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PROCEEDINGS IN CONGRESS 
 
 UPON THE 
 
 Acceptance of the Statues 
 
 JOHN STARK AND DANIEL WEBSTER, 
 
 PRESENTED BY 
 
 THE STATE OF NEW HAMPSHIRE. 
 
 WASHINGTON : 
 
 GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE. 
 
 1895. 
 
CONCURRENT RESOLUTION to authorize the printing and binding of the 
 proceedings in Congress upon the acceptance of the statues of JOHN STARK 
 and DANIEL WEBSTER, presented by the State of New Hampshire. 
 
 Resolved by the Senate (the House of Representatives concurring], 
 That there be printed and bound in one volume of the proceedings 
 in Congress upon the acceptance of the statues of the late JOHN 
 STARK and DANIEL WEBSTER sixteen thousand five hundred copies, 
 of which five thousand shall be for the use of the Senate, ten thou 
 sand for the use of the House of Representatives, and the remain 
 ing one thousand five hundred shall be for use and distribution by 
 the governor of New Hampshire; and the Secretary of the Treasury 
 is hereby directed to have printed engravings of said statues to 
 accompany said proceedings, said engravings to be paid for out of 
 the appropriation for the Bureau of Engraving and Printing. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 ACCEPTANCE OF THE STATUE OF JOHN STARK . 
 
 Page. 
 
 Proceedings in the Senate 5 
 
 Address of Mr. GALLINGER, of New Hampshire .. 8 
 
 PROCTOR, of Vermont 33 
 
 DUBOIS, of Idaho 40 
 
 CHANDLER, of New Hampshire . _ 44 
 
 Proceedings in the House of Representatives 49 
 
 Address of Mr. BAKER, of New Hampshire 53 
 
 POWERS, of Vermont 70 
 
 GROUT, of Vermont 76 
 
 BLAIR, of New Hampshire 99 
 
 ACCEPTANCE OF THE STATUE OF DANIEL WEBSTER: 
 
 Proceedings in the Senate 113 
 
 Address of Mr. CHANDLER, of New Hampshire __ 114 
 
 HOAR, of Massachusetts 134 
 
 MORGAN, of Alabama.. 148 
 
 MORRILL, of Vermont 157 
 
 DAVIS, of Minnesota 161 
 
 PLATT, of Connecticut 166 
 
 CULLOM, of Illinois. ... 175 
 
 MITCHELL, of Oregon 184 
 
 LODGE, of Massachusetts . 208 
 
 GALLINGER, of New Hampshire 216 
 
 Proceedings tn the House of Representatives ___ 219 
 
 Address of Mr. BLAIR, of New Hampshire 222 
 
 EVERETT, of Massachusetts ^ 241 
 
 CURTIS, of New York 249 
 
 MORSE, of Massachusetts 253 
 
 BAKER, of New Hampshire 256 
 
 3 
 

 
 ACCEPTANCE OF THE STATUE OF JOHN STARK, 
 
 PROCEEDINGS IN THE SENATE. 
 
 DECEMBER 3, 1894. 
 
 Mr. CHANDLER submitted the following resolution; which 
 was considered by unanimous consent, and agreed to: 
 
 Resolved, That the exercises in the Senate in connection with the 
 reception from the State of New Hampshire, for the National Gal 
 lery in the Capitol, of the statues of JOHN STARK and DANIEL 
 WEBSTER be made a special order for Thursday, the 2oth day of 
 December. 
 
 DECEMBER 18, 1894. 
 
 Mr. CHANDLER submitted the following resolution; which 
 was considered by unanimous consent, and agreed to: 
 
 Resolved, That during the present week the privilege of the floor 
 of the Senate be extended to the members of the council of the 
 State of New Hampshire and to the members of the staff in attend 
 ance on the governor of New Hampshire in connection with the cer 
 emonies on the reception of the statues of JOHN STARK and DANIEL 
 WEBSTER. 
 
 DECEMBER 20, 1894. 
 
 Mr. CHANDLER. Mr. President, to-day has been set aside 
 by special order of the Senate for the presentation of the 
 
(5 Proceedings in the Senate. 
 
 statues of JOHN STARK and DANIEL WEBSTER by the State 
 of New Hampshire. I ask the presiding officer to lay before 
 the Senate a communication from his excellency the gov 
 ernor of New Hampshire. 
 
 The PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Chair lays before the 
 Senate a communication from his excellency the governor 
 of the State of New Hampshire, which will be read. 
 
 The Secretary read the communication, as follows: 
 
 STATE OF NEW HAMPSHIRE, EXECUTIVE DEPARTMENT, 
 
 Concord, December 5, 1894. 
 
 DEAR SIR: In accordance with an act passed at the biennial 
 session of 1893, and in acceptance of the invitation contained in 
 section eighteen hundred and fourteen of the Revised Statutes of 
 the United States, the State of New Hampshire has placed in the 
 National Statuary Hall in the Capitol at Washington two statues 
 in marble the one of JOHN STARK, the other of DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 The statues were modeled by Carl Conrads after statues in bronze 
 now in the State House Park at Concord. The original of the 
 WEBSTER statue is by Ball, and was presented to the State by 
 Benjamin Pierce Cheney. The original statue of STARK is by 
 Conrads, and was erected by the State. 
 
 In behalf of the State of New Hampshire I have the honor 01 
 presenting these statues to the Congress of the United States. 
 Very respectfully, 
 
 JOHN B. SMITH, Governor. 
 Hon. A. E. STEVENSON, 
 
 Vice -President and President of the Senate. 
 
 The PRESIDENT pro tempore. The communication will 
 lie on the table and be printed. 
 
 STATUE OF JOHN STARK. 
 
 Mr. PERKINS. Mr. President, I offer the concurrent reso 
 lutions which I send to the desk, in relation to the com 
 munication which has just been read. 
 
Acceptance of the. Statue of John Stark. 7 
 
 The PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Secretary will read 
 the concurrent resolutions submitted by the Senator from 
 California. 
 
 The Secretary read the concurrent resolutions, as follows: 
 
 Resolved by the Senate (the House of Representatives concurring), 
 That the thanks of Congress be given to the people of New Hamp 
 shire for the statue of JOHN STARK, illustrious for military services, 
 being especially distinguished at Bunker Hill and as the victorious 
 commander at Bennington. 
 
 Resolved, That the statue be accepted and placed in the National 
 Statuary Hall, and that a copy of these resolutions, signed by the 
 presiding officers of the Senate and House of Representatives, be 
 forwarded to his excellency the governor of the State of New 
 Hampshire. 
 
 The Senate, by unanimous consent, proceeded to consider, 
 the concurrent resolutions. 
 
Address of Mr. Gallingcr on the 
 
 ADDRESS OF MR. GALLINGER. 
 
 Mr. PRESIDENT: JOHN STARK, a marble statue of whom 
 is to-day presented to Congress by the State of New Hamp 
 shire and unveiled in the National Statuary Hall, was born 
 in Nutfield (now Londonderry), N. H., on the 28th day of 
 August, 1728, and died in Manchester, N. H., on the 8th 
 day of May, 1822, in the ninety-fourth year of his age. 
 
 It is not an easy task to adequately and correctly portray 
 the qualities and characteristics of this distinguished man. 
 He was in many respects sui generis among the brave and 
 patriotic men of his day and generation. Plain in appear 
 ance, awkward in manner, untrained in the arts of social 
 life, uneducated and brusque, he nevertheless achieved un 
 dying fame, and the luster of his name will never grow dim 
 so long as men love honesty, admire bravery, and recognize 
 the grandeur of patriotic devotion to duty and to country. 
 Indeed, the name of JOHN STARK stands prominent, if not 
 preeminent, among the greatest generals who fought under 
 Washington. Kdward Everett well said that, Washington 
 out of the question, STARK rendered services not surpassed 
 by any other leader in the army of the Revolution. Bold, 
 aggressive, patriotic, and fearless, he was the inspiring 
 spirit and directing genius of the American forces at Bunker 
 Hill, Trenton, and Bennington. Others shared the dangers 
 and the honors of those battles, but to STARK more than to 
 any other one man is credit due for the splendid defense at 
 Bunker Hill and the overwhelming victory at Bennington 
 the Gettysburg of the Revolution which led up to the 
 
Acceptance of the Statue of John Stark. 9 
 
 happy consummation at York town of the long struggle for 
 American independence. 
 
 Archibald Stark, father of JOHN STARK, was a native of 
 Glasgow, Scotland, and was educated at the ancient univer 
 sity of that city. When quite young he emigrated to Lon 
 donderry, Ireland, where he married. Here he remained 
 until twenty-five years of age, and in the year 1720 embarked 
 for New Hampshire in company with numerous others. He 
 had been preceded by a small party in 1718, and was soon 
 after followed by a large number of his countrymen. These 
 emigrants were of pure Scotch-Irish blood, full of energy, 
 enthusiasm, and courage. They were descended from the 
 Scotch Presbyteria.ns who established themselves in Ireland 
 during the reign of James I. 
 
 Holding to a belief that was not in harmony with the 
 popular religion of either Ireland or England, and being 
 strongly opposed to the system of tithes and rents then in 
 vogue, these men determined to seek a home in America. 
 The voyage proved to be one of great hardship and peril, as 
 the vessel which brought over the emigrants had smallpox 
 on board, from which disease Archibald Stark s children 
 died on the voyage. When the vessel reached the shores 
 of America the officers were refused permission to land 
 in Boston, and were compelled to depart for the wilds of 
 Maine, where the first winter was passed on the banks of 
 the Kennebec, near where Wiscasset was afterwards set 
 tled. The trials of a northern winter under such circum 
 stances must have been terrible, and during the next year, 
 after encountering innumerable privations and hardships, 
 they joined those who had preceded them from Ireland, 
 at Nutfield, N. H., which was then a wilderness on the 
 
10 Address of Mr. Gallingcr on tlie 
 
 extreme frontier, where they were subject to frequent incur 
 sions of hostile savages. Here a permanent and*flourish- 
 ing settlement was founded, which in 1722 took the name 
 of Londonderry, in honor of the place in Ireland from 
 which they emigrated. 
 
 In 1736 the house of Archibald Stark was burned, and in 
 consequence he removed to Derryfield (now Manchester), 
 N. H., settling near the falls of the Amoskeag, on the 
 Merrimack River, where he was soon followed by several of 
 his countrymen from Londonderry. Here Archibald Stark 
 lived until his death in 1758, a record of which can be found 
 in the old burial ground in Manchester, the stone bearing 
 this inscription: 
 
 HERE LYES THE BODY OF MR. 
 
 ARCHIBALD STARK. HE 
 
 Departed This Life June 2$th, 
 
 1758. Aged 6 1 years. 
 
 Four sons were born to Archibald Stark in America, 
 namely: William, John, Samuel, and Archibald. Each one 
 of them held a commission in the British army, serving 
 with distinction during the Seven Years or French war. 
 William, the eldest, served with signal bravery and skill 
 on the northern frontiers, and also under General Wolfe in 
 the expeditions to Louisburg and Quebec. Afterwards, 
 when the war of the Revolution was inaugurated, it is said 
 that, hearing the guns of Bunker Hill at his home in Dun- 
 barton, he hastened to Cambridge and tendered his services 
 to the cause of independence. Being rejected, and inferior 
 men put in command, in a moment of passion he tarnished 
 his well-earned fame by accepting a commission in the 
 
Acceptance of the Statue of John Stark. 1 1 
 
 British army. He was soon afterwards killed by a fall 
 from his horse. 
 
 The ashes of JOHN STARK, in whose memory these exer 
 cises are held, lie beneath ah obscure stone on historic 
 ground on the eastern bank of the Merrimack River, in 
 Manchester, bearing the simple inscription: "Major-Gen 
 eral Stark." The monument is a slender shaft of granite, 
 seldom seen except by those who chance to pass the spot. A 
 more pretentious recognition of the gratitude of the people 
 of the State of his birth can be found in the State House 
 Park, at Concord, where a bronze statue was erected to his 
 memory by the State in the year 1890, and dedicated with 
 great pomp and ceremony. The oration on that occasion 
 was delivered by Hon. James Willis Patterson, since de 
 ceased, at one time a distinguished member of this body, 
 and whose ability and eloquence are remembered.with pride 
 by the people of New Hampshire. And now, in further 
 recognition of the State s appreciation of the remarkable 
 services and extraordinary career of this great man, a mar 
 ble statue is added to the collection in the nation s Capitol, 
 and we are here to-day to take appropriate notice of this 
 important event. It is well thus to commemorate the deeds 
 and virtues of heroes and statesmen, and on this point I 
 venture to quote the eloquent words of the venerable and 
 scholarly Moody Currier, ex-governor of New Hampshire, 
 spoken on the occasion of the dedication of the statue of 
 
 
 
 JOHN STARK at the capitol of our State. Governor Currier 
 said: 
 
 The earlier records 01 the human race are written in stone. The 
 first traces of civilization are gathered from the tablets and tomb 
 stones found in the mounds and drifting sands of Egyptian and 
 
1 2 Address of Mr. Galliuger on the 
 
 Assyrian deserts. Antiquity has intrusted to marble and bronze the 
 keeping of the sacred forms and features of its gods andTnen. Thus 
 the great events of the world, enshrined in imperishable forms by the 
 skill of the painter and sculptor, become the permanent foundations 
 of history, and the civilized nations of the earth have ever consid 
 ered it a sacred duty to erect statues and memorial monuments in 
 honor of their heroes and benefactors, and to inscribe upon brass and 
 upon stone the names and noble deeds of the men who have given 
 their lives and fortunes to humanity. Those who have battled for 
 liberty and human rights are justly entitled to the everlasting grati 
 tude of mankind. The divine instincts in man alone are immortal. 
 Philanthropy, patriotism, and justice can never die; but the living 
 countenance and distinguishing features of the great and the good 
 may perish and be forgotten. The men of the Revolution have de 
 parted from our sight; their venerable forms no longer walk among 
 us; but the memory of their heroic lives and public virtues still lin 
 gers in the minds of this generation. We owe it to ourselves, to those 
 who shall live after us, and to the lovers of liberty throughout the 
 world, to perpetuate the renown and valiant deeds of the heroes of 
 the American Revolution. Monuments of bronze and of granite 
 should lift their proud heads toward heaven in honor of their hero 
 ism and their victories, and their effigies should stand in our streets 
 and in our public grounds, where, like the trophies of Miltiades, they 
 will be a perpetual inspiration to the young men of our own and of 
 all succeeding generations. 
 
 Time will not permit of a full delineation of the adven 
 tures and great military achievements of STARK. A hur 
 ried sketch only will be attempted, many interesting 
 incidents being necessarily omitted. In the twenty-fourth 
 year of his age he left his home in company with his 
 brother William and two other men and went on a hunting 
 expedition to Baker s River (now Rumney), N. H., that 
 section then being a wilderness, without a white inhabitant. 
 To reach their destination they traveled long distances 
 through an unbroken forest. While there STARK was 
 taken prisoner by the Indians, and subsequently one of the 
 

 Acceptance of the Statue of John Stark. 13 
 
 party (Eastman) was captured, one was killed by the sav 
 ages, and STARK s brother escaped. When the Indians 
 undertook to capture his companions, STARK interfered in 
 their behalf, showing great bravery, and for this he was 
 beaten by the savages. After being kept in captivity for 
 about two months he was taken to St. Francis, and here 
 the two prisoners were compelled to run the gantlet, the 
 Indian ceremony consisting of making their captives run 
 between two lines of young warriors who were armed with 
 rods and sometimes with deadly weapons, with which the 
 captives were beaten. Death frequently resulted from the 
 whippings thus inflicted. 
 
 On this occasion STARK s companion was severely 
 beaten, but STARK had no intention of tamely submitting 
 to such indignities. As he approached the line of warriors, 
 with their uplifted rods and bludgeons, he coolly snatched 
 a club from the nearest one and started down the line 
 swinging the club in rapid circles about* his head. He 
 dealt far more blows than he received, and scattered the 
 warriors before him. The old chiefs, who, as was their 
 custom on such occasions, sat at a distance watching the 
 ceremony, greatly enjoyed the discomfiture of the young 
 braves, and instead of further punishing STARK seemed to 
 admire him for his reckless bravery. 
 
 STARK proved to be a rather troublesome captive. When 
 ordered to hoe corn, he cut it up by the roots and left the 
 weeds undisturbed, and when still further pressed threw 
 his hoe into the river, saying that it was the business of 
 squaws, not of warriors, to hoe corn, thus giving expres 
 sion to the Indian idea of the labor question. Instead of 
 being angry with him, the Indians seemed pleased, and 
 
1 4 Address of Mr. Gallinger on the 
 
 proposed to adopt him into their tribe as a young chief. 
 He was subsequently redeemed by certain agents who were 
 sent from Massachusetts to Montreal to look after captives 
 from that State, being returned to New Hampshire by way 
 of Albany. ST ARK S ransom was one hundred and three 
 dollars, while the savages asked but sixty dollars for 
 Eastman. STARK repaid his ransom the next year by 
 money received for furs which he gathered on the Andros- 
 coggin River, whither he went for that purpose. 
 
 This was the beginning of STARK s adventurous career, 
 and the knowledge he thus gained of the manners and 
 customs of the Indians was of great advantage to him after 
 wards. 
 
 From 1754 (when the Seven Years war really com 
 menced) to 1758 STARK was continually engaged in im 
 portant military duty, being recognized as a fighter of rare 
 skill and courage. He rendered conspicuous service in the 
 defense of Fort William Henry, which was at that time one 
 of the two most northerly posts of the British dominions in 
 North America. After the unfortunate attack upon Fort 
 Ticonderoga, in July, 1758, where he displayed great gal 
 lantry and where Lord Howe lost his life, he returned to 
 New Hampshire on furlough, and on the 2oth of August 
 of that year was married to Elizabeth, daughter of Capt. 
 Caleb Page, one of the original proprietors of the township 
 of Dunbarton, N. H. 
 
 In the spring of 1759 STARK enlisted a new company and 
 aided in the reduction of Ticonderoga and Crown Point. 
 During the campaign of that year he rendered valuable 
 service, but the capitulation of Canada ended, for the time 
 being, military operations in America. As a consequence 
 
Acceptance of the Statue of John Stark. 15 
 
 he returned to his home, busying- himself in agricultural 
 pursuits and in the management of his mills. He was also 
 engaged in founding a new township, which was first called 
 Starkstown and afterwards Dunbarton, the latter designa 
 tion being from the town and castle in Scotland of that 
 name. From this time he warmly espoused the cause of 
 the colonists, and from his varied military experience w r as 
 thoroughly equipped to take a prominent part in the war 
 which ensued between Great Britain and her North Ameri 
 can possessions. 
 
 When the news of the shedding of blood at Lexington 
 and Concord, on the igth of April, 1775, reached STARK, he 
 was busy in his sawmill. His memoirs, written by his son, 
 Caleb Stark, record the fact that he immediately quit work, 
 went to his house, a mile distant, changed his clothes, 
 mounted a horse, and without further formalities started 
 for the scene of hostilities. Along the route he encour 
 aged the people to volunteer, assuring them that the time 
 had come to do battle for the liberties of the country. 
 About twelve hundred citizens of the New Hampshire 
 towns bordering on Massachusetts abandoned their pursuits 
 and followed their patriotic leader to Medford, where 
 STARK was elected colonel of the First New Hampshire 
 Regiment. Thirteen full companies were soon secured, 
 which, by action of the provincial congress of New Hamp 
 shire, were shortly afterwards increased to two thousand 
 men, out of which three regiments were formed. 
 
 On the 1 7th day of June, 1775, the battle of Bunker 
 Hill was fought, and the war of the Revolution com 
 menced in earnest. 
 
16 Address oj Mr. (j alii tiger on the 
 
 This is neither the time nor the place to discuss the ques 
 tion as to the relative strength of the New Hanfpshire and 
 Massachusetts forces engaged in that contest. The people 
 of New Hampshire believe that their State furnished the 
 larger part of them. However that may be, it is sufficient 
 for our purpose to know that JOHN STARK was there, full 
 of courage and patriotic ambition. The New Hampshire 
 regiments constituted the left wing of the American line. 
 Opposed to them were the Welsh Fusileers, which were 
 regarded as the finest light infantry regiment in the British 
 army. They attacked the New Hampshire troops impetu 
 ously, but were repulsed in a manner reflecting great credit 
 upon the raw recruits who fought under STARK. Address 
 ing his men, STARK told them that the eyes of the world 
 were on them, and that the cause of freedom was intrusted 
 to their hands. By his fiery language he roused them to a 
 high pitch of excitement. 
 
 Just before the battle, General Gage, surveying the scene 
 from the cupola of the Province House, was asked whether 
 he thought the Americans would await the assault of the 
 royal troops, when he replied: u Yes, if one JOHN STARK is 
 there, for he is a brave fellow. General Gage had seen him 
 fight on the shores of Lake George, and knew that no man 
 was truer or braver than he. Fortunately for the cause of 
 independence, "one JOHN STARK" was there, and he fought 
 desperately and well. Taking a stake in his hand, he de 
 liberately walked in front of his line thirty or forty yards, 
 where, planting the stake in the ground, he directed his 
 soldiers to reserve their fire until the enemy reached the 
 stake, threatening to shoot any man who disobeyed. The 
 order was obeyed. The British soldiery advanced full of 
 
Acceptance of the Statue of John Stark. 17 
 
 confidence. When they reached the stake, a deadly volley 
 was fired from behind the rail fence, fortified by a breast 
 work of new-mown grass, where STARK s men had been 
 massed, before which the trained battalions of the British 
 army melted away. Three charges of the British troops 
 were repulsed, but the fourth assault drove back the Ameri 
 can forces, and STARK s troops were withdrawn from the 
 field without pursuit. As illustrating STARR S true char 
 acter, the incident may be cited that in the very midst of 
 the fight he was told that his son was killed. "If he is," 
 said the brave man, "it is no time for private griefs when 
 the enemy is in front;" and he ordered the man back to 
 his post. Fortunately, the report was erroneous, and his 
 son served throughout the entire war. 
 
 STARK, with his brave followers, took post on Winter 
 Hill after the battle, and when the evacuation of Boston 
 was effected he was ordered to proceed to New York. From 
 this point he was sent to join the army in Canada, but while 
 on his way he met the American forces at St. Johns in full 
 retreat. While he opposed making the disastrous attack on 
 Three Rivers, he nevertheless energetically entered into it 
 when it had been resolved upon. The army retreated to 
 Ticonderoga, at which place the Declaration of Independence 
 was read to the troops. In December STARK s regiment was 
 ordered to reenforce General Washington on the right bank 
 of the Delaware. The American cause was enveloped in 
 gloom at this juncture, and Washington realized the neces 
 sity of striking a decisive blow. The time had come for 
 desperate action, and beyond a doubt Washington felt that 
 the fate of the great cause for which he was struggling 
 depended upon the result of this experiment. The river 
 2 s w 
 
18 Address of Mr. G ailing er on the 
 
 was crossed, and momentous consequences depended upon 
 the next military movement. It was first contemplated to 
 attack all the British posts on the left bank of the Dela 
 ware, but the inclemency of the weather rendered this 
 impossible. Instead, the attack was made upon Trenton, 
 which was entirely successful. 
 
 In this battle STARK was a conspicuous figure. It is said 
 that the New Hampshire troops under him displayed great 
 gallantry. General Sullivan, writing home to Meshech 
 Weare, said: 
 
 You may want to know how your men fight. I will tell you, 
 exceedingly well. * * * Believe me, sir, the Yankees took 
 Trenton before the other troops knew anything of the matter; 
 more than that, there was an engagement, and, what will surprise 
 you still more, the line that attacked the town consisted of eight 
 hundred Yankees, and there were one thousand six hundred Hes 
 sians to oppose them. 
 
 Such was the record of New Hampshire men at Trenton. 
 Their regiments were scarcely more than remnants. They 
 had seen hard and discouraging work all through the preced 
 ing summer. They gained the admiration of Washington 
 to such a degree that Sullivan wrote in the same letter: 
 
 General Washington made no scruple to say publicly that the rem 
 nant of the Eastern regiments were the strength of his army, though 
 their numbers, comparatively speaking, are but small. He calls them 
 in front when the enemy are there ; he sends them to the rear when 
 the enemy threatens that way. 
 
 As the hour for the battle of Trenton approached Colonel 
 STARK addressed General Washington, and said: "Your 
 men have long been accustomed to place dependence upon 
 spades and pickaxes for safety. If you ever mean to estab 
 lish the independence of the United States you must teach 
 
Acceptance of the Statue of John Stark. 19 
 
 them to rely upon their firearms and their courage." It 
 was a bold speech, doubtless intended to suggest that real 
 battles should now take the place of the war of posts and 
 intrenchments which had been fought. General Washing 
 ton is said to have promptly replied: "This is what we 
 have agreed upon: We are to march to-morrow upon 
 Trenton. You are to command the right wing of the 
 advance guard and General Greene the left." STARR S 
 reply was characteristic: "I could not have been assigned 
 to a more acceptable position." 
 
 After the battle of Trenton STARK accompanied Wash 
 ington when he again crossed the Delaware, and was with 
 him at the battle of Princeton. Before this battle the 
 period of enlistment of the men under STARK had expired, 
 but he persuaded them to reenlist for six weeks, which 
 every man of them did. Considering the critical affairs of 
 the country at that time, this was a most important service, 
 which STARK s great personal influence over his men ac 
 complished. It is said that he earnestly appealed to the 
 patriotism of the men of the granite hills who composed 
 the New Hampshire regiments. He reminded them of 
 their valor at Bunker Hill and elsewhere, and told them 
 that if they left the army all might be lost. Finally, in 
 the spirit of patriotism for which he was so distinguished, 
 he assured them that if Congress did not pay them their 
 arrears it should be made up to them from his own private 
 property. 
 
 When the six weeks had expired, STARK returned to New 
 Hampshire to recruit another regiment, and in March, 1777, 
 the new regiment was full and ready for service. He 
 repaired to Exeter to receive instructions, when he learned 
 
20 Address of Mr. Gallinger on the 
 
 that through the influence of certain army officers and 
 members of Congress a new list of promotions had been 
 made out by Congress, in which his name did not appear. 
 This was an act of such great injustice that STARK resigned 
 his commission, saying to Generals Sullivan and Poor, who 
 begged him to remain with the army, that an officer who 
 would not maintain his rank was unworthy to serve his 
 country. He advised his fellow-officers of the dangerous 
 situation of Ticonderoga, and expressed his willingness to 
 reenter the service when he could do so honorably. He 
 retired to his New Hampshire estate, his letter of resigna 
 tion being as follows: 
 
 To the honorable the council and house of representatives 
 
 for the State of New Hampshire, in general court assembled. 
 GENTLEMEN: Ever since hostilities commenced I have, so far as 
 in me lay, endeavored to prevent my country from being ravaged 
 and enslaved by our cruel and unnatural enemy. I have undergone 
 the hardships and fatigues of two campaigns with cheerfulness and 
 alacrity, ever enjoying the pleasing satisfaction that I was doing 
 my God and country the greatest service my abilities would admit of, 
 and it was with the utmost gratitude that I accepted the important 
 command to which this State appointed me. I should have served 
 with the greatest pleasure, more especially at this important crisis, 
 when our country calls for the utmost exertions of every American; 
 but am extremely grieved that I am in honor bound to leave the 
 service, Congress having thought proper to promote junior officers 
 over my head; so that lest I should show myself unworthy of the 
 honor conferred on me, and a want of that spirit which ought to 
 glow in the breast of every officer appointed by this honorable house 
 in not suitably resenting an indignity, I must (though grieved to 
 leave the service of my country) beg leave to resign my commission, 
 hoping that you will make choice of some gentleman who may 
 honor the cause and his country to succeed 
 Your most obliged, humble servant, 
 
 JOHN STARK. 
 
Acceptance of the Statue of John Stark. 21 
 
 Notwithstanding his resignation, the intense patriotism 
 of STARK found expression in the fitting out of all his fain- 
 
 
 
 ily and servants capable of bearing arms and sending them 
 to the front. 
 
 When the letter of resignation had been received, the 
 council and house of delegates of New Hampshire passed 
 the following vote on the 2ist day of March, 1777, Colonel 
 STARK being called before the assembly when the action 
 was taken: 
 
 Voted, That the thanks of both houses, in convention, be given to 
 Colonel STARK for his good services in the present war, and that, from 
 his early and. steadfast attachment to the cause of his country, they 
 make not the least doubt that his future conduct, in whatever state ot 
 life Providence may place him, will manifest the same noble dispo 
 sition of mind. 
 
 There can be 110 doubt that STARK s resignation from 
 the army was a severe blow to the cause for which he had 
 done such valiant battle. American independence was 
 never exposed to a more doubtful outcome than at this 
 period. The British Government had become fully awake 
 to the danger of losing her American colonies, and arms and 
 men were abundantly supplied. Washington was driven 
 from post to post; Philadelphia was taken by the British, 
 from which place Congress fled ; a strong army was march 
 ing from Canada, threatening a junction with the forces 
 of Burgoyne, which were gradually but surely closing 
 in upon Vermont, Massachusetts, and New Hampshire. 
 The outlook was desperate. New Hampshire had done all 
 that she could, and, as public credit was at a low ebb, it was 
 doubtful if another single regiment could be supported. 
 The authorities of Vermont had notified New Hampshire 
 
22 Address of Mr. Gallinger on the 
 
 that unless speedy assistance was forthcoming they must 
 abandon the contest. The New Hampshire assembly, 
 which had adjourned only a short time before, was speedily 
 convened, and the condition of the country presented to 
 them. At this important crisis John Langdon, a merchant 
 of Portsmouth and speaker of the assembly, came to the 
 rescue in these patriotic words: 
 
 I have three thousand dollars in hard money. I will pledge my 
 plate for three thousand more. I have seventy hogsheads of 
 Tobago rum, which shall be sold for the most it will bring. These are 
 at the service of the State. If we succeed in defending our fire 
 sides and homes, I may be remunerated; if we do not, the property 
 will be of no value to me. Our old friend STARK, who so nobly 
 maintained the honor of our State at Bunker Hill, may be safely 
 intrusted with the conduct of the enterprise, and we will check the 
 progress of Burgoyne. 
 
 As can readily be imagined, this generous proposal gave 
 new life to the cause of the struggling colonists. Rally 
 ing around their favorite leader, the entire militia of the 
 State was formed in two brigades one to be commanded 
 by JOHN STARK and the other by William Whipple. 
 
 In this connection an event occurred which, while ap 
 pearing insubordinate, demonstrated alike STARR S wisdom 
 and independence. Smarting under the wrong done him 
 by Congress, he accepted command of the New Hampshire 
 troops with the understanding that he should control his 
 own movements and be wholly accountable to the author 
 ities of the State. His commission authorized him to take 
 command of the militia and to act in conjunction with the 
 troops from New Hampshire or those from any other State 
 or of the United States, as it should appear expedient to 
 him. STARK knew that large military stores had been 
 
Acceptance of the Statue of John Stark. 23 
 
 accumulated at Bennington, Vt., and had learned that 
 General Burgoyne had dispatched a force under Colonel 
 Baum and Colonel Breyman to capture them. He resolved 
 to go to the defense of this important point and realized 
 that he must act promptly. At this moment General 
 Schuyler ordered STARK to lead his troops to the Hudson 
 to be placed under general orders. 
 
 His reply was a refusal to do so, because of the danger 
 ous consequences that might ensue from the invasion 
 of Vermont, which reply was sent to Congress. That 
 body condemned his action, declaring the instructions he 
 received from the council of New Hampshire "destructive 
 of military subordination and highly prejudicial to the 
 common cause." STARK hurried his troops toward Ben 
 nington, and they did not get to the scene of hostilities 
 any too soon. The troops under STARK numbered about 
 one thousand seven hundred and fifty men, at least one 
 thousand of whom were from New Hampshire. Opposed 
 to him was a force of veteran soldiers, commanded by 
 Colonel Baum, a man of military learning and experience, 
 who had a battery posted upon a commanding position. 
 The American troops had no cannon and scarce a bayonet. 
 
