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DISCOURSE

LIFE AND CHAEACTEE

DANIEL WEBSTER.

H. A. BOARDMAN, D.D.

PHILADELPHIA:
JOSEPH M. WILSON.
22S CHESTNUT STREET.
1852.

C SHERMAN, PRINTER,
19 St. James Street.

CORRESPONDENCE.

Philadelphia, November 26, 1852.
To TIIE Reverend Henry A. Boardman, D.D.
Reverend and dear Sir : —
We beg leave most respectfully to ask the favour of you to fur
nish for publication a copy of your discourse, delivered on Monday
evening last, upon the life and character of Daniel Webster. We
think it important that this graphic and eloquent tribute to the
memory of the departed Statesman should be preserved in an en
during form. It may have a salutary influence upon many aspirants
for political distinction, to know that devoted and patriotic services
are appreciated, after the actors have passed away; and it may
comfort and strengthen the faith of the humble Christian, when he
sees the efficacy of his holy religion so triumphantly illustrated in
the trying hour of death.
With sentiments of high respect and regard,
We are your friends and fellow-citizens,
R. C. Grier. Charles Gilpin.
Jno. K. Kane. John A. Brown.
Geo. Sharswood. James Dundas.
Oswald Thompson. Charles Macalester.
J. K. Mitchell, M.D. Hugh L. Hodge, M.D.
Evans Rogers. S. F. Smith.
Arthur G. Coffin. Nathaniel Chauncey.
John S. Riddle. Henry D. Gilpin.
Isaac Hazlehurst. Frederick Brown.

Philadelphia, November 29, 1852.
Gentlemen : — ¦
I thank you sincerely for your very kind note, requesting for
publication a copy of my discourse on the life and character of
Daniel Webster, and have pleasure in placing the manuscript at
your disposal. I remain. Gentlemen,
With great respect.
Your friend and servant,
H. A. Boardman.
To the Hon. Egbert C. Geiek,
Hon. Chables Gilpin,
Hon. John K. Kane,
Hon. Geoeoe Shaeswood,
Hon. Oswald Thompson,
John A. Beown, Esq.,
And others.

DISCOUESE.

I CANNOT bring myself to believe that the theme
which is now engrossing all minds, should be excluded
from the pulpit. We are a smitten nation. The
symbols of mourning meet the eye in our crowded
cities, in our tranquil villages, in the remotest hamlets
of the mountains. "A great man has fallen in Israel !"
God has taken from us " the honourable man, and the
counsellor, and the eloquent orator." If such a man is
one of the choicest earthly gifts heaven can bestow
upon a people, his removal may well be regarded as
one of their greatest bereavements. We are admo
nished that the fall of a sparrow has its lesson of in
struction for us. How inexcusable would it be, should
we treat an event like this with indifference.
Yet while I recognise the duty upori which I am
entering, I shrink from it. I have no hope of convey
ing to your minds my own sense of the magnitude of
our loss. Still less can I expect to elude the strictures
of those who entertain what may, perhaps, be styled
the popular view of the legitimate sphere of the pulpit.
But I am pressed with the feeling that I must, as a
Pastor, in some way improve this dispensation : that

without attempting a formal eulogy on Mr. Webster,
which Avould be in the highest degree presumptuous,
I must here record my sense of the invaluable services
he has rendered to our common country and our
common Christianity, and so endeavour to turn the
emotions of sorrow which fill our hearts, to some use
ful account. If i can do nothing more, I must be al
lowed to cast a single flower, however transitory, upon
his grave.
Man}^ eloquent tongues have already been employed
in celebrating Mr. Webster's character and achieve
ments. The most distinguished men of the leading
political parties have vied with each other in doing
homage to his intellectual greatness, his patriotism,
and his private virtues. In respect to the first of these
characteristics, he has long been without a rival, the
acknowledged head and crown of this nation. A mind
like his is a wonderful creation — adapted beyond the
sublimest exertions of the Divine power and wisdom
in the physical world, to inspire reverential and ador
ing views of the moral perfections of the Deity. Its
essential elements were comprehension, strength, sa
gacity, and symmetry. Colossal in its proportions, it
was nevertheless so well poised that it awakened ad
miration no less by the harmony of its movements
than by the grandeur of its several parts. The origi
nal structure of his intellect conspired with the whole
current of his training, to define the mission on which
Providence had sent him into the world. No other
revelation was needed to show that the science of go-

VERNMENT was to be the proper study of his life, and
that he was ultimately, should he be spared, to take
his place among that honourable assemblage — compri
sing, at the end of six thousand years, but a very small
number of names — whom the world reveres as Philo
sophic Statesmen. If we except the great New Eng
land Metaphysician and Divine of the last centurj-,
Jonathan Edwards, our own country has produced but
one mind comparable, in the qualities just noted, to
his own ; and that, by an inscrutable Providence, was
doomed to a violent extinction just when it had
reached the full maturity of its powers. It is the re
cord of history, that Alexander Hamilton* was " num
bered among statesmen at an age when in others the
rudiments of character are scarcely visible ;" and that
" America saw with astonishment a lad of seventeen
in the rank of her advocates, at a time when her ad
vocates were patriots and sages." Mr. Webster him
self once beautifully said of him, " He smote the rock
of the national resources, and abundant streams of re
venue gushed forth. He touched the dead corpse of
the public credit, and it sprung upon its feet. The
fabled birth of Minerva from the brain of Jove, was
hardly more sudden or more perfect than the financial
system of the United States burst from the conceptions
of Alexander Hamilton." If the genius of Webster
was not signalized by so precocious a development, it
was marked by no less vigour and versatility, and re-
* We may fairly claim Hamilton as an American, although he
was a native of the small island of Nevis, in the West Indies.

sembled it in the rare and happy union of a capacity for
the largest generalization, with the utmost patience
and penetration in the analysis of details. Like Ham
ilton, too, he was great in the Senate and at the Bar;
his equal as a statesman, certainly not his inferior as
an advocate. It has fallen to the lot of but a very few
men in either hemisphere to achieve an equal dis
tinction in these two fields at the same time. Mr.
Pitt and his illustrious antagonist, I'ox, were pre-emi
nent as parliamentary debaters ; but pohtics left them
neither time nor inclination for legal practice. Pox,
however, is said to have excited the astonishment and
admiration of the judges in arguing questions of law
on the trial of Warren Hastings. Erskine, the most
eloquent and successful barrister known to the British
Bar, had but a second or third rate rank in the House
of Commons. But of Webster it was well said by one
of the leading members of our Bar, at the late town-
meeting, " while the deep tones and the rich volumes
of his voice were still almost echoing in the councils
of the nation, they were again heard in forensic splen
dour in the highest judicial courts of the nation."*
It is a remarkable and striking fact, that the supe
riority here claimed for him should have been conceded
by all his contemporaries. Among the resolutions
adopted by the New York Bar, on the oceasion of his
death, was the following :
" Resolved, That in the large capacities and varied
powers of his intellect, in the culture and discipline of
* Josiah Randall, Esq.

these powers in the highest sphere of human action
and influence, in the fortune of great opportunities and
the success of great achievements, Daniel Webster
stands first among the men of his day and generation,
and his name and his fame will be a treasured posses
sion to his country for ever."
This is not an empty posthumous compliment. It
was the feehng, the universal feehng, during his life.
In whatsoever part of the Republic, on whatever thea
tre, he was " primus inter pares," the acknowledged
chief. On the floor of the Senate, before the tribunals
of justice, at public festivals or political convocations,
" He above the rest,
In shape and gesture proudly eminent.
Stood like a tower."
No one divided the primacy with him. No one
contested it. No one seemed even to envy it. His
very j)resence inspired respect. " It was enough (to
borrow the words of an accomplished Enghsh noble
man* who visited our country two years ago) to look
on his jutting dark brow and cavernous eyes, and
massive forehead, to be assured that they were the
abode of as much, if not more, intellectual power than
any head you perhaps ever remarked." And when
he spoke, the ample promise of his majestic appear
ance was redeemed. You found yourself listening to
a consummate orator. Scorning the trickery of mere
* The Earl of Carlisle.

10
declamation, he gave himself to the question in hand
with a dignity and earnestness of manner, an afiiu
ence and precision of language, a compactness and
cogency of reasoning, and a fertility of illustration,
which never failed to rivet the attention, rarely to
carry conviction to the heart. A master of the Eng
lish tongue, the simplicity of his diction and the
purity of his style, made him intelligible to persons of
every class. Nor was it possible to listen to him
without being instructed. Even in his famihar con
versation you were made to feel that his mind re
volved in a sphere above that occupied by ordinary
men. And whatever the subject on which he spoke,
you were certain to hear something worth carrying
away. It is only an expansion of the topic we have been
dwelling upon, to observe that Mr. Webster could
speak to the country with an authority which be
longed to none of his eminent associates. This was
not the result of any assumed superiority. It was
not derived from official station, for it was equally
marked during the intervals of his retirement, as
when he was in the Senate or the Cabinet, as decisive
at Marshfield as at Washington. It was the spontane
ous tribute of his fellow-citizens of all parties to his
great abilities, his wisdom, and his known devotion
to the Union. Whenever a cloud came down upon
our foreign relations, or a threatening crisis approached
in our domestic affairs, the nation turned, as by a sort
of common instinct, to Mr. Webster. There was no man

