The easy-going, free, jolly, almo;i indifferent way in which he natural! took life received aid from this chang in companionship and habit, and pc^, sibly, though less surely, from the p4J companying increase in his miscellaneoy relations with women. At the same tim his looseness in affairs of money bega to do its work. ^^We all know,'' sai- R. C. Winthrop, in his eulogy after M4 Webster's death, ^Hhat, while he couP DA:sriEL WEBSTER 69 vaster the great questions of national nance, and was never weary in main- lining the importance of upholding the ational credit, he never cared quite / fiough about his own finances, or took ^ [articular pains to preserve his own per- 9nal credit. We all know that he was bmetimes impatient of differences, and JDmetimes arrogant and overbearing toward opponents. His own conscious- less of surpassing powers, and the flat- teries — I had almost said the idolatries — of innumerable friends, would account or much more of all this than he ever lisplayed." All these tendencies grew ^long together. Although he seemed to t)ay few of his larger bills, hotel keepers ieeming it an honor to have him as a 5uest and wine merchants being glad to caake him gifts, although his practice \w'as most lucrative and his fees enormous, llie was always in need of money; and 'nobody could tell what became of his Ireceipts. His easy nature gave freely I 1 70 DANIEL WEBSTER when there was cash about him; an stories are numerous to show his generou impulses toward the needy, and his care lessness in paying one bill several time at intervals, if only the creditor coulc find him with money in his purse. One result of his irresponsible mode oi life was that New England business mer later formed a trust, the income to go tc him, and then, if she survived him, tc;- his wife ; and it is believed, though not known with the same certainty, that presents from individuals interested in Mr. Webster's genius and in the tariff were frequent and enormous. Some of those who came to be the intimates of hisi daily life, were trivial sycophants ; andrf all these things together — the change in^ his friends, the physical effect of tooi much dissipation, the moral influence of being largely supported by monopo- lists—prepared him for his retreat from some of the positions he had so noblyj held. He was still to raise his fame! DANIEL WEBSTER 71 ligher, as the Great Defender of the Constitution ; but the influences which rinally accomplished so much are best boticed when they came into his life. The tariff question has been so contin- lally thrashed over ever since the war ha,t Mr. Webster's principal stands need 3e mentioned only in the most general oerms. He had opposed the tariff of k816, he made a great speech against ;;hat of 1824, and he voted for ^Hhe ^riff of abominations" in 1828. Of jourse, it is not difficult for a shrewd (nan to base a change of principle on a pretended or actual change in condi- tions ; and such is Mr. Webster's de- fence. At first he had laid stress on the constitutional argument ; but in 1824 the bulk of his speech was a full and lucid statement of the well-known laissez-faire ioctrines, in moderate form, skilfully supported by contemporary examples. This exposition stands to-day as one of he most comprehensible and persuasive I 72 DANIEL WEBSTER utterances on the subject ever made in the United States. He was the ablest opponent of Henry Clay's famous ^^ American policy." In 1827 and 182& he supported the ^ ^ bill of abomination ' '"* on the ground that ^^his constituents" had invested their money on the faith of what had become the law. There is certainly no logical inconsistency, but the change was universally connected with Mr. Webster's growing relations with a class of men different from those who had helped to mould his early thought. Colonel Hayne was able to give later, in the great debate, the only thrust which Mr. Webster but feebly met, when he said: ^^On that occasion,^] sir, the gentleman assumed a position which commanded the respect and ad- miration of his country. . . . With a profound sagacity, a fulness of knowl- , edge, and a richness of illustration that have never been surpassed, he main-; tained and established the principles of DANIEL WEBSTER 73 commercial freedom on a foundation never to be shaken. . . . Sir, when I recollect the position which the gentle- man once occupied, and that which he now holds in public estimation, in rela- tion to this subject, it is not at all sur- prising that the tariff should be hateful to his ears.^' The greatest among those early tradi- tions was now, however, to have its most glorious expression. Although the commercial spirit was settling over the land, one great ideal topic of debate was at the height of its existence. The Constitution was in the air. Every- body talked about it. Multitudes would listen to a discussion of it. Whenever two or three statesmen were gathered to- gether, they compared ideas about it. We who have grown up since the war settled the last of the vital constitutional questions by the most conclusive of all I arguments, cannot readily conceive the I reality which then clothed, in the gen- 74 DAI^IEL WEBSTER eral mind, that magic word. We no longer appeal to it. They appealed, on the most critical of all their problems, to little else. The extension of slavery was involved in it, and the right to de- stroy the Union was the centre of it. Straining every nerve to bend it one way or the other, stood on one side the South, led by the cool and penetrat- ing mind of Calhoun ; on the other, the North, hardly knowing the solidest foundations of its faith until they were pointed out by the eloquence of the Great Defender. When he entered the brightest stage of this mighty duel, Daniel Webster was a sight to rivet every eye. His frame, / grown larger, but not yet flabby, gave . new majesty and potency to his face and voice and carriage ; and his mind, just turning the summit of its greatness, was spurred to its most tremendous efforts by the universal excitement which centred i in this momentous question. As Mr. DANIEL WEBSTER 75 Webster strolled about the streets of Boston, loitering before the windows, looking at everything, everybody tui-ned to look at him, even those who never guessed who he was. His effect on the most casual passer was hypnotic. He gave the impression of immense, slum- bering power. He could go on without effort, and still be great, because the force of his mind was in fundamental principles, universal truths, with which I he induced the Supreme Court to over- rule decided cases, with which he pene- trated to the heart of the issue in politi- cal controversy. In the war about the Constitution he was, therefore, always ready. When he was suddenly called to the critical battle, he had been prepar- ing during his lifetime. To one who asked him if the reply to Hayne was extemporaneous, he replied, ^^ Young man, there is no such thing as extempo- raneous acquisition. ' ' The doctrine of nullification — that. 76 DANIEL WEBSTEK instead of the federal government being the sole judge of its own powers, each State retained the right to decide for itself whether a federal law was consti- tutional — rested on the theory that the national union was a compact existing only during the consent of the separate members. The head exponent of this theory was John C. Calhoun, who, after years of debate with him, said that Mr. Webster stated an opponent's arguments more fairly than anybody he had ever seen. In taking his stand for union, on which he ardently believed liberty and happiness depended, Mr. Webster an- swered the subtleties of the nullifiers, as a necessary step in strengthening the ( position of the Xorth ; but he relied « still more on the explanation of conse- quences and the appeal to patriotism. The temperate tone of a large mind per- 1 vades his language on this vital subject. ^•My son," he once said, ^^I war with i principles, and not with men. ' ' At this . 1 DANIEL WEBSTER 77 period his thought seemed loaded with the weightiest principles and lightened with the brightest truths. This reply to Hayne and Nullification is called in his private correspondence ^'number one among my political ef- forts." Its importance is now known to all the world. '^The discourses at Plymouth Eock and Bunker Hill were not for an hour," says Judge Chamber- lain, ^'nor was the Great Eeply. In the days of their utterance, they were resplendent, unprecedented eloquence ; but they spoke truest when they became wisdom to Lincoln and valor to Grant, p they rang loudest when heard along the front of battle, and inspired deeds of immortal heroism on a hundred fields." This speech was immediately the re- sult of accident. While Robert Young Hayne, of South Carolina, was speaking in January, 1830, on a resolution to restrict the sales of public lands, Mr. Webster dropped into the Senate, after 78 DANIEL WEBSTEE the adjournment of the Supreme Court. He arose to reply ; but, as the Senate adjourned, he spoke the next day, de- livering an eloquent argument, which has been almost submerged by his more ' brilliant effort a few days later, gener- ally called the ^'Eeply to Hayne." The next day Hayne replied, refusing to con- sent to an adjournment which should^ enable his opponent to be present with- out neglecting the important case in court. ^^Let the discussion proceed,'^ said Mr. Webster. ^ ^ I am willing to re- ceive the gentleman's fire.'' Mr. Hayne completed his speech several days later, and Mr. Webster was prevented from replying at once only by an adjourn- { ment. He spoke the day following, from few notes hastily prepared. Edward Everett tells us that in the intervals between these speeches Mr. Webster was the only person in Washington who seemed en- J tirely at his ease. The attacks of the DA:N^IEL WEBSTER 79 nullifiers on the Constitution had grown rapidly fiercer and more organized, and the loyal citizens were not at all sure of their answer. The Southerners seemed to gain strength with every combat. That some great blow was needed was felt throughout the North. After din- ner Mr. Webster lay on the sofa, dozing or asleep, according to his habit, when he began to laugh softly to himself. To inquiry he replied that he had just thought of a way to turn Colonel Hayne's quotation about Banquo's ghost against himself, and was going to get up and make a note of it, which he did, and then continued his nap. The audience which awaited his ap- pearance in the Senate Chamber was intense with anxiety. The orator's first step was to lessen the tension, and pre- pare them to proceed calmly over an extended argument. ^^Mr. President," he began, ^^when the mariner has been tossed for many 80 DANIEL WEBSTER days ill thick weather and on an un- known sea, he naturally avails himself of the first pause in the storm, the ear- liest glance of the sun, to take his lati- tude and ascertain how far the elements have driven him from his true course. Let us imitate this prudence, and before we float further on the waves of this de- bate, 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.'' By the time it was read, the assembly, with nerves relaxed, was watching with an easier expectation. Mr. Webster began to banter his opponent, and turn away the personal elements in his attack. Although having no distin- guished gift of humor, and using it spar- ingly for that reason, he loved it in others, and could himself bring enough of it to his assistance to carry him over places where nothing else would serve so DAOTEL WEBSTER 81 /well. It is said that the deftness and enjoyment with which he turned Colonel Hayne's quotation from ^^ Macbeth" first filled his followers in the Senate with confidence. After a little more repartee he became serious, and covered with masterly simplicity