 The battle was fought several miles from Bennington, on 
 New York soil. At three o clock in the afternoon STARK 
 gave the order to advance, and the contest began, which 
 lasted two hours. Whether or not he pointed to the enemy 
 with his sword and said, as tradition has it, "See there, 
 men! there are the redcoats; before night they are ours, or 
 Molly Stark s a widow," it is certain that this brave com 
 mander engaged in the contest with a reckless courage 
 worthy of the greatest of the world s heroes. The battle 
 
24 Address of Mr. Gallinger on the 
 
 was a terrific one for those days, described by STARK in his 
 dispatches as "the hottest I ever saw. It was like one con 
 tinued clap of thunder. STARK s horse was shot under him, 
 and then, with his drawn sword, he inarched through the 
 thinned ranks of his brave followers, urging them on to the 
 final assault. Vainly did the German dragoons endeavor to 
 withstand the attack. They were trained soldiers and had 
 fought before. Throwing away their muskets, w r ith dra\vn 
 sabers they rushed upon the American lines. A terrible 
 volley met them and their line was shattered to pieces. 
 Over the cannon and over the breastwork the excited, 
 maddened, shouting Americans go, in one overwhelming 
 stream, and the field is won." 
 
 After the battle the American troops scattered, and word 
 was brought that Colonel Bre ymaii was approaching with a 
 large British reenforcement. He had intended to join his 
 troops with those of Colonel Baum, but the bad condition 
 of the roads had prevented. Fully realizing the danger, 
 STARK hastened to rally his men. The defeated troops of 
 Colonel Baum, such of them as had not been taken pris 
 oners, joined the forces of Colonel Breyman. The fresh 
 troops of the British made a furious assault upon the 
 disorganized American forces, driving them from point to 
 point, and threatening to reverse the victory that had been 
 won. At the critical moment Colonel Warner s regiment 
 appeared upon the scene and bravely entered the fight. The 
 result was magical. The British troops were again repulsed, 
 and the day, fraught with such tremendous consequences, 
 was finally won. Colonel Baum, a brave officer, was fatally 
 wounded in the first engagement, and under cover of dark 
 ness Colonel Breyman effected his escape with such remnant 
 
Acceptance of the Statue of John Stark. 25 
 
 of his command as had survived the terrible onslaught of 
 the American troops. This double victory resulted in the 
 capture of many prisoners, and also of one thousand stand 
 of arms, two hundred and fifty sabers, eight loads of army 
 supplies, four ammunition wagons, twenty horses, and four 
 bronze cannon, one of which was of the finest possible man 
 ufacture, and was afterwards known as the "Molly Stark." 
 It is said that Colonel Baum, when being carried from the 
 field, said that the American troops fought more like fiends 
 than soldiers. 
 
 While the battle of Bennington, in these days of modern 
 warfare, would be regarded as a trivial affair, when \ve con 
 sider the circumstances under which it was fought it was a 
 great and decisive battle. It furnished one of the most 
 conspicuous examples of untrained militia accomplishing 
 all that could possibly be expected of veteran troops. The 
 hardy yeomanry of New Hampshire, Vermont, and Massa 
 chusetts, many of them fresh from the farm and unused to 
 military life, "advanced," as General STARK felicitously 
 expressed it in his official letter, through fire and smoke, 
 and mounted breastworks that were well fortified and de 
 fended with cannon." The battle was as well planned and 
 fought as it could have been by the best military science and 
 talent of Europe, and this brilliant victory, from its incep 
 tion to its achievement, was the work of JOHN STARK. To 
 the council of New Hampshire STARK said in his report: 
 "Our people behaved with the greatest spirit and bravery 
 imaginable. Had they been Alexanders or Charleses of 
 Sweden they could not have behaved better. 
 
 As showing the importance of this battle, Washington 
 said, on learning the tidings: "One more such stroke and 
 
26 Address of Mr. Gallinger on the 
 
 we shall have no great cause for anxiety as to the future 
 designs of Britain." The "one more stroke," in the sur 
 render of Burgoyne, came sooner than Washington prob 
 ably anticipated. 
 
 It is a singular bit of history that three days after the 
 
 battle of Bennington (the news not having then reached 
 
 , the seat of Government) Congress passed the resolution 
 
 censuring STARK for not having submitted to the army 
 
 regulations. 
 
 When the resolution was presented, a New Hampshire 
 member warmly declared that he believed the first battle of 
 the North would be fought by STARK and his troops, and 
 that, notwithstanding the disrespectful things that had 
 been said of this great soldier, he should not be afraid to 
 risk his honor or his life on a wager that STARK s men 
 would do as much as any other equal number of troops 
 toward the defense of the country. The very next day 
 news of the victory reached Congress, when, on motion 
 of Mr. Bland, of Virginia, a resolution was passed declar 
 ing that the thanks of Congress be presented to General 
 STARK, of the New Hampshire militia, and the officers and 
 troops under his command for their brave and successful 
 attack upon and signal victory over the enemy in their 
 lines at Bennington, and that he be appointed a brigadier- 
 general in the Army of the United States. Only one mem 
 ber of Congress voted against the resolution, and thus was 
 STARK s apparent insubordination recognized by Congress 
 as an act of wisdom and good sense. 
 
 Slighted as he thought himself to have been by Congress, 
 it was characteristic of STARK to neglect to inform that 
 body of his victory, and the prompt recognition of the 
 
Acceptance of the Statue of John Stark. 27 
 
 services he had rendered must have been to him a source of 
 profound satisfaction. He had disapproved, on the sound 
 est of military principles, General Schuyler s plan of the 
 campaign, and his success justified the apparent want of 
 respect for his superior officer. Certain it is that Washing 
 ton never called him to account for his refusal to leave 
 Bennington exposed to the invasion of the British army. 
 
 It is unnecessary to follow in detail the further military 
 career of General STARK. Suffice it to say that during the 
 remainder of the war he had the fullest confidence of the 
 commander-in-chief of the army and of Congress. He was 
 present at the battle of Springfield, N. J., in June, 1780. 
 He then returned to New England and enlisted a body of 
 volunteers, which he conducted to West Point, after which 
 he again went to New Jersey. He was a member of the 
 military tribunal at West Point which tried and convicted 
 Major Andre. He was next sent by Washington with two 
 thousand five hundred troops to surprise the British on 
 Staten Island. In the spring of 1781 he assumed command 
 of the northern department, with headquarters at Saratoga, 
 and while there learned of the surrender of Cornwallis. In 
 April, 1783, he was ordered to headquarters by General 
 Washington, and received the warm thanks of the com 
 mander-in-chief. 
 
 In 1786 he received the rank of major-general by brevet, 
 in pursuance of an act of Congress passed September 30, 
 1783. When the war terminated, he returned to his New 
 Hampshire home and quietly resumed agricultural pursuits. 
 He lived forty-five years after the battle of Bennington, 
 surviving all the officers of equal rank in the American 
 army. He lived to see the country for which he had so 
 
28 Address of Mr. Gallinger on the 
 
 valiantly fought become strong and prosperous, and he 
 gloried in her independence and power. It is said that for 
 many years before his death he had become a privileged 
 character in the community in which he lived, many 
 strangers calling on him, and the most eminent men in 
 the country showing him respect. Among his effects were 
 letters from Jefferson and Madison, who seemed to take a 
 great interest in the venerable hero. 
 
 Finally, broken down by age and physical infirmities, he 
 quietly and uncomplainingly awaited the final summons. 
 He was, in the truest and best sense, a grand old man, and 
 well might it have been said of ram- 
 As the proud oak that braves the pelting storm. 
 
 Unbroke, unbent, though lightnings play sublime; 
 Though ninety years have marked thy war-worn form, 
 Thou stand st alone amid the march of time. 
 
 First in the list where warring champions stood, 
 Whose freeborn spirits brooked no sceptered lord, 
 
 Thy deeds of fame were writ in tyrants blood, 
 And freedom blessed thy ever-conquering sword. 
 
 On the 7th day of November, 1849, a festival of the sons 
 of New Hampshire resident in Massachusetts was held in 
 Boston. Many gentlemen of distinction were present, 
 among them being Mr. Justice Wood bury, of the Supreme 
 Court of the United States; Hon. John P. Hale, of the 
 United States Senate; Chief Justice Parker, of the Law 
 School at Cambridge, and Daniel Webster. Mr. Webster 
 made two addresses on that occasion, in the first of which he 
 made the following interesting reference to General STARK: 
 
 It was in this discipline; it was in these Indian wars; it was espe 
 cially in the war of 1756 against the French, in which almost every 
 man in New Hampshire capable of bearing arms took part; it 
 
Acceptance of the Statue of John Stark. 29 
 
 was here that the military spirit of the country, the bravery, the 
 gallantry of these mountain inhabitants were all called forth. They 
 were a people given to the chase and to the hunt in times of peace, 
 fitted for endurance and danger, and when war came they were ready 
 to meet it. It was in the midst of these vicissitudes that they were 
 formed to hardihood and enterprise and trained to military skill and 
 fearlessness. 
 
 As one example out of many, I might refer to Gen. JOHN STARK, 
 well known for his military achievements in all the wars of his time; 
 a hunter in peace, a soldier in war, and as a soldier always among 
 the foremost and bravest; and since he is brought to my remem 
 brance, let me dwell upon the recollection for a moment. 
 
 General STARK was my neighbor, the neighbor and friend of my 
 father. One in a highly important, the other in a less distinguished 
 situation, they had seen military service together, and had met the 
 enemy in the same field. It was in the decline of STARR S life, com 
 paratively speaking, that the Revolutionary war broke out. He en 
 tered into it, however, with all the manliness and all the fervor of his 
 youthful character. Yet in his advanced age, like other old men, he 
 turned back fondly to earlier scenes; and when he spoke of the u war" 
 he always meant the old French and Indian war. His remem 
 brances were of Canada; of the exploits at Crown Point, and Ticon- 
 deroga, and Lake George. He seemed to think of the Revolution as 
 only a family quarrel, in which, nevertheless, he took a warm and de 
 cided part; but he preferred to talk of the "war" in which he was 
 taken by the Indians, as he was more than once, I think, and carried 
 to Canada. The last time I saw him he was seated around a social 
 fire with his neighbors. As I entered he greeted me, as he always 
 did, with affection; and I believe he complimented me on my com 
 plexion, which he said was like my father s; and his was such, he 
 said, that no one could tell whether he was covered with powder or 
 not. The conversation turned, like other conversations among coun 
 try neighbors, upon this man s condition and that man s condition, 
 the property of one and the property of another, and how much 
 each was worth. At last, rousing himself from an apparent slum 
 ber, he said, "Well, I never knew but once what I was worth. In 
 the war the Indians took me and carried me to Canada and sold me 
 to the French for forty pounds; and, as they say a thing is worth what 
 it will fetch, I suppose I was worth forty pounds." 
 
30 Address of Mr. Galling er on the 
 
 In brief, I have given an imperfect outline of ^the career 
 of this great man. His son describes him as having been 
 of middle stature, well proportioned for strength and activ 
 ity. He always rode on horseback, even if accompanied by 
 his family in a carriage, and at an advanced age mounted 
 his horse with ease without other aid than the stirrup. His 
 features were bold and prominent ; the nose was well formed ; 
 the eyes light blue, keen, and piercing, deeply sunk under 
 projecting brows. His lips were generally closely com 
 pressed. His hair, which was abundant, became white. 
 His whole appearance indicated courage, activity, and 
 confidence in himself. 
 
 Edward Everett truthfully said of STARK that his char 
 acter was one of original strength and resource. He 
 would have risen to consequence and authority however 
 rude and uncivilized the community into which he might 
 have been thrown; and had he been trained in discipline 
 and enjoyed the opportunities of the great armies of Europe 
 his name would have reached posterity as a military chief 
 tain of the first rank. 
 
 General STARK was a man of strong individuality, and, 
 although blunt and firm, had a kindness of heart that made 
 him popular with his troops and gathered around him a 
 host of friends. He was exceedingly generous and hospi 
 table, and sustained a reputation for strict integrity. He 
 was an honest and useful citizen and a faithful and daunt 
 less soldier. The historian Headley declares him to have 
 been independent and fearless, yielding to neither friend 
 nor foe. 
 
 In early life he was an adventurous woodsnun, in man 
 hood a bold ranger, and in mature years an able and skillful 
 
Acceptance of the Statue of John Stark. 31 
 
 military commander, passing through his long and remark 
 able career without a blemish on his name. His life was 
 marked by great adventure and peril, and, while expos 
 ing himself in battle with reckless daring, he came out of 
 the war without a scratch or a wound. He exercised 
 wonderful power over his troops. They loved and trusted 
 him always, following him without question wherever he 
 led, meeting the enemy with the steadiness and determina 
 tion of veterans. Admiring the stern and resolute char 
 acter of Charles XII, STARK made the history of the 
 achievements of that brave ruler the guide and inspiration 
 of his own campaigns. 
 
 Trusted alike by Washington and the people of his 
 State, he never failed to respond to the call of duty wher 
 ever it led. His patriotism was as boundless as his nature 
 was intense. He loved his State and his country, but 
 he loved liberty better than all. Amid the gloom and 
 despondency of the darkest days of that heroic struggle his 
 vision discerned a victorious ending. Eighty-four years of 
 age when the second war with Great Britain commenced, 
 he longed for the energy of youth that he might engage in 
 the strife, and chafed under the burdens that kept him 
 from again serving his country. 
 
 It is said that when he was told that the British cannon 
 which he captured at Bennington were among the trophies 
 surrendered by Hull at Detroit he manifested great emotion 
 and mourned for "my guns," as he was in the habit of 
 calling them. Associated as they were with one of the 
 most brilliant events of his life, they had become a part of 
 his existence, and it seemed to him in his old age like 
 
32 Address of Mr. Gallinger on the 
 
 robbery to take away these monuments of his well-earned 
 military reputation. 
 
 Sir, the fame of JOHN STARK is a heritage not alone to 
 the State of his birth, but to all the people of this great 
 nation, and it is safe to assume that among the great 
 heroes of the Revolution and the incorruptible patriots of 
 all ages his name will forever live, to be recalled by the 
 lovers of liberty with gratitude and pride. 
 
Acceptance of the Statue of John Stark. 33 
 
 ADDRESS OF MR. PROCTOR. 
 
 Mr. PRESIDENT: It has been said that STARK was only 
 a partisan leader of the highest type to be sure. He was 
 a partisan leader only when the times and circumstances 
 required partisan warfare. He was a natural leader of men 
 wherever he might be, whether in the hunter s camp, on 
 the Indian trail, in the frontier settlement, or in the coun 
 cils of organized armies. Hven when held a prisoner by 
 the Indians he so won their respect by his strong personal 
 ity that he was adopted by their tribe as a young chieftain. 
 The high estimate in which he was held by trained soldiers 
 is an evidence that they considered him their equal at least 
 in natural ability. Lord Howe, Amherst, Abercrombie, as 
 well as the colonial officers, were his friends while he was 
 yet a young subaltern in the Seven Years war with France. 
 Lord Howe was so favorably impressed with him that the 
 night before that officer was killed he invited STARK to 
 dine with him in his tent, and consulted him as to the dis 
 positions for the attack on Ticonderoga the following day. 
 
 If he had served in great armies, with the opportunities 
 for training and experience which such service affords, he 
 would still have been in the front rank. Whenever his 
 field broadened he proved himself equal to its requirements. 
 He was more than a partisan when he held the left of the 
 line at Bunker Hill, or when in command at Bennington. 
 All in all he is an excellent representative of the best type 
 of our country s pioneer leaders. New Hampshire, there 
 fore, fitly selects him as one of the two from that State to 
 3 
 
34 Address of Mr. Proctor on the 
 
 be honored by statues in this Capitol. Vermont gladly 
 joins in doing him honor, for his most distinguished public 
 services are a part of her early history. I shall confine 
 my brief remarks, therefore, to that portion of his career 
 which is especially identified with Vermont. 
 
 The scene of his greatest exploits was along Lake Cham- 
 plain, its tributary, Lake George, and the upper waters of 
 the Hudson. It is a historic battle ground. From our 
 earliest knowledge of it and from still earlier tradition it 
 had been the scene of many bloody conflicts between the 
 tribes of the St. Lawrence and those of the Mohawk val 
 leys. So fierce and constant had been this warfare that, not 
 withstanding its natural advantages for Indian habitation, 
 no tribe had attempted to occupy it permanently. It had 
 been debatable ground from the earliest times, and so 
 continued after the French settlement of Canada and the 
 English colonization farther south. The Iroquois name 
 for Lake Champlain was "The Gate of the Country," and 
 so unmistakably has nature made it the gateway between 
 the original French and English colonies, between Canada 
 and the States, that all authorities agree and recent British 
 military writers have said that in case of a war between the 
 two countries its operations must follow the line of the 
 Indian trail and bark canoe of two hundred years ago. 
 The names of Champlain, Frontenac, Montcalm, Baron 
 Dieskau, Lord Howe, Amherst, Abercrombie, Johnson, 
 Putnam, Williams, Rogers, Ethan Allen, Stark, Gates, 
 Arnold, Burgoyne, and McDonough, so intimately asso 
 ciated with this section, establish its claim to historic inter 
 est. Here STARK served his military apprenticeship. In 
 1754 he was lieutenant in Colonel Blanchard s regiment, 
 
Acceptance of the Statue of John Stark. 35 
 
 and afterwards in Rogers s rangers. At Crown Point, 
 Ticonderoga, Fort William Henry, and in many minor but 
 desperate engagements, he did valiant service. With his 
 rangers he built a road through the wilderness of Vermont 
 for eighty miles, from Charlestown Number Four to Crown 
 Point, to enable New England troops to cross from the 
 Connecticut River to Lake Champlain. 
 
 At Bunker Hill he commanded a regiment of minute- 
 men, and in the New Jersey campaign he took an active 
 part. But it was reserved for him to perform the most 
 conspicuous service in the vicinity of Lake Champlain, 
 which had been the scene of his earlier military exploits. 
 
 It is upor his success at Bennington more than all else 
 that STARK s fame must rest. Here for the first time he 
 was in command of an army, small though it was, hastily 
 gathered and poorly equipped, but composed of earnest 
 and determined men, fighting for home and country. The 
 importance of the engagement can not be measured by the 
 number of men engaged. Burgoyne s march from Canada 
 along the Champlain route had been so far one of uninter 
 rupted success. England was confident that his campaign 
 would close the rebellion. Burke, in the Annual Register 
 for 1777, thus describes the situation: 
 
 Such was the rapid torrent ot success which swept everything 
 away before the northern army in its onset. It is not to be won 
 dered at if both officers and private men were highly elated with their 
 good fortune, and deemed that and their prowess to be irresistible; 
 if they regarded their enemy with the greatest contempt; considered 
 their own toils to be nearly at an end ; Albany to be already in their 
 hands, and the reduction of the northern provinces to be rather a mat 
 ter of some time than an arduous task full ot difficulty and danger. 
 
 At home the joy and exultation was extreme ; not only at court, 
 but with all those who hoped or wished the unqualified subjugation 
 
36 Address of Mr. Proctor on the 
 
 and unconditional submission of the colonies. The loss of repu 
 tation was greater to the Americans, and capable of more fatal con 
 sequences, than even that of ground, of posts, of artillery, or of 
 men. * * * 
 
 It was not difficult to diffuse an opinion that the war in effect was 
 over, and that any further resistance could serve only to render the 
 terms of their submission the worse. Such were some of the imme 
 diate effects of the loss of the grand keys of North America 
 Ticonderoga and the lakes. 
 
 Bennington was a well-planned and well-fought battle. 
 But there were other reasons which contributed to our suc 
 cess. The men knew their general ; he knew his men. 
 Many of STARK s troops at Bennington had served with 
 him in the previous war. Vermont had been slower of 
 settlement than her adjoining New England States on 
 account of her exposure to border warfare and the incursion 
 of French and Indians from Canada. In the Seven Years 
 war the soldiers of Massachusetts, Connecticut, and New 
 Hampshire had crossed and recrossed u The Wilderness," 
 as the State was then called, in their campaigns on Lake 
 Champlain and Lake George. They had noticed that its 
 lands were rich, and with the fall of Quebec hastened to 
 take them up under the New Hampshire grants, so that 
 many of the settlers were men who had served with STARK 
 in the French war. 
 
 The men of New Hampshire and Massachusetts who 
 joined them were their kinsmen and friends. There was 
 entire harmony ; no discord or jealousy. STARK was at 
 once comrade and commander comrade by virtue of his 
 long service in their border warfare as a scout, subaltern, 
 and captain, and by reason of his simple life as a citizen 
 and his plain, unassuming ways ; commander by his inborn 
 
Acceptance oj the Statue of John Stark. 37 
 
 right to lead and his long and successful experience as a 
 soldier. 
 
 Warner, the colonel of one of the Vermont regiments, 
 was his trusted counselor and lieutenant, and his regiment 
 turned the tide of battle at a critical moment. After 
 STARR S forces, with desperate valor, had driven and scat 
 tered the British troops they fell into disorder, rejoicing and 
 gathering plunder. General STARK, in his report to the 
 New Hampshire legislature, says: 
 
 Before I could get them into proper order I received intelligence 
 that there was a large reenforcement within two miles on their 
 march, which occasioned us to renew our attack. But, luckily for 
 us, Colonel Warner s regiment came up, which put a stop to their 
 career. 
 
 Creasy, the foremost of military critics, says of Bur- 
 goyne s plan of campaign that 
 
 without question it was ably formed, and had the success of the 
 execution been equal with the ingenuity of the design the reconquest 
 of the thirteen United States must in all human probability have 
 failed, and the independence which they proclaimed in 1776 would 
 have been extinguished before it had existed a second year. No 
 European power had as yet come forward to aid America. 
 
 And he adds, in reference to the people upon whom 
 resistance to this invasion devolved: 
 
 The five northern colonies of Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode 
 Island, New Hampshire, and Vermont, usually classed together as 
 the New England colonies, were the strongholds of the insurrection 
 against the mother country. * * * It was among the descend 
 ants of the stern Puritans that the spirit of Cromwell and Vane 
 breathed in all its fervor; it was from the New Englanders that the 
 first armed opposition to the British Crown had been offered, and it 
 was by them that the most stubborn determination to fight to the 
 last, rather than waive a single right or privilege, had been displayed. 
 
38 Address of Mr. I roctor on the 
 
 Burgoyne had instructed Baum to cross the entire State 
 of Vermont from west to east and return. His orders were 
 to "mount your dragoons, send me one thousand three 
 hundred horses, seize Bennington, cross the mountains 
 to Rockingham and Brattleboro, try the affections of the 
 country, take hostages, meet me a fortnight hence at 
 Albany." The only part of the order which Baum was 
 able to execute was to "try the affections of the country." 
 This he did satisfactorily, but, instead of crossing the State 
 twice, he was met and crushed at its very border and never 
 entered the confines of the State except as a prisoner with 
 a mortal wound. Four days after the battle Burgoyne 
 wrote to the British minister: "The Hampshire Grants" 
 (as Vermont was then called) "in particular, a country 
 unpeopled and almost unknown in the last war, now 
 abounds in the most active and rebellious race on the con 
 tinent and hangs like a gathering storm on my left." He 
 had at that time found good reason to speak of the Hamp 
 shire Grants in particular. Baroness von Reidesel wrote 
 of the battle from the British camp: " This unfortunate 
 event paralyzed at once our operations." On our side 
 Washington writes of it to Putnam as "the great stroke 
 struck by General STARK near Bennington." Bancroft, 
 the historian, calls the victory "one of the most brilliant 
 and eventful of the war." 
 
 Bennington practically assured the victory at Saratoga. 
 There was no danger of further marauding expeditions from 
 Burgoyne. Bennington had cost him more than one-tenth 
 of his entire force. The homes of the settlers were now 
 safe, and they hastened to join the main army under Gates. 
 The effect of the victory upon the morale of the armies was 
 
Acceptance of the Statue of John Stark. 39 
 
 still greater than upon their numbers. Burgoyne s confi 
 dence in the final result was destroyed. Instead of being the 
 attacking party, he was thenceforth confined to a defense 
 every day becoming more hopeless. 
 
 Creasy (writing before the rebellion and Gettysburg), in 
 his Fifteen Decisive Battles of the World, beginning with 
 Marathon and ending with Waterloo, makes Saratoga one 
 of the fifteen, and the only one fought on the Western 
 Hemisphere. " It was one of those few battles of which a 
 contrary event would essentially have varied the drama of 
 the world in all of its subsequent scenes." 
 
 * Nor can any military event, states this writer, be said 
 to have exercised more important influence on the future 
 fortunes of mankind than the complete defeat of Burgoyne s 
 expedition in 1777; a defeat which rescued the revolted col 
 onists from certain subjection, and which, by inducing 
 the courts of France and Spain to attack England in their 
 behalf, insured the independence of the United States and 
 the formation of that transatlantic power which not only 
 America but Europe and Asia now see and feel." 
 
 Success at Saratoga might have been possible, though not 
 probable, without Bennington. STARR S victory made it a 
 certainty. 
 
 The sculptor, with true artistic sense, seeks to represent 
 his subject at the supreme moment of his career, and I 
 doubt not that in this case the artist would say that a fitting 
 inscription for the pedestal of this statue would be " STARK 
 at Bennington." 
 
40 Address of Mr. Diibois on the 
 
 ADDRESS OF MR. DUBOIS. 
 
 Mr. PRESIDENT: In pursuance of a custom which has 
 been honored by many States, we are met to-day in the 
 Chamber of the United States Senate to accept from the 
 State of New Hampshire statues of two of her most gifted 
 and illustrious sons, selected from among the long and hon 
 orable list which that sturdy Commonwealth has given to 
 the American Union. This custom originated through an 
 act of Congress passed July 2, 1864, by which the old Hall 
 of the House of Representatives was set apart, " or so much 
 thereof as may be necessary ," as a National Statuary Hall, 
 and the President authorized to invite each and every State 
 to furnish statues of not more than two of its deceased 
 citizens. Rhode Island was the first State to accept the 
 invitation, and presented the statue of Nathaniel Greene 
 in January, 1870, and Roger Williams in January, 1872. 
 Illinois was the last State to respond prior to these cere 
 monies, presenting the statue of Gen. James Shields on 
 December 6, 1893. Including New Hampshire, twelve 
 States have placed statues of their illustrious citizens in 
 Statuary Hall, namely: Rhode Island, Connecticut, New 
 York, Vermont, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Maine, Ohio, 
 New Jersey, Michigan, Illinois, and New Hampshire. 
 
 Occasions of this kind are not only pleasant in them 
 selves, but are profitable to the country. While the cere 
 monies of this day will be plain and unostentatious, and 
 will consume but a few hours, and while those of us who 
 participate in them will soon pass away, the record will be 
 
Acceptance of the Statue of John Stark. 41 
 
 kept. The splendid deeds of these grand characters will 
 again be recalled as an inspiration to the young men of 
 now as well as those who are to shoulder the burdens and 
 responsibilities of our Republic in the future. The statues 
 will remain as a perpetual reminder to the hundreds and 
 thousands of visitors to the Capitol that our nation is proud 
 to keep fresh the great and heroic achievements of the sons 
 of her respective States. 
 
 It is well to turn aside thus for a few hours from the 
 perpetual contests and strifes in which we are of necessity 
 engaged, in order to unite as Americans in extolling the 
 deeds of those who aided so greatly to make our Republic 
 possible and who contributed so much to place it upon a 
 substantial foundation. 
 
 The Senators who honor New Hampshire in this body 
 represent one of the oldest States in the Union. Their 
 courtesy in asking me to say a few words concerning Gen. 
 JOHN STARK is due, quite likely, to the fact that Idaho is 
 next to the youngest State. What New Hampshire was in 
 the days of this illustrious patriot Idaho is to-day in many 
 respects. New Hampshire was then the mountainous fron 
 tier, where hardships were to be endured and sturdy char 
 acters were to be found. JOHN STARK little dreamed, when 
 doing such valiant and self-sacrificing service in preparation 
 for a Union of thirteen States, that but little more than a 
 century afterwards a representative of the forty-third State 
 of that same Union would stand side by side with the rep 
 resentatives of his own State to do honor to his memory. 
 
 No doubt the Senators from New T Hampshire had this 
 thought in mind when they conferred upon one of the new 
 est States the honor of participating in this tribute to one 
 
42 Address of Mr. Dubois on the 
 
 of her most distinguished pioneers. It would have been a 
 pleasing recompense for his hardships and trials could he 
 have known that such a Republic of States, held together 
 by such strong ties as bind us, would have been builded 
 upon the foundation he assisted so materially in laying. I 
 wish he could have foreseen it. He builded better than he 
 knew. Could he have contemplated the future greatness 
 and power of the nation then forming, however, it could 
 not have changed him. He did his full duty at all times, 
 under all circumstances, and acknowledged no leader supe 
 rior to his own conscience. 
 
 As other Senators have spoken so ably and fully already 
 of the character of General STARK, I will present but a few 
 facts of his life as they come down to us through history, 
 and thus close. 
 
 Archibald, the father of JOHN STARK, was born in Scot 
 land and was highly educated. He came to this country 
 and settled in Londonderry, N. H., in 1720. JOHN STARK 
 was born in the same town in 1728. His boyhood days 
 were rilled with thrilling adventures among wild Indians, 
 were occupied by trapping, and accompanied by the hard 
 ships which always have and always will go to make up 
 life on the frontier. 
 
 In the early wars between the English and the French, 
 growing out of rival claims over disputed territory in the 
 Ohio and Mississippi valleys, JOHN STARK, then a young 
 man of about thirty years, took an active and brave part on 
 the side of the English. At the close of the war, in 1760, 
 at which time he was a captain, he retired to the pursuits of 
 private life, having married Elizabeth Page in 1758, when 
 home on a furlough. When the war of the American 
 
Acceptance of the Statue of John Stark. 43 
 
 Revolution broke out with-the battle of Lexington, in April, 
 1775, Captain STARK was the first to rush to the defense of 
 the colonies, and quickly raised one thousand two hundred 
 men, he being made colonel of a regiment. He fought 
 through the entire war of the Revolution, down to the sur 
 render of Cornwallis, save when he retired from active serv 
 ice during short intervals, on account of treatment which 
 he conceived to be unjust and a reflection upon himself by 
 the civil branches of the Government. He was particu 
 larly conspicuous at the battles of Bunker Hill, Trenton, 
 and Bennington. In 1786 Congress conferred upon him 
 the rank of major-general. 
 
 STARK, during his entire career, was wonderfully popu 
 lar with the people of his State and with his soldiers, but 
 was often in quarrels with the civil authorities, who had 
 more or less control and direction of the military. These 
 civilians did not seem to fully understand the character of 
 STARK. He paid them but little respect, but always forced 
 recognition by his unswerving patriotism, matchless per 
 sonal bravery, and wonderful sagacity in times of peril. 
 
 During the years after the close of his military life he 
 devoted himself to business with success, amassing a mod 
 erate fortune. Washington, Jefferson, Madison, and the 
 other brilliant and able men of our early history demon 
 strated their appreciation of his services to his country and 
 their admiration for his character by personal and touching 
 letters to him. He was in every respect a son of New 
 Hampshire, and will probably always occupy the con 
 spicuous position in the State of being a typical repre 
 sentative whose qualities they delight to honor. He lived 
 to the ripe age of ninety-four, dying at Manchester, N. H., 
 in 1822. 
 
44 Address of Mr. Chandler on the 
 
 ADDRESS OF MR, CHANDLER. 
 
 Mr. PRESIDENT: JOHN STARK was New Hampshire s 
 great fighter in the war of the Revolution. The roll of 
 honor of our State in that conflict is a full one, and is most 
 creditable to the New Hampshire troops, who, from a 
 population of eighty-three thousand seven hundred and 
 seventy-eight, numbered eighteen thousand two hundred 
 and eighty-nine out of a total of three hundred and ninety- 
 five thousand and sixty-four raised by the thirteen colonies 
 from the year 1775 to the year 1783, inclusive, for the Con 
 tinental army. 
 
 Maj. Andrew McClary was shot dead at Bunker Hill; 
 Baldwin was killed there; Adams, Colbourne, Thomas, and 
 Bell died at Stillw^ater; Conner and lieutenant McClary at 
 Saratoga; Sherburne at Germantown; Cloyes and McAulay 
 in the Seneca region, and Alexander Scammel gave his life 
 at York town. Our high officers besides STARK were John 
 Sullivan, Henry Dearborn, Enoch Poor, James Reed, 
 George Reid, William Whipple, Joseph Cilley, and Nathan 
 Hale, and they conferred distinction upon the Common 
 wealth. 
 