11
whose opinions at such junctures there was so great
a desire to learn ; none whose utterances produced so
decisive an effect upon the finance and commerce of
the country. A few words from him, whether of
distrust or of hopefulness, would tell upon every share
of stock in Wall Street, upon every cargo of flour at
Detroit, and every shipload of cotton at New Orleans.
The country knew that he was, beyond any other
man, conversant with all its interests and relations ;
that he never spoke what he did not fully believe ;
and that his words were Avords of careful deliberation.
They relied upon his truthfulness, and this, combined
with his extraordinary abilities, was a tower of strength
to him. There are able and truthful men who sur
vive him ; but it is no disparagement to them to say,
that there is no man living who can stand up and
speak to the American people as Daniel Webster
could, or whose opinions will be sought for in great
emergencies, as his were.
There was a reason for the confidence Avhich the
country at large reposed in him, paramount even to
the admiration in which all classes held his trans
cendent abilities. Mr. Webster belonged to the whole
country. He was no local politician. He was no
mere party man. New Hampshire might boast of the
small, one-story farm-house in which he was born.
Massachusetts might glory in having him as one of
her adopted sons. But he was no man of Massachu
setts — ^no man of New Hampshire, — he was an Ame
rican. He had of course his geographical ties and

12
associations ; but Warwickshire might as well attempt
to monopolise William Shakspeare, or Lincolnshire
Sir Isaac Newton, as for any one of our commonwealths
to challenge for itself the name and fame of Daniel
Webster. His true position was that assigned him
in a sentiment offered at a public dinner some eighteen
months ago : " The Constitution, and its greatest Ex
pounder — the Union, and its ablest Defender." With
a single exception, these are the most honourable
titles known to American history ; and by so indisso
luble a tie has the gratitude of his countrymen bound
them to his name, that they will go down to posterity
with as definitive an application as that which attaches
to the " Father of his Country." It is not intended
by this language that Mr. Webster was not allied to a
party, nor that he did not in his place advocate party
measures. But he was not, and, by the necessity of
his nature, he could not be a strict party man. Like
Burke, whom he resembled in several particulars (his
devotion to agriculture among the rest), he was a
statesman as distinguished from a politician. And
this, if traced to its results, may help to explain why,
hke Burke, also, he Avas never [if toe are to believe
everything ive hear) a popular favourite. If this was
a fact, it was because he was too great to be popu
lar. He would not stoop to pamper the vanity and
inflame the prejudices of the people. He despised
the intrigue and cajolery by which small men and
bad men so often rise to power. He was not a man
to be bought and sold at the shambles. If the mea-

13
sures of an administration to which he Avas generally
opposed met his approval, he had the rare indepen
dence and magnanimity to support them ; and some of
his ablest speeches were made on occasions of this
kind. The triumph of party was not the end he
lived for. Government was with him not a paltry
game of " Who wins and who loses" but a divine in
stitution, ordained for the most beneficent objects, and
essentially connected with the highest happiness of
individuals, and the substantial improvement of states.
In his view, the problems involved in administration
are among the most profound, as its functions are
among the most important, which can engage the
attention of the human intellect. And it is easy to
imagine the secret loathing with which he must have
seen these momentous interests made, as they con
stantly are, the sport of the vilest passions, and de
graded to be the very footballs of rival demagogues.
The special subject to which he applied his powers,
was the Constitution of his country. You shall have
his own statement on this point :
" Gentlemen, to be serious, my life has been a life
of severe labour in my profession, and all the portion
I could spare of that labour, from the support of my
family and myself, has been devoted to the considera
tion of subjects connected with the general history of
the country — the Constitution of the country — the
confederation out of which the Constitution arose —
all the history of all the Congresses which have
assembled before and since the formation of that

14
Constitution— and, in short, if I have learned any
thing, or know anything — and I agree it is very
Uttle — what I do know and what I do understand, so
far as I understand anything, is the Constitution of
the United States, the history of its formation, and
the history of its administration under General Wash
ington, and from that time down to this."*
It is not too much to say of Mr. Webster, that he
surpassed all the men of his generation in his minute '
famiharity with everything pertaining to the origin
and working of our republican charters, and in the
profound and varied knowledge, the masculine logic,
and the lofty eloquence he brought to the exposition
and estabUshment of them. " The key to his whole
political course is the belief that when the Union is
dissolved, the internal peace, the vigorous growth,
and the prosperity of the States, and the welfare of
their inhabitants, are blighted for ever; and that,
while the Union endures, all else of trial and calamity
which can befall a nation may be remedied or borne."f
His feeling on this subject was so much like that of
the immortal statesman with whom he has already
been compared, that with two or three shght altera
tions, a passage applied by his eloquent eulogist to
Hamilton, might be readily taken as designed for
Webster. " He reserved himself for crises which he feared are
approaching ; such crises, especially, as may affect the
* Speech at Syracuse, New York, May 26th, 1851.
¦j- Mr. Everett.

15
integrity of the Union. How he was alarmed by
everything which pointed at its dissolution ; how in
dignant were his feelings and language on that ungra
cious topic; how stern and steady his hostility to
every influence which only leaned toward the project,
they Avill attest with whom he was in habits of com
munication. In every shape it encountered his repro
bation, as unworthy of a statesman, as fatal to Ame
rica, and desirable to the desperate alone. One of
his primary objects was to consolidate the efforts of
good men in retarding a calamity which, after all,
they may be unable to avert ; but which no partial
nor temporary policy should induce them to accele
rate. To these sentiments must be traced his hatred
to continental factions ; his anxiety for the federal
constitution, although, in his judgment, too slight for
the pressure which it has to sustain ; his horror of
every attempt to sap its foundation or loosen its
fabric ; his zeal to consecrate it in the affections of his
fellow-citizens, that, if it fall at last, they may be
pure from the guilt of its overthrow — an overthroAV
which may be accomplished in an hour, but of which
the woes may be entailed upon ages to come."*
How much his deep solicitude for the Union gave
tone and character to Mr. Webster's Ufe and labours,
must be known wherever his name is mentioned.
The impress of it is upon all his speeches — his funeral
eulogies — his great legal arguments. It might even
* Dr. Mason's Oration before the Cincinnati, in New York, July
31st, 1804. ;v

16
be detected in the rich tissue of his ordinary conver
sation. You could almost read it in his majestic
brow, and his large lustrous, piercing eye.* Such
had been the course of events that his very presence
suggested the idea of the Union. When men saw
him, their first thought was of the Constitution ; and
there went forth from every breast a spontaneous
tribute of veneration and gratitude toward the man
who had been so instrumental, under Providence, in
preserving intact the framework of our unrivalled
government.f Nor has the extent of our obligations to him been
overrated. It was his fortune to live at a most inte
resting and critical period of our history. He com-
* The author of the pamphlet entitled, "Personal Memorials of
Daniel Webster," (Lippincott, Grambo & Co.,) mentions that he
once questioned Mr. Webster as to his personal appearance when a
school-master in Maine. His reply was, " Long, slender, pale, and
all eyes ; indeed, I went by the name of ' All Eyes,' the country
round." f In one of his addresses just quoted, he observed that it so
happened that all his public services had been rendered to the
General Government. But, correcting the statement, he mentioned
a single exception. "I was," said he, "for ten days, a member of
the Massachusetts Legislature, and I turned my thoughts to the
search of some good object in which I could be useful in that posi
tion ; and after much reflection, I introduced a bill, which, with the
general consent of both houses of the Massachusetts Legislature,
passed into a law, and is now a law of the State, which enacts that
no man in the State shall catch trout in any other manner than
with the ordinary hook and line. With that exception, I never was
connected for an hour with any State government in my life."

menced his life almost simultaneously with our Con
stitution, having been a boy of only five years old
when the Convention which formed it assembled in
this city. The difficulties and dangers Avhich gathered
around the infancy of the government, and threatened
its early subversion, had been happily surmounted
before he reached his maturity ; but questions of the
gravest import, and fraught Avith momentous conse
quences to the country, arose from time to time
during the entire period of his public career. These
were not simply matters of policy and expediency,
like the tariff, the bank, the public lands, and other
legislative measures, which he discussed with his
usual ability ; but questions underlying all legislation,
and affecting the fundamental law on which our in
stitutions rest. It was a new government ; new, not
simply as a chronological fact, but in many of the
essential principles which entered into its structure.
History recorded no precedent for it. The world had
seen nothing like it. It had required all the influence
of Washington and his associates, and all the erudi
tion, acumen, and patriotism of the authors of the
" Federalist," and other distinguished writers and
orators, to win the consent of the different States to
a federal Union. And when the Union was once
formed, the delicate relations of the general and the
state governments became, as they still are, a source
of embarrassment and controversy. It was a question
of this sort on which Mr. Webster made his maiden

• 18
speech before the Supreme Court of the United States*
— the celebrated Dartmouth College case. Of his
argument on that occasion, it has been observed:
"The logic and the law were rendered irresistible.
But as he advanced, his heart warmed to the subject
and the occasion. Thoughts and feeUngs that had
grown old with his best affections, rose unbidden to
his lips. He remembered that the institution he was
defending was one where his OAvn youth had been
nurtured ; and the moral tenderness and beauty this
gave to the grandeur of his thoughts, the sort of reli
gious sensibility it imparted to his urgent appeals and
demands for the stern fulfilment of what law and
justice required, wrought up the whole audience to
an extraordinary state of excitement. Many betrayed
strong agitation, many were dissolved in tears. Pro
minent among them was that eminent lawyer and
statesman, Robert Goodloe Harper, who came to him
when he resumed his seat, evincing emotions of the
highest gratification. When he ceased to speak, there
was a perceptible interval before any one was willing
to break the silence ; and when that vast crowd sepa
rated, not one person of the whole number doubted
that the man who had that day so moved, astonished,
and controlled thera, had vindicated for himself a
place at the side ofthe first jurists ofthe country."f
Such was the auspicious dawn of his brilliant ca
reer as an expounder of the Constitution. In subse-
* A.D. 1818, in his thirty-seventh year.
-j- Mr. Ticknor, quoted by Everett.