and fulness of reason all the subordinate points in his oppo- nent's speech, first rising to rushing eloquence when he reached the end of his reply to Hayne's attack on Massachusetts. ^^Mr. President, I shall enter on no encomium on Massachusetts. She needs none. There she is. Behold her, and judge for yourselves. There is her his- tory. The world knows it by heart.' The past, at least, is secure. There is Boston and Concord and Lexington and Bunker Hill ,• and there they will remain forever." As he went on with the fa- mous tribute, our best eye-witness tells as, and turned his glowing eyes, inten- tionally or otherwise, upon a group of 82 DAKIEL WEBSTER Massachusetts men in one corner of the gallery, as he ended the encomium, — '^It will fall at last, if fall it must, amidst the proudest monuments of its own glory, and on the very spot of its origin," — as these words were spoken, the New England men shed tears, like girls. The orator's final task was before him, — by far the most grave and impor- tant duty, as he called it himself. He must say, and say with all the power within him, what were the true prin- ciples of the Constitution under which they were there assembled. ^^Sir, I have met the occasion, not sought itj and I shall proceed to state my own sen- timents, without challenging for them any particular regard, with studied plainness, and as much precision as possible. ' ^ With studied plainness, with a pre- cision that has stood the hardest tests of time, with an eloquence measured to 1 DANIEL WEBSTER 83 work at once upon the minds and the emotions of a great assembly wrought to the highest pitch of interest, but an elo- quence so deeply founded that it did more than any other single effort to form future American history, he pro- ceeded to state his own sentiments. The argument is known, the glowing ending is still recited throughout the land. Its effect on those who heard it is thus recorded for us: — ^^The speech was over, but the tones of the orator still lingered upon the ear j and the audience, unconscious of the close, retained their positions. The agi- tated countenance, the heaving breast, the suffused eye, attested the continued influence of the spell upon them. Hands that in the excitement of the moment had sought each other still remained closed in an unconscious grasp. . . . ^'"VAHien the Vice-President, hastening to dissolve the spell, angrily called to 84 DANIEL WEBSTER order ! order ! there never was a deeper stillness. Not a movement, not a ges- ture had been made, not a whisper ut- tered. Order ! Silence could almost have heard itself, it was so supernatu- rally still.'' No wonder Calhoun brought down his hammer, and awoke the assembly with a start. With one long-drawn breath they departed. But in the war which Cal- houn had led the greatest forensic battle had closed in a glorious victory for Mr. Webster and the North. ^^It crushes nullification," said James Madi- son, ^ '- and must hasten an abandonment of secession. ' ' One of those who heard the speech wrote of the orator: ^^He was a totally different thing from any public speaker I ever heard. I some- times felt as if I were looking at a mam- moth treading, at an equable and stately pace, his native cane-brake, and with- out apparent consciousness crushing ob- stacles which nature had never designed as impediments to him.'' DANIEL WEBSTER 85 This speech did much to extend Mr. Webster's reputation in parts of the country where he had been little known. He did not rest on one splendid effort, but continued to fight the battle for nationalism against the South in the Senate, making a series of arguments which, although overshadowed by the Eeply to Hayne, were of constant value in giving confidence to the North. The best known of them is the long speech of 1833, in Avhich he maintained, against Calhoun, that the Union was not a fed- eration of States. While he was thus continuing his work of defending the Constitution, he was proving the clear- ness, depth, and range of his financial understanding by endeavoring to check Andrew Jackson's onslaught on the na- tional bank. In 1832 he spoke in favor of renewing the charter ; and, when the President vetoed the bill, Mr. Webster mingled a perfectly accurate exposition of the economic truths involved with a S6 DANIEL WEBSTEK temperate but scathing rebuke to the ignorant autocrat. ^^It presents the chief magistrate of( the Union in the attitude of arguing away the powers of that government over which he has been chosen to pre- side, and adopting for this purpose modes of reasoning which, even unden the influence of all proper feeling toward! high official station, it is difficult to re- gard as respectable. It appeals to every prejudice which may betray men into a mistaken view of their own interests, , and to every passion which may lead! them to disobey the impulses of theiri understanding. ... It is a State paper which finds no topic too exciting for its I use, no passion too inflammable for its address and its solicitation. ' ' The Presi- dent soon made his well-known couj), re- moving two Secretaries of the Treasury-, in order to find one who would execute; his will by withdrawing the government i, deposits from the Bank of the United DANIEL WEBSTER 87 States and put them in the State banks. Mr. Webster presented to Congress, Jan. 20, 1833, a series of resolutions adopted at a public meeting in Boston, attribut- ing the prevailing financial distress to the President's bigotry, and spoke in support of them in the Senate. One of ohe shorter speeches in this series ends in a rather noticeable expression of con- fidence in the power of public opinion to bring good out of evil: ^^ Political mischiefs will be repaired by political redress. That which has been unwisely done will be wisely undone ; and this is the way, sir, in which our enlightened and independent people live through their