 It was, however, not difficult to select from all our Rev 
 olutionary soldiers JOHN STARK as the most appropriate 
 figure for one of our two places in the National Gallery. 
 
 More than any other commander he rejoiced in the fierce 
 ness of actual conflict on the battlefield. The sound of 
 cannon and the smell of powder stirred his powers to their 
 utmost without impairing his coolness and self-control. As 
 
Acceptance of the Statue of John Stark. 45 
 
 a leader of men in battle he has had few equals and almost 
 no superiors in history. 
 
 The strong character and patriotic services of STARK 
 have been fully described by the speakers who have pre 
 ceded me. It is also due to historical accuracy always 
 to remember that his actual merits as a soldier have been 
 naturally enhanced in public estimation by the great impor 
 tance to the cause of the colonies of the three conflicts 
 which have made him famous. 
 
 The fight at Bunker Hill, on June 17, 1775, was the first 
 pitched battle of the Revolutionary struggle: It taught 
 the British that the Americans would meet and withstand 
 the veteran troops of Europe and would boldly sacrifice 
 their lives for independence. The slaughter of General 
 Howe s officers and soldiers carried sad news to many Eng 
 lish homes and brought the King and his ministers face 
 to face with the obstacles in the way of conquering the 
 colonies. The battle of Bunker Hill was the most roman 
 tic and heroic conflict of the whole war; and its history 
 can not be written without displaying JOHN STARK at the 
 head of the New Hampshire forces, numbering more than 
 all the other troops engaged, and covering the retreat of 
 the gallant men, who in the main redoubt displayed a per 
 sistent bravery which has immortalized their conflict. 
 
 It was next the good fortune of STARK to lead Washing 
 ton s advance at Trenton on December 25, 1776. The 
 continental cause was then in a desperate condition, after 
 the disastrous battle of Long Island, the retreat from 
 Brooklyn to New York, the evacuation of that city, the 
 capture of Fort Washington, and the retreat of all the colo 
 nial forces into New Jersey. The invasion of Canada by 
 
46 Address of Mr. Chandler on the 
 
 Montgomery and Arnold had proved disastrous; the British 
 had advanced as ar as Crown Point, while the Americans 
 had only a precarious hold on Ticonderoga. New England 
 and New York were separated from Pennsylvania and the 
 southern colonies. The army seemed to be dissolving, and 
 Philadelphia was in danger of capture. 
 
 Washington s plan for reviving the national spirit by his 
 midwinter surprise of the Hessians at Trenton contemplated 
 four simultaneous movements, all of which failed but his 
 own. General Ewing, with his troops, was to cross the Del 
 aware one mile below Trenton and march up; ice prevented 
 his crossing. General Putnam was to cross still farther 
 down the river, below Burlington; symptoms of an insur 
 rection in Philadelphia stopped him. General Cadwallader 
 was also to cross near Putnam s forces; he sent over part 
 of his command, but ice hindered the remainder, and all 
 returned. 
 
 Washington crossed nine miles above Trenton, divided 
 his forces, and attacked before daylight above and below the 
 town. One corps was led by General Sullivan, under whom 
 JOHN STARK was in the van. Washington Irving says: 
 Colonel STARK led the advance guard, and did it in gallant 
 style." The victory of Trenton, the killing of Colonel 
 Rahl, the capture of the Hessian troops, and the subse 
 quent conflict at Princeton redeemed the Jerseys, drove 
 Cornwallis back toward New York, and revived the droop 
 ing hopes of the colonies. It was one of the decisive bat 
 tles of the Revolution. 
 
 Next we see STARK at Bennington. The British plan of 
 campaign for 1777 was to divide the colonies by seizing the 
 line of the Hudson Paver. Burgoyne was to go down the 
 
Acceptance of the Statue of John Stark. 47 
 
 lakes from Canada to Albany, while Sir Henry Clinton was 
 to force his way up the Hudson to join the northern army. 
 Burgoyne moved with great display down Lake Champlain, 
 and on July 5 captured Ticonderoga. The Vermont set 
 tlers became alarmed and hundreds gave in their submis 
 sion, while others fled across the mountains to the men of 
 New Hampshire. That State responded, and her militia 
 flocked into Manchester, Vt, and when Burgoyne made the 
 fatal mistake of dividing his army and sending Colonel 
 Batim to the east to forage and to ravage, JOHN STARK 
 met him with the New Hampshire troops, and on August 
 16, 1777, fought and won the battle of Bennington. This 
 victory changed the whole aspect of affairs. Thereafter no 
 British advance was possible, retreat became impracticable, 
 and after the battles of Bemis Heights and Freeman s Farm 
 Burgoyne s pretentious invasion ended with the surrender of 
 his whole army to General Gates at Saratoga on October 17. 
 General Clinton from the south had on the 6th of October 
 carried by assault Forts Montgomery and Clinton, in the 
 Highlands, and was within a few hours sail of Albany 
 when he heard of Burgoyne s surrender, and retreated down 
 the river. 
 
 The capture of the British army at Saratoga was the 
 most decisive event of the war, because it led France to 
 espouse and make successful the cause of American inde 
 pendence. In 1759 France had surrendered Canada to Great 
 Britain. England became strong; France, weak and cau 
 tious. But the victory of Saratoga removed all hesitation, 
 and France acknowledged our independence and prepared 
 to support it by fleets and armies. England gave up her 
 colonies for lost, and became willing to grant everything 
 
48 Address of Mr. Chandler. 
 
 they had asked for, except independence. Prussia and 
 Austria refused to furnish any more mercenary s*oldiers. 
 
 The accurate and accomplished historian, Samuel Adams 
 Drake, in his sketch of u Burgoyne s Invasion of 1777," 
 describes the effect in America: 
 
 At home the surrender of Burgoyne thrilled the whole land, for 
 all felt it to be the harbinger of final triumph. The people went wild 
 with joy. Salvos of artillery, toasts, bonfires, illuminations every 
 where testified to the general exultation. The name of France was 
 hailed with acclamations. At once a sense of national dignity and 
 solidity took the place of uncertainty and isolation. Now and 
 henceforth the flag of the United States was known and respected 
 abroad as at home, on the sea as on the land. 
 
 Fortunate, thrice fortunate, was the immortal STARK that 
 he was able to exercise his unsurpassed faculty of command 
 and to exhibit his extreme personal valor by leading the 
 New Hampshire troops at Bunker Hill, by heading Wash 
 ington s personal advance at Trenton, and by planning 
 and winning, as the chief commander, the decisive victory 
 of Bennington. 
 
 Fortunate also is New Hampshire that she is able to place 
 in the National Gallery the statue of a military hero whose 
 services in arms contributed so much to American inde 
 pendence and whose memory is so deserving of perpetua 
 tion in all patriotic hearts. 
 
 Mr. GALLINGER. I ask for the adoption of the resolu 
 tions. 
 
 The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. PASCO in the chair). The 
 question is on the adoption of the concurrent resolutions 
 submitted by the Senator from California [Mr. PERKINS]. 
 
 The resolutions were unanimously agreed to. 
 
ACCEPTANCE OF THE STATUE OF JOHN STARK. 
 
 PROCEEDINGS IN HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES. 
 
 DECEMBER 12, 1894. 
 
 Mr. BAKER, of New Hampshire. Mr. Speaker, I ask 
 unanimous consent for the present consideration of the 
 resolution which I send to the desk. 
 
 The resolution was read, as follows: 
 
 Resolved, That the exercises appropriate to the reception and 
 acceptance from the State of New Hampshire of the statues of 
 JOHN STARK and DANIEL WEBSTER, to be erected in the old Hall 
 of the House of Representatives, be made the special order for 
 Thursday, the 2oth day of December, at two o clock p. m. 
 
 The resolution was agreed to. 
 
 On motion of Mr. BAKER, of New Hampshire, a motion 
 to reconsider the vote by which the resolution was adopted 
 was laid on the table. 
 
 DECEMBER 18, 1894. 
 
 The SPEAKER laid before the House the following; letter: 
 
 STATE OF NEW HAMPSHIRE, EXECUTIVE DEPARTMENT, 
 
 Concord. December 5, 1894. 
 
 DEAR SIR: In accordance with an act passed at the biennial 
 session of 1893, and in acceptance of an invitation contained in 
 section eighteen hundred and fourteen of the Revised Statutes of 
 4 s \v 40 
 
50 Proceedings in Hoiise of Representatives. 
 
 the United States, the State of New Hampshire has placed in the 
 National Statuary Hall in the Capitol at Washington t\T r o statues in 
 marble the one of JOHN STARK, the other of DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 These statues were modeled by Carl Conrads after statues in 
 bronze now in the State House Park at Concord. The original ol 
 the WEBSTER statue is by Ball, and was presented to the State 
 by Benjamin Pierce Cheney. The original statue of STARK is by 
 Conrads, and was erected by the State. 
 
 In behalf of the State of New Hampshire I have the honor of 
 presenting these statues to the Congress of the United States. 
 Very respectfully, 
 
 JOHN B. SMITH, Governor. 
 Hon. CHARLES F. CRISP, 
 
 Speaker of the House of Representatives. 
 
 The SPEAKER. This communication will lie upon the 
 table until the House determines to act upon it. 
 
 DECEMBER 19, 1894. 
 
 Mr. BAKER, of New Hampshire, rose. 
 
 The SPEAKER. The gentleman from New Hampshire 
 [Mr. BAKER], as the Chair understands, desires to submit 
 a resolution relating to the ceremonies fixed for to-morrow. 
 
 Mr. BAKER, of New Hampshire. I ask the adoption of 
 the resolution which I send to the desk. 
 
 The Clerk read as follows: 
 
 Resolved, That his excellency the governor of New Hampshire, 
 his escort, and the executive council be admitted to the floor of the 
 House during the exercises on the 2oth instant incident to the ac 
 ceptance from that State of the statues of JOHN STARK and DANIEL 
 WEBSTER. 
 
 The SPEAKER. The gentleman from New Hampshire 
 asks unanimous consent for the consideration of this reso 
 lution. The rules provide that the Chair shall not submit 
 a proposition for unanimous consent for the admission to 
 
Acceptance of the Statue of John Stark. 51 
 
 the floor of any person not designated in the rule on that 
 subject. The Chair understands that provision, however, 
 to apply to occasions when the House is engaged in the 
 transaction of ordinary business; and it has been custom 
 ary, as the Chair understands, when business of the charac 
 ter named in this resolution has been before the House, to 
 admit to the floor the governor of the State concerned, his 
 staff, and the accompanying committee. The Chair, there 
 fore, submits the question whether there is objection to the 
 consideration of this resolution. 
 
 There was no objection. 
 
 The House proceeded to the consideration of the resolu 
 tion, and it was adopted. 
 
 DECEMBER 20, 1894. 
 
 The SPEAKER. The Clerk will report the special order. 
 The Clerk read as follows: 
 
 Resolved, That the exercises appropriate to the reception and 
 acceptance from the State of New Hampshire of the statues of 
 JOHN STARK and DANIEL WEBSTER, to be erected in the old Hall 
 of the House of Representatives, be made the special order for 
 Thursday, the 20th day of December, at two o clock p. m. 
 
 Mr. BAKER, of New Hampshire. Air. Speaker, I ask 
 that the letter of his excellency the governor of New 
 Hampshire, addressed to the honorable Speaker of this 
 House, which has been read and laid upon the table, be 
 taken from the table and again reported. 
 
 The letter was read, as follows: 
 
 STATE OF NEW HAMPSHIRE, EXECUTIVE DEPARTMENT, 
 
 Concord, December 5, 1894. 
 
 DEAR SIR: In accordance with an act passed at the biennial 
 session of 1893, and in acceptance of an invitation contained in sec 
 tion eighteen hundred and fourteen of the Revised Statutes of the 
 
52 Proceedings in House of Representatives. 
 
 United States, the State ot New Hampshire has placed in the 
 National Statuary Hall in the Capitol at Washington two statues in 
 marble the one of JOHN STARK, the other ot DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 These statues were modeled by Carl Conrads after statues in bronze 
 now in the State House Park at Concord. The original of the 
 WEBSTER statue is by Ball, and was presented to the State by 
 Benjamin Pierce Cheney. The original statue of STARK is by 
 Conrads, and was erected by the State. 
 
 In behalf of the State of New Hampshire I have the honor of 
 presenting these statues to the Congress of the United States. 
 Very respectfully, 
 
 JOHN B. SMITH, Governor. 
 Hon. CHARLES F. CRISP, 
 
 Speaker of the House of Representatives. 
 
 Mr. BAKER. I submit the following resolution. 
 The Clerk read as follows: 
 
 Resolved by the House of Representatives (the Senate concurring], 
 That the thanks ot Congress be given to the peopleof New Hamp 
 shire for the statue of JOHN STARK, illustrious for military services, 
 being especially distinguished at Bunker Hill and as the victorious 
 commander at Bennington. 
 
 Resolved, That the statue be accepted and placed in the National 
 Statuary Hall, and that a copy of this resolution, signed by the 
 presiding officers of the House of Representatives and the Senate, 
 be forwarded to his excellency the governor of the State of New 
 Hampshire. 
 
Acceptance of the Statue of John Stark. 
 
 ADDRESS OF MR. BAKER. 
 
 Mr. SPEAKER: The biography of men is often as inter 
 esting and instructive as the history of nations. We can 
 more easily understand the motives and purposes of indi 
 viduals than comprehend the necessities and intentions of 
 governments. The right word spoken or a brave blow 
 struck for freedom, country, family, or friends, when the 
 exigency is great, comes closer to the hearts of the people 
 than the edicts of kings or the decrees of synods and coun 
 cils. The one is always picturesque and patriotic, the 
 other sometimes hostile in purpose and hated in practice. 
 Everywhere the people have been quick to recognize those 
 in public or private life who represent a great principle 
 or do brave deeds that freer government may bless the 
 nations and ennoble humanity. 
 
 So love of country and willingness to die that liberty 
 may live are honored among men. The truly good, the 
 unselfishly patriotic, and those who by great talents have 
 inspired the people, and taught them how to defend and 
 preserve their liberties, have been in all ages commemo 
 rated by statues and monuments. Advancing civilization 
 encourages these tokens of appreciation, veneration, and 
 love. 
 
 While our nation was torn by civil war and faint hearts 
 feared that it would not survive the shock of battle, Con 
 gress, never doubting the success of the national arms and 
 the final restoration of the Union, provided by statute for 
 the erection in the Capitol of statues in marble or bronze 
 of deceased persons illustrious for their historic renown or 
 
54 Address of Mr. Baker on the 
 
 for distinguished civic or military services," and invited 
 the several States to honor two of their most renowned 
 citizens by such statues. To-day New Hampshire avails 
 herself of the national invitation, and erects in Statuary 
 Hall the statues of her renowned sons, Gen. JOHN STARK, 
 the intrepid, patriotic citizen soldier, and DANIEL WEB 
 STER, the orator, statesman, and greatest constitutional 
 lawyer of our country. 
 
 Of the early settlers of New Hampshire many were of 
 Scotch-Irish descent. They were an honest, hardy, law- 
 respecting, patriotic, and industrious people. No country 
 could have a better class of citizens. Among them was 
 Archibald Stark, who, born in Glasgow, Scotland, and 
 educated in the university of that city, removed to Lon 
 donderry, Ireland, \vhere he married Kleanor Nichols, the 
 daughter of a resident Scotchman, and emigrated to Amer 
 ica in 1720. 
 
 The voyage was long, tedious, and disastrous to his high 
 hope of immediate prosperity. All his children died at sea, 
 and when, late in autumn, he arrived, at Boston, the author 
 ities refused to permit any one to land from the vessel 
 because many of the passengers were ill with smallpox. 
 Being driven from that port, they landed on the wild shores 
 of Maine, where they passed the winter in great discomfort. 
 The next summer Mr. Stark and wife found their way to 
 friends in Londonderry, N. H. , where they made a home 
 and began life anew. Here their son JOHN STARK was 
 born August 28, 1728. When he was eight years old his 
 father s house was burned, and the family removed to a 
 location on the Merrimack River just above Amoskeag Falls, 
 in the present city of Manchester. Here the Stark family 
 
Acceptance of the Statue of John Stark. 55 
 
 made its permanent home and here Gen. JOHN STARK lived 
 and died. Here his father educated his children, and they 
 grew up working on the farm, hunting and fishing, and 
 becoming inured to the hardships of the forests and warfare 
 with the Indians. 
 
 JOHN STARK remained at home until twenty-four years 
 old, and then, with three friends, went on a hunting expe 
 dition to Baker s River, in Rumney. In about thirty days 
 they had secured furs valued at more than two thousand 
 five hundred dollars. Having observed signs of. hostile 
 Indians, they decided to return home. The next day young 
 STARK, while collecting the traps, fell into an ambuscade 
 and was captured. Endeavoring to save his companions, 
 he sent the Indians in the contrary direction from the 
 camp; but his friends, becoming alarmed at his unusual 
 absence, fired several guns to call him back, and thus 
 revealed their position to the enemy. From his con 
 tinued absence they suspected what had befallen him and 
 attempted to escape, two in a boat and one on shore. 
 The Indians soon captured the one on land and then com 
 manded STARK to call his friends in the boat and tell them 
 to come ashore. On the contrary, he informed them what 
 had happened, and advised them to pull for the opposite 
 shore, which they did. Some of the Indians then attempted 
 to shoot them, but STARK struck up their guns. Others 
 fired and killed one of them; the other, STARK s brother 
 William, escaped and reached home safely. Having cruelly 
 whipped STARK and captured his furs, they returned to 
 their wigwams on the St. Francis River, in Canada, where 
 he was compelled to run the gantlet. After receiving sev 
 eral blows, STARK struck right and left, knocking some 
 
56 Address of Mr. Baker on the 
 
 of the young Indians down, the others preferring to make 
 way for him than to meet his sturdy resistance. They 
 ordered him to hoe corn, but he carefully destroyed the 
 corn and cultivated the weeds, hoping thus to avoid further 
 labor, and as he was not successful in this he threw his hoe 
 into the river, boldly asserting that "it is the business of 
 squaws, not warriors, to hoe corn." These brave and 
 unusual acts pleased the old men of the tribe, and they 
 named him "the young chief" and wished to adopt him. 
 In a few months he was ransomed by the payment of a 
 pony valued at one hundred and three dollars. This expe 
 rience with the Indians, the knowledge he acquired of their 
 customs, skill, and language, was of great aid to him in his 
 military career. The next season he went on a hunting 
 excursion upon the banks of the Androscoggin, and secured 
 enough furs to repay the money advanced for his ransom. 
 
 In 1754 STARK received his first military commission, 
 being appointed an ensign in an expedition to the upper 
 Coos to ascertain the truth of a report that the French had 
 occupied that territory and were erecting a fort, and, if the 
 rumor should prove true, to demand their authority for such 
 hostile demonstrations. They found that country unoccu 
 pied, and promptly returned home. The same year the 
 Seven Years war began, and the New Hampshire colonists 
 heartily espoused the cause of the mother country. 
 
 In 1755 an extensive campaign was planned, and the ex 
 ecution of that part of it which was intended to secure the 
 reduction of Crown Point and the occupation of the terri 
 tory along Lakes George and Champlain was intrusted to 
 the troops raised in New England. Among these was a band 
 of rugged hunters, familiar with the forests, the methods 
 
Acceptance of the Statue of John Stark. 57 
 
 of Indian warfare, and accustomed to all the dangers and 
 hardships of frontier life, each being an expert sharp 
 shooter, who could endure the fatigue of long marches, the 
 pangs of hunger, and the cold of winter, camping without 
 shelter, and frequently without fire, wherever night or the 
 necessities of the occasion required. These New Hampshire 
 troops were known as "Rodgers rangers," and STARK was 
 their second lieutenant. His whole life had been a school 
 for this warfare, better than any which the nations had 
 established. They did good service, but were discharged 
 when preparations were made for winter encampment. 
 They had demonstrated their ability and the necessity for 
 their peculiar methods of warfare ; and when the campaign 
 of the next year opened the rangers were organized as a 
 permanent corps. STARK was again a lieutenant, but was 
 soon promoted to a captaincy in recognition of his brilliant 
 service. 
 
 Captain STARK, returning home on a furlough, was mar 
 ried, August 20, 1758, to Miss Elizabeth Page, a daughter 
 of one of the original proprietors of the township of Dun- 
 barton, N. H. 
 
 By the spring of 1759 he had enlisted a new company of 
 rangers, and was early at the seat of war. He remained in 
 active service until the close of the campaigns of 1760, 
 when it was conceded that the war was virtually ended, and 
 then resigned his commission and returned home with well- 
 earned military honors and the good will of his com 
 mander, who assured him that he could resume his rank in 
 the army whenever he wished. This he probably would 
 have done had not the conquest of Canada and the restora 
 tion of peace enabled him to superintend his farm and mills 
 
58 Address of Mr. Baker on the 
 
 and for a time attend to his private affairs, which had been 
 so long neglected. 
 
 The war so happily ended had been a remarkable school 
 for the colonists. They had received seven years of instruc 
 tion in tactics and military science; had measured them 
 selves by daily contact with the best troops of England, 
 and had helped defeat the French. The result of their 
 comparison was more favorable to themselves than they 
 had anticipated, and when it became necessary to defend 
 their liberties by arms they were more confident of the 
 result than they otherwise could have been. 
 
 Captain STARK, ever held in high honor and esteem by 
 his neighbors and the people of his State, was appointed 
 one of the "committee of safety" in 1774. He was always 
 their friend, and uniformly espoused their cause. He never 
 yielded any of their rights, yet counseled moderation and 
 regretted the impending necessity for armed resistance. 
 
 The news of the battle of Lexington found him at work 
 in his sawmill. He understood that it was the beginning 
 of the hazardous struggle for liberty he had so long feared, 
 but for which he had quietly prepared his people. He at 
 once stopped his mill, returned home, mounted his horse, 
 and rode toward the scene of hostilities. Everywhere he 
 aroused the people and directed them to follow him and en 
 camp at Medford, Mass. They were not slow to obey their 
 old captain and friend, for their hearts loved liberty and 
 they were as patriotic as their leader. Several hundred of 
 them reported for duty with such arms and equipments as 
 they possessed. They organized by unanimously electing 
 STARK colonel and by selecting a full line of officers for the 
 regiment, which consisted of thirteen companies. STARK S 
 
Acceptance of the Statue of John Stark. 59 
 
 prompt and patriotic action and the ready response of the 
 New Hampshire citizen soldiery made the battle of Bunker 
 Hill not only excusable but justifiable and the result 
 beneficial to the cause of liberty. More than one-half 
 of the Americans actually engaged in the battle were from 
 New Hampshire. The leadership of STARK and the hero 
 ism and devotion of the New Hampshire troops prevented 
 a disastrous rout and turned actual defeat into the glory of 
 substantial victory. 
 
 The lessons of the Seven Years war were repeated and 
 verified, and the colonists learned anew that British troops 
 are not invincible. Lexington, Concord, and Bunker Hill 
 gave confidence and courage to the Americans and fixed 
 their determination to resist every effort to oppress them. 
 The war was actually begun. The right of self-govern 
 ment was on trial. On the one side was the power of 
 established monarchical government; on the other, the 
 unorganized, disunited, and somewhat discordant colonists, 
 who were strong only in their love of liberty and their firm 
 purpose to maintain the freedom they had enjoyed. 
 
 After the evacuation of Boston by the British, Colonel 
 STARK and his regiment marched to New York and helped 
 to strengthen its defenses. Thence he was ordered to pro 
 ceed to Canada and assist the American army there. He 
 marched via Albany and joined the army at St. Johns. 
 General Sullivan, another New Hampshire officer, soon 
 assumed command, and directed an attack upon the ene 
 my s post at Three Rivers. STARK, in a council of war, 
 protested against this, but gave it his hearty support when 
 ordered. The expedition was a failure. The retreat was 
 conducted with great skill by General Sullivan, Colonel 
 
60 Address of Mr. Baker on the 
 
 STARK bringing up the rear. They retired to Crown 
 Point and subsequently to Ticonderoga. 
 
 Here, on the 8th of July, 1776, the Declaration of Inde 
 pendence was received and proclaimed to the army. It 
 was greeted with applause and every evidence of approval 
 and delight. STARR S command was encamped upon a 
 hill, which, in honor of the event, was named Mount In 
 dependence. Sixteen years before, serving as a captain 
 under General Amherst, he had been present when the 
 French surrendered Ticonderoga. Then, commanding a 
 regiment, he heard the independence of his country pro 
 claimed to a patriotic army holding that fortress against 
 the English. Soon after he was assigned to the command 
 of a brigade. That fall he learned that several colonels 
 holding junior rank had been promoted to brigadier- 
 generals. He protested against this, asserting that such 
 action was unjust, would cause insecurity of rank and 
 command, and produce discord in the army. 
 
 When it was known that the enemy had retired to 
 winter quarters, several regiments, including STARK s, 
 were ordered to reenforce General Washington, then on the 
 right bank of the Delaware, at Newtown, Pa. When thus 
 reenforced, his army contained about seven thousand effect 
 ive men. Congress and the people were despondent and 
 all felt the necessity for some brave action which should 
 encourage them. At this time STARK gave his opinion 
 to General Washington in favor of active operations. He 
 said : Your men have too long been accustomed to place 
 their dependence for safety upon spades and pickaxes. If 
 you ever expect to establish the independence of these 
 States you must teach them to rely upon their firearms 
 
Acceptance of the Statue of John Stark. 61 
 
 and their courage." Washington replied: "We are to 
 march upon Trenton to-morrow, and you are to command 
 the advance guard of the right wing." He was also with 
 Washington at Princeton and rendered good service there. 
 
 A few days before these engagements the term of enlist 
 ment of two New Hampshire regiments expired. One of 
 them was STARK s own regiment. There was no more 
 gloomy period of the war. The troops were ill-fed, poorly 
 clothed, almost barefoot, and unpaid. In this emergency 
 STARK proposed to his regiment to reenlist for six weeks. 
 He told them that if they left the army the cause was 
 lost; he reminded them of their valor at Bunker Hill and 
 their honorable service at all times, and promised that if 
 Congress did not pay them his private property should be 
 pledged to raise the necessary funds. His popularity and 
 influence were so great that every man in both regiments 
 reenlisted. 
 
 The army went into winter quarters at Morristown, and 
 STARK returned home to obtain recruits. Such was his 
 reputation that men readily enlisted, and by March, 1777, 
 his regiment was full. He then reported to the State 
 authorities at Kxeter for any instructions they might give. 
 There he was informed that Congress had made further 
 promotions of junior officers, and that he had received 
 no recognition. He at once resigned his commission, 
 although Generals Sullivan and Poor attempted to dissuade 
 him. His reply, that u an officer who would not maintain 
 his rank is unworthy to serve his country," was character 
 istic of him, and showed his high sense of honor. 
 
 Though dissatisfied with his own treatment, he remained 
 faithful to the cause, and returning home sent all the 
 
62 Address of Mr. Baker on the 
 
 members of his family into the army who were old enough 
 for military duty. In every way possible, except by personal 
 service in the army, he did his utmost to advance the 
 patriot cause. He pointed out the exposed condition of 
 the northern frontier and the necessity for the reenforce- 
 ment of Ticonderoga. 
 
 His fears in this regard were soon realized. The early 
 summer saw the invasion of the States by the army under 
 Burgoyne and the retreat of the American army from 
 Ticonderoga. The way seemed clearly open for the forces 
 under Generals Howe and Burgoyne to unite and maintain 
 communication from New York to Canada by the Hudson 
 and Lakes George and Champlain, thus separating the 
 States into two disconnected and feeble sections. The 
 danger was great; the fear of the people intense. The 
 authorities of Vermont informed the council of New Hamp 
 shire that unless speedy assistance came to them they 
 would be compelled to yield to the power they could not 
 successfully resist. When this message came the assembly 
 of New Hampshire was not in session, but was immediately 
 summoned. 
 
 In three days they had assembled. The emergency was 
 great, their resources were few. Our people had already 
 done all they thought possible. The public credit was 
 exhausted, and many despaired of being able either to raise 
 or support another regiment. At this time John Langdon, 
 a merchant of Portsmouth, was speaker of the house. He 
 addressed the representatives, as follows: 
 
 I have three thousand dollars in hard money; my plate I will 
 pledge for as much more. I have seventy hogsheads of Tobago 
 rum, which shall be sold for the most they will bring. These are at 
 
Acceptance of the Statue of John Stark. 63 
 
 the service of the State. If we succeed, I shall be remunerated; if 
 not, they will be of no use to me. We can raise a brigade, and our 
 friend STARK, who so nobly sustained the honor of our arms at Bunker 
 Hill, may safely be intrusted with the command, and we will check 
 Burgoyne. 
 
 A messenger was dispatched for Colonel STARK, who 
 immediately responded in person. He accepted the com 
 mand upon the condition that he was not to join the main 
 army or be responsible to any authority other than the 
 State of New Hampshire. The militia officers were or 
 dered to disarm all persons who made excuses or refused to 
 aid in defending the country. A day of fasting and prayer 
 was observed with deep feeling. 
 
 The reappearance of their old commander filled the 
 people with enthusiasm. The militia enlisted with alac 
 rity, and soon more men had volunteered than had been 
 authorized. They reported for duty at Charlestown, N. 
 H., and then marched to Manchester, near Bennington, 
 Vt., where STARK organized and disciplined his troops. 
 While there he was visited by General Lincoln, with orders 
 from General Schuyler to conduct the New Hampshire 
 militia to the main army. This STARK refused to do, and 
 stated his instructions from the authorities of New Hamp 
 shire. The reply being reported to General Schuyler, he 
 wrote Congress complaining of STARK and urging his 
 own need of reenforcements. Congress passed a vote of 
 censure upon the council of New Hampshire and upon 
 STARK. 
 
 Meanwhile STARK was preparing for active work. Bur 
 goyne had detached Colonel Baum with a considerable 
 force to capture the military stores at Bennington, and 
 STARK was there to defend them. He was joined by the 
 
64 Address of Mr. Baker on the 
 
 Vermont troops and by militia from the Berkshire Hills 
 of Massachusetts. Baum had intrenched himself upon 
 advantageous ground and had several cannon in position. 
 STARK attacked him in rear and in front, and after a hotly 
 contested fight of two hours the enemy was driven from 
 his defenses and the battle won. 
 
 The prisoners were speedily collected, and had hardly 
 been marched from the field before the reenforcements 
 which Colonel Baum had called for were heard approach 
 ing. Opportunely, Colonel Warner s troops arrived at the 
 same time to aid STARK. The New Hampshire brigade 
 rallied, and the fight was renewed with great energy on 
 both sides, and lasted until nearly night, when the enemy 
 retreated. STARK pursued them until darkness ended the 
 conflict. The victory was complete. The enemy had two 
 hundred and seven killed and man}- wounded. The 
 American loss was thirty killed and forty wounded. 
 Four brass cannon, eight drums, many swords, several 
 hundred stands of arms, and seven hundred and fifty pris 
 oners were among the immediate fruits of victory. The 
 militia of New Hampshire, Vermont, and Massachusetts 
 had met veteran troops protected by intrenchments de 
 fended by artillery, had carried them at the point of the 
 bayonet, and won a signal victory. STARK said of them: 
 " Had every man been an Alexander or a Charles the 
 Twelfth they could not have behaved more gallantly." 
 Certainly sixty per cent of these troops were New Hamp 
 shire men, and it is stated that one hundred and sixty-five 
 of them had fought at Bunker Hill. 
 
 Doubt and despair were turned into faith and rejoicing. 
 New hope and life pervaded the people. The army gained 
 
Acceptance of the Statue of John Stark. 65 
 
 new courage, and offensive operations were resumed. 
 Burgoyne had met with a serious loss, and henceforth 
 was harassed on all sides. STARK s victory made his sur 
 render a necessity. The French saw the courage and 
 determination of the Americans, and decided to assist 
 them. This victory was the turning point of the war. 
 It was the third day after the battle when Congress passed 
 its vote of censure upon STARK, but as soon as it heard of 
 his victory it made full, though tardy, recognition of his 
 ability and patriotism. It passed a resolution in this 
 language : 
 
 Resolved, That the thanks of Congress be presented to General 
 STARK, of the New Hampshire militia, and the officers and troops 
 under his command, for their brave and successful attack upon and 
 signal victory over the enemy in their lines at Bennington, and that 
 Brigadier STARK be appointed a brigadier in the army of the 
 United States. 
 