19
quent years still greater questions gave occasion to still
greater efforts. PoUtical heresies of the most startling
character, such as no opposer of the federal compact
had breathed in the earlier days of the Republic, were
propagated upder the sanction of distinguished names,
and found able and eloquent champions within the
walls of the Capitol. Principles were propounded re
specting the sovereignty of the states, which, if carried
out, would have turned the bonds which hold the Union
together into withs of straw, and left this glorious
fabric to fall to pieces, like the early republics, a prey
to intestine feuds. The merciful Providence that had
brought us through so many other perils, did not aban
don us in this hour of our extremity. A man was
found equal to the crisis. He knew that it was a crisis.
He formed a just estimate of the grandeur of the occa
sion. It was in his view an issue of no less solemnity
than whether this august Union was to be maintained
and perpetuated, or broken up into a group of petty
rival confederacies ; whether this beautiful land was
still to be the abode of peace and plenty, intelligence
and piety, with the freest, the happiest, and the most
improA^ng population on the globe, or to be given over
to the manifold horrors of a violent dismemberment,
and ultimately to the yet greater horrors of a fratrici
dal war ; whether the oppressed nations were still to
draw encouragement and hope from the spectacle of a
great people rising to an unexampled pitch of prosper
ity and renown, under the influence of free institu
tions, or to see the last hope of constitutional liberty

20
extinguished, and the whole globe covered again with
the black pall of despotism. Such were the issues in
volved in the sublime contest to which he was called.
Rarely in the course of human events has one man
had so vast a burden laid upon him. Never did
a man acquit himself in a great crisis more tri
umphantly. It is not my province to rehearse the
details of that day's* achievement. It is still fresh in
your memories. The fame of it is a part, and no tri
vial part of our country's glory. While the Union
lasts, that speech will continue to be cited as one of
the noblest efforts — perhaps the very noblest — of mo
dern eloquence. And should this Republic hereafter
yield to the destiny of all human organizations and
crumble into ruins, the oblivion that sweeps away our
cities, our fortresses, and our charters, will leave
Webster's reply to Hayne to be read and admired
by distant generations as a memento of our greatness,
no less indestructible than the monuments which
Greece and Rome have respectively in the Philippics
of Demosthenes and the orations of Cicero against
Cataline. I have dwelt on this speech because of the pre-emi
nence which is commonly assigned to it among Mr.
Webster's oratorical efforts. And yet three years af
terwards he made a speech, of which one of our most
eminent jurists,-]- whose name is never pronounced but
with reverence, said, in writing to him, " I had just
* January 26, 1830.
f The late Chancellor Kent.

21
finished the rapturous perusal of your speech on the
Protest, as appearing in the IntelUgencer of Saturday,
when I had the pleasure of receiving it from you in a
pamphlet form. I never had a greater treat than the
reading of that speech, this morning. You never
equalled this effort. It surpasses everything in logic
— in simplicity, and beauty, and energy of diction —
in clearness — in rebuke — in sarcasm — in patriotic and
glowing feelings — in just and profound constitutional
views — in critical severity and matchless strength. It
is worth millions to our liberties."
There is still another speech, too memorable to be
passed over in this connexion, but too recent to re
quire more than a brief reference. We are now very
much in the condition of a ship, which, after encoun
tering a terrific and protracted storm, emerges at length
into a tranquil sea, the heavens so serene, the air so
bland, the sense of security so perfect, that all the
peril and anxiety of the hurricane are as though they
had neA^er been. It is difficult to realize as we look
abroad over our peaceful and smiling land, and see the
various tribes which compose our population dwelling
together in unity — no discontent, no alienation, no
local jealousies, no political controversies of sufficient
moment to occasion the slightest solicitude — that three
years have not gone by since the whole country was
convulsed for months together with angry discussions
which imperilled the very existence of the Union. It
was no false alarm, no cry of women and children,
which startled the nation. It seemed as though all

22
the fountains of sectional bigotry had been broken up ;
as though the accumulated resentments of a half cen
tury had burst forth with unheard-of fury, and poured
themselves upon the ship of state with a violence which
threatened to " push from its moorings the sacred ark
of the common safety, and to drive this gallant vessel,
freighted with everything dear to an American bo
som, upon the rocks, or lay it a sheer hulk upon the
ocean."* It Avas an emergency Avhich appealed with
irresistible pathos and energy to the patriotism of the
country. And the appeal was not in vain. Our sanc
tuaries listened to unwonted and importunate prayer
for the perpetuity of our beloved Union. States
men of all parties, suspending for the time their minor
differences, hastened with a common loyalty to the
succour of their common country. The people in their
might and majesty assembled to deliberate on the
crisis. And the mandate Avent up to the Capitol from
millions of voices, like the sound of many waters, that
THE Union must and should be preserved. But this
sublime movement of the people was itself no less an
effect than a cause. Its mainspring Avas at Washing
ton. The Senate-chamber was again the battle-field
on which this great contest was to be decided. And
it was, for the second time, the high honour of Mr.
Webster to strike the decisive blow for the integrity
of the Union. Other men there were, his illustrious
peers, both in and out of Congress, who contributed in
no mean degree to bring about the propitious result.
* William Pinkney — on the Missouri Question.

23
But such were the complications of parties, and such
his personal antecedents and existing affinities, not to
add, such his thorough comprehension of every one of
the pregnant questions involved in the controversy,
that to him, more perhaps than to any other indivi
dual, was assigned the responsibility of determining
the final issue. He accepted the trust, and planted
himself in the breach. " The imprisoned winds," said
he in the solemn exordium of his memorable speech
on that occasion,* "^are let loose. The East, the
North, and the stormy South, combine to throw the
whole ocean into commotion, to toss its billows to the
skies and disclose its profoundest depths. I do not
affect to regard myself, Mr. President, as holding, or
as fit to hold, the helm in this combat with the politi
cal elements; but I have a duty to perform, and I
mean to perform it with fidelity, not without a sense
of existing dangers, but not without hope." Address
ing himself to the difficult and perilous task in this
spirit, he took up the debated topics, now twisted and
matted into a Gordian knot, and resolved the tangled
mass, not by cutting, but by untying it. One by one
the vexed questions were drawn out, defined, and ad
justed to each other, until at length a platform was
constructed, honourable to the North, honourable to
the South, and true to the Constitution, where men of
all types might sit down under the shadow of the
Union and smoke the calumet. It would be too much
to say that this speech restored the country to tran-
* March 7, 1850.

24
quillity. But the country instantly began to breathe
more freely. There Avas a sort of feeling that Daniel
Webster was a safe guide ; and that if he had found
a path through this morass, it must be solid footing
for those who chose to follow hiin. In the end, after
months of agitation, which gave occasion to many of
our ablest statesmen to signalize their devotion to the
Union, the great mass of the people did follow him.
By the favour of a merciful Providence, the Union
Avas not only preserved, but cemented.
It were a curious speculation, what would have
been the probable result had Mr. Webster thrown
himself, at this juncture, into the opposite scale ; had
he, instead of advising mutual conciliation and con
cession, taken ground boldly against the Compromise,
and employed his great powers in resisting that ad
justment. We have no warrant for maintaining that
even this would have defeated the arrangement in
question; but he knows little of the weight which
Mr. Webster's name carried with it, who can doubt
that it would have multiplied the obstructions to a
settlement a hundred-fold. The people of this country,
as a body, are not politicians. And throughout all
the States north of the Potomac, there were tens of
thousands of quiet, industrious citizens, who, irrespec
tive of party ties, were disposed to acquiesce in Mr.
Webster's opinions on all questions properly national.
Had his voice gone forth at this crisis — " These mea
sures are unjust to the North ; they are subversive of
the Constitution; they are unrighteous and oppres-

25
sive," — the whole country. North and South, would
have reeled with excitement, and all the previous
agitation would have been but as the tremor which
precedes the earthquake. We cannot doubt, it Avould
be an ungrateful distrust of the benign Providence
that has always protected us, to doubt, that even
with this opposition, the nation as a body would
ultimately have been conducted to some amicable
solution of the difficulty. But had his influence been
cast into the adverse scale, the quivering beam would
have held the nation in long and intolerable suspense.
From this trial the patriotism and fortitude of Mr.
Webster saved us. It was a service calculated to put
both these quahties to the test; but he was never
found wanting where the Union was concerned. In
referring to this occasion more than a year afterwards,
he said,* " I thought it my duty to pursue this course,
and I did not care what was to be the consequence.
I felt it was my duty in a very alarming crisis, to
come out ; to go for my country and my whole coun
try; and to exert any power I had, to keep that
country together. I cared for nothing, I was afraid
of nothing, but I meant to do my duty. Duty per
formed makes a man happy ; duty neglected makes a
man unhappy. I, therefore, in the face of all discou
ragements and all dangers, was ready to go forth and
do what I thought my country — ^your country — de
manded of me. And, gentlemen, allow me to say
here to-day, that if the fate of John Rogers had stared
* At Buffalo.