iifficulties. . . . Although these black and portentous clouds may break on our lieads, and the tempest overpower us for a while, still that can never be forever )verwhelmed, that can never go finally 30 the bottom, which truth and duty bear ip." In one of these speeches against lackson, called the ^^Presidential Pro- 88 DANIEL WEBSTER test," occurred that famous passage* declaring that the encroachment of the: Executive on the other branches of thej government was to be regarded as a threat against the Constitution, and treated as our fathers treated an act of Parliament which had brought as yet* no suffering. ^ ^ They went to war against* a preamble, they fought seven years against a declaration. . . . On this ques- tion of principle, while actual suffering' was yet far off, they raised their flag^; against a power to which, for purposes) of foreign conquest and subjugation,' Rome, in the height of her glory, is noti to be compared, — a power which has; dotted over the surface of the whole globe with her possessions and military j posts, whose morning drum-beat, follow- ing the sun, and keeping company with the hours, circles the earth with one continuous strain of the martial airs of England." During 1833 Webster made a tour of DANIEL WEBSTER 89 the Western States, which was some- thing of an ovation, although it is agreed that the style of his oratory was never popular in the sense in which Clay's was. It lacked the personal, win- ning quality which charmed all kinds of people equally. It did not inspire love and devotion, but, appealing so largely to the mind, was best suited to intelli- gent listeners, such as faced him in the Senat-e or on JS'ew England memorial occasions. He was not naturally a stump orator, nor had he that first req- uisite of a demagogue, — a constant pro- '' fession of regard for the people. He mentioned them seldom, and seldom , went further than that kind of abstract cojifidence illustrated by the close of the •bank speech just quoted. His austere itaste and wide judicial mind were not ;elements to endear him to the mass of " men. Still, Mr. Webster believed in his popularity, and firmly expected to be President. Such an ambition was more 90 DANIEL WEBSTER natural in a great man then than it ; would be now, when we take mediocrity in that o£Q.ce for granted. Mr. Webster had seen Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, and John Quincy Adams occupy the chair in succession. Andrew Jackson was the first ignorant 'J popular hero put into the highest office ; and Mr. Webster did not realize that the tide had turned, and the time passed when the Presidency was to be the re- ward of statesmanship. He felt it to be his due, and the flatterers with whom he chose to surround himself helped to fan the flame. Any one who will read the reminiscences of his intimate friend, Peter Harvey, will receive a vivid idea of the kind of man Mr. Webster now took to his bosom. The legislature of Massachusetts nominated the orator for the Presidency ; and in 1836 he re- ceived the electoral vote of that State, and out of the whole convention that was all he did receive. Mr. Webster DA:N^IEL WEBSTER 91 steadily opposed both the spoils system and the tendency to reward military men with civil office, but he could not stem the tide that set in that direction with Jackson. IV. The panic which Mr. Webster had so often foretold in his conflict with the President came in 1837, and at about the same time the first loud rumblings of the slavery conflict were heard in the dispute over the annexation of Texas. As his course on this momentous issue has overshadowed in the mind of pos- terity all the other deeds of his later years, it is well to notice how he stood in the early stages of the dispute, which culminated, as far as his career was con- cerned, on a certain 7th of March some thirteen years later. In 1837 he spoke thus : ^^I do say that the annexation of Texas would tend to prolong the dura- tion and increase the extent of African slavery on this continent. I have long held that opinion, and I would not now suppress it for any consideration on earth. And because it does increase the evils of slavery, because it will in- DANIEL WEBSTER 93 crease the number of slaves and prolong the duration of their bondage, — because it does all this, I oppose it without con- dition and without qualification, at this time and all times, now and forever.'^ He spoke thus several times ; but an important change had taken place in him, since instead of fighting in the front, where we might expect to see him, he kept in the background, and displayed his principles only occasion- ally, and then with seeming reluctance. The ambition to be President rather than to be a real leader, which was growing on him, made him more cau- tious and less intrepid, more mundane and less clear-sighted. Formerly he leaped into the thick of the fight when a blow was aimed at one of the prin- ciples he loved. Now his great powers of argument seemed turned to the in- vention of excuses for inaction or compromise. A few years before, in opposing the compromise tariff bill with 94 DAOTEL WEBSTEE which Henry Clay sought to pacifyJ South Carolina, Mr. Webster had said, that the time had come to test the Con-' stitution, and that he was not in favor of sacrificing great principles to sectional interests; and, although he finally ac- quiesced in this bill, it was after he hadl given clear proof of courage and convic- tion in supporting Jackson's resolute stand against the followers of Calhoun. Even now, in 1837, he could still say, at Kiblo's Garden, although such pas- sages are too rare, words which com- pletely answer his later sophistries: ^^On the general question of slavery a great portion of the community is al- ready strongly excited. The subject has not only attracted attention as a ques- tion of politics, but it has struck a far deeper-toned chord. It has arrested the feeling of the country. It has taken strong hold on the consciences of men. He is a rash man, indeed, and little conversant with human nature, and es- DANIEL WEBSTER 95 pecially has he a very erroneous estimate of the character of the people of this country, who supposes that a feeling of this kind is to be trifled with or de- spised. It will cause itself to be re- spected. It may be reasoned 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 coerce it into silence, to restrain its free expression, to seek to comj^ress and confine it, warm as it is, and more heated as such endeavors would inevitably render it, — should this be attempted, I know nothing, even in the Constitution or in the Union itself, which would not be endangered by the explosion which might follow.'