 Congress officially transmitted this resolution to him, 
 with the commission he had earned months before. 
 
 After the battle, but before Congress had done him jus 
 tice, he saw that the capture of Burgoyne was possible, 
 and no personal feeling could longer keep him from join 
 ing the main army. But the term of enlistment of his 
 troops had expired. They had left home upon a day s 
 notice. General Gates had a large command, and they 
 could not see that their presence was essential to success. 
 Moreover, they had enlisted upon the distinct understand 
 ing that they were to be commanded by STARK only, and 
 though he was willing to waive that point they were not, 
 and returned home. 
 
 Thus General STARK, who then held no commission in 
 the Continental Army, was left without a command, and 
 5 s w 
 
66 Address of Mr. Baker on the 
 
 followed his soldiers to New Hampshire. Everywhere he 
 was received with great honor and many expressions of 
 gratitude. He immediately asked for new enlistments, 
 and such was his popularity that he was soon in command 
 of nearly three thousand men. He saw that the way was 
 open for Burgoyne to retreat to Canada, and decided to 
 prevent it by putting his troops in the rear of the enemy. 
 He captured Fort Edward, and then stationed his men in 
 such positions as to prevent Burgoyne s retreat. When 
 this became known to General Burgoyne, he saw no escape 
 and submitted terms for the surrender of his army. The 
 campaign of 1777 having been gloriously ended by the 
 capture of Burgoyne s army, General STARK his com 
 mission as brigadier-general, with the thanks of Congress, 
 being received returned home in high spirits to raise 
 recruits and supplies. 
 
 In December he was ordered by Congress to proceed to 
 Albany and prepare for a winter campaign in Canada. 
 These orders were issued without the knowledge of Gen 
 eral Washington, and the expedition was abandoned for 
 lack of sufficient preparation and support. 
 
 General STARK was assigned to the command of the 
 northern department in the spring of 1778, with head 
 quarters at Albany. His service here was unpleasant, as it 
 involved no active operations beyond the watching and 
 punishment of Tories and spies, and he gladly received 
 orders to report to General Gates in Rhode Island. Here 
 he remained until December, 1779, when, the British hav 
 ing been driven out of that State, v he reported to General 
 Washington in New Jersey. During the winter he re 
 turned home for recruits and supplies, but rejoined the army 
 
Acceptance of the Statue of John Stark. 67 
 
 at Morristown. After a brief service he was ordered to 
 New England to raise volunteers to reenforce the army at 
 West Point. In this he was successful, and, having deliv 
 ered the recruits, rejoined his command. In September 
 he returned to West Point with his brigade and resumed 
 command there. While on this duty he was assigned to 
 the court-martial which condemned Major Andre. 
 
 His health became greatly impaired at the close of this 
 campaign and he thought seriously of retiring from the 
 army, but by the advice of General Sullivan asked for a 
 furlough for the winter. This was granted, and in the 
 spring he returned to the army with improved health and 
 renewed zeal. In June, 1781, he was again assigned to the 
 command of the northern department, with headquarters 
 at Saratoga. His command was not a pleasant though an 
 important one. There was no open foe, but traitors, spies, 
 and Tories cursed the land. He ruled them with a strong 
 hand, and imprisonments and executions were not infre 
 quent. 
 
 He was at Saratoga when Cornwallis surrendered his 
 army at Yorktown, and regretted that he could not person 
 ally participate in the glory of that event. 
 
 The war being now virtually ended, General STARK se 
 cured the public property, and thanking his militia for 
 faithful services, dismissed them to their homes. As 1782 
 passed without important military operations, and as it 
 was known that negotiations for peace were pending, he 
 did not report for active duty that year. 
 
 In 1783 he reported to General Washington for any duty 
 that might be assigned him, and did much good by his 
 endeavors to allay discontent in the army. When the 
 
68 Address of Mr. Baker on the 
 
 Society of the Cincinnati was organized he regarded it 
 with distrust and refused to join it. He proposed to lead 
 the life of Cincinnatus on his own farm, and said: "To 
 imitate that great man, we should return to the occupa 
 tions we have temporarily abandoned without ostentation, 
 holding ourselves ever in readiness to obey the call of our 
 country." 
 
 The independence of the United States having been 
 acknowledged by England, the army being disbanded, and 
 the officers having taken leave of Washington and of one 
 another, he quietly returned to his home on the Merri- 
 mack, where he managed his estate for many years, receiv 
 ing the respect and honor due his virtues and services. 
 By an act of Congress of September 30, 1783, he was 
 given the brevet rank of major-general in the army of the 
 United States. 
 
 In the events of the war of 1812 General STARK felt a 
 deep interest, but his advanced age more than fourscore 
 years prevented his taking the field again. When he 
 heard that the cannon he had captured at Bennington had 
 been surrendered at Detroit by General Hull he became 
 exceedingly angry, and until they were recovered by the 
 capture of Fort George never ceased to bemoan the loss of 
 his guns, as he affectionately called them. 
 
 He lived until the Republic he had fought to establish 
 had triumphantly emerged from another war with England 
 and had taken high rank among the nations; until her 
 institutions were secure and the right and wisdom of self- 
 government were vindicated. 
 
 On the 8th of May, 1822, he answered the roll call 
 where so many of his comrades had preceded him. He 
 
Acceptance of the Statue of John Stark. 69 
 
 had outlived all the generals of the Revolution except 
 Sumter, and was almost ninety-four years old. His chil 
 dren were five sons and six daughters eleven in all. 
 Three of the sons were officers in the army. 
 
 General STARK was well proportioned, of medium size, 
 and too active to become corpulent. His features were 
 well formed and prominent, his eyes blue yet piercing, 
 though softened by projecting eyebrows. His lips showed 
 firmness and were ordinarily closed. His forehead was 
 high and full, his nose sharp and large. 
 
 Physically and mentally he impressed everyone with his 
 self-confidence, his self-possession in times of difficulty or 
 danger, his capacity to command, his power to execute, 
 and his courage at all times. His character in private 
 and public life is without a stain. Though stern and 
 unrelenting when duty called or honor was involved, he 
 was open and frank in his manners, speaking freely his 
 opinions. He was always kind to the needy and hospita 
 ble to all, especially to his comrades in arms. His integ 
 rity was unquestioned, his honor never doubted. His 
 patriotism was pure and perennial. He said: "The cause 
 of my country appears the noblest for which man ever 
 contended, and no measures should be neglected or sacri 
 fices withheld which will support it to a favorable result. 
 In such a cause we may even despise death itself. You 
 may assure Congress that I am most happy when I can 
 do my country the greatest service. 
 
70 Address of Mr. Powers on the 
 
 ADDRESS OF MR. POWERS. 
 
 Mr. SPEAKER: Vermont rightfully claims audience on 
 any occasion when honor is proposed to the memory of 
 Gen. JOHN STARK. 
 
 The military achievement which gave him enduring 
 fame was planned on her soil and carried into successful 
 execution by the aid of Vermont valor. 
 
 Down to the summer of 1777 nothing had occurred in 
 the war for independence that threatened such dire disas 
 ter to the American cause as the invasion of General 
 Burgoyne. That such an invasion on his line of march 
 was possible had been early foreseen, and when the news 
 of Lexington reached the settlers of Vermont, brave old 
 Ethan Allen anticipated this danger, and in a heroic 
 way and as the self-appointed representative of the Great 
 Jehovah and the Continental Congress two authorities 
 then held in little respect by the commandant of Fort 
 Ticonderoga seized the fortress which commanded the 
 southern entrance to Lake Champlain. 
 
 The British cabinet had discovered that the great water 
 way by Lake Champlain and the Hudson River from 
 Montreal to New York was a natural line of bisection 
 which would cut off New England from her sister colo 
 nies. In Indian warfare and in the French wars this line 
 had been traversed by warring armies, and its natural ad 
 vantages, with its natural environment were, well under 
 stood in British counsels. 
 
 Accordingly it was determined that a well-equipped 
 
Acceptance of the Statue of John Stark. 71 
 
 army, under a trusty commander, should march by this 
 line to Albany, where it was expected it would meet a co 
 operating force coming north from New York City, and 
 thereby the confederated colonies would be cut in twain. 
 
 The plan was bold in design and pregnant with hope. 
 The British cabinet and the British people saw in the ex 
 pedition a speedy close of the war. Burgoyne and his 
 generals entered upon it as if upon a holiday excursion. 
 Some of the officers were accompanied by their wives, who 
 were for the first time to witness the wild novelties of 
 American scenery and the humiliation of American rebels. 
 
 The army lacked nothing in equipment, nothing in 
 numbers, nothing in expectations. But it lacked all ap 
 preciation of the mettle of New England farmers. 
 
 In marked contrast with this elevated spirit of the in 
 vaders was the consternation that seized upon the settlers 
 in New England, especially in Vermont, New Hampshire, 
 and Massachusetts. Vermont, close by Burgoyne s line 
 of march, wotild naturally expect forays from his army, 
 so certain to need provisions and supplies. An urgent 
 call was made upon the New Hampshire authorities for 
 aid, and this gave STARK the opportunity of his lifetime, 
 for by common consent he was placed in command of the 
 hastily recruited militia that gathered on the Vermont 
 border. 
 
 Washington was too much engaged south of New York 
 to spare large detachments to meet Burgoyne s invasion. 
 General Schuyler, however, was expected to check the 
 advance near Albany ; but in the light of subsequent events 
 it is altogether probable that he would have failed had not 
 Burgoyne s march been crippled on its way south of 
 
72 Address of Mr. PoTvers on the 
 
 Ticonderoga. The country through which he passed was 
 sparsely settled and more sparsely provisioned. 
 
 STARK saw that Burgoyne, so far from his base, would 
 need provisions more than recruits, and rightfully divined 
 his purpose to seize whatever stores had been accumulated 
 at Bennington for the use of the militia that had hastily 
 been called out for the defense of their homes. It has 
 often been said that General Baum was detached by Bur 
 goyne for the simple purpose of seizing these stores, but 
 this was not the main end in view. It was only one thing 
 out of many that Baum was to do. Burgoyne had dis 
 covered that he had an enemy on his flank and in his rear 
 that required as close attention as the one he expected to 
 meet in his front. He saw also that the most thickly set 
 tled portions of Vermont, on both sides of the Green 
 Mountains, could supply him with provisions and horses, 
 and so General Baum had orders to seize the stores at 
 Bennington, and then, by way of Manchester, north of 
 Bennington, to cross the mountains and move down the 
 Connecticut River to Brattleboro, and thence through the 
 Berkshire Hills to rejoin the main army. 
 
 STARR S determination to give battle at Bennington is 
 thus seen to have promised the best possible protection to 
 the infant settlements in Vermont as well as the compara 
 tively unprotected settlements on both sides of the Con 
 necticut River, and fully justified him in declining to obey 
 the orders of General Scliuyler to march his men to the 
 mouth of the Mohawk. 
 
 STARR S commission empowered him to act independ 
 ently of the Continental Congress and of officers acting 
 under its commission. He could render the national cause 
 
Acceptance of the Statue of John Stark. 73 
 
 more aid by disabling the invading army than by running- 
 ahead of it or around it, and, although Congress censured 
 his disobedience of Schuyler s orders, yet as soon as it 
 learned of his victory it made haste to revoke its censure 
 and vote its thanks to him and his men. 
 
 The details of the battle of Bennington are familiar his 
 tory. No better generalship or better soldiership was 
 developed during the war. STARK was the personification 
 of heroism and the inspiration of victory. No commander 
 less such could have held his undisciplined men so tena 
 ciously to duty. He displayed the dash of a Sheridan, the 
 strategy of a Lee, and the firm mental poise of a Grant. 
 
 He flanked and surrounded Baum before opening his 
 fire. Every soldier saw in defeat the possible widowhood 
 of his own "Molly Stark. n Such men, under such a 
 leader and fighting for home, are always and everywhere 
 invincible. 
 
 The results of STARK s victory at Bennington were of 
 the most far-reaching consequence to the American cause. 
 Burgoyne had lost one-seventh of his men and seven- 
 sevenths of his overconfidence. His journey was no longer 
 a holiday trip, but had become a matter of anxious busi 
 ness. He discovered that he must meet his enemy in front 
 in a crippled condition, while the most rebellious people 
 on earth hung upon his flank like a withering storm. 
 
 Bennington was at once a revelation to the haughty 
 Briton and an inspiration to the hopeful American. 
 
 Alison says that the battle of Valmy, the first test made 
 of the mettle of soldiers of France after the breaking out 
 of the revolution of 1789, carried the arms of France 
 to Vienna and the Kremlin. So it may be affirmed that 
 
74 Address of Mr. Powers on the 
 
 Bennington made Saratoga not alone possible it made it 
 inevitable. Saratoga brought recognition from France 
 and Spain, and with that independence was practically 
 won. Bennington restored the waning courage and droop 
 ing hope of America. It unified public sentiment through 
 out the colonies, it emphasized the belligerent character 
 of the contest, and, better than all, it demonstrated the 
 ability of the American volunteer to cope with the pro 
 fessional soldier of Europe. 
 
 Vermont has in many ways testified her appreciation of 
 the part taken by her own militia and the militia of New 
 Hampshire and Massachusetts at Bennington. She has kept 
 the i6th day of August in constant annual remembrance for 
 a hundred years. Seven years ago she celebrated the cen 
 tennial anniversary of the battle upon a large and imposing 
 scale of ceremonies. The occasion was graced by the pres 
 ence of the President of the United States, his Cabinet, 
 the governors and legislatures and many distinguished 
 citizens of Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Vermont. 
 Elaborate commemorative exercises brought to the mind of 
 the present generation a keener view of the significance of 
 the battle. Three years* ago another monster celebration 
 brought together an assemblage no less distinguished, in 
 honor of the dedication of the monument erected to com 
 memorate the deeds of STARK and his men. 
 
 To-day New Hampshire adds one more testimonial of 
 honor to her distinguished son by setting his statue in our 
 national gallery of fame, and appropriately couples it with 
 that of her other son, DANIEL WEBSTER, the foremost 
 American in law, letters, and statesmanship. What other 
 State can boast the motherhood of two such sons? the 
 
Acceptance of the Statue of John Stark. 75 
 
 one a master in the arts of war, the other a master in the 
 arts of peace. Both dedicated their lives to the honor and 
 glory of their country, and both have secured the applause 
 of countless millions of men who will share the blessings 
 of free government. 
 
 Let Statuary Hall, then, admit these statues into that 
 group of heroic casts that reflect the civil and military 
 renown of our common country, and before their pedestals 
 the ceaseless throng of visitors to the American capital 
 from every State in the Union, in all the years to come, 
 will pause to bow its tribute of respectful homage to two of 
 the best types of American manhood. 
 
 It was the fortunate mission of STARK to win the liberty 
 of his people to the end that a government of the people, 
 by the people, and for the people might be ordained; and 
 of WEBSTER to analyze, discover, and expound the proper 
 functions and aims of the system. Be it ours to preserve, 
 perpetuate, and transmit it, unbroken in form, unchecked 
 in scope, undefiled in spirit, in the proud trust that it is 
 unending in time. 
 
76 Address of Mr. Grout on the 
 
 ADDRESS OF MR. GROUT. 
 
 Mr. SPEAKER: I wish in behalf of Vermont to acknowl 
 edge the courtesy of the invitation extended by New 
 Hampshire to say a word in these memorial exercises 
 about Gen. JOHN STARK. 
 
 This invitation is accepted with pleasure, because the 
 early history of the two States runs so much together, and 
 especially that part which relates to the great event in the 
 life of General STARK, that Vermont feels almost an equal 
 interest in this occasion with New Hampshire. 
 
 That event really touches Vermont history at one of its 
 most heroic periods. It not only carries us back to the 
 battle of Bennington, where Vermont men stood side by 
 side with the men of New Hampshire, but it opens the 
 whole chapter of the independent career of Vermont as a 
 State, as well as her long struggle for admission into the 
 Union, of all of which the hero of Bennington was neither 
 an indifferent nor a silent spectator. 
 
 General STARK s victory at Bennington was so surpris 
 ing at the time, and still stands so prominently among the 
 events of that day, that we naturally want to know some 
 thing of the men who stood in the ranks. Let me for a 
 moment tell you about those from Vermont, and the fitting 
 school they had for the work done on that occasion. 
 
 The reader of history knows that the settlers on the 
 New Hampshire Grants received their lands from the royal 
 governor of the colony of New Hampshire, paying there 
 for the stipulated price ; and that later title to these lands 
 was claimed by the royal governor of New Y ork to be his 
 
Acceptance of the Statue of John Stark. 77 
 
 by virtue of the royal grant to the Duke of York in 1764; 
 and the settlers were called upon to pay a second time. 
 This was thought to be once too often, and was resisted 
 with spirit by those hardy pioneers, who were struggling 
 for existence against the difficulties and dangers of the 
 wilderness, in which prowled alike the wild beast and the 
 lurking savage. 
 
 The New York claimants easily obtained writs of posses 
 sion from the New York courts for the lands, but in no 
 instance did the settlers on the grants allow one of their 
 number to be permanently ejected. This, of course, called 
 for organization, and, as the result, the "Green Mountain 
 Boys," as they called themselves, under Allen, Warner, 
 and Baker, had, for more than seven years before STARK 
 was at Bennington, been in a kind of border war in re 
 sistance to the attempted jurisdiction over them by the 
 King s governor of the colony of New \ T ork. If he sent 
 surveying parties upon the grants, as he did, the settlers 
 drove them off. If he commissioned justices and other 
 civil officers, they soon found official life at once a burden 
 and a peril, and resigned or moved away. If officers went 
 from Albany to serve process or make arrests in land mat 
 ters, they were, to use the language of an old report, 
 * seized by the people and severely chastised with twigs of 
 the wilderness. " In these forays the sher iff always came 
 off second best; and at one time, with a posse of seven 
 hundred and fifty New York militiamen, went back to 
 Albany empty-handed. 
 
 If by hook or by crook a New York grantee succeeded 
 in displacing a settler, as was done by Colonel Reid and 
 his tenants at the far-away mouth of Otter Creek of 
 
78 Address of Mr. Grout on the 
 
 Pangborn, who had been in possession with a paid-up title 
 for twelve years Allen and his men hastened to expel the 
 intruder, which was done twice in this case, and the last 
 time with notice not again to return, "on pain of suffering 
 the displeasure of the Green Mountain Boys." At this 
 juncture the governor of New York appealed to General 
 Haldiman, commander in chief of the King s troops in 
 America this was in 1773 for help in enforcing his au 
 thority on the grants, complaining that the militia could 
 not be relied upon. This, however, the commanding 
 general declined to do, expressing doubt as to the pro 
 priety of using regular troops for that purpose. 
 
 But I must not prolong this story, full of local interest 
 as it is, and showing, as it does when fully told, the heroic 
 struggle of the hardy settlers on the New Hampshire 
 Grants in defense of their homes and their lives, which 
 culminated in 1774 in a proclamation by the governor of 
 New York and a counter proclamation by Allen and his 
 men, from which an armed collision could not have been 
 far away. But just then another war cloud loomed upon 
 the horizon, obscuring and absorbing for the time all 
 minor controversies. 
 
 The cry of blood from Lexington and Concord on the 
 1 9th day of April, 1775, rang like a tocsin in every home; 
 and instantly every hamlet was astir with preparations for 
 war, and every patriot breast on fire for action. The brave 
 men on the New Hampshire Grants were no exception; 
 but, on the contrary, were conspicuous for activity and 
 valor. They forgot for the time their differences with New 
 York, and, promptly changing front, gave battle to the 
 common enemy. 
 
Acceptance of the Statue of John Stark. 79 
 
 Not waiting for the Continental Congress, or any other 
 authority except their own council of safety, on the icth 
 day of May (only twenty-one days after the affair at Lex 
 ington) Allen, at the head of these intrepid men, captured 
 the fortress at Ticonderoga, and upon a formula that has 
 made his name immortal. On the same day these men 
 also captured the garrisons at Crown Point and Skeensboro. 
 And later we find Allen in unequal conflict with General 
 Carleton at St. Johns, where he was unfortunately taken 
 prisoner. And later still the same year we find Warner, 
 with his "Green Mountain Boys," repulsing Carleton at 
 Montreal and sending him by night, with muffled oars, 
 down the St. Lawrence to Quebec. And these (except 
 Allen, who was still a prisoner of war in London) and 
 others like them from the State of Vermont were the men 
 whom STARK had to help him at Bennington. 
 
 I said the State of Vermont. I should have said the 
 independent State of Vermont, for such the New Hamp 
 shire Grants had become at the time of the battle of Ben 
 nington. 
 
 The settlers on the grants, finding themselves in the 
 midst of a great war, and on the very frontier between the 
 contending forces, and without organization or allegiance, 
 except as claimed by New York, to which they could 
 never accede, just twenty days after the Declaration of 
 Independence, to wit, on the 24th day of July, 1776, met 
 in convention at Dorset, and, at an adjourned meeting the 
 following January, declared their territory u to be forever 
 thereafter a free and independent jurisdiction or State 
 under the name of Vermont;" thus cutting loose from 
 every other power or authority on the footstool, and 
 
80 Address of Mr. Grout on the 
 
 acknowledging allegiance only to the Supreme Ruler of the 
 Universe. And this little in dependent State so maintained 
 herself for the period of fourteen years, and until her 
 admission into the Union in 1791, all the time standing 
 out as an independent power among the powers of the 
 earth, with a sovereignty of her own, a currency of her 
 own, including coinage, with postal and excise laws in 
 fact, laws of every kind of her own, and withal with a na 
 tional policy of her own, which, firmly adhered to, at last 
 secured for her an equal place in the Union of the States. 
 
 The new State, of course, had a constitution. And that 
 you may more fully understand the character of the men 
 from Vermont who supported STARK at Bennington, let 
 me read two brief sections from their constitution. 
 
 In the very first section is found this language: 
 
 No male person born in this country or brought from over sea shall 
 be holden by law to serve any person as a servant, slave, or appren 
 tice after he arrives at the age of twenty-one years; nor female in 
 like manner after she arrives at the age of eighteen years, unless they 
 are bound by their own consent after they arrive at such age, or bound 
 by law for the payment of debts, damages, fines, costs, or the like. 
 
 This constitution was adopted July 8, 1777, ten years 
 before the Federal Constitution and six months before the 
 old Articles of Confederation early, as you will see, in 
 the era of written constitutions ; and yet, with slight alter 
 ations, it is the constitution of Vermont to-day, and a 
 model of its kind, providing for every function of govern 
 ment legislative, executive, and judicial even to author 
 ity for the establishment of a court of chancery, a branch 
 of jurisprudence then in the infancy of its modern jurisdic 
 tion. But more notable than all this is the fact that it con 
 tained this prohibition of slavery, while every one of the 
 
Acceptance of the Statue of John Stark. 81 
 
 colonies tolerated the institution. And more notable still 
 is the fact that it is the first constitutional prohibition of 
 slavery ever put forth by any people anywhere, at any time, 
 in the whole history of man. Yes, let it be written in 
 letters of gold that the "Green Mountain Boys" were the 
 first in all the earth to write in their organic law an abso 
 lute interdiction of an institution which had run with the 
 history of the race, and which all the more enlightened 
 nations have since copied, and at last, though in blood, 
 has been written in the Constitution of our common 
 country. 
 
 The other section in that remarkable constitution which 
 I wish to read is as follows: 
 
 No man ought to, or of right can, be compelled to attend any 
 religious worship, or erect or support any place of worship, or main 
 tain any minister contrary to the dictates of his conscience ; nor 
 can any man be justly deprived or abridged of any civil right as a 
 citizen on account of his religious sentiments or peculiar mode of 
 religious worship; and that no authority can, or ought to, be vested 
 in or assumed by any power whatever that shall in any case interfere 
 with or in any manner control the rights of conscience in a free 
 religious worship. 
 
 Now, here was a clean departure by New England men 
 from New England laws, customs, and traditions. Here 
 was a declaration for a complete separation of church and 
 state, while at that time throughout New England, except 
 Rhode Island alone, the church and state were so united 
 that it was difficult to distinguish between the two. All 
 were taxed by law for the support of the established wor 
 ship, and all were compelled to wait on its ministrations. 
 
 In those early New England days no one could vote 
 unless he belonged to the church, and one s influence in 
 6 s w 
 
82 Address of Mr. Grout on the 
 
 public life was always measured by his observance of its 
 
 
 
 rites and ceremonies. In that day this was a universal con 
 dition ; no power on the face of the globe existed without a 
 state religion. And to this late day it remains, though in 
 modified form, a disturbing question in English politics, 
 the great Gladstone having closed one of the most bril 
 liant careers in English history and left to his successors in 
 office the difficult and delicate work of disestablishing the 
 church. 
 
 But the men on the New Hampshire Grants took the 
 centuries by the forelock. When they flung in the face of 
 all the world the flag of their free State, they said it shall 
 be free indeed ; shall forever be the dwelling place of com 
 plete civil and religious liberty. They said the church 
 shall not be supported on compulsion of law, but by vol 
 untary contribution, as it is to-day throughout all this 
 broad land. 
 
 Mr. Speaker, let it not be thought that this was the decla 
 ration of a wild, wayward set of fellows with more courage 
 than conscience. The last clause of this free religious sec 
 tion shows that they were not only liberty-loving but God 
 fearing men. It is as follows: 
 
 Nevertheless, every sect or denomination of Christians ought to 
 observe the Sabbath or Lord s Day, and keep up some sort of religious 
 worship which to them shall seem most agreeable to the revealed will 
 of God. 
 
 And the first legislature under this constitution, till 
 special statutes could be adopted, declared the laws u as 
 they stand in the Connecticut law book, and in defect of 
 such laws the plain word of God as contained in the Holy 
 Scripture, to be the law of the land." And in further 
 
Acceptance of the Statue of John Stark. 83 
 
 proof that these were not irreverent men, the second legis 
 lature passed a law punishing blasphemy with death, and 
 profane swearing, cursing, lying, and drunkenness with 
 sitting in the stocks. 
 
 But enough. This constitution was adopted at Wind 
 sor, July 8, 1777, only thirty-nine days before the battle 
 of Bennington ; and as it was being read, paragraph by 
 paragraph, for the last time, a courier arrived in hot haste 
 from the west side with information of the fall of Ticon- 
 deroga and that Burgoyne was advancing in heavy force 
 along both sides of Lake Champlain. 
 
 To quote from myself on another occasion : Here was 
 indeed an awful crisis, one beyond the control of consti 
 tutions or conventions and for which the only cure was 
 bayonets and bullets, which certain and effective remedy 
 every man in that convention felt that he knew how to 
 administer; and some were for instant adjournment and 
 immediate work on Burgoyne s flank. Allen in his his 
 tory says they would have adjourned only for a terrific 
 thunderstorm, which detained them in the building. But 
 they did not adjourn, and there, amid salvos of heaven s 
 artillery, these men completed their work, laying broad 
 and deep the foundations of civil and religious liberty, and 
 marking, as by a milestone, an era in constitutional gov 
 ernment. They appointed a committee of safety, called on 
 New Hampshire and Massachusetts for help, and adjourned 
 and hurried over the mountain to pay their respects to 
 General Burgoyne." 
 
 And these are the men, these constitution makers and 
 such as these from the new independent State of Vermont, 
 who were at Bennington on the memorable i6th of August 
 
84 Address of Mr. Grout on the 
 
 with STARK, who had brought over the mountains from 
 New Hampshire brave men of equal character; for among 
 the number, and probably a fair sample of the lot, was 
 Capt. Ebenezer Webster, father of the godlike DANIEL, the 
 great Constitution expounder, whose statue stands along 
 side that of STARK in yonder Hall, and whose name is writ 
 with his high on the scroll of fame. 
 
 How little these men could have thought that this sul>- 
 lime portion awaited them, when DANIEL, a young lawyer 
 at Portsmouth, on his way to the courts in Coneord, and 
 STARK, living in the retirement of his farm, met at the 
 old hotel in Hookset, and the hero of Bennington spoke of 
 the sale of himself at one time for forty pounds, and was 
 ready to believe DANIEL was the son of Captain Webster 
 because of the same deep, swarthy color of his face, only 
 "blacker." 
 
 But let us for a moment see how STARK happened to be 
 at Bennington. We left the courier at Windsor on July 8 
 with information of Burgoyne s advance, which was, of 
 course, forwarded to the New Hampshire council of safety, 
 and must have been received not later than the nth or 
 1 2th. 
 
 The Vermont council of safety had learned from the 
 affair at Hubbardton that without assistance they were 
 powerless against Burgoyne s ten thousand, flanked by 
 merciless savages, who thought only of scalps, and on July 
 13, from Manchester, addressed a formal appeal to the New 
 Hampshire council, asking for help, and reminding them 
 that when Vermont was subjugated New Hampshire her 
 self would be on the frontier. This appeal was addressed 
 to New Hampshire because there was no time in which to 
 
Acceptance of the Statue of John Stark. 85 
 
 reach Congress or the commander in chief of the Conti 
 nental army; and the policy of Schuyler, commanding in 
 that quarter, was to draw everything from Vermont and 
 concentrate at Stillwater, in which the independent State 
 of Vermont did not believe. 
 
 The patriotic spirit of New Hampshire was at fever 
 heat. Her general court was in session, and she responded 
 nobly and promptly. On July 19 the president of her 
 council notified the Vermont council that orders were then 
 issuing for three battalions under General STARK to go to 
 their assistance, and that they should depend upon the 
 people of Vermont to provision them; and also asking to 
 have some proper person meet General STARK at Number 
 Four (Charlestown) to explain the situation and conduct 
 him over the mountains. 
 
 On July 30 STARK was in Charlestown, calling on the 
 New Hampshire council for kettles and bullet molds, say 
 ing there was but one pair in the place. 
 
 Think of it ! One pair of bullet molds for an army ! 
 
 On August 2 he again wrote from Charlestown: 
 
 Brigade not yet complete. * * * Would have sent account 
 of strength, but troops arrive in small parties and are sent forward 
 in small divisions. Shall leave one company here and two on 
 height of land between this place and Otter Creek to protect the 
 inhabitants. 
 
 On August 6 he was at Peru, 011 the mountain top; on 
 August 7 at Manchester, and on August 9 at Bennington. 
 Only twenty days from the time he received orders he had 
 recruited and equipped his little army and had it on the 
 ground. Napoleon never moved with greater promptitude 
 nor greater celerity. And he, you will remember, when 
 
86 Address of Mr. Grout on the 
 
 asked why it was that he always whipped the Austrians, 
 replied: "Because they do not understand the value of 
 five minutes of time." It should be remembered that these 
 men from New Hampshire were not in the service, but 
 came up straight from their homes on call of the council. 
 But why did STARK stop at Bennington? Why did he not 
 join Schuyler at Stillwater, as at Manchester he received 
 orders from that general to do? 
 
 Some have criticised General STARK for not obeying 
 Schuyler s order, and others have claimed he did obey. 
 But it should be remembered that STARK did not receive 
 his authority from Congress, but from the council of safety 
 of New Hampshire, and upon express condition that he was 
 not, unless he chose, to report to or obey any Continental 
 officer or the Continental Congress, from whose service he 
 had just resigned ; that he was, in short, to cooperate with 
 the troops in Vermont or elsewhere as he thought best 
 for the protection of the people and the annoyance of the 
 enemy; and when General Lincoln presented Schuyler s 
 order at Manchester, STARK undoubtedly explained the 
 independent nature of his command and declined to be 
 ordered by him. This is quite clear from the fact that on 
 Lincoln s report to Schuyler and his to Washington Con 
 gress proceeded on the iQth, three days after the battle, to 
 censure the New Hampshire council for sending STARK out 
 in that irregular way. And yet, in a letter to the Hartford 
 Courant of August 18, two days after the battle, speak 
 ing of this order, STARK says: 
 
 In obedience thereto I marched with my brigade to Bennington 
 on my way to join him (Schuyler), leaving that part of the country 
 (about Manchester) almost naked to the ravage of the enemy. 
 
Acceptance of the Statue of John Stark. 87 
 
 Now, from this it would seem that while STARK had sig 
 nified to Lincoln that he could not be ordered by Sclmyler 
 or any other authority except the New Hampshire council 
 of safety, yet he had gone to Bennington, in the direction 
 of Schuyler, not being fully decided but that he might 
 join him in case he thought it best for the cause, as after 
 the battle he in fact did. 
 