26
me in the face, if I had seen the stake, if I had heard
the faggots already crackUng, by the blessing of Al
mighty God, I would have gone on and discharged
the duty which I thought my country called upon me
to perform. I would have become a martyr to save
that country."
Such power over men as this great orator displayed
on this and other occasions, is a godlike endowment ;
and according to the principles by which it is con
trolled, will it spread light and joy over a land, or con
vert it into a scene of devastation. They are blessed
indeed, who have grace given them to use such an
endowment for the good of mankind ; and with what
terrific fury will retributive justice avenge itself upon
the men who prostitute these high gifts to purposes
of evil.
The closing sentence of the letter of Chancellor
Kent, quoted a few moments ago, contains a thought
that should be noted. "Your speech is worth millions
io our liberties." The great battles of freedom are
oftener fought in the Senate than in the field. Mr.
Webster's life was consecrated to the cause of enlight
ened, constitutional liberty. He might have adopted
as his own the motto of the great Selden, mfi wavrk mv
eXsu^sj iav : (abovo all things, liberty.) In those elabo
rate arguments which enchained by turns an applaud
ing Senate and an admixing Court, he was strength
ening the foundations of our political edifice, and
making it a safer and more comfortable home for the
millions who have sought a shelter in it. AU his

27
sympathies were on the side of freedom and intelli
gent progress : for it was not the l^ast of his merits
that he eluded the common fault of superior minds
employed in the more recondite branches of jurispru
dence, or subjected to the capricious criticisms of the
popular voice. Such men are apt to become conser
vative to an excess. They value law more than
justice. They distrust and dread the people. They
are jealous of enlarging their political franchises.
They look with complacency upon a strong govern
ment, and read nothing but danger in the effervescence
and tumult of popular gatherings, where the masses
meet to do their own business in their own way. No
man had clearer or sounder conceptions than this
eminent statesman, of the essential conditions of
national freedom. He well knew that self-govern
ment was one of the highest and most difficult func
tions, whether for individuals or for nations. He
never countenanced, therefore, that delusive and fatal
radicalism, which would cast all the thrones of Chris
tendom, and those who sit upon them, into one great
bonfire, and replace them with democratic charters.
But while he recognised the need of some preparatory
training as indispensable to the success of republican
institutions, he was inexorably opposed to all the
maxims and traditions of arbitrary rule, and ever
ready to employ his argumentative and luminous
eloquence in cheering on nations which were strug
gling for their independence. Of this we have two
remarkable illustrations in his speeches on the Greek

28
Revolution and the Panama Mission. The generous
sentiments so worthy of a statesman, and especially
of an American statesman, which pervade these, and
indeed, all his speeches, characterize also his diplo
matic papers. They are impressed on every page of
that remarkable document, in allusion to which one
of our own distinguished citizens, who recently adorned
the second office in the Republic, so felicitously said at
the late town-meeting, " Two years have not elapsed
since Mr. Webster's pungent, powerful, and patriotic
letter to Mr. Hulsemann resounded like the roar of
ordnance throughout Europe." The Cabinets of the
other hemisphere were left in no uncertainty as to
the ground on which our Secretary, and the govern
ment he represented, stood. And it was a solace to
the continental nations to hear their oppressors re
buked by one, who, spurning the courtly dialect in
which ministers and ambassadors are accustomed to
disguise their real sentiments, dared to tell them in
plain, unvarnished Saxon words, which startled the
whole realm of diplomacy, that America would not
permit any foreign interference in her affairs ; that
while they abstained from any intervention in the
conflicts of Europe, " the government and people of
the United States could not remain indifferent specta
tors when they beheld the people of foreign countries
spontaneously moving towards the adoption of insti
tutions like their own ;" and that " nothing should
deter them from exercising, at their own discretion,
the rights belonging to them as an independent nation,

29
and of forming and expressing their own opinions
freely, and at all times, upon the great political events
which may transpire among the civilized nations of
the earth."
Happily for Mr. Webster's fame and for his country,
a new edition of his works, edited by a distinguished
personal friend (now his successor in the Cabinet),
was published under his own eye, but a few months
before his death. With the exception of his diplo
matic papers, the matter contained in these six vo
lumes, has all been spoken, and yet it savours as little
of the character of mere speech-making, as any col
lection of orations or addresses in the language. It is
the most valuable contribution which has been made
to our political Uterature since the era of the Fede
ralist; and no professional library will hereafter be
deemed complete without it. It was the singular
merit of Mr. Webster, that he was able to embellish
the most profound disquisitions in political science
with elegant and various learning, and to enshrine
them in a brilliant and majestic eloquence. The ora
tor has passed away, but the patriot — the statesman —
the sage — is immortal. Open his works at random,
and you will instantly feel yourself to be in commu
nion with a master-mind. Nearly all the important
events in our history — the origin and essential attri
butes of our federal and state governments, the deli
cate questions growing out of the expansion of our ter
ritory and the accession of new states, the proper
limitations of the powers vested in the three depart-

30
ments of the government, the conduct of our foreign
relations, the services of the founders of the Repubhc,
education, the mechanic arts, agriculture, Christianity
as the indispensable basis of free institutions — these
are among the subjects he has discussed, and discussed
in such a way that he appears equally at home with
them all. EA^ery theme to which he applies his impe
rial intellect, becomes transparent. Touched by his
wand, the most chaotic mass of materials is reduced
to intelligible forms. Complex details are classified.
Principles take the place of sophisms. Declaination
gives way to argument. Precedents are sifted to their
last analysis. Consequences are portrayed with pro
phetic sagacity. Objections are refuted. One strong
hold of error after another is demolished. And you
follow on wherever the great orator leads the way, not
because he has so fascinated you with the sorcery of
his eloquence, that you are no longer a responsible
agent, but because your reason is satisfied, and you
haA^e the witness Avithin yourself that it is truth, not
victory, at which he is aiming. Fascinated, indeed,
you may be. Who could be otherwise in perusing
those admirable performances in Avhich there is so much
to gratify the taste, to enkindle pure and generous
emotions, to expand the mental vision, and inspire the
soul with a profounder consciousness of its intrinsic
dignity and its large capacities. And yet, in all and
above all, it is your reason which is addressed and con
vinced. Mr. Webster never fell into the error of de
grading his audience beneath the proper level of hu-

31
manity, and treating them as though they were crea
tures of mere sensibiUty or mere fancy, who cared only
to be excited or amused. Whether it is before a
crowded Senate or a Mechanics' Institute, before the
first legal tribunal of the country, or a heterogeneous
mass-meeting, assembled from the palaces and the
workshops of a large city, he never forgets that he is
a man himself and is speaking to men. He reverences,
as every man who presumes to address his fellow-men
in public or through the press, ought to reverence, the
human understanding. He takes it for granted that
you want to be reasoned with; that nothing will
satisfy you but truth and argument ; and that to at
tempt to put you off, when you are eager to have some
great problem of national poUcy or personal duty re
solved, with a bouquet of tropes or a quiver of iuA^ec-
tives, would be like mocking an exhausted and gasping
caravan in the desert, by rehearsing to them the tales
in the Arabian Nights Entertainments. A few intro
ductory words of courtesy there may be, and then for
the argument. And with such fairness and logical
fidelity does he pursue the argument — clothing it vsdth
a diction so plain as to be intelligible to the humblest
capacity, and so beautiful as to satisfy the most criti
cal taste — that if you go along with him at all, as you
will be pretty likely to do, it will be because you feel
at every step that you have firm ground under your
feet, and know what you are about just as well as you
do when treading the familiar rounds of your daily
avocation.

This, in fact, is one of the characteristics of Mr.
Webster's speeches which warrant us in predicting
that they will be as imperishable as anything in our
literature. They are full of important truth, expressed
in a manner which everybody can understand. We
may say of him what a profound critic has said of Mr.
Fox : " For ourselves, we think we never heard any
man who dismissed us from the argument on a debated
topic, with such a feeling of satisfied and final conAic-
tion, or such a competence to tell why we were con
vinced. There was, in the view in which subjects
were placed by him, something like the daylight, that
simple clearness which makes things conspicuous and
does not make them glare, which adds no colour or
form, but purely makes visible in perfection the real
colour and form of all things round ; a kind of light,
less amusing than that of magnificent lustres, or a
thousand coloured lamps, and less fascinating and ro
mantic than that of the moon ; but which is immeor
surably preferred when we are bent on sober business,
and not at leisure, or not in the disposition to wander
delighted among beautiful shadows and delusions. It
is needless to say that he possessed, in a high degree,
wit and fancy ; but superlative intellect was the grand
distinction of his eloquence ; the pure force of sense,
of plain, downright sense, was so great that it would
have given a character of sublimity to his eloquence,
even if it had noA^er once been aided by a happy image
or a brilliant explosion. The grandeur of plain sense.

83
would not have been deemed an absurd phrase, by any
man who had heard one of his best speeches."
When to these considerations it is added, that the
great questions discussed by Mr. Webster, can never
cease to have their importance while our institutions
last, we may assert with confidence, that his writings
will become an indispensable text-book in the training
of our future civilians. " I shall take care," said Lord
Erskine, "to put the works of Mr. Burke into the
hands of those whose principles are left to my forma
tion." With the same feeling, many an American
citizen will place Mr. Webster's works in the hands of
his sons. What better service, indeed, so far as their
secular education is concerned, could we render them ?
Where could they find a richer repository of sound
political maxims, of lucid and comprehensive vicAvs
concerning our national rights and duties, and of mas
terly disquisitions in constitutional jurisprudence ?
What writings would do more to make them thinkers
and reasoners ; to form them to a large and just esti
mate of their social and civil responsibilities ; to raise
them above the littlenesses of sectional prejudice, and
put the stamp of a broad nationality upon their pa
triotism; to show them that whatever use political
parties may choose to make of their honours, and to
whomsoever they may see fit to vote a triumph, a
truly great mind, animated by virtuous sentiments
and embracing the whole country within the wide
sweep of its affections, can achieve for itself a reputa
tion which no party-idolatry could confer, and no party^

34
malignity annul ; to stimulate them to seek, not the
" empty blast of popular favour or the applause of a
giddy multitude," but that " true glory," which, ac
cording to the prince of Roman orators, consists " in a
wide and illustrious fame of many and great benefits
conferred upon our friends, our country, or the whole
race of mankind;"* and to impress it deeply upon
their minds, that " if we and our posterity shall be
true to the Christian religion, if we and they shall live
always in the fear of God, and shall respect his com
mandments, if we and they shall maintain just moral
sentiments, and such conscientious convictions of duty
as shall control the heart and life, we may have the
highest hopes of the future fortunes of our country;
.... but if we and our posterity reject, reUgious
instruction and authority, violate the rules of eternal
justice, trifle with the injunctions of morality, and
recklessly destroy the political constitution which
holds us together, no man can tell how sudden a
catastrophe may overwhelm us, that shall bury all
our glory in profound obscurity."f These are among
the lessons which our young men may derive from the
careful study of the works of Mr. Webster ; and no
wise father would willingly deprive his sons of the
benefit of them.
The importance of the subject may justify us in
dwelling a Uttle longer on one of the points just indi
cated — the value to be attached to the life and writings
* Oration for Marcellus.
I Mr. Webster's Address before the New York Historical Society.