^ In the summer of 1839 he went to England, perhaps for rest, perhaps to afiect the Presidential nomination ; and, 96 DANIEL WEBSTER when he landed in December, he re- ceived the news that General Harrison had been made the standard-bearer of the Whigs, the supporters of the tariff and the inheritors since 1834 of some of the leading principles of Federalism. Mr. Webster accepted his misfortune calmly, and threw himself into the cam- I)aign, making many speeches with de- cided effect. The Whig victory resulted in giving him the office of Secretary of Stat^', which he filled so well that his reputation mounted high in a new field. Senator Lodge, one of the most judicial of his biographers, believes that nobody except John Quincy Adams ever showed higher qualities in the State Depart- ment. Among the many useful negotia- tions tactfully performed, the Ashburton Treaty is by far the best known. There were many grievances between England and America ; and Mr. Webster showed patience, skill, and fairness in carrying through the work, settling the east half DAOTEL WEBSTER 97 of the northern boundary and introduc- ing a valuable extradition clause. It is noticeable that he defended the treaty against his own party, and stood by the President when the rest of the cabinet resigned. He also carried through a treaty with Portugal, and soon after showed his ability in other fields still great, though less than it had been, by such law arguments as the Girard Will ease (1840), and such eloquence as the second Bunker Hill oration (1843). In his constitutional reasoning as Secretary of State he was doubtless enormously helped by Justice Story, to whom he wrote in 1842: ^^You can do more for me than all the rest of the world, be- cause you can give me the lights I most want ,• and, if you furnish them, I shall be confident they will be true lights. I shall trouble you greatly the next three months.^' Letters from each of these men to the other were kept by Mr. Webster from publication after Story's 98 DANIEL WEBSTER death, in order that his own fame might not be lessened, — a fact which is estab- lished beyond doubt, but seems incred- ible when we think of the Daniel Webster of 1820. At the end of 1842, his principal tasks being acicomplished, he resigned to prac- tise law and to live at Marshfield, on the Massachusetts seaside farm, where he still took so keen a joy in nature. An- ecdotes of this time show that his jovial- ity and spontaneous feelings for large and healthy things were still strong in him. That love of the open air and the beauty of nature, which did so much to give simplicity and size to his style and thought, cannot, perhaps, be better shown than by one of his letters written some years later from this country home, with its old fort and its mixed visitors, of whom Audubon was one: ^^But the morning itself few people, inhabitants of cities, know anything about. Among all our good people, not one in a thou- DAJJIEL WEBSTER 99 ? r*^ '"^^ ^^^ ^"» rise once a year. They i ^°«^ "^"tWng of the mor4g. The'r '\ idea of it is that n- ic n * , day ^h,eh comes along after a cup of coffee and a beefsteak or a piece of toa^t. With them morning is notTnei issuing of light, a nei,^ bursting forth of . the sun, a ne^ leaking up of all that has ife, from a sort of temporary death, to behold again the works of God, the heavens and the earth. It is only a*' part of the domestic day belonging to breakfast, to reading the newspapers, answering notes, sending the children to school, and giving orders for dinner The first faint streak of light, the eas- iest purpling of the east, which the lark springs up to greet, and the deeper ind deeper coloring into orange and -ed, till at length the 'glorious sun is een, regent of day,' —this they never ■njoy ; for they never see it." Mr. Webster was not a candidate for he Presidency in 1844, but supported 100 DANIEL WEBSTEE Henry Clay. In the following year he ij returned to the Senate, four days aft^r the passage of the resolutions annexing Texas. The slavery issue was now cov- ering most of the political sky. It is< worth noticing that a speech delivered' by ]\Ir. Webster in 1844 at Faneuil Hall is not printed in his works. In that speech he said: ''What! when all the civilized world is opposed to slavery; when morality denounces it; when Christianity denounces it; when every- thing respected, everything good, bears one united witness against it, — is it for; America,— America, the land of Wash- ington, the model republic of the world, ^ is it for America to come to its assist- ance, and to insist that the maintenance of slavery is necessary to the support of her institutions ?" These flashes, how- ever, do not indicate the general toner of his speeches or the impression which^j was growing on the country — an impres-| sion fairly enough represented by John DANIEL WEBSTER 101 iuincy Adams's words, uttered several ears before — that Mr. Webster was < tampering witli the South on the slav- ry and Texas questions." In the war measures which occupied ::ongress after his return Mr. Webster ^i(^k little part. In the matter of