 But why did he stop at Bennington, where he won a 
 brilliant victory, which was the very first streak of light 
 in the Continental struggle? He tells us why in this same 
 letter. 
 
 In the very next sentence he says: 
 
 The honorable the council then sitting at Eennington were much 
 against my marching with my brigade, as it was raised on their re 
 quest, they apprehending great danger of the enemy approaching to 
 that place, which afterwards we found truly to be the case. They 
 also happily agreed to postpone giving orders to the militia to march. 
 
 Of course they did. They never for a moment thought 
 of sending the Vermont militia to Schuyler till the storm 
 had swept past them ; and they persuaded STARK that if 
 he would but stop with them there would soon be business 
 for them all, as there was. They knew, for they had 
 dwelt upon it so long that with them it was a verity, and 
 STARK, with quick military intuition, instantly saw that 
 Burgoyne would not move on to Stillwater without reach 
 ing out, as he passed, for the valuable stores at Benning 
 ton, which were so much needed by his army. 
 
 Why, the men of this council of safety, who STARK says 
 in this same letter were just from general State convention 
 at Windsor, could not only make constitutions, having 
 just turned out one that overlapped the progressive growth 
 
88 Address of Mr. Grout on the 
 
 of public opinion for a hundred years, but they could also 
 plan campaigns. Their whole lifetime had been a con 
 tinuous campaign in defense of their homes, their lands, 
 and their lives. They took nothing for granted, but were 
 ever on the alert; and as early as July 15, at Manchester, 
 foresaw the battle of Bennington. In a circular to the 
 militia officers, among other things, they said (using the 
 capitals and spelling of the original): 
 
 The Continental Stores at Bennington seem to be their prese.it 
 aim. You will be supplied with provisions here on your arrival. 
 Pray send all the Troops you can Possibly Raise; we can Repulse 
 them if we have assistance. 
 
 And again, on the i3th of August, at Bennington, they 
 sent an order to Colonel Marsh, saying: 
 
 There are therefore the most Positive terms to require you with 
 out a moments Loss of time to march one-half of the Regiment 
 under your Command to this Place. 
 
 ####### 
 
 There will Doubtless be an attack at or near this Place within 
 twenty-four howers. We have the assistance of General Stark with 
 his Brigade. You will hurry what Rangers forward are Recrutecl. 
 Now is the Time, Sir. 
 
 And it turned out that it was the time. 
 
 But I must not dwell on the battle of Bennington. It was 
 a small affair in numbers, but out of all proportion thereto 
 in results. STARK had with him from New Hampshire 
 eight hundred men, and from Vermont, then sparsely popu 
 lated, six hundred men, and probably one hundred and fifty 
 from the Berkshire Hills in Massachusetts, near by ; only 
 fifteen or sixteen hundred all told. But every man was there 
 because he wanted to be. He was there to strike for lib 
 erty, for independence, and against the monarchical idea in 
 
Acceptance of the Statue of John Stark. 89 
 
 government. And what chance had the savages, the Tories, 
 the Hessian hirelings, or the King s troops against such 
 men, among whom was a pastor and his flock, and all of 
 whom were imbued with something of the spirit of those 
 of old, of whom it was said: "Five of you shall chase a 
 hundred, and a hundred of you shall put ten thousand to 
 flight"? 
 
 Verily, these men, though few, were a host, and their 
 leader was every way worthy to command them. He was 
 no novice in war. He was a veteran of that seven years 
 struggle between the French and English for supremacy 
 on this continent. He was in the successful defense of 
 Fort William Henry in 1757; was with Lord Howe in his 
 unsuccessful assault on Ticonderoga in 1758; was with 
 Amherst at its reduction in 1759; was on the left of the 
 line at Bunker Hill, where the redcoats were three times 
 repulsed, and was the last to retire; was with Washington 
 at Trenton and Princeton, and in all these encounters he 
 was brave and capable. He was every inch a soldier and 
 he knew it, and now that he had an independent com 
 mand he proposed to show the Continental Congress, whose 
 favor he seems not to have gained, that he could fight and 
 win; that he knew 
 
 When to advance, or stand, or turn the sway 
 Of battle; open when, and when to close 
 The ridges of grim war. 
 
 He chafed like a caged lion all day that rainy I5th while 
 the enemy was throwing up his intrenchments, but in the 
 morning made his dispositions for attack, and in such a way 
 that w r hen the game came down he would bag it; for, though 
 the enemy was behind breastworks, with artillery, and he 
 
90 Address of Mr. Grout on the 
 
 had none, he was confident of victory, and victory was his, 
 though not without the "hottest" fight this soldier of a 
 dozen battles had ever seen, and of which he said in his 
 official report that "had every man been an Alexander or 
 Charles of Sweden he conld not have behaved better." 
 
 The poet has presented STARK at Bennington in the fol 
 lowing lines: 
 
 When on that field his band the Hessians fought, 
 
 Briefly he spoke before the fight began: 
 "Soldiers, those German gentlemen were bought 
 
 For four pounds eight and sevenpence per man 
 By England s King; a bargain it is thought. 
 
 Are we worth more? Let s prove it while we can; 
 For we must beat them, boys, ere set of sun, 
 
 Or my wife sleeps a widow " It was done. 
 
 Yes, "it was done." The day was ours, with four brass 
 cannon, two of which now guard the State capitol of Ver 
 mont, and the other two ought to guard that of New 
 Hampshire; one thousand stand of arms, forty-four offi 
 cers, and seven hundred and fifty prisoners, with two hun 
 dred and seven of the enemy, as STARK reported, "killed 
 on the spot." 
 
 Yes, "it was done." But at one time the fate of the 
 day hung trembling in the balance. It was after the pa 
 triots had finished Baum, charging over his breastworks 
 and capturing his cannon, with hardly a bayonet, with 
 only fowling pieces, and after they supposed and STARK 
 supposed the battle was won, and after the troops had 
 scattered, some pursuing and gathering up and others 
 guarding prisoners, some seeking refreshments and others 
 collecting the spoils of victory, when of a sudden Brey- 
 man s bugles sounded his approach with a thousand fresh 
 
Acceptance of the Statue of John Stark. 9 1 
 
 men and two field pieces. .This officer in his report says: 
 "The cannon were posted on a road where there was a log 
 house. This we fired into, as it was occupied by rebels. 
 And later he says, We then repulsed them on all sides. 
 
 It was a critical moment. Was it possible for STARK to 
 rally his scattered men, weary with the work of one bat 
 tle, and fight another? In his report he says: "Luckily 
 for us, Colonel Warner s regiment came up, which put a 
 stop to their career. We soon rallied, and in a few min 
 utes the action became very warm and desperate, which 
 lasted until night." Not more timely nor more decisive 
 of the day was the arrival of Dessaix at Marengo or of 
 Blucher at Waterloo than was the coming of those one 
 hundred and fifty fresh men of Warner s regiment, who 
 had marched from Manchester, under Major SafTord, after 
 the battle was set at Bennington, Warner himself having 
 been all day with STARK in the fight. 
 
 Who will say what the result of that day s business 
 might have been only for the arrival, in the very nick of 
 time, of those "Green Mountain Boys," who with impet 
 uous zeal went immediately into action, and, as STARK 
 himself says, " put an end to their career." Who will say 
 what the entry by the Muse of History against the name 
 of JOHN STARK might have been had not those fresh men 
 "put a stop to their career," and enabled STARK to say: 
 ( We soon rallied, etc. ? Probably no one can appreciate 
 the significance of this question more completely than did 
 the old hero himself, for in his letter to General Gates he 
 says: "Colonel Warner s superior skill in the action was 
 of extraordinary service to me. I would be glad if he and 
 his men could be remembered by Congress." And from 
 
92 Address of Mr. Grout on the 
 
 that day forth General STARK always held the warmest 
 
 % 
 
 friendship toward the people of Vermont. 
 
 But the battle was won, and STARK s name and fame are 
 now the common heritage of the American people, chal 
 lenging always their applause and gratitude. The results 
 of this victory were indeed far reaching, and its effect upon 
 the colonial cause, loaded down with two years of disaster 
 and discouragement, was almost magical. Since the cap 
 ture of Ticonderoga and Crown Point by Allen in 1775 
 on substantial victory had crowned the Continental arms 
 in any quarter. And now Burgoyne, with a splendidly 
 equipped army, was to march from Canada to New York 
 by way of Albany and the Hudson, thereby impressing 
 the people with the invincibility of the King s troops and 
 the great advantage of the King s protection. Men will not 
 long stand up for a government that can not protect them. 
 
 Ticonderoga, long considered the key to North Amer 
 ica," had fallen before Burgoyne s triumphal march, of 
 which Schuyler wrote: 
 
 An event so alarming has not happened since the contest began. 
 
 In some places it was the occasion of fasting and prayer. 
 The Tory everywhere raised his head, and the Whig was 
 filled with fear. Meanwhile Burgoyne was moving toward 
 the Hudson, all the time holding in each hand the King s 
 ready pardon and protection for his loving subjects, and 
 his army was all the time increasing by Tory recruits, 
 while the desertions from St. Clair s army as it fell back 
 from Ticonderoga were fearful to contemplate. On July 14 
 General Schuyler wrote Washington from Fort Edward: 
 
 I am informed a very great proportion of the inhabitants are tak 
 ing protection from General Burgoyne, as most of those in this 
 
Acceptance of the Statue of John Stark. 93 
 
 quarter are willing to do. Desertions prevail and disease gains 
 ground; nor is it to be wondered, for we have neither tents, houses, 
 barns, boards, or shelter, except a little brush. Every rain that falls, 
 and we have it in great abundance almost every day, wets the men 
 to the skin. We are, besides, in great want of every kind of neces 
 sary, provision excepted. We have camp kettles so few that we 
 can not afford one to twenty men. 
 
 Washington was almost discouraged. August 7, nine 
 days before the battle of Bennington, he wrote Schuyler; 
 
 As matters are going on, General Burgoyne will find little diffi 
 culty in penetrating to Albany. 
 
 And again he wrote: 
 
 Could we be so happy as to cut off one of his detachments, sup 
 posing it should not exceed four, five, or six hundred men, it would 
 inspire the people and do away with much of the present anxiety. 
 In such an event they would lose sight of past misfortunes, fly to 
 arms, and afford every aid in their power. 
 
 While Washington was praying STARK performed ; this, 
 only on a larger scale, was just what he did at Bennington, 
 and Washington s prediction was verified. It electrified 
 the colonies. Handbills giving the news went out from 
 Boston. Town-criers throughout all New Kngland pro 
 claimed it. Bonfires were built, bells were rung, and again 
 the colonies were aglow with a spirit of patriotism and valor. 
 All had been darkness, but light was breaking. Bur 
 goyne s army was no longer looked upon as invincible. 
 STARK had revealed the fact that it could be beaten, and 
 badly beaten, too ; that Indians, Tories, Hessians, Cana 
 dian volunteers, and British regulars could all be over 
 whelmed together. 
 
 The wise new prudence from the wise acquire, 
 And one brave hero fans another s fire. 
 
94 Address of Mr. Grout on the 
 
 Instead of desertions there were now enlistments. Not 
 only this, but no more Tories rallied to Burgoyne s stand 
 ard. They did not contemplate with satisfaction the treat 
 ment of their brethren taken prisoners at Bennington, who 
 were tied two and two with bedcords, furnished by the 
 Bennington housewives, and then fastened to a horse and 
 marched through the streets amid the jeers and gibes and 
 thrusts of the indignant crowd. The victory at Benning 
 ton wrought a complete change in the atmosphere of the 
 northern department. The Indians even took it in. Gov 
 ernor Clinton wrote: 
 
 Since that affair not an Indian has been heard of; the scalping 
 has ceased. 
 
 And later two hundred and fifty Indians in a body left 
 Burgoyne s army and joined the American forces. 
 
 When Washington heard the news from Bennington he 
 said: "One more such stroke and we shall have no great 
 
 o 
 
 cause of anxiety as to the designs of Great Britain. And 
 in writing Putnam he expressed the hope that New Eng 
 land would follow up the blow struck by STARK and crush 
 Burgoyne. And she did; October 17 told the story. Sara 
 toga was the place. 
 
 But he received his deathblow the i6th of August. On 
 the i8th, two days after the battle, in a letter to Lord Ger 
 main, explaining the difficulties that beset him, he said, 
 among other things: 
 
 The Hampshire Grants in particular, a country unpeopled and 
 almost unknown in the last war, now abounds in the most warlike 
 and rebellious race of the continent, and hangs like a gathering storm 
 on my left. 
 
 Burgoyne was both surprised and stupefied. The Baron 
 ess Reidesel, then with her husband in the British camp, 
 
Acceptance of the Statue of John Stark. 95 
 
 well explained the changed condition when she wrote: 
 u This unfortunate event paralyzed at once our operations." 
 
 Could Burgoyne have foreseen the storm that was gath 
 ering for him at Stillwater, set in motion by STARK S in 
 spiriting example at Bennington, and have pushed forward 
 without delay, he might have connected with Sir Henry 
 Clinton on the Lower Hudson, or, acting seasonably, he 
 might have fallen back on Canada. 
 
 But after this unexpected blow at Bennington he seemed 
 to drift in a bewildered, aimless way, till Warner, with his 
 "Green Mountain Boys," had cut off all chance of retreat 
 by capturing the transports on the lakes, and at last the 
 most powerful army that ever entered America from Can 
 ada was surrendered and largely absorbed into American 
 citizenship; and Burgoyne, the pet of the ministry, w r ent 
 home in disgrace and out of sight forever. And JOHN 
 STARK was the man who dealt him the stunning blow 
 that ended his career! 
 
 But enough. STARK never forgot how the Vermonters 
 helped him out on that greatest day of his life; and in that 
 prolonged and varying struggle of the people of Vermont 
 for admission into the Union, which lasted in all fourteen 
 years, and was full of novel situations and dangerous com 
 plications, STARK was all the time their consistent and 
 faithful friend. And when by a certain act of Congress in 
 1781 he supposed Vermont was to be admitted as a State, 
 in honor of the surrender of Cornwallis he fired a salute of 
 fourteen guns at Saratoga, where he was in command, one 
 being for the new State of Vermont. 
 
 It is true, however, when the twelve towns in New 
 York and the thirty-five in New Hampshire were so 
 
96 Address of Mr. Grout on the 
 
 attracted by the constitution and government of Vermont 
 that they left their allegiance to their respective States 
 and asked to be annexed to the new independent State of 
 Vermont, STARK, who was then in command at Albany, 
 was much troubled on account of his Vermont friends. 
 He could not consent to the dismemberment of his own 
 State, and his official position compelled him to disap 
 prove the encroachment upon New York. This somewhat 
 strained but did not break the friendly tie that bound him 
 to Vermont. 
 
 When he supposed Vermont was admitted as a State, he 
 wrote Governor Chittenden as follows: 
 
 ALBANY, August 27, 1781. 
 
 MY DEAR SIR: I only waited the prudent and happy determi 
 nation of Congress to congratulate you upon the interesting and 
 important decision in your favor. Be assured, sir, that no inter 
 vening circumstance on the grand political system of America 
 since the war began has given me more real pleasure than to hear 
 of your acceptance into the Union a measure that 1 do now and 
 always did think was highly compatible with the real interest of 
 the country. It is with difficulty I can determine in my own mind 
 why it has been postponed to this late hour; but perhaps Congress 
 had motives that we aie strangers to. The best and wisest mortals 
 are liable to err. 
 
 I am very happy to acquaint you that the people in this city 
 show very much of the highest solicitude upon the matter, fully 
 convinced that to be separate will be more for the interest f both 
 
 States than to be united. 
 
 # # # # # # * 
 
 To have been connected with New Hampshire is what many in 
 the State would have been very sorry for, as very inconvenient and 
 expensive for both bodies of people, and no real good resulting 
 from such connection. Therefore, I am of the opinion that every 
 man who consulted the public interest must be an advocate for sep 
 aration; for had they been connected there would have ever been 
 
Acceptance of the Statue of John Stark. 97 
 
 a jealousy between the two States which would have been infallibly 
 dangerous to both. But that jealousy, by the separation, must 
 entirely subside, and New Hampshire and Vermont live in perfect 
 friendship as sister States. 
 
 That Vermont in its government may be happy and a stranger to 
 internal jars is the ardent wish, my dear sir, of your most obedient 
 servant, 
 
 JOHN STARK. 
 
 To Governor CHITTENDEN. 
 
 The action of Congress referred to by STARK was for the 
 appointment of a commission, which Vermont had reasons 
 for believing would divide the State along the mountain 
 range between New York and New Hampshire, and she 
 promptly rejected the Congressional plan, refusing in a 
 most spirited manner to accept anything short of uncondi 
 tional admission. 
 
 This was in 1781, and STARK wondered why admission 
 "had been postponed to that late hour." Vermont was 
 not admitted till 1791, ten years thereafter; ten years of 
 struggling and waiting, of diplomacy and war, of border 
 raids and internal tumults, the whole story of which would 
 read more like romance than a plain recital of actual facts. 
 Bui: this is aside. 
 
 New Hampshire is fortunate in the selection of charac 
 ters for Statuary Hall. STARK and WEBSTER are great 
 names in the Granite State, great throughout the country, 
 and great with all English-speaking peoples. 
 
 Vermont congratulates New Hampshire, and welcomes 
 these her sons in commemorative marble to the com 
 panionship of the great in marble and bronze from other 
 States. The hero of Ticonderoga from Vermont welcomes 
 the hero of Bennington from New Hampshire. There let 
 7 s w 
 
98 Address of Mr. Groiit on the 
 
 them stand, typical soldiers of typical States, contempo 
 raries in life and in the sculptured renown of aeath. The 
 eminent lawyer, jurist, and statesman, Jacob Collamer, who 
 came nearer making good the place of WEBSTER in the 
 Senate than any other man of his time, now welcomes that 
 great lawyer, orator, and statesman to that silent illustri 
 ous assemblage. 
 
 Vermont will always welcome these men ; for STARK 
 was with her in war and WEBSTER counseled her in peace, 
 his words still ringing throughout the State from the 
 summit of the Green Mountains, where, standing beside a 
 log cabin in 1(840, near the place where STARK crossed on 
 his way to Bennington, he spoke, making clear then, as 
 always, the points of a political faith in which Vermont is 
 as steadfast as her heavenly neighbor, the North Star, and 
 her light equally constant. 
 
 Yes, Vermont, in common with all the States of this 
 now "glorious Union," welcomes the return of DANIEL 
 WEBSTER to the Capitol, and there in yonder hall let him 
 forever stand amid the undying echoes of those mighty 
 words which have not only made his name immortal, but. 
 which have been burned into the very hearts of the Ameri 
 can people by the fires of civil war, "Liberty and Union, 
 now and forever, one and inseparable." 
 
Acceptance of the Statue of John Stark. 99 
 
 ADDRESS OF MR. BLAIR 
 
 Mr. SPEAKER: JOHN STARK was the military genius of 
 the Revolutionary war. Independent as he was intrepid, 
 and conscious that his judgment was unerring, impatient 
 of restraint which he knew to be founded in error, and 
 irascible under ill treatment which touched his honor as a 
 soldier, he was not always a model of unquestioning sub 
 ordination, and was better adapted to command alone than 
 to serve under mediocrity. But no one can study his personal 
 character and trace his work without conceding that no 
 military man of his time, except George Washington, ren 
 dered more important service to the cause of American 
 independence, and that in purely martial achievements his 
 were the most brilliant of any rendered by the officers of 
 the Continental army. 
 
 He was a natural commander in chief; but the highest 
 capacity to command implies the highest capacity to obey, 
 and no man ever served more loyally than STARK did his 
 superior officer. Yet such was the strength of his genius 
 and his boldness, vigor, circumspection, celerity, skill, and 
 success in action that in every important battle or cam 
 paign in which he was engaged he was at the front of 
 affairs; and as wherever Macgregor sat was the head of the 
 table, so wherever STARK fought was the head of the army 
 and the turning point of the battle. 
 
 Where he was, something important was always going on. 
 He spent his time in doing decisive things, and so it came 
 to pass that it is hardly too much to say that JOHN STARK 
 
100 Address of Mr. Blair on the 
 
 was the turning point of the war for American independ- 
 
 
 
 ence. Without him Bunker Hill would have been a use 
 less slaughter and a precedent of subsequent defeats and 
 general demoralization, instead of a substantial victory and 
 the harbinger of hope and ultimate success. Trenton 
 would probably have been a failure; Bennington would 
 never have been fought at all; Burgoyne would have made 
 good his attempted retreat and escape from Gates back into 
 Canada, and there would have been no surrender at Sara 
 toga. Without Saratoga there would have been no French 
 alliance, no Yorktown, no independence, 110 happy, free, 
 united America. 
 
 I shall not trespass upon the time of the House with 
 much of the detail of the life of this remarkable man. My 
 colleague and other gentlemen will do his fame more 
 ample justice. Yet I desire to sketch very briefly a few of 
 the salient points in his marvelous career which justify 
 the high eulogiums which have been pronounced upon it 
 and the action of New Hampshire in selecting him from 
 among her many illustrious and gallant sons as the most 
 conspicuous and useful of all of them who have fought for 
 the independence and glory of their country. 
 
 Like so many of the great men of America, Gen. JOHN 
 STARK was of that wonderful Scotch-Irish stock which 
 emigrated from the north of Ireland and settled in several 
 of the colonies during the early part of the last century. 
 His father, Archibald Stark, was a graduate of the Uni 
 versity of Glasgow, and brought with him to the New 
 Hampshire wilderness the energy of his race and the cul 
 ture of that renowned institution. He was one of the first 
 settlers of Londonderry, N. H., and was one of the leading 
 
Acceptance of the Statue of John Stark. 101 
 
 men in that extraordinary body of emigrants, who brought 
 with them the best development of civilization in common 
 life then existing on earth, and whose descendants have 
 maintained the same relative position ever since ; have 
 spread through the continent, always at the front and mold 
 ing the development of society by the principles and abili 
 ties inherited from their ancestors. It is not too much to 
 say of the Scotch-Irish settlement founded at Londonderry 
 in the year of our Lord 1719 that no like community has 
 exerted a greater influence upon the nation and the world. 
 The whole people seemed to be instinct with an elevated 
 and creative energy, and leadership has been the natural 
 function of their descendants wherever they have been 
 found. 
 
 JOHN STARK was born at Londonderry, within a few 
 miles of what is now the city of Manchester itself located 
 upon a part of the territory covered by the settlement and 
 one of its descendants in the year 1728, and died upon his 
 homestead, now in the suburbs of the city, in the year 
 1822, almost ninety-four years of age, and, except General 
 Sumter, the last surviving general officer of the Revolu 
 tionary war. He was one of many children, and was edu 
 cated by his father so far as their stern environment would 
 permit. 
 
 At the age of sixteen years, having penetrated the wil 
 derness as far as where the town of Rumney, in Grafton 
 County, is now situated, with his brother William and two 
 other men, named Eastman and Stinson, on a hunting ex 
 pedition, he was captured by the Indians and carried to 
 Canada, where he remained- nearly a year, learning thor 
 oughly the character of the Indians and their methods ol 
 warfare. 
 
102 Address Oj Mr. Blair on the 
 
 The Indians also learned something of STARK. After 
 his capture, with his own death threatened as a conse 
 quence, he shouted to his companions to escape; when 
 forced to run the gantlet, he so vigorously belabored the 
 two lines of young Indian braves, whose business it was to 
 castigate him, that they were glad to get out of his way; 
 when ordered to hoe their corn he flatly refused to do the 
 work of squaws, cut up the corn, and threw his hoe into 
 the river, and thereby won the admiration of the chief, 
 and was treated as a son during the remainder of his cap 
 tivity. 
 
 After his ransom and return to Londonderry his services 
 were sought to aid in the exploration of the northern part 
 of New Hampshire and Vermont, along the borders of 
 Canada, which was the bloody ground debated for nearly a 
 century between the French and Indians on the one side 
 and the English settlements on the other. During all this 
 time the situation was little better than one of savage war 
 fare. That wonderful frontier people were always ready 
 for massacre and death, but generally preferred to take 
 time by the forelock, and came off, as a rule, best in the 
 perpetual encounter with the wild beast, the still wilder 
 and more savage Indian who too often was inspired by 
 the vindictive and relentless cruelty of civilized men 
 and with nature herself, who in that early day was the 
 most stubbornly hostile of them all. 
 
 Throughout the French and Indian war, which began 
 in 1756 and ended in 1763 with the subjugation and ces 
 sion of all the continental French possessions to Great 
 Britain, STARK was engaged in active service. He was a 
 captain in the famous regiment of Rodgers s rangers. On 
 
Acceptance of the Statue of John Stark. 103 
 
 several occasions he exhibited his superiority as a com 
 mander under the most difficult circumstances; more than 
 once saved the army and important positions by his vigi 
 lance, daring, arid skill; became the confidant and favorite 
 of Lord Howe, the ablest and most beloved British officer 
 of his time, and returned home at the close of the war 
 the real inferior of no fighting man in America. 
 
 Then he married and raised a family, which was the 
 main business of our fathers, as, indeed, it is of man in 
 all the ages. He was, however, ardently alive to every 
 thing pertaining to the public welfare; and as the contest 
 for independence came on there was no more stanch and 
 determined patriot than JOHN STARK. 
 
 When the embattled farmers stood arrayed at Lexington 
 and Concord "and fired the shot heard round the world," 
 his ear caught the familiar sound of war, and, quitting his 
 sawmill, he leaped upon his horse and galloped to Boston, 
 rallying the people on his way. 
 
 As the aroused sons of liberty gathered from all New 
 England and beleaguered the city of Boston, where Gage 
 was with the British army, three regiments of New Hamp 
 shire troops were organized. STARK commanded one of 
 them at Bunker Hill, and here was rendered his first great 
 service in the Revolutionary war. It is not probable that 
 there was so ripe and able an officer at that moment on 
 either side as JOHN STARK. 
 
 The story of the battle is a familiar one. The ardor of 
 the aroused Americans could not be restrained, but could 
 hardly be directed with precision and good effect because of 
 the lack of time for that discipline and experience in the 
 field which alone can make an army. 
 
104 Address of Mr. Blair on the 
 
 Determined to drive the British from Boston, if possible, 
 and at all events to fight, the Americans seized an advanced 
 position in the night and threw up a small redoubt on 
 Breed s Hill, in Charlestown, which was tolerably com 
 plete by noon of the next day, the immortal lyth day of 
 June, 1775, and filled with about one thousand men, under 
 the command of Colonel Prescott, of Massachusetts, one of 
 the bravest of the brave and a cool and able officer. 
 
 The astonished Gage, in command of the English forces, 
 stared and held his breath until the day was well advanced, 
 but then determined at once to dislodge and destroy the 
 rash and impudent rebel horde. 
 
 Three thousand of the choicest veterans of Europe 
 moved across the bay to storm the redoubt. The rear of 
 the earthwork was indefensible, and on the left slope of 
 the hill, between it and the water, there were no defenses, 
 nor was it possible to prepare any of importance. There 
 STARK and his regiment, with gallant troops from other 
 States, took position in the open field, with no defense but 
 a few rails covered with fresh-mown hay to oppose the 
 charge of the English, who sought to turn the redoubt, 
 while a part of their forces moved directly up the hill to 
 engage the garrison. 
 
 Three times the farmers repulsed the veterans, and the 
 British dead in front of the rail fence where STARK com 
 manded "lay thick as sheep in a fold," when the ammu 
 nition of the patriots failed and Warren fell. Driven from 
 the redoubt, its exhausted but still resolute defenders, 
 under the lion-like Prescott, were shot and bayoneted by 
 scores, and would have died in their tracks or have been 
 utterly routed and captured in a body but for the troops 
 
Acceptance of the Statue of John Stark. 105 
 
 who fought in the open under STARK checking the prog 
 ress of the victorious foe. Finally they effected a retreat 
 across the peninsula upon the main army, with a total loss 
 to the Americans of one-fourth that suffered by the soldiers 
 of King George. Bunker Hill was a victory. True that 
 the enemy captured the position, but in their triumphant 
 retreat the patriots carried off the honors of war, and 
 STARK and his brave New Hampshire men, as they fell 
 back grimly from the seashore to the continent, carried 
 with them the new-born independence of America just de 
 livered on that bloody field. More than half the men who 
 fought at Bunker Hill were from my own beloved State! 
 What if that battle had been a rout? What would have 
 been the result of the Revolutionary war? What would 
 have been the fate of America if New Hampshire and 
 STARK had not fought at Bunker Hill ? 
 
 Eighteen months later and the scene of action had 
 changed to the Middle States. Washington was on the 
 Delaware and hope was dead. But that great chieftain 
 would do his duty still. The time of the New Hampshire 
 troops had expired, but STARK aroused them to volunteer 
 for six weeks more, so that one last battle might yet be 
 made for liberty. 
 
 In the council of war STARK said to the commander in 
 chief: "If we are ever to win our independence \ve must 
 teach the army to depend upon their firearms and their 
 courage ; their guns and not their shovels. 
 
 Washington replied that he proposed to, and that they 
 should have a fight. They crossed the Delaware. STARK 
 led the advance guard under Sullivan, who commanded 
 the right wing of the army; Washington and Greene, the 
 
106 Address of Mr. Blair on the 
 
 left. The right charged first into the town, STARK at the 
 head of the column, or, as Wilkinson says, "the dauntless 
 STARK, who dealt death wherever he found resistance and 
 broke down all opposition before him." Meanwhile the 
 left wing had moved in a more circuitous route and the 
 army was soon reunited in the decisive victory of Trenton. 
 Princeton followed, STARK ever at the front, for he never 
 was anywhere else. 
 
 Once more God had almost visibly interposed for us, and 
 the people took courage. 
 
 Medals of honor have been awarded to brave men who 
 fought in the late war when their terms of enlistment were 
 over, but the men of New Hampshire volunteered in 
 masses when their service was done, and they were in rags, 
 without pay, and their families suffering at home, to march 
 many miles on frozen ground with bleeding feet in a cause 
 then so hopeless that it must have seemed more like a pro 
 cession to meet the doom of traitors than a march to victory 
 in the cause of freedom. 
 
 Soon after his extraordinary services on the Delaware 
 Colonel STARK resigned his commission and returned to his 
 home in New Hampshire. 
 
 Congress had done him a grave personal injustice in the 
 promotion of an inferior officer under circumstances which 
 inflicted great humiliation upon his stern, proud spirit. 
 He declared that a man who would not resent personal dis 
 honor was unworthy to mingle with soldiers, and that not 
 to resign would tend to demoralize the army. But his 
 patriotism was as strong as ever, and he immediately fitted 
 out all of his family and servants capable of bearing arms 
 and dispatched them to the army, and warned the Congress 
 
Acceptance of the Statue of John Stark. 107 
 
 of the dangerous condition of Ticonderoga, a warning 
 which, if heeded, would have arrested Burgoyne at the 
 beginning of his campaign and saved the Continental army 
 from great disasters. 
 
 The legislature of his State did not fail to thank him 
 for the important services he had rendered the country. 
 Burgoyne was now in full march from Canada, by way of 
 Lake Champlain and the Hudson River, to join Clinton at 
 Albany and separate the Eastern from the Middle and 
 Southern States, thus ending the war by the easy subjuga 
 tion of their divided strength. Ticonderoga had fallen; 
 the triumphant English and Hessian horde had crossed the 
 Hudson, and neither Schuyler nor Gates was able to arrest 
 the progress of Burgoyne. There was no more perilous 
 period during the whole war. 
 
 Vermont, although of the Union, was not then in the 
 Union. Her gallant sons, under Allen and Warner and 
 others, were among the most efficient opponents of the 
 Crown, and this campaign of Burgoyne s was an invasion 
 of their homes. New Hampshire was herself a frontier 
 State from the beginning, and the authorities of Vermont 
 cried aloud to their New Hampshire brethren, being the 
 first to feel what, if not met at the threshold, would 
 become the common distress. 
 
 John Langdon was president of the New Hampshire 
 provincial assembly, and delivered to them what I consider 
 the greatest speech in our history, except WEBSTER S reply 
 to Hayne: 
 
 I have three thousand dollars in cash. I will sell my plate for 
 three thousand more. I have seventy hogsheads of Tobago rum, 
 which I will turn into money. We will raise two regiments of men. 
 Our friend STARK will take command of them and we will drive 
 back Burgoyne. 
 