35
of this great publicist, as an auxiliary in the training
of our future statesmen. There are able men amongst
us whose faith in the permanency of the Union appears
to be nearly as firm as their confidence in the stability
of the solar system. We may certainly congratulate
, ourselves that, through the favour of Divine Provi
dence, our complex and beautiful scheme of government
has maintained its integrity against all the assaults
hitherto made upon it. But we have had warnings
enough to admonish us against a blind self-confidence.
Our own experience forbids us to look for any exemp
tion from those intestine broils and commotions with
which all other nations haA^e been agitated. In a
country of such vast extent, increasing in population
and resources with a rapidity which makes a new atlas
necessary every five years, with the utmost diversity
of climate and productions, conflicting sectional inte
rests, commercial and diplomatic relations spread all
over the globe, thirty-one jealous and powerful state
governments closely interlocked with a grand central
administration, and sensitive to the slightest apparent
invasion of their sovereignty, and twenty-five millions
of people animated by an energetic, if it must not be
said, an aggressive, Oaiicasian spirit, — in such a coun
try, occasions for discord and alienation can never be
wanting, if there are indiAdduals at hand whose inte
rest it is to find or create them. To provide for these
emergencies, and- as far as possible prevent or mitigate
them, we must look well to the education, mental
and moral, of our youth. The church and the school-

36
house — the Bible enthroned in both — must be, under
God, our first reliance. Next to this, we need states
men like him we have lost, and like some who sur
vive him. The ambition of ordinary minds cannot
soar to this elevation. Nor can the most generous
intellects attain it without encountering hostile influ-
ences, Avhich are generated by the natural working of
our institutions. Where office depends on the popular
voice, the representative will find himself under a pow
erful temptation to merge all other poUtical obligations
in his supposed duty to his immediate constituency.
The claims of his district will take precedence over those
of his state ; and loyalty to his state will be stronger
than his loyalty to the general government. Nor is this
the only adverse agency to be met. A despotism
may flourish Avithout parties ; for the dead are always
still ; but no free government has ever got on without
them. In itself this is an advantage ; but the prac
tical tendency of it is to dwarf men into partisans.
They are apt to sink both their individuality and
their patriotism in servility to a party, and to employ
those powers which should have been dedicated to
their country, in the miserable contests of factions
and sections.
Here, precisely, in the ability of a man to rise
above these local and party affinities — to frame his
views of truth and duty on a large and candid survey
of things, and then to follow out his convictions irre
spective of personal consequences — lies one of the
essential insignia of the genuine patriot and states-

37
man, which distinguish him from the mere pretender.
" A public man has no occasion to be embarrassed, if
he is honest. Himself and his feelings should be to
him as nobody and as nothing; the interest of his
country must be to him as everything ; he must sink
what is personal to himself, making exertions for his
country ; and it is his ability and readiness to do this
which are to mark him as a great or a little man in
all time to come."* This test, it must be admitted, is
a very severe one. The moral courage and self-immo
lation it demands are alien from all the natural in
stincts of the human breast ; and if political honours
and emoluments alone are regarded, this exalted kind
of patriotism will find but too little to nourish it in
the annals of our race. It is for this very reason we
should seize upon every means which is placed within
our reach, to foster and diffuse it. And in this view,
what a legacy has the Republic received in the ex
ample and the writings of Daniel Webster. Without
challenging for this eminent man a moral perfection
which his warmest friends have never claimed for
him, it may be questioned whether the country will
not yet reap from his services even greater advantages
than those he conferred upon her while living. There
is his public career — a study for the youth of America
in all coming time. The career of a patriot-states
man, impressed throughout with characters of light
and truth ; not like a huge meteor flashing fantastic
fires, and startling the nations with its eccentric
* Mr. Webster's speech at Faneuil Hall, September 80th, 1842.

38
motions, but like a mountain stream, swelling by
degrees into a broad, majestic river, spreading fertiUty
along its banks, lending beauty to the landscape,
ministering health and comfort and prosperity to
numerous populations, and bearing on its tranquil
bosom the products of many climes and countries.
Is not such a career a substantial addition to the
moral wealth of the nation ? Is it not a source of
strength to every father who would imbue his sons
Avith an intelligent and comprehensive love of country;
to every patriot who would extinguish, as often as
they reappear, the flames of sectional jealousy ; to
every constituency that may be exposed to the arts
of aspiring demagogues; to the teachers of religion
Avho value our institutions as well for their connexion
with a pure Christianity, as for their secular benefits ;
and to the throng of young men always ready to
launch away into the rough sea of politics, who would
fain adopt, before starting, some wise and just prin
ciples which might conduct them to an honourable, if
not a speedy, fame ? One thing, at least, must be
conceded. Mr. Webster has made it more difficult
than it ever was before, to break the Union to pieces.
And that, not simply by his masterly exposition of
the Constitution, but by the whole influence which
attached to his name while living, and which now
attaches to his memory. It must tell with power
upon the country for generations to come, that he, by
common consent, the first American jurist, orator,
and statesman of his day, was one Avho, throughout

39
his long and briUiant career, looked steadfastly to the
prosperity of the whole country ; that he endeavoured
to allay all sectional bickerings, and to suppress the
misrepresentations and calumnies Avhich engender
them; that by his speeches and writings he sought
to make the different portions of the confederacy
better acquainted with each other, and thus to abate
their mutual antipathies ; that he scorned the selfish
provincial ambition which would use the passions and
prejudices of well-meaning but misguided people, as a
ladder to mount to place and power ; that neither
wholesale slander from a venal press, nor the threat
ened displeasure of his own commonwealth, could
deter him from any step which he believed to be
essential to the welfare of the Union ; that no earthly
consideration could tempt him to swerve from his
devotion to the Constitution, "the only bulwark of
our liberties and of our national character ;" that at a
great crisis of our affairs, when the surges of Northern
fanaticism and of Southern disunionism broke over
him, as he stood up in the Senate-chamber, with a
simultaneous and common fury, the only effect upon
him Avas to make him grasp the South and the North
with a firmer hand, while he poured into their ears
his affectionate and eloquent remonstrance, " Let
there be no strife between you, for ye are brethren ;"
and that when his patriotic and beneficent career was
terminated, men of all parties commingled their tears
around his bier, and the entire nation mourned him
as a public benefactor, the motto of whose life had

40
been that sublime sentiment, now doubly " dear to
every true Ameiicau heart— Liberty and Union, now
AST) FOE EVER, OXE AND INSEPARABLE !"
Before passing to the only remaining topic I pro
pose to notice, a few words may be allowed respecting
the private character ofthe deceased senator. It has
been correcfly observed, that " distinguished statesmen
generaUy become what may be called technical cha
racters : the whole human being becomes shaped into
an officiaL tiling, and Nature's own man, Avith free
feeolties. and iirarm sentiments, and unconstraiaed
manners, has disappeared." It was not so with Mr.
Webster. Nature had entrenched herself too strongly
in that colossal fiame, to be driven out, and he re
mained "her own man" to the end. Persons who
omIj saw bint in a transient way might suppose he
wa^ amply a man of extraordinary intellect. Those
who heard him, even in his more elaborate efforts,
conld not feil to ^e that he was also a man of gene
rous sensBalities. But whoever was so fortunate as
to meet him in social life, would learn that so far
fi»m being all hmd, he had a heart which was
worfliy to be the consort of that massive intellect.
Nothing could obliterate— nothing even blunt his ear-
n^ sA-mpathy with nature and with man. Neither
his professional toils nor affairs of state, neither the
applause nor the ingratitude of the pubUc, could dis
turb the perennial freshness of his feeUngs. He loved
the country. He deUghted m the free intercourse of
social life. His domestic affections were strong and

41
tender. He entered with a genial relish into the
viA'acity and humour of the passing hour. His gene
rosity was proverbial. He was a steadfast friend —
always frank, straight-forward, reliable —
 " A minister, but still a man."*

It was a noble eulogium pronounced upon Mr.
Clay, the second of our great triumvirate who was
gathered to his fathers, when a representative from
his own State said, over his remains, " If I were to
write his epitaph, I would inscribe, as the highest
eulogy, on the stone which shall mark his resting-
place, ' Here lies a man who was in the public service
for fifty years, and never attempted to deceive his
countrymen !' " The inscription might with equal
fidelity be inscribed upon the tombs of his great com
peers. Of the third of this illustrious trio, Mr. Web
ster himself said, before the Senate, on the occasion
of his funeral —
" He had the basis — the indispensable basis — of all
high character, and that was unspotted integrity —
unimpeached honour and character. If he had aspi
rations, they were high, and honourable, and noble.
There was nothing grovelling, or low, or meanly
selfish, that came near the head or the heart of Mr.
* Of his magnanimity we have this pleasing example. Mr. Eve
rett relates, that in preparing the new edition of Mr. Webster's
works for the press, he was instructed by him to obliterate from
his speeches, if practicable, " every trace of personality."