the )regon boundary and the '^54-10 or Lght" outcry he helped on a peaceable olution; and he answered successfully ome bitter charges of improper ex- )enditure connected with his work on he Ashburton treaty. The conclusion inaUy was that he had been, as ilways, careless in his accounts, but lot dishonest. ' In 1847 he voted for the ^'Wilmot Proviso," forbidding slavery in territory :hereafter to be acquired; and he op- posed also territorial aggrandizement, mainly because it would make the slav- 3ry question more difficult. He pre- sented to Congress the resolutions of the Massachusetts legislature against the 102 DANIEL WEBSTER extension of slavery,- but some of hi I speeches on this subject at this time ar< already suspiciously mild, and dwel more on the legal than on the morai aspect of the problem, putting emphasis on the danger of interfering with the constitutional rights of the slaveholders The year 1848, a sad one for Mr. Web ster, made him more than ever a dis- appointed man, weakened by politicaf resentment and private misfortune. tJ> break what was left of his spirit, a son and a daughter died within three daysf of each other. The orator, now sixty-^, six years old, wearied and shattered by(' intense efibrt crowded into short spaces. 1 by disease, bereavement, and disappoint ^ ment, prepared his own burial-place at : Marshfield, with no more joy in life, and with one absorbing, trivial hope. Young , men who heard him speak could not un derstand his fame. Often he was pom. pons, heavy, empty, though once and again he would blaze up with the old> DANIEL WEBSTER 103 ire and inspiration. He was in no condition to meet the changing times. To the Free Soil Party, afterward the Republicans, belonged the bold and con- quering stand J to the Whigs, the falter- ing and losing one. And Mr. Webster 3tood with the Whigs. A candidate again in 1848, he re- 3eived in the convention half as many v^otes as Scott, Taylor being nominated, with Clay second. In a speech at Marshfield Mr. Webster said that the nomination was not fit to be made, but that it was dictated by ^Hhe sagacious, wise, and far-seeing doctrine of availa- bility." A few years later he was to say at Buifalo, ^^ Gentlemen, I believe in party, I am a party man." Years learlier he had said of Washington: ^^ His principle it was to act right, and to trust the people for support ; his prin- ciple it was not to follow the lead of sinister and selfish ends, nor to rely on the little arts of party delusion to obtain public sanction for such a course. Born 104 DANIEL WEBSTER for his country and for the world, he die not give up to party what was meant foii mankind. The consequence is that hiji fame is as durable as his principles, s& lasting as truth and virtue themselves. While the hundreds whom i^arty excite- ment and temporary circumstances and casual combinations have raised into transient notoriety sink again, like thin bubbles bursting and dissolving into the great ocean, Washington's fame is likSj the rock which bounds that ocean, and at whose feet its billows are destined to break harmlessly forever. ... ^' Among other admonitions, Wash- ington has left us, in his last communi- J cation to his country, an exhortations against the excesses of party spirit. A fire not to be quenched, he yet conjures J us not to fan and feed the flame. Un- doubtedly, gentlemen, it is the greatest danger of our system and of our time. Undoubtedly, if that system should be overthrown, it will be the work of ex- cessive party spirit." DANIEL WEBSTER 105 [ In 1850 he took his final stand on slavery. As late as February 14 of that year he said, in a letter, that he be- uieved there was no real danger of the breaking-up of the government. A few months later he was using the danger of I disruption as the principal argument in support of Henry Clay's so-called compromise, which was no compromise at all, but an enormous victory for the ^outh, throwing open thousands of miles to slavery, with no protection even for that part of the territory lying above Ihe line of the Missouri Compromise, and re-enacting and emphasizing the Fugitive Slave Law. On March 7 Mr. Webster made in the Senate the most famous of his later speeches, stirring up Tall of his dormant powers to plead the cause of the slaveholders. He dwelt upon the constitutional rights, which everybody knew, opposed the Wilmot Proviso on the plea that, as slave labor would not pay in the North-west, he would not ^'irritate" the South or 106 DAOTEL WEBSTER ^'needlessly take pains to reaffirm an ordinance of nature, nor to re-enact thei will of God.'' He brought all of his: logical acumen to a legal defence of thef' Fugitive Slave Law, and no other parti of his speech created such pain and in-j dignation in the J^orth. Mr. Webster's ' desertion did something to cover up the flames ; but they only burned the more i fiercely, for it was seen, by the unrelent- ing men who thought now with the Webster of 1820, that all hope of confin- ing slavery to its original area until the ISTorth had grown great and the South poor was gone, and that the crash might as well come when it would. Some of the effect of this speech may be indicated by its influence on the phi- losopher who had so coolly kept aloof from the controversy, ^a," said Emer- son, ''have lived all my life without ' suffering any inconvenience from Amer- can slavery. I never saw it, I never heard the whip. I never felt the check on my free speech and action until the DANIEL WEBSTER 107 )ther day, when Mr. Webster, by his 3ersonal iufluence, brought the Fugitive 51ave Law on the country. I say Mr. yV^ebster ; for, though the bill was not lis, it is yet notorious that he was the ife and soul of it, that he gave it all he iad. It cost him his life ; and under the hadow of his great name inferior men heltered themselves, threw their ballots or it, and made the law. . . . Nobody loubts that