108 Address of Mr. Blair on the 
 
 In one month the men were raised; they had crossed the 
 mountains; Vermont and Massachusetts had contributed 
 all who could be assembled, and STARK, in command of 
 the whole of them, refusing to act under the orders 
 of Congress, but, operating under authority of the State 
 of New Hampshire, had fought the battle of Bennington, 
 destroyed more than one thousand of Burgoyne s best 
 troops, one-sixth of his entire army, and so weakened and 
 demoralized him and aroused the whole country that 
 further progress was impossible. This ended STARK s 
 contemplated service, but his country recognized at once 
 that her true genius had appeared on the scene, and Con 
 gress desired him to join the main army under Gates. 
 
 But STARK did not consent, believing that if he did so 
 Burgoyne would be allowed to escape to Canada. Urged 
 by Langdon and his associates, he remained in the field 
 under the commission of his State, rallied an army which 
 seized the fords of the Hudson just as Burgoyne arrived 
 on the western bank of the river on his stealthy retreat 
 to Canada, which he had begun without the knowledge of 
 the unwary Gates. Finding STARK interposed between his 
 disheartened army and Canada, and more than twice his 
 own numbers under Gates in front, the discomfited com 
 mander of His Majesty s forces fought bravely but hopelessly 
 and surrendered at Saratoga. 
 
 Then followed the French alliance and several years of 
 indecisive war, which the united strength of both nations 
 was not able to bring to a successful result until the Tri 
 color and the Stars and Stripes finally triumphed together 
 at Yorktown in 1781. 
 
Acceptance of the Statue of John Stark. 109 
 
 For his transcendent services at Bennington Congress 
 was not slow to thank the true hero of that occasion and of 
 the whole campaign of 1777, and to redress the injustice 
 done him after the battle of Trenton, by forwarding to him 
 a general s commission in the Continental army. 
 
 On at least three vital occasions during the Revolution 
 ary war the services of Gen. JOHN STARK were most con 
 spicuously important. 
 
 Whoever studies the campaigns by which our independ 
 ence was achieved will thank God for JOHN STARK at 
 Bunker Hill, at Trenton, at Bennington, and the whole 
 campaign against Burgoyne. So far as the agency of one 
 man can be essential in working out the purposes of Provi 
 dence, it must be conceded that in all these great affairs he 
 was plainly that one man. 
 
 Let anyone answer hopefully who can the question, What 
 would have been the fate of America if JOHN STARK had 
 not fought at Bunker Hill, at Trenton, and at Bennington? 
 Doubtless America would at some time have been free, but 
 through what years of additional blood and suffering we 
 might have attained to the promised land is beyond mor 
 tal ken. 
 
 After the campaign of 1777, General STARK served prin 
 cipally in the department of the north, in charge of that 
 portion of the Union which he had done so much to free 
 from the Briton, the Canadian, and the Indian. I can 
 not take more of the time of the House to enlarge upon 
 his illustrious career. After the war he lived on his farm, 
 now within the corporate limits of Manchester, the city 
 where I have the honor to reside, a city which reveres his 
 memory and is now engaged in a great effort, to which she 
 
110 Address of Mr. Blair on the 
 
 would gladly give national proportions, to erect a suitable 
 monument over his grave. 
 
 This monument will rise on a conspicuous spot in that 
 happy valley where the eyes of hundreds of thousands of 
 our countrymen and of all countrymen of civilized lands, 
 as they hurry through that great avenue of travelers, now 
 annually behold the Stars and Stripes waving in the 
 heavens to mark the last resting place of him who has had 
 no superior in exalted patriotism or in native genius lor 
 war among all the great men born upon our soil. 
 
 It has been deemed fitting by New Hampshire, who 
 has not forgotten the importance of his perpetual presence 
 in the grounds of her own capital, that his statue should 
 be placed among those of the immortals in yonder Hall. 
 I close with the sentiment which Gen. JOHN STARK gave 
 to the committee which sought his presence at the celebra 
 tion of the battle of Bennington not long before his death: 
 
 Stand by the flag of your country; live free or die! 
 
 Air. Speaker, in accordance with the will of the State 
 of New Hampshire, expressed through Governor John B. 
 Smith, her distinguished executive, the statue of JOHN 
 STARK is now presented to the country. I have the honor 
 to move the adoption of the resolutions. 
 
 MESSAGE FROM THE SENATE. 
 
 A message from the Senate, by Mr. PLATT, one of its 
 clerks, announced that the Senate had passed the following 
 resolutions; in which the concurrence of the House was 
 requested: 
 
 Resolved by the Senate (the House of Representatives concurring]^ 
 That the thanks of Congress be given to the people of New Hamp 
 shire for the statue of JOHN STARK., illustrious for military services, 
 
Acceptance of the Statue of John Stark. Ill 
 
 being especially distinguished at Bunker Hill and as the victorious 
 commander at Bennington. 
 
 Resolved, That the statue be accepted and placed in the National 
 Statuary Hall, and that a copy of these resolutions, signed by the 
 presiding officers of the Senate and House of Representatives, 
 he forwarded to his excellency the governor of the State of New 
 Hampshire. 
 
 The SPEAKER. If there be no objection, these Senate 
 resolutions will be substituted for those offered by the gen 
 tleman from New Hampshire [Mr. BAKER], and action will 
 be taken upon them instead of upon the House resolutions. 
 
 There was no objection, and it was so ordered. 
 
 The Senate resolutions were unanimously concurred in. 
 
ACCEPTANCE OF THE STATUE OE DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 PROCEEDINGS IN THE SENATE. 
 
 DECEMBER 3, 1894. 
 
 Mr. CHANDLER submitted the following resolution; which 
 was considered by unanimous consent, and agreed to : 
 
 Resolved, That the exercises in the Senate in connection with the 
 reception from the State of New Hampshire, for the National Gallery 
 in the Capitol, of the statues of JOHN STARK and DANIEL WEBSTER 
 be made a special order for Thursday, the 2oth day of December. 
 
 DECEMBER 20, 1894. 
 
 Mr. HOAR. Mr. President, I send to the Secretary s desk 
 concurrent resolutions, for which I ask present considera 
 tion. 
 
 The PRESIDING OFFICER. The concurrent resolutions 
 will be read. 
 
 The Secretary read the concurrent resolutions, as follows: 
 
 Resolved by the Senate (the House of Representatives concurring], 
 That the thanks of Congress be presented to the State of New 
 Hampshire for the statue of DANIEL WEBSTER, a citizen of that 
 State, illustrious for historic renown and for distinguished civic 
 service. 
 
 Resolved, That the statue be accepted and placed in the National 
 Statuary Hall in the Capitol, and that a copy of these resolutions, 
 duly authenticated, be transmitted to his excellency the governor of 
 New Hampshire. 
 
 The Senate, by unanimous consent, proceeded to con 
 sider the concurrent resolutions. 
 
 8 s w 113 
 
114 Address of Mr. Chandler on the 
 
 ADDRESS OF MR. CHANDLER. 
 
 Mr. PRESIDENT: New Hampshire gives to the National 
 Gallery in this Capitol the statue of her most distinguished 
 son, who was also the greatest lawyer, orator, and states 
 man of America. 
 
 Thomas Webster, a Puritan of the English race, settled 
 at Hampton, on the New Hampshire coast, about the year 
 1636, sixteen years after the landing at Plymouth and six 
 years after the arrival of Governor Winthrop at Salem. 
 
 Descended, as is believed, from Thomas Webster was 
 Ebenezer Webster, who was born in Kingston, near Hamp 
 ton, April 22, 1739, and in 1763 moved as a pioneer farmer 
 to the township first called Bakerstown, next Stevenstown, 
 and finally Salisbury. His second wife was Abigail East 
 man, of Welsh descent, a resident of Salisbury. Ezekiel 
 Webster was born March n, 1780, and on January 18, 
 1782, DANIEL WEBSTER was born in Salisbury, in that 
 part which is now Franklin. 
 
 The Salisbury line started at the head of the Great Falls 
 in the Pemigewasset River, just above u the crotch" where 
 the confluence of that stream with the Winnepesaukee 
 forms the Merrimack, and extended down the latter river 
 four miles to a point about fifteen miles above Penacook, 
 now Concord, and from the Merrimack the lines extended 
 west four miles apart for a distance of nine miles across 
 the hills between the Merrimack and the Blackwater and 
 up the eastern slope of Kearsarge Mountain. The Webster 
 birthplace was a home of dark and gloomy forests, bleak 
 
Acceptance of the Statue of Daniel Webster. 115 
 
 and barren hillsides, fields hard to cultivate during the 
 short summers, and covered deep with snow during the 
 long and tedious winters. The father s first house was a 
 log cabin, and, as the son has told us in a pathetic and 
 memorable description, "when the smoke first rose from 
 its rude chimney and curled over the frozen hills there was 
 no similar evidence of a white man s habitation between it 
 and the settlements on the rivers in Canada." 
 
 Amid these surroundings DAXIEL WEBSTER was born 
 and came to manhood. It is impossible to correctly judge 
 of their effect upon his character without a careful contem 
 plation also of the traits and opinions of his father. 
 
 Ebenezer Webster when only eighteen years of age 
 served as one of the Rodgers rangers in the French and 
 Indian war. In the campaign of 1758 he went out as a 
 private in Timothy Ladd s company. Against Crown 
 Point in 1760 he served as a sergeant in Capt. Philip John 
 son s company in Goff s regiment. He evidently became, 
 after his arrival and his growth to man s estate, in the lit 
 tle frontier settlement of Salisbury, its leading citizen, and 
 as the Revolution approached he was looked to by reason 
 of his previous experience as a ranger to be the foremost 
 soldier of Salisbury s company to march to Boston after 
 the battle of Lexington. Mr. Bancroft says that by the 
 23d of April, 1775, two thousand men had arrived from 
 the interior of New Hampshire, sent "not to return before 
 the work was done. 
 
 May i, 1775, Salisbury voted "to raise fifteen pounds 
 lawful money in order to purchase ammunition for a town 
 stock to be kept in Salisbury;" "also to choose a committee 
 of inspection in said town," and to make Capt. Ebenezer 
 
11G Address of Mr. Chandler on tiie 
 
 Webster its chairman. On April 12, 1776, New Hamp 
 shire s committee of safety asked all the m^le citizens to 
 sign a declaration as follows: "That we will, to the 
 utmost of our power and at the risque of our lives and for 
 tunes, with arms, oppose the hostile proceedings of the 
 British fleets and armies against the United American 
 Colonies." Ebenezer Webster signed this engagement, 
 and as first selectman certified to the committee the 
 names of eighty-three who had signed it every male 
 adult in the town except two, who withheld their sig 
 natures for reasons not unfriendly to the cause of the colo 
 nies. 
 
 Ebenezer Webster did not render continuous military 
 service during the Revolution, but whenever the town fur 
 nished soldiers for the Continental army he was placed in 
 charge of the work either alone or with Capt. Matthew 
 Pettengill, and Captain Webster on various calls marched 
 to the armed conflicts of the Revolutionary struggle. In 
 1776 he performed six months service in the army, enlist 
 ing a company, marching to New York, and participating 
 in the battle of White Plains. 
 
 At the battle of Bennington, August 16, 1777, he was 
 captain of a company composed of sixty-six men, forty-two 
 of whom were from Salisbury, serving under General 
 STARK. He was ordered to find other companies of two 
 hundred men who were out on a scout, to take charge 
 of the whole, and to fall upon the enemy in the rear when 
 the action should commence at the front. When the 
 charge was made, Captain Webster was the first to leap 
 the defenses, but his command was driven back. Later 
 he was placed by STARK on the left wing of the army, and 
 
Acceptance of the Statue of Daniel Webster. 117 
 
 fought to the successful finish with bravery and with credit 
 to himself and his command. 
 
 In August, 1778, Captain Webster, in obedience to a 
 request from the committee of safety, raised a company, 
 which he commanded; it was the third in Colonel Nichols s 
 regiment of Whipple s brigade, serving in the Rhode Island 
 campaign. In 1780 he was captain of the fourth company 
 in Colonel Nichols s regiment, raised for the defense of 
 West Point. One of Captain Webster s soldiers, Stephen 
 Bohannon, who was with him at the time of General 
 Washington s discovery of the treason of Arnold, in Sep 
 tember, 1780, related the following incident to Hon. 
 George W. Nesmith: 
 
 Webster was called to General Washington s tent and 
 commanded to guard it during that night, and the General 
 remarked: "Captain Webster, I believe I can trust you. 
 
 Bohannon said that Washington did not sleep at all that 
 night, but spent the time either in writing or walking in 
 his tent. 
 
 In 1782 Captain Webster performed a six-months serv 
 ice in the northern part of New Hampshire. Most of the 
 soldiers in his company resided in that part of the State. 
 This was known as the "Ranger service," and was the 
 last in which he was engaged. 
 
 "As an officer he was beloved by his soldiers, and set 
 the good example of always being in front of his men and 
 in the thickest of the battle. He was born to command; 
 of cool, steady nerve, and possessing sound judgment; in 
 stature six feet tall, erect, stately, and of splendid phy 
 sique, with a voice of great compass and clearness, making 
 himself heard all along the line and in the thickest of the 
 
118 Address of Mr. Chandler on the 
 
 battle; eyes black and piercing; a countenance open, frank, 
 and generous, and a complexion which could not be soiled 
 by powder. 
 
 After the close of the war Ebenezer Webster continued 
 to be engaged by his fellow-citizens in public service. He 
 was placed upon all the important town committees, and 
 in 1788 was chosen, with Captain Pettengill, as a delegate 
 to the convention at Concord for forming a State constitu 
 tion. In 1794 the town voted to choose a committee of 
 seven to engage "minutemen," and made as chairman 
 
 &>~e> 
 
 "Col. Ebenezer Webster." 
 
 He was chosen moderator at the second town meeting 
 in 1769, and fifteen times thereafter, the last election being 
 in 1803. In 1769 he was also chosen selectman, and eight 
 times subsequently. He was representative in the legis 
 lature from Salisbury in 1780, 1781, and 1790. He also 
 was State senator for five terms from 1785 to 1789, became 
 colonel in the militia in 1784, and finally, about 1791, a 
 county judge for the county of Hillsborough. He was a 
 Presidential elector when Washington was first chosen. 
 
 In 1788 Salisbury sent Mr. Webster as delegate to the 
 "convention which met in February at Exeter "for the pur 
 pose of considering the proposed Constitution," and a town 
 committee was "chosen to take the matter up and instruct 
 Colonel Webster how to act upon their decision. Most 
 of the northern towns were against the Constitution. 
 Public feeling was so strong against it at Exeter that the 
 friends of the measure found that they must secure delay, 
 and the convention adjourned to meet at Concord in June, 
 1788. Mr. Webster came home, discussed the subject with 
 his constituents, and obtained from them leave to do as he 
 
Acceptance of the Statue of Daniel Webster. 119 
 
 thought proper. When the vote was about to be taken he 
 arose and said: 
 
 Mr. President, I have listened to the arguments for and against the 
 Constitution, and I am convinced that such a government as that 
 Constitution will establish, if adopted a government acting directly 
 on the people of the States is necessary for the common defense 
 and general welfare. It is the only government which will enable us 
 to pay off the national debt the debt which we owe" for the Revolu 
 tion, and which we are bound in honor to fully and fairly discharge. 
 Besides, I have followed the lead of Washington through seven 
 years of war, and I have never been misled. His name is sub 
 scribed to this Constitution; he will not mislead us now; I shall 
 vote for its adoption. 
 
 The junior Senator from Massachusetts [Mr. Lodge], 
 in his attractive, discriminating, and just biography of 
 DANIEL WEBSTER, in the American Statesman series, 
 vividly describes Ebenezer Webster: 
 
 There were splendid sources of strength in this man, the outcome 
 of such a race, from which his children could draw. He had an 
 imposing bodily presence and appearance. He had courage, en 
 ergy, and tenacity all in high degree. He was businesslike, a man 
 of few words, determined, and efficient. He had a great capacity 
 for affection and self-sacrifice, noble aspirations, a vigorous mind, 
 and above all a strong, pure character, which invited trust. Force 
 of will, force of mind, force of character these were the three pre 
 dominant qualities in Ebenezer Webster. His life forms the neces 
 sary introduction to that of his celebrated son, and it is well worth 
 study, because we can learn from it how much that son got from a 
 father so finely endowed, and how far he profited by such a rich in 
 heritance. 
 
 Such was the father of DANIEL WEBSTER. The mother 
 must not be forgotten by those Americans who are grateful 
 for the patriotic achievements of the son. Little is recorded 
 of Abigail Eastman Webster in authentic narrative, but 
 
120 Address of Air. Chandler on the 
 
 the mental traits of her sons Ezekiel and Daniel must have 
 
 (^ 
 
 been largely inherited from her or were due to her early 
 training, and surely their development was made possible 
 only by the sufferings and sacrifices through severe toil and 
 in grinding poverty which she welcomed and endured 
 equally with her husband, if not even more fully than he 
 did, in order to give opportunity for the growth and frui 
 tion of those marvelous talents which not too fondly nor 
 mistakenly they believed they saw in the sons they loved 
 with such intense devotion. 
 
 Mr. Edward Everett says: "Like the mothers of so 
 many men of eminence, she was a woman of more than 
 ordinary intellect, and possessed a force of character which 
 was felt throughout the humble circle in which she moved. 
 She was proud of her sons, and ambitious that they should 
 excel. Her anticipations went beyond the narrow sphere 
 in which their lot seemed to be cast, and the distinction 
 attained by both, and especially by the younger, may well 
 be traced in part to her early promptings and judicious 
 guidance. 
 
 Sustained and urged forward by such parents, DAXIEI* 
 WEBSTER studied in the district school at Salisbury under 
 Masters. Thomas Chase and James Tappan, and in 1796, 
 beginning in May, at the Phillips Exeter Academy, under 
 Principal Benjamin Abbott and Ushers Nicholas Emery 
 and Joseph Stevens Buckminster for nine months, and 
 next, from February to August, 1797, under the charge of 
 Rev. Samuel Wood, at Boscawen. While taking him to 
 Mr. Wood his father confided to him his intention to send 
 him to college ; and the son says in his autobiography : U I 
 remember the very hill which we were ascending, through 
 
Acceptance of the Statue of Daniel Webster. 121 
 
 deep snow, in a New England sleigh, when my father made 
 known his purpose to me. I could not speak. How could 
 he, I thought, with so large a family and in such narrow 
 circumstances, think of incurring so great an expense for 
 me? A warm glow ran all over me, and I laid my head on 
 my father s shoulder and wept." 
 
 Completing his studies with Mr. Wood, he entered Dart 
 mouth College in August, 1797. Reflecting, while enjoy 
 ing his advantages, that he alone was profiting by the self- 
 denial of his family, while his brother Ezekiel, whose 
 talents he admired, was deprived of the opportunity of 
 higher education, he determined that the brother also 
 should come to the college, and he argued the case to his 
 father. He records the reply: "He said at once he lived 
 but for his children; that he had but little, and 011 that 
 little he put no value, except so far as it might be useful 
 to them; that to carry us both through college would take 
 all he was worth; that for himself he was willing to run 
 the risk, but that this was a serious matter to our mother 
 and two unmarried sisters; that we must settle the matter 
 with them, and if their consent was obtained he would 
 trust to Providence and get along as well as he could." 
 The father laid the case before the mother. "The farm is 
 already mortgaged, and if we send Ezekiel to college it 
 will take all we have; but the boys think they can take 
 care of us," he said. It did not take the strong-hearted, 
 sagacious woman long to decide the matter. "We can 
 trust the boys. I have lived long in the world, and have 
 been happy in my children. If Daniel and Ezekiel will 
 promise to take care of me in my old age, I will consent 
 to the sale of all our property at once, that they may enjoy 
 
122 Address of Mr. Chandler on the 
 
 with us the benefit of what remains after tjie debts are 
 paid." 
 
 As a result of this self-sacrificing decision Ezekiel fitted 
 for college and entered Dartmouth in March, 1801. Each 
 boy struggled earnestly to keep along and finish his four- 
 years course and get his degree. DANIEL paid his board 
 for a year u by superintending a little weekly paper (called 
 the Dartmouth Gazette) and making selections for it from 
 books of literature and from the contemporary publica 
 tions," and he was graduated in 1801, shortly after Eze 
 kiel entered. Ezekiel left college in 1803 and went to 
 Boston and taught a private school for a year, but re 
 turned and was graduated in 1804, having spent but three 
 years in college. 
 
 Immediately after graduating, in August, 1801, Mr. 
 WEBSTER began the study of the law in the office, in Salis 
 bury, of Thomas W. Thompson, a lawyer of note, who 
 later became a member of the national House of Repre 
 sentatives, and also a Senator from June, 1814, to March, 
 1817. The need of money soon compelled the young law 
 student to go to an academy at Fryeburg, Me., to teach at 
 a salary of one dollar per day, where he also did copying 
 as assistant to the register of deeds at that place. In Sep 
 tember, 1802, he returned to Salisbury and resumed his 
 studies under Mr. Thompson, and in July, 1804, went to 
 Boston and studied for six months with Hon. Christopher 
 Gore, an eminent citizen of high culture and great ability, 
 who held various public offices was governor of Massa 
 chusetts, and was also United States Senator from May 5, 
 1813, to June, 1816, when he resigned. 
 
 While in Boston Mr. WEBSTER was asked to return home 
 
Acceptance of the Statue of Daniel Webster. 123 
 
 to accept the office of clerk of the court of common pleas 
 for the county of Hillsborough, which had been offered to 
 him by the judges out of regard for his father, who was 
 one of what are called "side judges" men of character 
 and ability appointed for certain service for the county not 
 requiring knowledge of the law. By advice of Mr. Gore 
 he declined this office on the ground that it would sacrifice 
 his professional prospects, but with many doubts of his own 
 and on the part of his father. Returning to Boston, in 
 March, 1805, he was admitted to practice in the court of 
 common pleas for Suffolk County. Going back to New 
 Hampshire, he opened an office in Boscawen, the next town 
 south of Salisbury, so as to be near his father, who, how-, 
 ever, died in April, 1806, and in September, 1807, Mr. 
 WEBSTER relinquished his office in Boscawen to his brother 
 Ezekiel and removed to Portsmouth, in accordance with 
 his original intention. He remained in practice there nine 
 years, coining in contact and enjoying an intimate acquaint 
 ance with those great New Hampshire lawyers, Jeremiah 
 Smith, George Sullivan, William Plummer, Jeremiah 
 Mason, and Ichabod Bartlett. 
 
 During his residence in Portsmouth he was drawn into 
 politics. It had been the custom for the most noted schol 
 ars at Dartmouth College to deliver Fourth of July ad 
 dresses. Mr. WEBSTER had pronounced such an oration 
 July 4, 1800, at Hanover, while a member of the junior 
 class, which was printed. Mr. Lodge says: 
 
 The boy WEBSTER preached love of country, the grandeur of 
 American nationality, fidelity to the Constitution as the bulwark 
 of nationality, and the necessity and the nobility of the Union of the 
 States; and that was the message which the man WEBSTER delivered 
 
124 Address of Mr. Chandler on the 
 
 to his fellow-men. The enduring work which Mr. WEBSTER did in 
 the world and his meaning and influence in American history are 
 all summed up in the principles enunciated in that boyish speech at 
 Hanover. 
 
 Mr. Lodge, in thus tracing to its source the origin of 
 Mr. WEBSTER S intense nationality and his fidelity to the 
 Constitution as its bulwark, might well have gone back 
 still further to that speech of Ebenezer Webster in the 
 convention at Exeter, where he said that the new Govern 
 ment would be one "acting directly on the people of the 
 States." The father thus spoke in June, 1788. In Feb 
 ruary, 1833, the son, in his reply to Mr. Calhoun, charac 
 terized the Government as one "creating direct relations 
 between itself and individuals." 
 
 The following entry appears in the history of Salisbury: 
 "Eighteen hundred and five. DANIEL WEBSTER delivered 
 the Fourth of July oration to the Federalists at the South 
 Road, and Thomas Hale Pettengill to the Democrats, then 
 called Republicans, at the Centre Road." Mr. WEBSTER 
 also delivered a Fourth of July oration while he was at 
 Fryeburg, which has been printed. In 1806 he made a 
 Fourth of July oration to the Federalists at Concord. In 
 1808 he wrote a pamphlet against the embargo. In 1812 
 he delivered a Fourth of July address before the Washing 
 ton Benevolent Society at Portsmouth, which was an argu 
 ment against the war; but he insisted upon the necessity of 
 a better navy. This address was followed by the election 
 of Mr. WEBSTER as a delegate to a mass convention held in 
 August, 1812, in Rockingham County, where he drew the 
 report of a committee, adopted by the convention, known 
 as the "Rockingham Memorial." 
 
Acceptance of the Statue of Daniel IVebster. 125 
 
 As the result of this political work, Mr. WEBSTER was 
 elected to Congress in 1812, and took his seat May 24, 1813, 
 and he was once reelected, closing his New Hampshire 
 period of service on March 4, 1817. 
 
 On first entering Congress he was placed upon the Com 
 mittee on Foreign Relations, of which Mr. Calhoun was 
 chairman. He first made a speech on resolutions, intro 
 duced, by himself on June 10, 1813, attacking the Admin 
 istration for an alleged concealment of the information 
 that France had repealed the Berlin and Milan decrees 
 until after the declaration of war against England ; and the 
 resolutions were passed. At the next session of Congress 
 the dominant party dropped him from the Committee on 
 Foreign Relations. He spoke on several occasions, his " 
 principal speech being against a bill to encourage enlist 
 ments, which was an attack upon the Administration in 
 connection with its conduct of the war, and he denounced 
 the embargo, which was shortly thereafter repealed. 
 
 The controversy in reference to a national bank had 
 begun, and Mr. WEBSTER opposed the plan, which favored 
 a large capital and a non-specie-paying bank under obliga 
 tion to make heavy loans to the Government, and the bill 
 was defeated by the casting vote of the Speaker. The 
 vote was reconsidered, the bill freed from its objectionable 
 features, and passed by a large majority; but it was vetoed 
 by the President. 
 
 In the Fourteenth Congress, beginning in December, 
 1815, and ending April 30, 1816, Mr. WEBSTER partici 
 pated in the debates upon the bank bill and again opposed 
 irredeemable paper. He offered resolutions and spoke in 
 favor of requiring all Government dues to be paid in coin 
 
126 Address of Mr. Chandler on the 
 
 or its equivalent. His resolutions were adopted. During 
 this session Mr. WEBSTER was challenged to fight a duel, 
 by John Randolph, which challenge he declined in lan 
 guage which Mr. Lodge says is a u model of dignity and 
 veiled contempt." "He refused to admit Randolph s 
 right to an explanation, alluded to that gentleman s lack of 
 courtesy in the House, denied his right to call him out, 
 and wound up by saying that he did not feel bound to 
 risk his life at anyone s bidding, but should always be pre 
 pared to repel in a suitable manner the aggression of any 
 man who might presume on his refusal." 
 
 The period of nine years which have been mentioned, 
 covering his law practice at Portsmouth and his four years 
 in the House of Representatives, ended Mr. WEBSTER S 
 citizenship in New Hampshire. He had acquired a high 
 reputation at the bar, had been called to try cases in 
 Boston, and had realized the need of a larger field of em 
 ployment and of more ample remuneration. He had also 
 become known nationally, and seemed evidently destined to 
 a great career both as a lawyer and a public man. There 
 fore, in August, 1816, he removed to Boston. Thereafter 
 his name and fame belonged no more to New Hampshire 
 alone, but especially to Massachusetts, and to the whole 
 country as well. 
 
 It is not the purpose of these introductory remarks to 
 follow in detail Mr. WEBSTER S career after he ceased to be 
 a citizen of New Hampshire. His official life was mainly 
 passed in the national House of Representatives, in the 
 United States Senate, and in the Cabinet as Secretary of 
 State. 
 
 He was elected from Massachusetts to the House of 
 
Acceptance of the Statue of Daniel Webster. 127 
 
 Representatives in 1822, taking his seat in December, 1823, 
 and was twice reelected. He was a member of the Massa 
 chusetts constitutional convention in 1830. He became 
 United States Senator March 4, 1827, an( ^ served till 1841, 
 when he resigned to become Secretary of State in President 
 Harrison s Cabinet. He continued in President Tyler s 
 Cabinet, but finally resigned in May, 1843, anc ^ resumed 
 the practice of the law in Boston. 
 
 On March 4, 1845, ^ ie again entered the Senate, succeed 
 ing Rufus Choate, and he once more resigned July 22, 1850, 
 to enter President Fillmore s Cabinet as Secretary of State, 
 where he remained until his death at Marshfield, Mass., on 
 October 24, 1852. 
 
 In politics he was first a Federalist, afterwards a member 
 of the Whig party, and several times a candidate in the 
 conventions of that party for the nomination for President. 
 
 Mr. WEBSTER S national fame as a lawyer began with the 
 Dartmouth College case, argued in the New Hampshire 
 court on May 18, 1817, and in the United States Supreme 
 Court on March 10, 1818, which established the doctrine 
 that grants of privileges by States to corporations give 
 vested rights not subject to repeal at the will of the 
 legislature. 
 
 In the case of Gibbons and Ogden, at the February term, 
 1824, ne successfully contended that a grant by a State of 
 an exclusive right of navigation in the waters of the State 
 was void, because an encroachment upon the right of the 
 Congress to regulate commerce; and in the case of Ogden 
 and Sanders, at the January term, 1827, ^ e argued, with 
 only partial success, that all State insolvent laws were 
 unconstitutional. 
 
128 Address of Mr. Chandler on the 
 
 In the Charles River bridge case, in 1836, he vainly 
 sought to sustain the exclusive right of the* bridge com 
 pany against an act of the legislature authorizing the 
 erection of Warren bridge. 
 
 In the Girard will case, in February, 1844, he unsuccess 
 fully contended that Christianity was so far the paramount 
 law of the land that the exclusion, in founding a college, 
 of all ministers of whatever sect from holding office and 
 from admission within its walls was void. 
 
 In the Rhode Island case of Luther and Borden, on Jan 
 uary 27, 1848, he maintained the validity of the Govern 
 ment under the old charter as against a new constitution 
 set up by a voluntary convention of the people. 
 
 His published address to the jury for the prosecution on 
 the trial, in August, 1830, of John F. Knapp for the mur 
 der, on April 7, 1830, of Capt. Joseph White, of Salem, has 
 been universally read. Mr. Everett says that "the record 
 of the causes ce~lebres of no country or age will furnish 
 either a more thrilling narrative or a forensic effort of 
 greater ability." 
 
 Mr. WEBSTER S renown as an orator arises largely from 
 his Plymouth oration of December 22, 1820, his Bunker 
 Hill Monument orations of June 17, 1825, and June 17, 
 1843, an d the Adams and Jefferson oration of August 2, 
 1826; but his extraordinary powers were also exhibited in 
 his other occasional addresses, in his legal arguments, and 
 in his speeches in the Senate, especially in his second 
 speech in reply to Mr. Hayne. 
 
 Mr. WEBSTER S reputation as a statesman is based upon 
 a series of speeches in the Senate and at political meetings 
 and upon his public acts as Secretary of State. The most 
 
Acceptance of the Statue of Daniel Webster. 1 29 
 
 notable speeches were those made in the Senate while 
 opposing nullification and maintaining- that the Consti 
 tution is not a compact between the States from which 
 any State may withdraw at its pleasure, but a national 
 charter proceeding from the people themselves, and only 
 to be terminated and destroyed by revolution. His re 
 marks on this topic and in defense of Massachusetts and 
 New England from the attacks of Mr. Hayne, of South 
 Carolina, are to be found in the three speeches of Jan 
 uary 20, January 26, and January 27, 1830, on Foote s reso 
 lution. 
 
 During his career Mr. WEBSTER treated in speeches, 
 with great distinctness, amplitude, and force, the following 
 subjects: The tariff, internal improvements, the national 
 bank, the currency, the Monroe doctrine, the Texas ques 
 tion and the Mexican war, and slavery in all its relations, 
 ending with his speeches of the 7th of March, the i7th of 
 June, and the I7th of July, 1850, in favor of the compro 
 mise measures of that year. 
 