42

Calhoun. Firm in his purpose, perfectly patriotic
and honest, as I am sure he was, in the principles he
espoused, and in the measures he defended, aside
from that large regard for that species of distinction
that conducted him to eminent stations for the benefit
of the Republic, I do not beUeve he had a selfish
motive or a selfish feeling.
" We shall hereafter, I am sure, indulge in it as a
grateful recollection that we have Uved in his age,
that we have been his cotemporaries, that we have
seen him, and heard him, and known him. We shall
delight to speak of him to those who are rising up
to fill our places. And when the time shall come
Avhen we ourselves shall go, one after another, in
succession to our graves, we shall carry with us a
deep sense of his genius 'and character, his honour
and integrity, his amiable deportment in private life,
and the purit_^of his exalted patriotism."
Mr. Webster himself might have sat for this fine
portrait. It is his own character by a master-hand.
If the fidelity of the sketch be doubted, there are
competent witnesses to confirm it. " Mr. President,"
said a leading member* of the New York Bar the
other day, a gentleman and a Christian; "I have
long been acquainted with Mr. Webster, and from all
that I know, and from all that I have seen and heard,
I bear testimony here to-day, that as a public man,
he was a man of the highest integrity. It always
seemed to me as if he acted under the immediate
* Hiram Ketchum, Esq.

43
conviction, that whatever he did was not only to be
known to his own generation, but to posterity. He
regarded political power in his own hands as a trust,
and though always willing and desirous to gratify his
friends, if he could, he never felt himself at liberty,
for an instant, for any priA^ate means, to violate his
great trust. I have known Mr. Webster in private
circles, and in domestic life, and I bear testimony
here to-day, that though I have received multitudes
of letters from him which I now have, and many that
have been destroyed by his orders, written in the
most confidential and friendly manner — though I
have had the pleasure of meeting him on many occa
sions, and at the festive board often where our ses
sions have been long — I bear testimony here to-day,
that never in my life did I hear an improper thought
or profane expression come from the lips of Daniel
Webster; and I bear further testimony, that never,
in writing or in my hearing, did he ever assail private
character. No man was ever slandered — no man was
ever spoken ill of by Daniel Webster. And I further
bear testimony, that never in my life have I known
a man whose conversation was uniformly so unexcep
tionable in its tone, and uniformly so edifying in its
character. I may say further, that no man ever
possessed greater tenderness of feeling. He never
yet had an enemy — and we all can bear witness that
he had enemies of the ¦ most malignant character
— but he never yet had an enemy that if he came to
him he would not have shared with him his last

44
dollar to relieve him, and mingle his sympathies with
his. Mr. President, to say that these virtues were
not marked with failings — to say that Daniel Webster
was without them, would be to state that which was
untrue ; but they have been before the public again
and again, and no friend of his could regret the fact,
if they had not been exaggerated."
Another distinguished lawyer* of that city said : " I
knew Mr. Webster well. I had the honour of his
acquaintance, and hope it is not too much to say, of
his friendship, for more than a quarter of a century,
and from his lips I never have heard an irreverent,
a profane, or an unseemly expression, while his play
ful wit, his deep philosophy, his varied acquirements,
and unrivalled powers of conversation, are among the
richest treasures of my recollection."
These testimonies, comprising, as they do, a minute
scrutiny into the social habits of Mr. Webster for a
long term of years, such as foAV men of any profession
could bear, will do much to vindicate his reputation
from the aspersions cast upon it by a malign party
spirit. It is, hoAvever, the letters of great men which
best reflect their personal traits ; and Ave must wait
for his private correspondence before we can properly
appreciate those generous qualities which have been
attributed to him. Judging from the specimens which
have been published, his letters, when collected, will
not only form one of the most attractive volumes in
the language, but will amply authenticate the warm-
* J. Prescott Hall, Esq.

45
est encomiums his friends have pronounced upon his
private virtues. Notice, for example, the strain of
his reply to the letter he received two years ago from
a large number of his old friends and neighbours in
New Hampshire, in which he says, " I could pour out
my heart in tenderness of feeling for the affectionate
letter which comes from you. It is like the love of a
family circle ; its influences fall upon my heart as
the dew of heaven." So, again, the letter on his
early Ufe, in which he describes the paternal farm,
and narrates the circumstances which induced his
father to send him to college, "in order," as one of
his brothers used to say, " to make him equal to the
rest of the children." In this letter he makes a touch
ing allusion to the dead of the household.
" Looking out at the east windows, [the letter is
dated at Franklin, May 3d, 1846,] at this moment
(2 p. M.) with a beautiful sun just breaking out, my
eye sweeps a rich and level field of one hundred acres.
At the end of it, a third of a mile off, I see plain mar
ble grave-stones, designating the places where repose
my father, my mother, my brother Joseph, and my
sisters, Mehitable, Abigail, and Sarah, good Scripture
names inherited from their Puritan ancestors.
" My father ! Ebenezer Webster ! — born at Kingston,
in the lower part of the State, in 1739 — the hand
somest man I ever saw, except my brother Ezekiel,
who appeared to me, and so does he now seem to me,
the very finest human form that ever I laid eyes on.
I saw him in his coffin — a white forehead — a tinged

46
cheek — a complexion as clear as heavenly light ! But
where am I straying? The grave has closed upon
him, as it has on all my brothers and sisters. We
shall soon be all together. But this is melancholy,
and I leave it. Dea,r — dear Jdndred hlood, how Heme
you all !"
There is another affecting allusion to these graves,
in that inimitable letter written to his farmer at Frank
lin, from Washington, in March last, and beginning
thus : — "John Taylor — Go ahead. The heart of the
winter is broken, and before the first day of April, all
your land may be ploughed." Then in the midst of
minute agricultural directions, comes in this beautiful
and characteristic sentence : — " Take care to keep my
mothers garden in good order, even if it cost you the
wages of a man to take care of it." The letter closes
thus : — " John Taylor, thank God, morning and even
ing, that you were born in such a country. John
Taylor, never write me another word upon politics.
Give my kindest remembrances to your Avife and chil
dren ; and when you look from your eastern windows
upon the graves of my family, remember that he who
is the author of this letter must soon follow them to
another world."
It is in familiar epistles like these we see the heart
of the great statesman laid open : and the more fully
it is unveiled, the more opulent will it be found in
those affections and sympathies, which are rarely com
bined with the highest abilities, and as rarely outlast
the cares and collisions of a long political career.

47
His devotion to agriculture has been hinted at : and
rural occupations always have a tendency to keep up
a healthful tone of feeling. But his communings were
not all with nature. He was like Cowley : —
" Ah, yet, ere I descend to the grave,
May I a small house and large garden have !
And a few friends and many books, both true,
Both wise, and both delightful too !''
The 'large garden,' the ' friends,' (though not a 'few')
and the 'many books,' he had; and well did he use
them. The love of books was an early passion with
him. He could recite the whole Essay on Man ver
batim before he was fourteen years old. And while
still a boy, he committed to memory, not as a task,
but as a pleasure, Watts's Psalms and Hymns. Nor
was he less fond of the sublime poetry of the Bible.
These habits continued with him through life. A
very competent authority has remarked, that "the
celebrity of Lord Mansfield and Lord Stowell, as judges,
is in no small degree owing to their having continued
to refresh and to embellish their professional labours
by perusing the immortal productions of poets, histo
rians, and moralists." • Mr. Webster pursued the same
course and with the same results. The ancient and
modern Classics were, with the Bible, his daily com
panions. His capacious mind was a store-house of
useful and elegant learning, gathered from every
source^— from books, from careful observation of men
and things, from a ripe experience and much reflec-

48
tion. This various and ample knowledge was so di
gested and arranged as to be always at his command.
He could employ it with equal facility to instruct and
amuse the social circle, to compose, if occasion required
it, a Historical Discourse, which should astonish the
country at the minuteness and accuracy of his classi
cal lore, or to enrich his speeches with those graceful
allusions and illustrations which are to an elaborate
argument what the drapery is to the portrait, and the
feather to the shaft. Let the young men of his profes
sion profit by this example. No mind can be fed exclu
sively on law, without suffering. Nature will be certain
to resent the huge indignity. He who would rise above
the penury of the mere pleader, must have at least a
sprinkling of books in his library, which are not bound
in the canonical hue — some relief to the dismal mono
tony. Lord Eldon, it is true, might be cited, as an
adverse precedent : for he once astonished the Bar, it
is said, by telling them that, during the long vacation,
he had read " Paradise Lost." But it should be added
that nature took her revenge even upon a Lord Chan
cellor ; since, according to Lord Campbell, towards the
close of life, he could scarcely speak or write gram
matically. Whatever a man'^ profession, the only-
way in which he can elude the tendency to become a
narrow, technical, stereotype character, is to go forth
occasionally into regions which lie beyond his daily
walks ; to talk Avith people of other creeds and other
callings; to make excursions into the domain of science,
and to appropriate some portion of his time, even if it be

49
but its brief remnants and parentheses, to Uterary pur
suits. The error of those who neglect this, is only less
pernicious than that which they fall into, who degrade
their profession to a secondary place, and bestow their
chief care upon other studies. We honour literature in
a Lawyer, a Physician, or a Divine ; but we cease to
honour it when it becomes paramount. The noblest
forensic arguments
" May flow from lips wet with Castalian dews :"
but Benches and Juries would be very impatient of an
advocate whose speeches should sparkle with Castalian
dews — and with nothing else. And, certainly, any
congregation would be warranted in dismissing a pastor
who should habitually substitute literary essays for
the Gospel of Christ. — But it is time to return from
this digression.
Undoubtedly Mr. Webster had his failings; and
with some minds of a peculiar cast, these may even
make it a matter of doubtful expediency to comment
upon his character from the pulpit. It were certainly
delightful could we dwell on his life and services with
out making any deduction for personal defects. What^
ever those defects were, they will find no vindication
here. But neither shall they be exaggerated here.
Exaggerated they doubtless have been, for such is the
evil custom of the country. We have got it by inhe
ritance. In one of his shrewd and caustic letters from
England, Voltaire observes, " So violent did I find par-

ties in London, that I was assured by several, that the
Duke of Marlborough was a coward, and Mr. Pope a
fool." If we may trust the partisan press of the Union,
we seldom have a citizen nominated for any of the
chief trusts of the government, who is not a fool, a
coward, or a drunkard. An eminent civilian whose
virtues adorn every domestic and social relation, re
marked in his place in the Senate a few months since,
that when his name Avas before the country as a can
didate for the Presidency, he was charged with every
crime except one mentioned in the decalogue. It is
an indelible stigma upon the national character, that
the freedom of the press should be permitted to de
generate into this intolerable licentiousness. How
much of injustice the illustrious man whom Providence
has taken from us, may have suffered in this way, I
know not : that he encountered his full share of de
traction, will be conceded by all who are willing to
judge others as they would be judged themselves. Por
myself, I have no sympathy with those persons who
when the sun is mentioned, can think only of his
spots. I can take no pleasure in dwelling on the al
leged frailties of a man like Daniel Webster. I choose
rather to leave them where all our errors and delin
quencies must be left, and to dwell on those aspects of
his character and life which are stamped with true ex
cellence and genuine subUmity, and which entitle him
to the lasting gratitude of the American people.
It is a satisfaction to me to know that the convic
tions I entertain on this point, are shared by those gen-