Daniel Webster could make I. good speech. Nobody doubts that here were good and plausible things to ^e said on the part of the South. But his is not a question of ingenuity, not a luestion of syllogisms, but of sides. How lame he there? . . . But the question fhich history will ask is broader. In he final hour, when he was forced by he peremptory necessity of the closing rmies to take a side, did he take the art of great principles, the side of umanity and justice, or the side of buse and oppression and chaos? . . . le did as immoral men usually do, — 108 DANIEL WEBSTER made very low bows to the Christiaaj Church and went through all the Sun- day decorums, but, when allusion was made to the question of duty and the| sanctions of morality, he very frankly said, at Albany, 'some higher law,, something existing somewhere between here and the heaven, I do not know where.' And, if the reporters say true, this wretched atheism found some laugh- ter in the company. ' ' Seward called Mr. Webster a 'Hraitor- to the cause of freedom,'' Harriet Mar- tineau accused him of ''folly and treach- ery," and that gentlest of men, the poet Whittier, wrote : — Of all we loved and honored, naught Save power remains ,* A fallen angel's pride of thought, Still strong in chains. All else is gone. From those great eyes The soul has fled ; When faith is lost, when honor dies, The man is dead. DANIEL WEBSTER 109 Thirty years after, Whittier left an- bther picture, less sad and no less kind ; ind the change in him is so nearly par- allel to the changing judgment of the iv^orld that part of the poem may well ;tand here, to lighten the impression of ;hese last gloomy years. Thou Whom the rich heavens did so endow With eyes of power and Jove's own I brow, With all the warrior strength that fills Thy home horizon's granite hills. With rarest gifts of heart and head Prom manliest stock inherited, NTew England's stateliest type of man, tn port and speech Olympian ; IWliom no one met, at first, but took tA- second awed and wondering look (As turned, perchance, the eyes of Greece Z>n Phidias' unveiled masterpiece) 5 Whose words, in simplest homespun clad. The Saxon strength of Csedmon's had. The mistaken statesman felt no secu- nty in his new position, no serenity or 110 DANIEL WEBSTER pride of right. Always on the defen-i' sive, he became more and more unfair and caustic, more and more openlyj made that bid for Southern support which was to avail so little. He said in Boston itself, at the Eevere House, seven weeks after his great speech: ^^ Neither) you nor I shall see the legislation of the country proceed in the old harmonious^ way until the discussions in Congress and out of Congress upon the subject! shall be in some way suppressed. Take that home with you^ and take it as truth. ^^ I shall support no agitations having, their foundation in unreal and ghastly abstractions.^' j' He said at Capon Springs, W. Ya.,, June 26, 1851: ^^ Gentlemen, this North i Mountain is high, the Blue Ridge higher still, the Alleghanies higher than either ',\ and yet this ^higher land' ranges fur-, ther than an eagle's flight above thej highest peaks of the Alleghanies. No ' common vision can discern it, no com- BANIEL WEBSTEE 111 mon and unsophisticated conscience can feel it, the hearing of common men never learns its high behests ; and, there- fore, one would think it not a safe law to be acted upon in matters of the high- est practical moment. It is the code, however, of the Abolitionists of the North. . . . ^'You of the South have as much right to secure your fugitive slaves as the North has to any of its rights and privileges of navigation and commerce.'' This great fall so occupied his last years that his other doings at the same period sink into insignificance in a sum- mary- story of his life. When Taylor died, (July 9, 1850), Mr. Webster became Sec- retary of State under Fillmore. During this second occupancy his only well- re- membered act was the correspondence with the Chevalier Hulsemann, in which Mr. Webster took the opportunity to tell Austria, and Europe in general, in a manner more aggressive than was 112 DANIEL WEBSTER usual with him, that we were a great nation, and that we had the right to express sympathy with any struggle for republican government. In 1852 he was a candidate again, with more confi- dence than ever, since Clay had been put out of the race. On the first ballot Fillmore had 133, Scott 131, Mr. Web- ster 29 J and Scott was nominated on the fifty-second. Mr. Webster refused to support him, and requested his friends to vote the Democratic ticket, because — if we are to believe Peter Harvey, who, stupid as he is, was the chosen friend of the orator's last years and a reporter of the worst side of his great friend with dog-like admiration — because Franklin Pierce had always been formally friendly to Mr. Webster ! Disease had been doing its work : sor- row, bitterness, and mistrust had been doing theirs ; and, a fall from his car- riage hastening the end, the broken statesman died at Marshfield Oct. 24, DANIEL WEBSTEE 113 1852. Eeligion had been a decorum in his life, not a force ; and he left for his own epitaph this : — ^^^Lord, I believe: help thou mine unbelief.^ Philosophical argument, es- pecially that drawn from the vastuess of the universe in comparison with the apparent insignificance of this globe, has sometimes shaken my reason for the faith which is in me ; but my heart has always assured and reassured me that the gospel of Jesus Christ must be a Divine Eeality. The Sermon on the Mount cannot be a merely human pro- duction. This belief enters into the very depth of my conscience. The whole history of man proves it. ^^ Daniel Webster.