 As Secretary of State his principal act was the negotia 
 tion with Lord Ashburton of the Treaty of Washington, on 
 August 9, 1842, which settled the controversy with Great 
 Britain over the northeastern boundary, provided for the 
 extradition of fugitives from justice, and promoted the 
 suppression of the slave trade by a practical arrangement 
 for the mutual right of search of the vessels of the two 
 countries. This treaty was defended later in the Senate by 
 Mr. WEBSTER in speeches of April 6 and 7, 1846. The 
 correspondence also disposed of the vexed question of the 
 impressment of seamen and of the destruction of the Caro 
 line and the arrest of McLeod in 1837, and of the maritime 
 9 s \v 
 
130 Address of Mr. Chandler on the 
 
 rights connected with the slave mutineers of the ship 
 Creole, in 1842. 
 
 Other correspondence and arrangements adjusted our 
 controversies with Mexico about certain American citizens 
 captured at Santa Fe and concerning the independence of 
 Texas, and our differences with Spain growing out of the 
 seizure of the schooner Amistad and her slaves, and secured 
 the independence of the Sandwich Islands. The mission 
 to China and the treaty with that power, accomplished by 
 the learned and versatile Caleb dishing, were noted 
 achievements. The Hulsemann correspondence carried on 
 with the Austrian minister in vindication of the welcome 
 given by our people to L,ouis Kossuth, the eloquent Hun 
 garian patriot and refugee, attracted world-wide attention 
 and received universal commendation in America. 
 
 These achievements constitute the substantial basis of 
 Mr. WEBSTER S greatness and entitle his native State of 
 New Hampshire to place his likeness in marble as one of 
 her two memorial statues in the National Gallery in this 
 Capitol. 
 
 If it may not be claimed that no one has surpassed Mr. 
 WEBSTER as a lawyer, there can be no reasonable doubt 
 that no one has excelled him as an orator or as a states 
 man; and surely the combination as a whole, in his mind 
 and person, of the qualities tending to superiority in each 
 of the three spheres of action as a lawyer, as an orator, 
 and as a statesman marks him as the greatest civilian 
 of the first hundred years of our national existence under 
 our matchless Constitution. 
 
 It is not, however, the part of wisdom, nor required by 
 the demands of the hour it would be, indeed, discouraging 
 
Acceptance of the Statue of Daniel Webster. 131 
 
 rather than helpful to the rising generation of to-day 
 to present the character of Mr. WEBSTER as wholly per 
 fect. The great man was not without personal faults, nor 
 did his public acts escape severe criticism. At this dis 
 tance of time and on this occasion any historic truth may 
 be plainly disclosed and considered, and any disapproval 
 may be expressed which may be deemed appropriate by 
 those who take part in these exercises. 
 
 In his early days in Congress Mr. WEBSTER strongly 
 opposed a protective tariff, when, under the lead of Mr. 
 Calhoun, the South sought by duties on imports to develop 
 the home industries of cotton and other manufactures, 
 while New England was agricultural and commercial 
 merely, and largely engaged in the carrying trade upon 
 the ocean. 
 
 Afterwards, when New England had bowed to the na 
 tional policy and had invested her means in manufacturing 
 enterprises, upon which her property and wealth became 
 absolutely dependent, Mr. WEBSTER changed his position, 
 and argued with great earnestness and force in favor of 
 protection according to the American system of Henry 
 Clay. Here was no moral question it was economic 
 purely; one of expediency, and one whether there should 
 be a broad or narrow construction of the Constitution. 
 To-day there is no serious controversy whether it was wise 
 and constitutional to enact the second law of the First 
 Congress, passed on July 4, 1789, for laying duties on im 
 ports, declared to be "for the encouragement and protec 
 tion of manufactures. 
 
 When the slavery question first became dominant in 
 national politics Mr. WEBSTER was one of its leading 
 opponents and committed himself most positively in favor 
 
132 Address of Mr. Chandler on the 
 
 of the Wilmot proviso, demanding a prohibition by direct 
 and affirmative national law against the existence of slav 
 ery in any of the Territories of the Union. Yet in his yth 
 of March speech he made a radical change, abandoned the 
 Wilmot proviso, and again, as a follower of Mr. Clay, sup 
 ported the compromise measures of 1850. 
 
 This transition of Mr. WEBSTER occasioned widespread 
 criticism. Great bitterness toward him in public discussion 
 caused him infinite distress during the remaining two 
 years of his life; and there is still contention as to the 
 motives of his change and as to the wisdom and patriotism 
 of his course. 
 
 In an address in the Senate on February 18, 1889, upon 
 the reception from the State of Michigan of the statue of 
 Lewis Cass, also a native of New Hampshire, the present 
 speaker sought for the reasons which led that Northern 
 statesman to be willing to make so many concessions to 
 the South and to slavery. The controlling motive, it may 
 fairly be claimed, was love of the Union of these States 
 and fears of its dissolution. Now that the Union, after 
 more than one hundred years of national life under the 
 Constitution, has been cemented by the blood of hundreds 
 of thousands of patriotic citizen soldiery in the greatest 
 war of modern times, these fears of the men of 1850 may 
 seem to have been fanciful and needless. But they were 
 real to them. The Union meant, as they believed, every 
 thing that was dear to them and to their children, and they 
 were willing to yield and to suffer much rather than to 
 risk the doubtful issue of fratricidal warfare for its main 
 tenance. 
 
 That such a motive influenced Mr. WEBSTER there can 
 be no doubt. Whether it was the sole motive may be 
 
Acceptance of the Statue of Daniel Webster. 133 
 
 questioned. Mr. Lodge, speaking of the ;th of March 
 speech, says: 
 
 It is impossible to determine, with perfect accuracy, any man s 
 motives in what he says or does. They are so complex; they are 
 so often undefined, even in the mind of the man himself, that no 
 one can pretend to make an absolutely correct analysis. 
 
 But whether the just and impartial historian will con 
 clude that Mr. WEBSTER acted from mixed motives, his 
 eulogists can unflinchingly assert that he was sincere in his 
 devotion to the Union. If he had lived until 1861, when 
 the South and slavery began the war, he would have 
 spoken uncompromisingly for the maintenance of the 
 Union by force of arms, and would have thrown all his 
 surviving energies and eloquence into the contest for the 
 establishment of liberty to all men, without distinction of 
 color, as well as the perpetuation of the Union. 
 
 So that it is universally conceded that Mr. WEBSTER S 
 intense nationality, which was inherited and was strength 
 ened by the labors of a lifetime in behalf of the American 
 Union, entitles him to the lasting gratitude of his coun 
 trymen. 
 
 In centuries to come, if the statues in the gallery escape 
 the leveling hand of time, and future generations look upon 
 the likeness of WEBSTER and ask who he was and what he 
 did, there shall come the undying eulogium: He was the 
 great expounder and defender of the American Constitution. 
 There is no military halo around his mighty head; no names 
 of battles tell his fame; but he set forth and explained in 
 living and burning words, as no other did or could, the 
 immortal principles of American government, to defend 
 which navies were built, armies were raised, and our great 
 military chieftains fought, and bled, and gave up their lives. 
 
134 Address of Mr. Hoar on the 
 
 ADDRESS OF MR. HOAR. 
 
 Mr. PRESIDENT: There are few faithful portraits of 
 human faces or faithful representations of human figures 
 which take their place by the side of the ideal creations of 
 art, such as the Jove of Phidias, or the Apollo Belvedere, 
 or the Venus of Melos, as examples of consummate beauty, 
 or as expressing great moral qualities, or as types of nations 
 or races. The face of George Washington, as represented 
 by Stuart; the portrait of the young Augustus, where in 
 the innocent face" of unstained youth appears already the 
 promise of an imperial character; some Greek and Roman 
 busts ; some representations of the youthful Napoleon ; the 
 head of Alexander Humboldt; the glorious forehead of 
 Coleridge; the lips of Julius Caesar are almost the only 
 examples that I now recall. The figure and head of DAN 
 IEL WEBSTER I think we shall all agree to include in the 
 same list. 
 
 No man ever looked upon him and forgot him. His 
 stately personal presence was the chief ornament of Boston 
 and of Washington for a generation. When he walked, a 
 stranger, through the streets of London, the draymen 
 turned to gaze after him as he passed. Sidney Smith said 
 of him, "He is a cathedral by himself;" and at another 
 time, in homelier phrase, "A steam engine in breeches." 
 Carlyle wrote to Emerson of him: 
 
 The tanned complexion; that amorphous craglike face; the dull 
 black eyes under the precipice of brows, like dull anthracite furnaces 
 needing only to be blown ; the mastiff mouth, accurately closed ; I 
 have not traced so much of silent Berserker rage that I remember 
 of in any man. 
 
Acceptance of the Statue of Daniel Webster. 135 
 
 The qualities of one of the greatest races of men which 
 the world has seen in its greatest age and fullest develop 
 ment appeared in that majestic countenance and looked out 
 in the gaze of those magnificent eyes. Command, courage, 
 steadfastness, intellect, the repose of conscious strength, 
 the capacity for tenderness or for burning passion, are all 
 there. 
 
 Mr. WEBSTER S family, as is the case with very many of 
 our eminent men, both living and dead, is of Scotch 
 origin, though they dwelt for some time in England before 
 they came to this country. That element, whether it 
 came originally from Scotland itself, or indirectly from 
 Ireland or England, has contributed some of the best citi 
 zens to New England, as to other parts of the country. 
 The shrewd sense, the active intellect, the undaunted per 
 severance, the indomitable courage, the deep religious faith, 
 the tenderness of family affection, the stanch patriotism for 
 which the Scotch are so distinguished, have never suffered 
 in the transplanting. Wherever anything good is to be 
 had or to be done in this country, you are apt to find a 
 Scotchman on the front seat trying to see if he can get it 
 or do it. 
 
 He touched New England at every point. He was born 
 a frontiersman. He tells us that when the smoke rose 
 from his father s chimney there was no other similar evi 
 dence of a white man s habitation between it and the set 
 tlements on the -rivers of Canada. He was bred a farmer. 
 He knew well the history of the growth of every crop, the 
 chemistry of the soil, the procession of the seasons. He 
 knew, too, the simple and tender historv of the country 
 fireside, and what the farmer was thinking of as he guided 
 
136 Address of Mr. Hoar on the 
 
 his plow in the furrow in April or pitched the hay into the 
 
 
 
 cart in midsummer. He was a fisherman in the mountain 
 brooks and off the shore. He never forgot his origin, and 
 he never was ashamed of it. Amid all the care and honor 
 of his great place here, he was homesick for the company 
 of his old neighbors and friends. Whether he stood in 
 Washington the unchallenged prince and chief in the Sen 
 ate, or in foreign lands the kingliest man of his time in 
 the presence of kings, his heart was in New England. 
 When the spring came he heard far off the fife bird and the 
 bobolink calling him to his New Hampshire mountains, or 
 the plashing of the waves on the shore at Marshfield allur 
 ing him with a sweeter than siren s voice to his home by 
 the summer sea. 
 
 That Mr. WEBSTER was the foremost American lawyer 
 of his time, as well in the capacity to conduct jury trials 
 as to argue questions of law before the full court, will not, 
 I think, be seriously questioned by anybody who has read 
 the reports of his legal arguments, or who has studied the 
 history of his encounters before juries with antagonists like 
 Choate or Pinkney. 
 
 That he was foremost in that field which is almost pe 
 culiar to this country, where the orator utters the emotions 
 of the people on great occasions of joy or sorrow or of 
 national pride, the reader of tlie orations at Plymouth 
 Rock and on the occasion of the foundation and comple 
 tion of the monument at Bunker Hill, the eulogies on 
 Adams and Jefferson, on Story and Mason, will not ques 
 tion. There has been nothing of the kind to surpass them 
 or to equal them since the funeral oration of Pericles. 
 
 That he was a great diplomatist, able to conduct difficult 
 
Acceptance of the Statue of Daniel Webster. 137 
 
 negotiations to successful issue or to debate with the repre 
 sentatives of foreign Governments questions in dispute 
 between nations, was abundantly shown in his brief terms 
 of service in the Department of State. 
 
 But the place of his achievement and renown was here 
 in the Senate Chamber. He was every inch a Senator an 
 American Senator. He needed no robe, no gilded chair, 
 no pageant, no ceremony, no fasces, no herald making 
 proclamation, to add to the dignity and to the authority 
 with which his majestic presence, his consummate reason, 
 his weighty eloquence, his lofty bearing invested the Sen 
 atorial character. His statue will stand in yonder chamber 
 to be the first object of admiration to every visitor for cen 
 turies to come. But no work of art can do justice to the 
 image of WEBSTER which dwells in the hearts of his 
 countrymen, and there shall abide when the walls of this 
 Capitol shall have crumbled and the columns of the Me 
 morial Hall shall lie prostrate. That image will abide, 
 one and inseparable, with the Union which he defended 
 and the liberty which he loved. 
 
 I do not think Mr. WEBSTER S style is maintained at its 
 highest excellence throughout his speeches as they come 
 down to us in print. The thought is never tame or mean. 
 You never doubt that a great mind is at work. But it 
 often seems to be working sluggishly. The expression 
 sometimes seems that of a man half asleep. This may 
 largely be due to the imperfection of reporting. His mas 
 terpieces of English are a few passages where his faculties 
 seem to have been at a white heat. It is a common mistake 
 to speak of Mr. WEBSTER S as a nervous Saxon style. 
 Except in a few sentences the characteristic of Mr. 
 
138 Address of Mr. Hoar on the 
 
 WEBSTER S style is a somewhat ponderous Latinity. 
 There is more of Dr. Johnson than of Shakespeare in it. 
 I think that for his purposes he was discreet in the choice 
 of a vehicle for his thoughts, for which the resouices of 
 that part of our language which is of Saxon origin would 
 often have been inadequate. 
 
 The Saxon is tough, sinewy, racy. It is the fittest 
 speech for common life. It is not without resources for 
 the utterance of lofty emotion, as witness many passages 
 in the Bible which we know by heart. But still there is 
 something lacking in it. When the intellect would ex 
 press its profoundest meaning, or clothe itself in state or 
 splendor, it seeks in the Latin what it does not find else 
 where. If we were to endow the animals with the gift of 
 speech, we should give the Saxon to the otter, to the fer 
 ret, to the bulldog, and even to the eagle. But I think we 
 would need something else for the lion. Indeed, in Camp 
 bell s matchless couplet, even in describing the eagle s 
 flight, with what a fine instinct he touches both chords. 
 The Saxon will do for the swift flight, like a bullet to its 
 mark. But the lofty, unapproachable solitude must be 
 described in the majestic Latin: 
 
 Lo! the death-shot of foemen outspeeding he rode, 
 Companionless, bearing destruction abroad. 
 
 The Saxon is a safe tongue for persons who are in danger 
 of spoiling their English style by the use of little pomposi 
 ties. The attempt to give dignity to a mean or common 
 thought, or to a thought which should be uttered simply, 
 directly, and plainly, by clothing it in a certain affected 
 stateliness of phrase, is the ruin of many writers and of 
 
Acceptance of the Statue of Daniel Webster. 139 
 
 more speakers. The Saxon is not likely to be used by a 
 writer who has no thought at all. 
 
 But on every occasion he knew how to convey his weighty 
 meaning to any tribunal he had to address, whether court 
 or Senate, alike to the understanding of the people and the 
 apprehension of any antagonist. The grandeur of Mr. 
 WEBSTER S speech was always mingled with moral ten 
 derness and beauty. But his passion is a restrained and 
 contained passion. He belonged to a race, he spake to 
 auditors of a race, not in the habit of uncovering the 
 springs of emotion to every observer. The few incidents 
 where he gave way and seemed to have lost command of 
 himself in deep personal feeling, as in his Dartmouth Col 
 lege argument, are handed down to us by tradition only. 
 He did not prepare them beforehand, and he has left no 
 record of them himself. There is in all Mr. WEBSTER S 
 speeches the appearance of reserved power, of avoidance of 
 extremes, which adds so much to their impressiveness. 
 Half his strength he put not forth. 
 
 It was said of him by a great philosopher of New Eng 
 land, the only man of his time whose influence as a great 
 public teacher equaled his own: 
 
 His weight was like the falling of a planet; his discretion the 
 return of its due and perfect curve. 
 
 He was not more distinguished from other public 
 speakers by his severe reason, his sound sense, and his 
 lofty eloquence than by his moderation and restraint. He 
 was master of every emotion but one love of country. 
 That alone he allowed to obtain mastery of him. 
 
 It was hard for him to argue the wrong side. His 
 genius was less the genius of the advocate than of the 
 
140 Address of Mr. Hoar on the 
 
 judge. His style was the fit vehicle for truth only. His 
 clear logic could never be at the command of error. 
 Calhoun, in his dying hours, said, when Mr. WEBSTER S 
 name was mentioned to him: 
 
 Mr. WEBSTER has as high a standard of truth as any statesman I 
 have met in debate. Convince him, and he can not reply; he is 
 silenced ; he can not look cruth in the face and oppose it by argu 
 ment. I think that it could be readily perceived when he felt the 
 force of an unanswerable reply. 
 
 It is scarcely too much to say that DANIEL WEBSTER 
 first taught his country her own greatness. There can 
 be found no utterance of his, whether he speaks of his 
 country or in behalf of his country, which is not in a 
 manner befitting a first-class power among the nations 
 of the world. There is no vanity or pettiness or boasting. 
 There is no deference or beseeching in his tone. The 
 contrast in this particular between Mr. WEBSTER S state 
 papers and many of those that preceded his time, and 
 some, I am sorry to say, of a time later than his, is quite 
 marked. This lofty and dignified tone marks all his 
 speeches from his first entrance upon public view. No 
 Englishman, no Greek, no Roman ever felt a loftier pride 
 in the character of his country, in his country s proudest 
 day, than DANIEL WEBSTER felt in his. 
 
 From the time of his first public speech which arrested 
 the attention of his countrymen until to-day his speeches 
 are the literature of American nationality. No other 
 orator or statesman divides with him this honor. Mothers 
 teach their children the love of country in his words. 
 The schoolboy knows them by heart. On every patriotic 
 anniversary the orators repeat them. They are inscribed 
 
Acceptance of the Statue of Daniel Webster. 141 
 
 on the walls of banquet halls and on triumphal banners. 
 They will never be forgotten. They are to the American 
 what the Psalms of David were to the Hebrew, what the 
 songs of Burns are to the Scotchman. 
 
 If Mr. WEBSTER had died when General Taylor was 
 nominated for the Presidency in 1848, he would have gone 
 down in our history as its chief historical figure, save 
 Washington and Lincoln alone. The estimate in which 
 the people of New England would have held him would, 
 I think, have been accepted by the whole country, and 
 would have scarcely fallen short of idolatry. There would 
 have been perhaps a little complaint that in his last years 
 he had been slow and unready in taking his place as the 
 foremost leader and champion of liberty and in marshal 
 ing her hosts for the great struggle for dominion over the 
 vast territory between the Mississippi and the Pacific. But 
 the judgment of the country would have been that such 
 hesitation was only the deliberation due to the gravity of 
 the question and the importance of his own relation to it. 
 
 Until the yth of March, 1850, he was the oracle of New 
 England. His portrait was upon the farmers walls. He 
 seemed to dwell at every fireside, not so much a guest as at 
 home, in an almost bodily presence, mingling with every 
 discussion where the power, the glory, or the authority of 
 the country was in question. Before 1850 DANIEL WEB 
 STER had never come off defeated from any intellectual en 
 counter or lowered his spear before any antagonist. In the 
 strifes of party politics his side had often been defeated. 
 But his arguments of fundamental questions had sunk deep 
 into the hearts and had convinced the reason of the vast 
 majority of his countrymen of all parties. 
 
142 Address of Mr. Hoar on the 
 
 But in 1850, for the first time, he encountered quite an 
 other antagonist. He put himself in opposition to the 
 conscience of the North. The voice of law, as he inter 
 preted it, and the voice of God, speaking to the individual 
 soul, for the first time in our national history seemed to be 
 in conflict. I suppose the time has not yet come for a 
 sound and dispassionate judgment of Mr. WEBSTER S mo 
 tives in choosing his side. It is possible that, like so many 
 other and ordinary men, he hardly knew them himself. A 
 man conscious of great powers, the object of a worship 
 amounting almost to idolatry, not merely from common 
 men, but from the ablest, wisest, and most illustrious of his 
 contemporaries, knowing well his own fitness for the high 
 est public service, and knowing also his own purpose to 
 employ supreme power, if intrusted with it, solely for the 
 public advantage, can hardly measure the influence of am 
 bition as affecting his judgment. 
 
 Mr. WEBSTER was doubtless sincere when he stated his 
 apprehension of a dissolution of the Union, and of the vast 
 mischief to humanity if that dissolution should be accom 
 plished. Subsequent events and calmer reflection have 
 shown that in this respect it was he, and not his opponents, 
 who was right. But no language can fitly describe the 
 condition of mind with which the report of Mr. WEBSTER S 
 speech of the yth of March, 1850, was heard. Nothing 
 could have resisted the dominion of DANIEL WEBSTER 
 over New England until he provoked an encounter with 
 the inexorable conscience of the Puritan. The shock of 
 amazement, of consternation, and of grief which went 
 through the North has had no parallel save that which 
 attended the assassination of Lincoln. Is it you, DANIEL 
 
Acceptance of the Statue of Daniel Webster. 143 
 
 WEBSTER, who are giving us this counsel? Do you tell 
 us that when the fugitive slave girl lays her suppliant 
 hands on the horns of the altar it is our duty to send her 
 back to be scourged, to be outraged, to be denied the right 
 to read her Bible, to be the mother of a progeny on whom, 
 for countless generations, these things shall be the common 
 and relentless doom? Is it you the orator of Plymouth 
 Rock, of Bunker Hill, defender of the Constitution fiom 
 whose volcanic lips came those words of molten lava, 
 "Liberty and Union, now and forever, one and insep 
 arable"? Has the intellect that wrought out the massive 
 logic of the reply to Hayne descended to this pitiful argu 
 ment? Do we 
 
 Ask for this great deliverer now, and find him 
 Eyeless in Gaza at the mill with slaves ? 
 
 Is it slavery and Union, now and forever, one and insep 
 arable? Do you, who erected in imperishable granite the 
 eternal monument of Nathan Dane among the massive 
 columns of your great argument, tell us now that natural 
 conditions are to determine the question of slavery, and 
 that an ordinance of freedom is an affront to the South, 
 and that we must not reenact the law of God ? Is the great 
 territory between the Mississippi and the Pacific to be left 
 to its fate? Do you, who came to the side of Andrew 
 Jackson in 1832, counsel that the lawful authority of this 
 nation shall yield to the threats of revolution and seces 
 sion? Is it from you that we hear that there is no higher 
 law ? Even if you are right in your interpretation of the 
 Constitution, when did you discover that it was greater 
 than the law of God? 
 
144 Address of Mr. Hoar on the 
 
 Were not the mandates of Laud, which the Puritans 
 resisted and from which they fled, founded upon English 
 law? Was not the revocation of the edict of Nantes from 
 the same lawful authority as that which enacted it? Were 
 not the doings of St. Bartholomew s eve by command of 
 a lawful king? Did not the English judges determine the 
 question of the right to impose ship money in the king s 
 favor? Were Hampden and Russell mere traitors and 
 agitators? Your doctrine condemns in one breath the 
 champions and the martyrs of English liberty and of 
 our own. 
 
 Mr. WEBSTER, for the first time in his life, failed to com 
 prehend the temper of the people among whom he was born 
 and bred. He met this expostulation with arrogance and 
 contempt. It was perhaps not unnatural. He was grow 
 ing old. He had been fed on adulation. He had found no 
 antagonists fit to cope with him, or who dared to cope with 
 him. He had failed 
 
 Only when he tried 
 
 The adamant of the righteous side. 
 
 He had an old man s dread of a new order of things. 
 He had a not ungenerous ambition. He was right in his 
 estimate of public danger. His constitutional arguments 
 remained unanswered. 
 
 WEBSTER died while the storm of this mighty conflict 
 was still raging. He was disappointed in the hope that it 
 would be given to him to compose it. The compromises 
 which he had hoped would settle forever the questions 
 growing out of slavery were never observed by either side. 
 In the national convention of his own party, as its candi 
 date for the Presidency in 1852, out of two hundred and 
 
Acceptance of the Statue of Daniel Webster. 145 
 
 ninety-three votes he received but thirty. He counseled 
 his friends to cast their votes for the candidate of the 
 Democracy, and went home to Marshfield to die prema 
 turely, and 
 
 Foiled in aim and hope, bereaved 
 
 Of old friends, by the new deceived, 
 
 Beside the lonely Northern sea, 
 
 Where long and low the marsh lands spread, 
 
 Laid wearily down his august head. 
 
 It would have been fortunate for Mr. WEBSTER S hap 
 piness and for his fame if he had died before 1850. But 
 what would have been his fame and what would have 
 been his happiness if his life could have been spared till 
 1865 ! He would have seen the transcendent issue on 
 which the fate of the country hung made up as he had 
 framed it in 1830. Union and liberty, the law of man and 
 the law of God, the Constitution and natural justice, the 
 august voice of patriotism and the august voices of the 
 men who settled the country and of the men who framed 
 the Constitution are all speaking on the same side. He 
 would have lived to see the time for concession all gone 
 by; the flag falling from Sumter s walls caught as it fell by 
 the splendid youth of 1861; the armed hosts pressing upon 
 the Capitol beaten back, everything which he had loved, 
 everything which he had worked for in the prime of his 
 years and in the strength of his manhood, rallying upon 
 one side patriotism, national authority, law, conscience, 
 duty, all speaking together and all speaking through his 
 lips and repeating his maxims. He would have seen his 
 great arguments in the reply to Hayne, in the debates with 
 Calhoun, inspiring, guiding, commanding, strengthening. 
 10 s w 
 
146 Address of Mr. Hoar on the 
 
 The judge in the court is citing them. The^ orator in the 
 Senate is repeating them. The soldier by the camp fire 
 is meditating them. The Union cannon is shotted with 
 them. They are flashing from the muzzle of the rifle. 
 They are gleaming in the stroke of the saber. They are 
 heard in the roar of the artillery. They shine on the ad 
 vancing banner. They mingle with the shout of vic 
 tory. They conquer in the surrender of Appomattox. 
 They abide forever and forever in the returning reason of 
 an estranged section and the returning loyality of a united 
 people! Oh, if he could but have lived! If he could but 
 have lived, how the hearts of his countrymen would have 
 come back to him! 
 
 What will be the final verdict of mankind upon the last 
 three years of the life of DANIEL WEBSTER it would be 
 arrogance and presumption here to declare. But whether, 
 as many men think, they will be held to have been 
 but another instance of human frailty, giving way before 
 a supreme temptation, to be pitied, to be pardoned, to be 
 forgotten, or whether those years will be held to have been 
 years of a supreme and noble sacrifice of self to patriotism 
 and for the safety of the country, it is too early, although 
 nearly half a century has gone by, to pronounce with confi 
 dence. May none of us in our humbler public career be 
 subjected to such a test or be brought to the bar of history 
 to receive its sentence after such a trial ! 
 
 The bitterest enemy, the most austere judge, must grant 
 to DANIEL WEBSTER a place with the great intellects of 
 the world. He was among the greatest. Of all the men 
 who have rendered great services to America and to the 
 cause of constitutional liberty there are but two or three 
 
Acceptance of the Statue of Daniel Webster. 147 
 
 names worthy to be placed by the side of his. Of all the 
 lovers of his country, no man ever loved her with a greater 
 love. In all the attributes of a mighty and splendid man 
 hood he never had a superior on earth. Master of English 
 speech, master of the loftiest emotions that stirred the 
 hearts of his countrymen, comprehending better than any 
 other man save Marshall the principles of her Constitution, 
 he is the one foremost figure in our history between the 
 day when Washington died and the day when Lincoln took 
 the oath of office. 
 
148 Address of Mr. Morgan on the 
 
 ADDRESS OF MR. MORGAN. 
 
 Mr. PRESIDENT: It is said of DANIEL WEBSTER that 
 the last utterances of his tongue were, U I still live." We 
 are here to-day for the purpose of affirming by the actiu of 
 this august body that he who lived in this Chambr, in 
 this association, and under the Constitution of the Uited 
 States, with so much renown, still lives in the hearts f his 
 countrymen, and particularly he lives in the heart,- and 
 admiration of the Senate of the United States. He lives 
 in such a way that no American regrets that he ever Ived. 
 His life was so perfectly rounded out; his spirit of devtion 
 to America and American institutions was so thorouii, so 
 irreproachable; his love of his country and of the pople 
 of his country, his respect for them, his fellowshipwith 
 them, and his admiration of the people, were so grec that 
 he has not left in their hearts a sting or a feeling of isent- 
 ment which has survived the half century of his ctive 
 life, or the other half century during which he ha-been 
 lying in his honored grave. 
 
 This, Mr. President, in my estimation, is, after ai, the 
 highest achievement of American statesmanship, thaM T hen 
 a man has passed his life in the public councils ad has 
 gone away, the subsequent generations of his countrmen 
 shall say of him, "He served his country with fidelir and 
 without a feeling of personal ambition for his own salta 
 tion; he devoted himself assiduously, honestly, ail sin 
 cerely to his duties; he followed his convictions amist all 
 clamors and all reproaches and against all oppositia, and 
 
Acceptance of the Statue of Daniel Webster. \ 49 
 
 he^ave to his country that sincere and noble service as a 
 stoesman which should stand as a lesson to all coming 
 geerations of men, from which they could gather profit 
 forthemselves and for their country, and could forever 
 stad together as brethren, without reproach for any differ- 
 enes of opinion honestly entertained. His life, his opin- 
 ioB, his policies, and his sentiments were not reproachful 
 to >ther Americans while he lived, and his memory is an 
 hoorable treasure to America." 
 
 -&ch was the career of DANIEL WEBSTER, as I under- 
 stad it, as I receive it from history, and as I appreciate 
 an< applaud it. I had not the opportunity of knowing 
 thi distinguished American, neither have I resided in 
 the part of the country where the least incident of his life 
 is treasured up as if it were a precious jewel among his 
 acaaintances, his friends, and his constituents. But what 
 I rceive from the public history of the United States, of 
 whin his life is an essential part, is that which is received 
 anc 1 recorded in the hearts of all Americans that there 
 wa no more eminent statesman than DANIEL WEBSTER, 
 pesaps no abler lawyer than he, and certainly no man 
 wb was more profoundly determined in the support of the 
 Costitution of the United States, which rests with the ob- 
 ligtion of an oath upon every conscience that has any 
 deiing with the Government in any official relation. 
 
 lie Senator from Massachusetts [Mr. Hoar] has pointed 
 outthe very extraordinary and tremendous state of agi- 
 tatd feeling that occurred in New England after Mr. 
 WESTER had made his speech in the Senate of the United 
 Stces on the Wilmot proviso. Doubtless his great and 
 mananimous and tender heart was much disturbed by the 
 
150 Address of Mr. Morgan on the 
 
 fact that he had aroused the censures of those who loved 
 him so much and whom in return he so well loved. But 
 if I were called to point out in the history of DANIEL 
 WEBSTER the most conspicuous evidence of his great 
 moral power and moral courage, it would be that, follow 
 ing his own convictions and guided by his own sense of 
 duty to his country, he obeyed the Constitution of the 
 United States rather than the clamor and sentiment of 
 those by whom he was most nearly surrounded and was 
 most beloved. That I consider the highest example that 
 he has left in the history of his life of the majesty and 
 grandeur and nobility of his character. 
 
 I could not point out an incident in the life of DANIEL 
 WEBSTER that would add anything to what is known by 
 his countrymen in respect of the history of his career. It 
 is not necessary that I should do so. His reputation is 
 monumental in that it stands conspicuously up amongst 
 the loftiest characters that America has produced, and in 
 its simplicity and truth attracts the attention, the venera 
 tion, and the love of all Americans yea, of all English- 
 speaking people, and of all the people in the world who 
 have respect for our system of constitutional law and free 
 institutions. 
 
 I might add that his reputation is not only monumental, 
 but it is immortal, for immortality as we understand it con 
 sists in the fact that the memory of one is carried on from 
 generation to generation while this world shall exist, from 
 lip to lip and from page to page of history, so that the 
 readers who stand at the farthest imaginable end of this 
 great line shall understand the character of the man who 
 has thus built for himself a glory that is inextinguishable. 
 