51
tlemen whose official pastoral relations to him give a
peculiar value to their opinions. And I feel with them
that the friends of religion may cherish a just pride in
appealing to the numerous testimonies he has left to
the truth and efficacy of the Christian system.*
Any attempt, indeed, to estimate Mr. Webster's cha
racter and labours, which should omit or disparage this
element, would be radically defective. He himself
said with great truth and beauty, in announcing to
the Supreme Court of Massachusetts the death of Jere
miah Masonf — " Religion is a necessary and indispen
sable element in any great human character. There
is no living without it. Religion is the tie that con
nects man with his Creator, and holds him to his
throne. If that tie be sundered, all broken, he floats
* I shall violate no confidence by publishing the following para
graph from a letter I have received from my old school-fellow and
valued friend, the Eev. Dr. Butler, of Washington : — " I do believe
that Mr. Webster was a truly converted and religious man. He
was for more than five years a communicant in my Church, and al
ways treated me, as his Pastor, with great affection, attention, and
respect. His conduct in church was very reverent. His interest in
solemn and direct preaching was very evident; his emotions often
manifest; his dislike of flummery and pretension in the pulpit in
tense ; his love of clear, strong, personal, affectionate presentation of
the most distinguishing and important truths of the Grospel, propor
tionably warm. His conversation with me was more frequently than
that of most religious men, on religious subjects. He never left the
Church on Communion Sundays without coming to the communion ;
and his participation of that sacrament was marked with a peculiar
concentration and solemnity of feeling."
t November 14, 1848.

52

aAvay, a worthless atom in the universe ; its proper at
tractions all gone, its destiny thwarted, and its whole
future nothing but darkness, desolation, and death. A
man with no sense of religious duty is he whom the
Scriptures describe in such terse but terrific language,
as living ' without God in the world.' Such a man
is out of his proper being, out of the circle of all his
duties, out of the circle of all his happiness, and away,
far, far away from the purposes of his creation."
These were no words of idle compliment. They
were convictions inwrought in the very framework of
his being. The Bible was one of the books on which
his childhood had been nurtured. He continued a
diligent student of it through life. He said to a friend
a few years since, " I have read through the entire
Bible many times. I now make a practice to go
through it once a year. It is the book of all others
for Lawyers as well as for Divines ; and I pity the
man that cannot find in it a rich supply of thought
and of rules for his conduct : it fits man for Ufe — it
prepares him for death." This reminds one of Fisher
Ames, who once said, perhaps with too Uttle qualifica
tion : " I will hazard the assertion that no man ever
did, or ever will, become truly eloquent without being
a constant reader of the Bible, and an admirer of the
purity and sublimity of its language." It was not,
however, with either of these eminent men a mere
professional exercise. It was one of the most potent
agencies in moulding them to that robust intellectual
and moral structure by which they were distinguished.

53
A profound veneration for the Deity, blended with a
cordial and generous recognition of Christianity, per
vades Mr. Webster's writings beyond those of almost
any contemporaneous statesman. It is not a meagre
and reluctant acknowledgment of the scheme of natu
ral religion. He well knew that this Avas no sufficient
remedy for the evils of the fall. He regarded man as
a lost sinner, in need of a Saviour ; and no system of
faith could satisfy him, that did not provide a Saviour.
It is the Gospel of Christ which so often reveals itself
in his speeches and correspondence, as the theme of
emphatic allusion or of eloquent eulogy. It is evan
gelical Christianity, as supplying at once the only solid
foundation for man to rest his immortal hopes upon,
and the only sure guarantee of national freedom and
happiness. This point is of too much importance to be dismissed
without exhibiting Mr. Webster's method of dealing
with revealed religion. The following paragraphs are
taken (with some abridgment) from one of his legal
arguments ; and the tone of them, as indeed the tone of
the whole speech, is such as must carry conviction to
the mind, that it is no less the man than the advocate
who is speaking :
" The ground taken is, that religion is not necessary
to morality ; that benevolence may be insured by habit,
and that all the Adrtues may flourish and be safely left
to the chance of flourishing, without touching the wa
ters of the living spring of religious responsibility.
With him who thinks thus, what can be the value of

54

the Christian revelation ? So the Christian world has
not thought, for with that Christian Avorld, throughout
its broadest extent, it has been and is held as a fundar
mental truth, that religion is the only solid basis of
morals, and that moral instruction, not resting on this
basis, is only a building upon sand." " When little
children were brought into the presence of the Son of
God, his disciples proposed to send them away ; but he
said, ' Suffer little children to come unto me' — unto
me ; he did not send them first for lessons in morals
to the schools of the Pharisees or to the unbeUeving
Sadducees, nor to read the precepts and lessons j)hy-
lacteried on the garments of the Jewish priesthood ; he
said nothing of different creeds or clashing doctrines ;
but he opened at once to the youthful mind the ever
lasting fountain of Uving Avaters, the only source of
immortal truths ; ' Suffer little children to come unto
me.' And that injunction is of perpetual obligation.
It addresses itself to-day with the same earnestness
and the same authority which attended its first utter
ance to the Christian world. It is of force everywhere
and at all times. It extends to the ends of the earth,
it will reach to the end of time, always and every
where sounding in the ears of men with an emphasis
which no repetition can weaken, and with an autho
rity which nothing can supersede — ' Suffer little chil
dren to come unto ME.'
"And not only my heart and my judgment, my be
lief and my conscience, instruct me that this great pre
cept should be obeyed, but the idea is so sacred, the

55
solemn thoughts connected with it so crowd upon me,
it is so utterly at variance Avith this system of philoso
phical morality which we have heard advocated, that
I stand and speak here in fear of being influenced by
my feelings to exceed the proper line of my profes
sional duty."*
In keeping Avith this fine passage, is that impressive
announcement to the Court, of Mr. Mason's death, al
ready cited, in the course of which he quotes with ap
probation an account of the religious exercises of the
deceased jurist, such as is rarely heard in our halls of
Justice. " He was fully aware that his end Avas near ;
and in answer to the question, 'Can you now rest
with firm faith upon the merits of your Divine Re
deemer ?' He said, ' I trust I do : upon Avhat else can
I rest?' — At another time, in reply to a similar ques
tion, he said, ' Of course, I haA^e no other ground of
hope.' " If I mistake not, there is something remarka
ble in this. It is not in the usual style of these an
nouncements. There is no censoriousness in saying
that very few of the men who stand in the front rank
of the Profession, would have ventured upon it. But
Mr. Webster could do it without scruple or embarrass
ment. It was as natural for him to do it, as it would
have been for most of his associates to confine them
selves to the more cautious formularies, which custom
has prescribed as the official costume of Christianity,
when she enters the Forum or the Senate. It was
nothing for him to speak of a "Redeemer," and of
* Argument in the Grirard Will Case.

56
salvation through his blood. It was nothing for him
to stand up in the presence of the Massachusetts Bar,
and narrate to them how one, at whose feet they
would, any of them, have been willing to sit, and at
whose feet many of them had sat, as learners, utterly
renounced, when he came to die, all dependence upon
the virtues which adorned his character, and trusted
for pardon only to the merits of Christ. The religion
which centres in the Cross, had not only formed the
groundwork of his Puritan training, but was, as his
brethren well knew, one of his favourite and familiar
studies through life. Its sublime doctrines opened to
him a field in which his majestic powers loved to ex
patiate. Its consolations met the moral necessities of
his nature. It was congenial to the grandeur of his
imagination, which it nerved for its loftiest flights. It
was in sympathy with the tenderness of his heart. A
rigid, or even a tolerant, casuist might not find its foot
prints just where he required them. Some important
indications of its presence, it must be conceded, were
not there as they ought to have been. He had not
escaped — what public man does escape? — the moth
and the rust with which a political life eats in upon
religious principle and religious habits.* But it does
not admit of argument as to where his convictions
* There are exceptions. A very signal one in our own annals
was once characterized by Mr. Webster himself, in terms so beauti
ful that I cannot forbear copying the sentence :— " When the spot
less ermine of the judicial robe fell on John Jay, it touched nothing
not as spotless as itself"

57
were, where his desires were, where his endeavours
were. Looking at him as a whole, it was apparent
that he must have grown up in a healthful moral at
mosphere — an atmosphere as fresh and bracing for his
mental and moral nature, as the clear air and Alpine
scenery of New Hampshire had been for his physical
man. Daniel Webster never could have been what
he was, nor anything approximating to what he was —
still less could he have acquired his acknowledged as
cendency over the minds of his countrymen — had he
been an infidel or even an indifferentist in religion.
Those who would discover the secret of his strength —
at least one secret of his strength — will find it in his
systematic, thorough, and affectionate study of the
Scriptures. How it produced its effects upon his in
tellectual powers, his temper and disposition, his juris
prudence, his statesmanship, and the whole tone and
cast of his public labours, not to speak of his faultless
style, it might not, perhaps, be difficult to show if the
time would permit. But it must suffice to observe,
on one single point, that there is an obvious logical
connexion between that habit of mind which fitted
him to grapple with the most complex questions, and
to take the most comprehensive views of CA^ery subject,
and those profound meditations on the moral govern
ment of Jehovah, and the relations and destiny of the
soul, with which he was so often occupied. Those
who value our Constitution and who desire the perpe
tuity of the Union, have great reason to bless God
that Daniel Webster laved and studied the Bible. And
it is not the least of the glories which cluster around