^' At his own request the orator's fu- neral was a quiet one, at Marshfield. Through all the changes of his nature, through plot and counterplot, he had 114 DANIEL WEBSTER loved repose, the sky and the moun- tains, fresh air and grandeur ; and the last rites were in harmony with the nobler character of the man. Posterity has dealt firmly, but largely with him ; for a catastrophe that shook the founda- tions settled forever the place of Daniel Webster in our history. Because he was unable to stand patiently for the truth as he saw it in the lustre of his intellect and the health of his ambition, the world has justly called the great man weak. Because he spoke the sen- tences which, far above all others, be- came the watchwords of the North in the struggle for national integrity, his fame is high and sure in the story of America, not only as her greatest mas- ter of an eloquence which lighted up the deepest truths in her Constitution, but as the one of her sons whose power- ful statement of the nation's faith did most in time of peril to insure the nation's life. BIBLIOGRAPHY. As has clearly been explained in the preface, there is no really great and final life of Webster; and it is therefore doubly necessary for any one who would study him carefully to get as many opposite points of view as possible. To read his siDceches and letters will do much. Some of the books in the follow- ing list are good, some bad. All may be suggestive. Various magazine arti- cles, easily found in Poole, and refer- ences in diaries, letters, essays, sermons, and newspapers of the time, will do more than any one existing book to furnish the material for a substantial judgment. I. A Memoir of the Life of Daniel Webster. By S. L. Knapp. (Boston, 1831: Stimson & Clapp.) This is a brief and, of course, unfinished memoir. Another edition was published four years later, and the work was revised. 116 BIBLIOGEAPHY II. Speeches and Foeensic Argu- ments OF Daniel Webster. (Boston, 1835: Perkins, Marvin & Co.) Has most of his speeches np to that date. III. The Beauties of Daniel Web- ster. Selected and arranged^ with Essay on his Genius and Writings^ by James Eees. (New York, 1839 : J. & H. S. Langley. ) Also incomplete. IV. Reminiscences of Congress. A Biography of Daniel Webster. By Charles W. March. (New York, 1850 ; Baker & Son.) Another edition by Scribner, New York, 1852, under title of Daniel Webster and his Contemporaries. Y. Daniel Webster: Works. (Bos- ton, 1851 : Little & Brown. ) Contains a brief biographical memoir besides his works. YI. The Private Life of Daniel Webster. By Charles Lanman. (New York, 1852: Harper & Bros. ) BIBLIOGKAPHY 117 VII. The Public and Private Life OF Daniel Webster, etc. By S. P. Lyman. (Philadelphia, 1852 : J. E. Potter & Co.) VIII. The American Statesman; or Illustrations of The Life and Character of Daniel Webster. By Joseph Banvard. (Boston, 1853 : Gould & Lincoln. ) IX. Life and Memorials of Daniel Webster. By S. P. Lyman. (New York, 1853 : D. Appleton & Co. ) These memorials were originally written for and printed in the New York Times. X. Daniel Webster: Life, Eulogy, AND Great Orations. (Eochester, 1854: W. M. Hayward & Co.) The Life is by M. L. G. Clarke, the Eulogy by W. M. Hayward. XL Daniel Webster: Private Cor- respondence. Edited by Fletcher Web- ster. (Boston, 1857 : Little, Brown & Co.) 118 BIBLIOGRAPHY XII. Daniel Webster: Etude Bio- GRAPHIQUE. (Bruxelles, 1858 : F. Claasseu.) This was at that time the only foreign Life of Webster. XIII. Life, Speeches, and Memorials OF Daniel Webster, etc. By S. M. Schmucker. (Philadelphia, 1867 : Qua- ker City Publishing House. ) XIV. Life of Daniel Webster. By George T. Curtis. (Xew York, 1870: D. Appleton & Co. ) XV. Reminiscences and Anecdotes OF Daniel Webster. By Peter Har- vey. (Boston, 1877 : Little, Brown & Co.) XVI. The Last Years of Daniel Webster. By George T. Curtis. (:N'ew York, 1878: D. Appleton & Co.) This contains also a poem by W. C. Wilkin- son, to which are attached a number of interesting notes. XVII. MEAPHY 119 By C. H. Daniel Webster. Genealogiy England Historic- printed.) ,r, 1881: Privately XVIII. r Cabot Locbster. By Henry t Mifflin & n, 1883 : Houghton, I XIX. Da TrvE SpPter: Eepresenta- DoubledaisTew York, 1898: ' ' Adams ^lure. ) Contains to Hayne^on'^ and ^^Eeply c is It rr CK The beacon BIOGRAPHIES. M. A. DeWOLFE HOWE, Editor. The aim of this series is to furnish brief, readable, and authentic accounts of the lives of those Americans whose personalities have impressed themselves most deeply on the character and history of their country. On account of the length of the more formal lives, often running into large Tolumes, the average busy man and woman have not the time or hardly the inclination to acquaint themselves with American biography. In the present series everything that such a reader would ordinarily care to know is given by writers of special competence, who possess in full measure the best contemporary point of view. Each volume is equipped with a frontispiece portrait, a calendar of important dates, and a brief bibliography for further reading. Finally, the volumes are printed in a form convenient for reading and for carrying handily in the pocket. The following volumes are the first issued : — PHILLIPS BROOKS, by the Editor. DAVID G. FARRAGUT, by James Barnes. ROBERT E. LEE, by W. P. Trent. JA_MES RUSSELL LOWELL, by Edward Everett Hale, Jr. DANIEL WEBSTER, by Norman Hapgood. The following are among those in preparation : — JOHN JAMES AUDUBON, by John Burroughs. EDWIN BOOTH, by Charles Townsend Copeland. AARON BURR, by Henry Childs Merwin. JAMES FENIMORE COOPER, by W. B. Shubrick Clymer. BENJAMIN FRANK.L1N, by Lindsay Swift. SMALL, MAYNARD & COMPANY, Publishers, 6 Beacon Street, Boston. ./ i\ X12 '<- "^ . i- '-^^ ,<^ -i .£;-- 0> ^ ^^r. •J '-„XK>^ ^ -P v'^ ' <" •J> C -» o :^'^''^. ^" .^ *7 \ - 2 "oo"^" . c \ l\' ^. >- "^M > ^■ ^^^'' ^< "a c \' ' O ^ ^ C\ ...^^- * .>^ ^r ' *." -^^ - N^ ^. >■ ^ o^ '7^ » « ■v ^0 a .... /V ,^^ '^^ ■'^- ' ^' ^^. <■ V 7- •^ " o> -Z'. " n^^- <^'' < .'^' O^ , ^^. "• ^ , \ c> / LIBRARY OF CONGRESS