58
his character, that whether before the Bar of Massa
chusetts, or the Supreme Court of the United States,
whether in the august presence of the Senate, or in the
midst of an excited popular assemblage, he was never
ashamed to avow his belief in the Gospel of Christ.
Here is one of the great lessons to be derived from
his life — the greatest, indeed, of all. He is but a
careless observer of society, who has not detected the
encroachments of infidelity among the educated young
men of the country within the last few years. It
comes in a captivating form. The ribaldry of Paine
and Voltaire would excite disgust. The metaphysi
cal Pyrrhonism of Hume would be too abstruse. Three
other schemes are invented better adapted to the
times. One is the theory of progressive development,
which has been born and baptized within the Church.
The second is a subtle and specious rationalism, which
has been transplanted from Germany. And the third
is a gorgeous Pantheism from the same ho1>bed of
error. These systems all breathe a complaisant lan
guage towards Christianity, while each is in its own
way sapping its foundations. Without undertaking
to apportion to each its specific agency in producing
the result, the fact is indisputable, that many of the
rising authors and professional men of the country
are tinctured with a supercilious scepticism. Inflated
by a spurious philosophy — "philosophy falsely so
called" — they have come to regard Christianity as a
sort of obsolete system, which has served its purpose,
and must now be laid upon the shelf It may still
enlist the suffrages ofthe common people, but educated

59
men demand a system less humiliating in its personal
requisitions, and more in keeping with the general
progress of the world !
Now is it not a pleasant thing to be able to send
these Solons to a man like Daniel Webster ? Scio
lists as they often are in literature, and always in
sacred learning, let them sit down to the perusal of
his works, and brand with puerility or fanaticism
those noble passages scattered throughout every vo
lume, in which he bows before the majesty of a per
sonal and holy God, or extols the evangelical faith as
the only hope of a lost world. They dare not do
this, even though they refuse to follow in his steps.
Pride or prejudice may impair the just influence of
his example upon them, but it will not be lost upon
others who have not yet plunged into the abyss of
Atheism. Nor does Webster stand alone. It is aus
picious for the country, and honourable to their
memories, that our three leading statesmen who have
lately gone down to the tomb, were all arrayed on
the side of Christianity. A single testimony from
one of them, whose oratory rang for forty years through
the country like the notes of a silver trumpet, is all
it may be requisite to cite. " Man's inability," said
Mr. Clay,* shortly before his death, " to secure by his
own merits the approbation of God, I feel to be true.
I trust in the atonement of the Saviour of men, as
the ground of my acceptance, and my hope of salva
tion. My faith is feeble, but I hope in his mercy and
* To Mr. Venable.

60
trust in his promises." There is a power in utterances
like these Avhich must be felt. Christianity, it is true,
stands in no need of human props. Its buttresses are
strong enough to defy — as for eighteen hundred years
they have defied — the assaults of malice and envy, of
unsanctified learning and audacious ignorance, of
kingcraft and priestcraft, and whatever other weapons
earth or hell may forge against her. But it may help
to arm the ingenuous youth of our country against
the seductions of unbelief, to remember that such
men as Henry Clay and Daniel Webster — not to cite
a cloud of other witnesses from the brightest pages in
our national annals, — gave their deliberate testimony
through Ufe to the Divine authority of the Christian
reUgion, and at death committed their souls to Jesus
Christ as their Redeemer.
Various conflicting statements have been published
respecting the closing scenes of Mr. Webster's Ufe.
From some of these it might be supposed that his
mind was occupied with pohtics almost to the end. I
am happy to have it in my power to correct these
impressions. What I am about to state rests on the
very best authority.
Mr. Webster, then, for at least two weeks before
his death, might almost be said to have made no
allusion to poUtics whatever. He neither conversed
on the subject, nor gave the sUghtest indication that
his thoughts were directed to it. On the contrary,
his Avhole mind and his Avhole time were given " to
his affections and his duties,"— to his domestic and
social sympathies, and his preparation for death.

61
Beyond the circle of his family and friends, his
thoughts were not of earth, but of heaven. PoUtics
and every other temporal interest were banished,
and his whole concern was with the things of eter
nity. During this period he referred to a purpose he
had long entertained, of preparing a work on the
Evidences of Christianity ; and after expressing the
conviction that he ought to leave behind him some
testimony of this kind, he set about writing a state
ment of his faith in the Christian religion, with the
grounds and reasons of the same. This paper, when
finished, was read over with great care, and various
alterations and interUneations made by him — a confi
dential friend acting as his amanuensis. He then
placed it in the breast-pocket of his dressing-gown for
convenient reference, and two or three days before
his death, he drew it forth, and handed it to his
friend, saying, "Here is this paper; I believe it is
now as perfect as I can make it." This interesting
and important document, in which the argument for
Christianity is said to be presented with singular
force, will in due time be published. Such were the
occupations which engrossed Mr. Webster's mind in
the prospect of death.  " A setting sun

Should leave a track of glory in the skies."
There was a bright and softened ray shooting up
ward from that shrouded chamber at Marshfield,
where our great statesman lay expiring. It was his
humble, steadfast confession of Jesus Christ.

62
The following particulars given by Dr. Jeffries,
in a letter to the Rev. Dr. Butler, cannot fail to excite
the deepest interest.
"On leaving Mr. Webster for the night, at Hi o'clock, on Satur-
4ay, October 16th, 1852, I asked him if I should repeat to him a
hymn at parting, to which he gave a ready assent, when I repeated
the hymn which begins :
" ' There ia a fountain filled with blood,
Drawn from Immanuel's Teina.'
" He gave very serious attention to the recital, and at the close
said, ' Amen, amen — even so come, Lord Jesus.' This was uttered
with great solemnity. He afterwards asked me if I remembered
the verse in one of Watts's hymns on the thought of dying at the
foot of the Cross, and repeated these lines with remarkable energy
and feeling : " ' Should worlds conspire to drive me hence,
Moveless and firm this heart should lie,
Resolved (fpr that's my last defence),
If I must perish — here to die.'
" He repeated the text, ' Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and
thou shalt be saved,' and then what he had given to be inscribed
upon his tombstone, which was as follows :
" 'Lord, I believe, help thou mine unbelief.'
"'Philosophical argument, especially that drawn from the vastness of
the universe, in comparison with the apparent insignificance of this globe,
has sometimes shaken my reason for the faith that is in me;, but my heart
has always assured and reassured me, that the Gospel of Jesus Christ must
be a divine reality.'
" 'The Sermon on the Mount cannot be a merely human production.
This belief enters into the very depth of my conscience.
" ' The whole history of man proves it.' " 'Daniel AVebster.' "
On the evening before his death, he prayed in his
usual voice, strong, full, and clear, and ended thus :

68
" Heavenly Father, forgive my sins, and receive me
to thyself through Jesus Christ." He also exclaimed,
" I shall be to-night in life, and joy, and blessedness."
Later in the night a faintness occurred, which led him
to think that death was at hand. While in this con
dition, some expressions fell from him, indicating the
hope that his mind would remain to him completely
to the last. He spoke of the difficulty of the process of
dying, when Dr. Jeffries repeated the verse, " Though
I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I
will fear no eA'il, for Thou art with me : thy rod and
thy staff, they comfort me." He said immediately,
"The fact— the fact. That is what I want. Thy
rod — thy rod: thy staff- — thy staff." His last Avords
were, "I still live!"
These gleams of light which irradiated the
chamber of death, now shed their lustre upon his
secluded tomb. This tomb will have an interest for
his countrymen and for intelligent strangers, inferior
to that of no man of his generation.
" Such graves as his are pilgrim-shrines,
Shrines to no code or creed confined — •
The Delphian vales, the Palestines,
The Meccas of the mind."
But pilgrims need not journey to Marshfield. His
memorials are all over the land. Our farms and our
factories — our ships and our railways — our school-
houses and our churches — our courts and our legislar
tures — our domestic harmony and our honourable
position among the nations — our matchless Constitu-

64
tion, stronger than ever against the paroxysms of
misguided patriotism or malevolent faction, and our
glorious Union, firmer than ever in the affections of
the people — tliese are his memorials. His character
and achievements have become a part of our national
renown. And untU the country lacks a historian,
Daniel Webster cannot want a biographer. To his
country, indeed, (if we may embalm his name in one
of his own beautiful tributes to departed greatness —
the prophetic paraphrase of his dying words) " he yet
Uves, and lives for ever. He lives in all that perpe
tuates the remembrance of men on earth; in the
recorded proofs of his own great actions, in the off
spring of his intellect, in the deep-engraved lines of
public gratitude, and in the respect and homage of
mankind. He lives in his example ; and he lives
emphatically, and will live in the influence which his
life and efforts, his principles and opinions, now ex
ercise, and will continue to exercise, on the affairs of
men, not only in their own country, but throughout the
civilized world. A superior and commanding human
intellect, a truly great man, when Heaven vouchsafes
so rare a gift, is not a temporary flame, burning
brightly for awhile, and then giving place to returning
darkness. It is rather a spark of fervent heat, as
well as radiant light, with power to enkindle the
common mass of human mind ; so that when it glim
mers in its own decay, and finally goes out in death,
no night follows, but it leaves the world all light, all
on fire, from the potent contact of its own spirit."