Acceptance of the Statue of Daniel Webster. 151 
 
 That, after all, is true immortality, as we understand it ; 
 and yet there is an immortality that is given to us which 
 is personal to us, which concerns us and us alone, which 
 relates to a different sphere of existence after we have thrown 
 off this mortal coil. In that immortality his fame is tried 
 by severer tests than we can apply ; but I do not doubt that 
 in that land he is still engaged in some noble employ and 
 is conscious of the love of his countrymen. 
 
 But in respect of the immortality which men create by 
 the transmission of their belief in and their veneration for 
 the character of those who have lived in this world 
 DANIEL WEBSTER has achieved immortality, and he yet 
 lives. He will live, Mr. President, as long as history 
 lives. Not an incident of his life of any importance will 
 have faded from the memory of man when the child that is 
 born centuries hereafter shall gaze upon him with even a 
 clearer and more distinct vision than those had who had 
 the honor and privilege of living in his presence in this 
 world. That is true immortality. That he achieved this 
 great and conspicuous honor on the floor of the Senate 
 more than elsewhere in the world is an honor to this body 
 which we should fully appreciate and always preserve 
 among our brightest recollections and our most cherished 
 traditions. 
 
 As a Senator from the South, I take great pleasure in 
 participating in an occasion which has for its purpose the 
 recalling of some of the splendors of WEBSTER S achieve 
 ments and some of his great efforts in debate upon the 
 floor of this Chamber. Whether New England exhausted 
 herself in the production of WEBSTER, or whether others 
 may come like him hereafter, it makes no difference. In 
 
152 Address of Mr. Morgan on the 
 
 WEBSTER those older States bestowed upon America a 
 grand endowment. He has, as the Senator from New 
 Hampshire [Mr. Chandler] stated, when he left his native 
 State, passed out into the keeping of the people of the 
 United States, and they will not only always cherish and 
 revere his memory, but they will feel proud that they 
 belong to his country; and Senators in this Chamber will 
 feel a just pride that they are members of that body 
 among whom he labored so faithfully for this great Gov 
 ernment. 
 
 The history of two lives has been presented to-day by 
 New Hampshire for us to think about and to emulate. 
 The one was a great general of the Revolutionary war, 
 who was amongst the redeemers of the people. With his 
 sword, his great daring, r his intrepidity, his chivalrous bear 
 ing, with all that belongs to the actual heroism of a great 
 soldier, that noble Revolutionary general assisted in reliev 
 ing a people from the thralldom of submission to a Govern 
 ment that had become their persecutor, their oppressor. 
 The other man was not a redeemer of the people from 
 oppression, but he was a teacher, a teacher of the Senate 
 of the United States, of the Congress of the United States, 
 of foreign nations, and more particularly and more essen 
 tially of the great body of the people of the United States. 
 
 He was a great teacher as to the form and essence of this 
 Government, and of the nice and delicate bearings and 
 adjustment of all its different parts in their relation to each 
 other. He was less a combatant for his opinions upon the 
 floor of the Senate than he was an instructor to all Sena 
 tors, those who opposed and those who agreed with him, 
 upon the proper construction of the principles of the 
 
Acceptance of the Statue of Daniel Webster. 153 
 
 Government under which we live, and of the Constitution, 
 which is the exponent and embodiment of those principles. 
 Hence it was that it has been said here to-day that he fol 
 lowed the lead of Henry Clay, the great popular statesman 
 of the South and West, and that at times he yielded his opin 
 ions and changed his position from one attitude to another 
 as measures were expounded and illustrated by the argu 
 ments of some other great Senator on this floor. 
 
 DANIEL WEBSTER did not change his views to meet any 
 man s opinions, in my judgment, nor did he follow Mr. 
 Clay because of his supremacy in leadership; but he fol 
 lowed his own clear conscience and sound judgment in 
 respect of the fundamental law of the United States, and 
 where that led, it mattered not where or into what com 
 pany, he went willingly and with a firm and brave step to 
 the front. That is my conception of him; that, above all 
 else, is why I admire him; that is why the people whom I 
 represent here respect his reputation as an honor to them, 
 although in many respects his position on public measures 
 seemed to be adverse to what they considered as being the 
 policy which would best subserve their interests. 
 
 Mr. President, this man is a very peculiar character in 
 American history. He was born in 1782, seven years 
 before the Constitution of the United States was adopted. 
 W T e then had no President of the United States. That 
 office had not been created. These thirteen States had 
 separate sovereignty of such an independent character with 
 respect to each other that they were in every essential 
 sense foreign States. They were drawing together under 
 the impulse of a necessity for forming a better, a wiser, 
 and a stronger government, but their assemblage was not 
 
154 Address of Mr. Morgan on the 
 
 by any means a merely sentimental union of states. They 
 came together dispassionately and with prearrangement 
 which involved the discussion of every principle of gov 
 ernment which concerned the formation of this great 
 Union under which we are now living, and this Constitu 
 tion, which is the supreme law not of this land only but 
 is the supreme law of humanity, and will hereafter become 
 the supreme law of nations. 
 
 WEBSTER was seven years old when that Constitution 
 was adopted. He took his degree and left Dartmouth Col 
 lege in 1801. At that time there were fifteen States in the 
 Union; but when he died, in 1852, there were thirty-two 
 States in the Union. So his life measured the beginning 
 and the development of the most wonderful system of 
 government which was ever ordained by the wisdom of 
 man, bringing greater growth and prosperity than has been 
 witnessed by any government or people in all the ages of 
 history. 
 
 In the midst of all this growth there was need of men 
 like DANIEL WEBSTER and John Marshall for the purpose 
 of regulating and settling in respect of this new plan of 
 government those fine and nice distinctions in regard to 
 the powers possessed by the United States and the powers 
 possessed by the several States which have been so impor 
 tant, and are still so important, in the adjustment of the 
 relations of those States with each other in the Union 
 which we Senators represent here. 
 
 It was an inconceivable blessing to the American people 
 that such a man was found, with such splendid powers of 
 reasoning and oratory, such clear conscience, such firm 
 resolution, and so just a mind, to lay down in the very 
 
Acceptance of the Statue of Daniel Webster. 155 
 
 beginning, as with the prescience of prophecy, and to adjust 
 to the narrowest and nicest lines the principles upon which 
 these different great organizations and sovereign States 
 could associate with each other without friction and 
 without danger. 
 
 In that direction he accomplished as much as any other 
 American statesman, and in doing that work he has con 
 ferred upon us a blessing of incalculable value, for which I 
 love his name, reverence his memory, and would do honor 
 to his glorious fame. 
 
 Perhaps DANIEL WEBSTER is entitled to a certain dis 
 tinction of being the most American of those statesmen 
 who have represented us in our foreign relations, not be 
 cause he felt any more sensibly or was any more firmly 
 convinced of the proud attitude which we had a right to 
 occupy among the nations of this earth than others were, 
 but because his great resolution and his massive powers, 
 when they were brought into action upon questions of a 
 diplomatic kind with other governments, moved directly 
 and without hesitancy to the American interpretation of 
 those questions, and he never halted in his march until he 
 achieved glory for his country and security for her institu 
 tions and her rights. 
 
 No man has excelled him in the State Department in, the 
 strong and earnest presentation of the American view of all 
 questions which concern our relations with foreign govern 
 ments, and no man ever had a more difficult task than to 
 adjust, I might say, the limited powers of the Government 
 of the United States and its peculiar organization, through 
 the relations we hold with other powers, to their peculiari 
 ties and with their methods of conducting diplomatic 
 
156 Address of Mr. Morgan on tJic 
 
 affairs. Perhaps the McLeod case presents^ the most per 
 fect illustration of that situation, and shows as distinctly 
 as anything else that this great statesman ever did how 
 well he understood the duties of the Federal Government 
 toward the American States and toward foreign countries. 
 Mr. President, I have not attempted in what I have said 
 to eulogize DANIEL WEBSTER. I do not aspire to the 
 ability to pronounce a eulogy upon him. If I have con 
 veyed to this Senate some idea of the high appreciation in 
 which I hold this great character, this splendid man, that 
 is all I desired to do. I expect to place no additional crown 
 of honor upon his brow, or to add a thought which could 
 give greater majesty to his character or make his memory 
 sweeter among the American people. 
 
Acceptance of the Statue of Daniel Webster. 157 
 
 ADDRESS OF MR. MORRILL. 
 
 Mr. PRESIDENT: My remarks on this occasion will be 
 brief, and perhaps I should not have spoken at all but for 
 my abiding interest in the progressive enrichment of the 
 National Statuary Hall. 
 
 New Hampshire must be heartily congratulated upon her 
 admirable selection of the historic characters she has 
 chosen to commemorate. The Granite State justly claims 
 much in presenting WEBSTER and STARK as her sons, but 
 they will be greeted with equal homage and affection by the 
 whole nation. 
 
 A Boston critic once stated that "the principal wealth 
 of New Hampshire is great men and water power; but 
 instead of keeping them herself she squanders them on 
 Massachusetts, and WEBSTER was one of those free gifts." 
 The critic should have added that no State can better 
 afford to permit another State to replevy what rightly 
 belongs to it than Massachusetts. 
 
 The number of American statesmen and heroes already 
 represented in that superb and venerated Hall, with the 
 long list of worthies sure to find a place there, but still held 
 in reserve by States embarrassed by too large a number 
 entitled to selection, or by worthies not yet fully ripe, are 
 sufficient to give abundant assurance that this large assem 
 blage of statues will be of unrivaled public interest, a dis 
 tinctive honor to the several States, and wholly worthy of 
 the Republic. 
 
 The majestic form of DANIEL WEBSTER has been so fre 
 quently presented in bronze and marble, and his life and 
 
158 Address of Mr. Morrill on the 
 
 character so often portrayed by those who best knew his 
 intellectual endowments, and were best qualified to appre 
 ciate him as a lawyer and as an orator, or as a statesman 
 ancf Cabinet minister, that for me it is a dubious task to 
 add a word to what has been more fitly spoken long- ago, 
 or that will be by others here to-day. 
 
 Probably only a small number of those present to-day 
 ever saw or heard Mr. WEBSTER speak in either branch of 
 Congress; but no man who ever looked upon him would 
 fail to discover that he was a man of no common mold, 
 and it would be safe to say that in the presence of any 
 "sea of upturned faces" of Americans his intellectual 
 primacy would not be contested. 
 
 It was my fortune to listen to a political speech of Mr. 
 WEBSTER in 1840, at Baltimore, the same year at Orford, 
 N. H., and years after in Faneuil Hall. Again, being in 
 Boston, and learning that an important patent case was to 
 be on trial in the United States district court, where Mr. 
 Choate was the counsel on one side and Mr. WEBSTER on 
 the other, I lost no time in securing a seat in the court 
 house. Different in manner as might be supposed that of 
 Achilles and Ulysses would be, both greatly interested me, 
 as both appeared to be exerting their utmost professional 
 skill to win the case. To me the treat seemed worth a 
 journey across the continent. 
 
 I was in Washington in 1836, 1840, 1848, and 1852, and 
 of course saw Mr. WEBSTER, but never heard him speak 
 at any length in the Senate. I may, however, be pardoned 
 for mentioning one or two occurrences that came under my 
 observation more than forty years ago, though of little 
 importance, and will trench very little upon your time. 
 
Acceptance of the Statue of Daniel Webster. \ 59 
 
 On one of these early Washington visits I was present 
 at an all-night session of the Senate in the old Senate 
 Chamber. As the hours grew late all got tired, and Mr. 
 WEBSTER bent his head over his desk, with his face pil 
 lowed on his hands, while another Senator in a rambling 
 speech, and suddenly enthused with rapturous admiration 
 for Mr. WEBSTER, pronounced him "The statesman! 
 the historian! the philosopher! the poet!" when Mr. 
 WEBSTER, halfway raising his head, in a gruff voice ejac 
 ulated, "Enough! enough!" Senator Butler, of South 
 Carolina, evidently thought so too, but had some difficulty 
 in persuading the jubilant member to take his seat. 
 
 A day or two in advance of the meeting of the Whig 
 national convention in Baltimore, in 1852, to which I was 
 a delegate, to nominate a Presidential candidate, I visited 
 Washington, and was invited, with others, by Mr. WEB 
 STER, then Secretary of State, to dinner. As it was not 
 my intention to support Mr. WEBSTER in the convention, 
 the invitation was rather regretted; but, being told by a 
 friend that such an invitation here from the President or 
 the Secretary of State was never to be declined, it was 
 accepted. There were about a dozen at the table, Mrs. 
 Webster being the only lady. Mr. WEBSTER appeared in 
 his blue coat with gilt buttons, light buff vest, low shoes, 
 and white silk half hose, and led the conversation most 
 happily, whether grave or gay. Upon leaving the dining- 
 room the gentlemen all returned to the drawing-room, and 
 there Mr. WEBSTER was so gracious and attractive in gen 
 eral and special conversation as to quickly place everyone 
 at his ease, especially as he did not even allude to the com 
 ing convention. By way of inquiry as to the preparation 
 
160 Address of Mr. Morrill on the 
 
 of his speeches I ventured to say I had heard it stated 
 that among the passages often quoted one had been con 
 ceived by him many years prior to utterance, and referred 
 to his picturesque description of the power of England, 
 u Whose morning drumbeat, following the sun and keep 
 ing company with the hours, circles the earth with the 
 continuous and unbroken strain of the martial airs of 
 England." 
 
 He promptly replied, "As a mere fact, it is true that, 
 while visiting Quebec several years before the speech of 
 1834, one morning I arose early, as is my wont, and 
 walked out upon the ramparts of the city, where I soon 
 heard the morning drumbeat. It then occurred to me that 
 this, a little later, would be repeated at Montreal, then at 
 Toronto, again in Columbia, and so on around the world," 
 adding, Oh, I never pretended to be one of the inspired 
 geniuses. I bring forth nothing without labor. If not 
 precisely at the time, it has cost labor at some time. 
 
 When I left his residence, then on D street northwest, 
 Mr. WEBSTER seemed to have grown greater to me, and, 
 unlike some so-called great men, who, as you get nearer 
 to them, become slender, if not mediocre, he appeared, 
 like a Doric temple, to loom up more grandly the nearer 
 approached. 
 
 The next day, however, I did not vote in his favor at 
 the convention, the speech of March 7, 1850, being insur 
 mountable; but I ever felt glad, proud, that DANIEL 
 WEBSTER was born, lived, and died an American. 
 
Acceptance of the Statue of Daniel Webster. 161 
 
 ADDRESS OF MR. DAVIS. 
 
 Mr. PRESIDENT: The corner stone of the extension of 
 the Capitol was laid on the 4th day of July, 1851, and 
 DANIEL WEBSTER was the orator of the event. It was 
 most appropriate that he who for a generation had builded 
 upon the foundations of the Constitution such cyclopean 
 architecture of intellectual power should speak the words 
 of dedication of this marble pile, and the Constitution 
 which it symbolizes, to the love of the people and the pro 
 tection of Almighty God. 
 
 And now, after the lapse of more than forty years, the 
 mother State which held him in her granite cradle has 
 proudly set up in this building the image of her wondrous 
 son. It was not needed, yet it was fitting to be done. 
 Some men, and of them was WEBSTER, can not be 
 expressed by monuments. We say of such a man: 
 
 Nothing can cover his high fame but heaven; 
 No pyramids set off his memories 
 But the eternal substance of his greatness, 
 To which we leave him. 
 
 The time of that ceremony was a troubled one. The 
 future was black with portents. Compromises had been 
 repealed, and substituted compromises were proving to be 
 mere vanishing makeshifts. The earth was tremulous 
 with two vast agitations. They were conflicting and 
 destructive. The North was slowly moving with reluctant 
 yet ominous power. The South, in possession of safe 
 guards which could not save, knew this fact, and was in 
 n s w 
 
162 Address of Mr. Dams on the 
 
 the first throes of that convulsion which at last opened the 
 chasm of disunion by war. 
 
 In the midst of such agitations this was one of WEB 
 STER S last public utterances, and in it he pleaded with 
 passionate earnestness for the supremacy of the Constitu 
 tion and the preservation of the Union. 
 
 His life had been one long advocacy of these objects. 
 His devotion to them explains, if it does not justify, every 
 position he ever assumed. From his Fourth of July ora 
 tion at Salisbury in 1805 until he ceased to speak he stood 
 before the Constitution and the Union their ever-ready 
 champion. He thought that the Constitution as it was 
 could preserve the Union as it was. Even after the world 
 saw that this could not be, millions of patriotic men looked 
 with loyal hope upon the mighty defender of a falling 
 cause, panoplied with armor that none but he could bear, 
 and dealing blows that he alone could give. 
 
 It is not strange that everything was hoped from him 
 who had done so much to raise and strengthen the imper 
 iled institutions. For constitutions are made, and then they 
 begin to grow. If they are not suffered to grow, they dis 
 locate, disconnect, and fall to pieces. No scheme, however 
 wisely devised, that they may contain for their formal and 
 orderly amendment can avoid this process. It is the action 
 of public necessity, coercing and convincing the popular 
 thought and will, which exert themselves through great 
 and chosen men. The Constitution of the United States 
 was thus made, it thus grew, and DANIEL WEBSTER and 
 John Marshall were the great and chosen men who mainly 
 did the work. 
 
 It can not fairly be questioned that when the great 
 
Acceptance of the Statue of Daniel Webster. 163 
 
 debate was held between WEBSTER and Hayne our Consti 
 tution had thus expanded. The process was slow, inter 
 mittent, sometimes reactionary, but it can be perceived by 
 observing the stages that are distant from each other. The 
 Senator from Massachusetts [Mr. Lodge] has clearly seen 
 and stated this in his life of WEBSTER. Necessity had 
 decreed that the compact between the States should be 
 come a personal covenant and duty between the people of 
 those States. Andrew Jackson had so proclaimed it to the 
 people of his native State. But it was reserved for DANIEL 
 WEBSTER to register this transformation by an edict which 
 has never been reversed. 
 
 This was his greatest service to his country. The league 
 became a nation; the federation became a unity. From 
 that time forth it can be plainly seen that the United 
 States moved with a loftier port among the nations and 
 felt within itself the workings of a greater and growing 
 power, until, when the time came for its exercise upon 
 sectional revolt, it was found that never in all the tide of 
 time, under any form of government that man has known, 
 were energies so enormous displayed for national suprem 
 acy and preservation. 
 
 At the bar, in the Senate, in the Cabinet, DANIEL 
 WEBSTER built upon and expanded the Constitution be 
 yond any man of his time or any party of men. Yet it has 
 been said of him that he was not a constructive statesman, 
 that he originated few measures, drafted few statutes, and 
 that he was a mere demonstrator. Exactly the contrary is 
 the fact. He was the most constructive of American 
 statesmen. He construed the Constitution constructively 
 in nearly all of its articles. He applied it and expounded 
 
164 Address of Mr. Davis on the 
 
 it, and to-day his personality is inseparably identified with 
 it as it is. 
 
 This majestic presence among men seemed born for this 
 great duty. His cosmic intellect seemed from the day of 
 its first exertions to fill the Union. What trait did he 
 display to indicate in what State he was born? He was 
 not a Puritan. He showed no trace of provincialism. He 
 filled the land. This mighty Antaeus drew strength from 
 contact with every portion of it. 
 
 It is said that he erred at last. This is true. A divinity 
 stronger than he, that power that through the popular con 
 science makes weak all human strength, lifted this giant 
 from contact with the earth that gave him power. The 
 overmastering force it once had given him no longer came. 
 He struggled with stronger powers than his until earth 
 took him, stilled in the sublime repose of death, into her 
 bosom at Marshfield, where the sea intones its everlasting 
 monody at his tomb. 
 
 Censure has ceased to vex his memory; contemporary 
 blame has somehow turned to praise; for we hear now only 
 the loving undertones of Whittier s lyric, only the tender 
 pathos with which Parker immolated his memory. Pos 
 terity has seen, what so many of his contemporaries failed 
 to see, that the acts they blamed were the efforts of a great 
 man, mistaken as to the forces and tendencies of his time, 
 to uphold the Constitution and to preserve the Union from 
 disruption by revolutionary force. The Constitution and 
 the Union were preserved, but not by the means through 
 which he strove. The fountains of the great deep broke 
 with destructive power, as he predicted they would. He 
 did not live to see this. But could he stand to-day in his 
 
Acceptance of the Statue of Daniel Webster. 165 
 
 place in this Chamber he would see the Constitution work 
 ing with powers adequate to every emergency; a Union 
 restored and preserved, with no North, no South, no East, 
 no West as political definitions; he would see all this effi 
 cient over a nation grown great beyond any prediction he 
 ever made. He would also feel that the deliberate judg 
 ment of the generation next his own had decided that his 
 efforts imparted to the people powers of constitutional 
 action which secured "Liberty and Union, now and forever, 
 one and inseparable. 
 
 It is now forty-two years since the setting of that sun. 
 But in all time to come, whenever the Constitution and 
 the Union may be darkened like the northern continent in 
 some long arctic night, that sunken orb, circling forever 
 beyond the horizon of time, will irradiate the gloom of 
 the world it shone upon with its unquenchable and guid 
 ing light. 
 
166 Address of Mr. Platt on the 
 
 ADDRESS OF MR. PLATT. 
 
 Mr. PRESIDENT: The State in which DANIEL WEBSTER 
 was born, nurtured, and educated, in which his vigorous 
 manhood was developed, does well in placing his statue 
 In our Memorial Hall. When those whom we love and 
 reverence depart from us, our dearest wish is to mark their 
 resting place with some memorial which shall perpetuate 
 their virtues and tell posterity how much we loved them. 
 The monument, whether simple or ornate, is as truly a 
 necessity of our lives as is the family home. Love and 
 faith, which flourish at the fireside, find expression, when 
 our loved ones are gone, in the monuments which mark 
 their graves, in the portraits or statues which preserve their 
 semblance. 
 
 Closely related to this individual necessity is the com 
 mon desire of the whole people in State or Nation to 
 honor their departed heroes and great ones by memorials 
 which shall appropriately and enduringly proclaim their 
 admiration, reverence, and affection. The hero, the great 
 man, belongs not to his family and friends alone, but to 
 all alike to the State, the Nation; indeed, to all man 
 kind for all time. 
 
 The longing to tell coming generations of WEBSTER 
 finds its best expression in the marble statue which pre 
 serves his features and displays the lineaments of his char 
 acter. And the appropriate place for that statue is in 
 National Statuary Hall, in the building where his greatest 
 work was accomplished, where his most patriotic and 
 
Acceptance of the Statue of Daniel Webster. 167 
 
 signal triumphs were achieved. He returns to-day to the 
 scene of his struggle, to the arena where his eternal 
 trophies were won. Henceforth the marble shall be im 
 bued with life, and to all who look upon it and love our 
 country WEBSTER shall be a new inspiration. 
 
 Those who by law set apart yonder hall to its memorial 
 use builded better than they knew. The fires of patriotism 
 are kindled at the hearthstones of the people; but as the 
 years roll on the silent yet eloquent figures in Statuary 
 Hall will more and more increase patriotic devotion and 
 help to bind together more firmly the country in whose 
 history the men thus represented were such great actors. 
 
 Yes, New Hampshire does well when it places the statue 
 of WEBSTER in our historic and memorial hall, for he 
 was one of the Nation s greatest men. Many have esteemed 
 him, many in the future will esteem him, to have been the 
 greatest civilian the country has produced; none will deny 
 him a place among the greatest. He does not belong 
 alone to New Hampshire, where he was born, nor to 
 Massachusetts, where he died ; but his name, his fame, and 
 his greatness are the heritage of all. DANIEL WEBSTER 
 belongs to the Nation. 
 
 The really great men of any period are but few; and 
 when a man does indeed compel the acknowledgment of 
 his preeminence among a race where all possess the ele 
 ments of greatness, we may do especial honor to his mem 
 ory. WEBSTER lived and moved in a period when all 
 possessed in a marked degree robust manhood, high pur 
 pose, unyielding strength. "There were giants in those 
 days ; and yet as I read history I think he stood higher 
 than any other man of that period a giant among giants. 
 
168 Address of Mr. Plait on the 
 
 I have often looked upon a forest of sturdy trees outlined 
 against the clear twilight sky, and have seen here and there 
 a tree which pushed its branches higher than the surround 
 ing level of tree-tops. Few indeed they were ; but some 
 times as my eye swept the whole forest line It has rested at 
 last upon a single tree, towering in grand and massive 
 strength above all others a veritable monarch of the 
 forest symmetrical and strong, meeting unharmed the full 
 measure of every storm. 
 
 Such was WEBSTER. The men of his generation were 
 robust and forceful. A few I need not name them were 
 exceptional in their eminence ; but he overtopped them all. 
 To what particular trait, quality, or circumstance he owed 
 this conspicuous exaltation we may not be certain, any 
 more than we may know to what in seed or soil or 
 environment we may attribute the growth of the tallest and 
 grandest oak in the forest. Men have spoken and written 
 of his ancestry, of the influence upon his mind in its form 
 ative stage of beautiful and impressive scenery, of the pre 
 cepts and counsel of parents and instructors, of his early 
 and continued thirst for knowledge, of his careful and 
 judicious study, of his severe mental discipline, of his 
 ambition, of the power begotten in fierce struggle ; and yet 
 we can never be sure that we have at all discovered the 
 real source of his strength. 
 
 True greatness defies analysis, and I shall not attempt 
 to analyze the character of WEBSTER in the hope of 
 describing and cataloguing the elements which composed 
 it. Fascinating as the attempt would be, I could not hope 
 to succeed where so many have failed. We only know that 
 when a great occasion arises in history a man equal to it 
 
Acceptance of the Stattie of Daniel Webster. 169 
 
 appears on the scene. It has always been so; \ve may 
 believe that in the providence of God it always will be so. 
 We believe it was so in the case of WEBSTER. Providence 
 seems to have set before him a great work to do, for a man 
 must have accomplished some great work in the world in 
 order to have achieved enduring greatness. He must have 
 been great in performance as well as in the utterance of 
 great thoughts. 
 
 Many are regarded great during their lives whose fame 
 does not long survive them. Attractive qualities, fortunate 
 opportunity, a magnetic personality may win for a man the 
 applause of his fellows and give him for the time being 
 deserved preeminence. But passing years are the unfailing 
 test of real greatness ; and whatever men during his life 
 time may have thought, however much they may have 
 doubted whether he would carry into history the fame he 
 achieved in his generation, now that more than forty years 
 have passed since his death we know that WEBSTER was 
 grandly and truly great. Time has withered none of his 
 laurels ; it has steadily added to his appreciation. 
 
 What one thing, then, more than another has caused 
 WEBSTER to live in the hearts of the people? I think 
 others equaled him at the bar, and in mere eloquence as 
 understood by the schools. I am quite sure that other leg 
 islators crystallized more of their thought into legislation 
 of the day than he did. Indeed, his was not a constructive 
 life; he originated little either of policies or statutes. 
 With all his marvelous grasp and comprehension of public 
 affairs, his speeches were mainly for or against measures 
 proposed by others or in support of resolutions introduced 
 by himself expressive only of abstract opinions. He was 
 
170 Address of Mr. Platt on the 
 
 not a leader of his party in the sense that he marked out a 
 course for his party to pursue. He seems often to have 
 acquiesced in party measures for which he could not secure 
 the approval of his own judgment. His course appears to 
 have been vacillating and inconstant on many occasions. 
 
 On what solid foundation, then, does his fame securely 
 rest? I think on this: That it was given to him to see 
 clearly and to convince others fully that the United States 
 of America was an indissoluble Union, not a mere associa 
 tion of States, to be dissevered by the withdrawal of one 
 or more, but that it was a Union of all the people in the 
 felicitous language of Lincoln, a government of the peo 
 ple, by the people, and for the people, whose laws must 
 be respected and obeyed by all. 
 
 As the great apostle to the Gentiles was raised up to 
 teach mankind that all true believers constituted one church, 
 WEBSTER was raised up to teach Americans that all the 
 people in all the States constituted one Government. Paul 
 was the apostle of Christian unity; WEBSTER was the apos 
 tle of our national unity. For this one great work all his 
 life seems to have been a special training. His birthplace 
 and home near which the Cradle of Liberty was rocked ; 
 the patriotism inherited from his patriotic father ; his in 
 tense love for every foot of our soil ; his wonderful mind, 
 which went to the core of every subject; his vivid imagina 
 tion, which could picture the undeveloped glory of the 
 Nation; his vast range of legal learning, which fitted him 
 to become the great expounder of the Constitution ; a pres 
 ence. which convinced equally with his logic ; an eloquence 
 which electrified all hearers, and a diction which secured 
 a home for his thoughts in mansion and cabin alike 
 
Acceptance of the Statue of Daniel Webster. 171 
 
 all these were but a preparation for the hour when he 
 should step forth in yonder Chamber the champion of an 
 indivisible Union. 
 
 The senior Senator from New Hampshire has spoken of 
 WEBSTER as combining in greater measure than any other 
 American the qualities of the lawyer, the orator, and the 
 statesman. Let me add, as another and final constituent of 
 the combination, that of the patriot. He was indeed great 
 as a lawyer, as an orator, and as a statesman; but greater 
 yet, far greater, as a patriot. In all that he said and all 
 that he did the most intense and burning love of country 
 was apparent. It was the keynote of nearly every public 
 utterance of his life, from his first boyish speech to that 
 magnificent peroration, unequaled in any language, closing 
 with the immortal words, "Liberty and Union, now and 
 forever, one and inseparable. The love of country was 
 with him above all other love. 
 
 The first great battle for the Union was fought not with 
 cannon and musketry, nor with the resistless movement of 
 infantry, nor the impetuous charge of cavalry. It was not 
 won on a field with thousands of soldiers left dead, wounded, 
 or dying, but it was fought and won in the old Senate 
 Chamber on the 26th day of January, 1830, with weapons 
 of argument and logic and patriotic eloquence wielded by 
 the greatest American that ever entered the field of historic 
 debate. 
 
 WEBSTER was needed for that contest. Looking back 
 over those times, we can see no other man who could have 
 fought and won that battle. That battle lost, it is not too 
 much to say that the country we love and glory in to-day 
 would not exist. If the doctrine of secession or the claim 
 
172 Address of Mr. flatt on the 
 
 that a State might declare a law of the United States null 
 and void had not been that day overthrown and demol 
 ished, few will believe that the subsequent war for the 
 Union could have been carried to a triumphant conclusion. 
 
 It is hard for us to realize now what a desperate battle 
 WEBSTER then fought. The idea of national unity is now 
 so firmly established that we can not understand how it 
 could ever have been denied or doubted. Yet those who 
 went that day to the Senate Chamber feeling that indivisi 
 bility of country ought to be the doctrine of the Constitu 
 tion went with hearts failing them for fear. They feared 
 that it was not really to be found therein ; they feared that 
 the true interpretation of that instrument evidenced only a 
 compact between States, and that it was not the organic law 
 of a perfect and complete and self-sustaining Government. 
 
 Nor was this a strange fear. When the colonies denied 
 the authority of the British Crown and declared themselves 
 independent States, they did not assume to organize as a 
 single and perfect government, but to confederate as thir 
 teen States; and when after a few years of experiment our 
 Constitution was at last adopted, the Government created 
 by it was regarded generally, I think, as an improved con 
 federation. In many States this had been openly avowed, 
 and to a certain extent acquiesced in. There had been too 
 much of this in New England. The Hartford Convention 
 of 1814 had tolerated, if it had not asserted, the doctrine 
 that a State might for sufficient cause withdraw from the 
 Union. Even WEBSTER, so far as I know, though he had 
 never given public sanction to this idea, had never publicly 
 combated it. 
 
 When, after the war of 1812, the development of our 
 
Acceptance of the Statue of Daniel Webster. \ 73 
 
 country opened the eyes of our public men to its future 
 as they began to love it for what it was to be, as well as 
 for what it had been and was the desire for nationality 
 became the patriot s passion; his intense longing was for a 
 nation that no earthly power could destroy or hinder and 
 which no internal dissension could tear asunder. Grad 
 ually he came to feel that in some way ours must be an in 
 destructible nation; but he feared that the legal fact was 
 otherwise. It was not until WEBSTER made good his 
 promise to Senator Bell, that before the sun went down 
 on that eventful day he would, by the blessing of God, 
 show the people what the Government really was, that 
 patriots took heart. Then the} saw clearly what they 
 had earnestly hoped for, but only dimly, if at all, com 
 prehended. 
 
 And yet it was the patriotic fervor of the people that 
 made WEBSTER S victory possible. Emerson, hi an essay 
 on Napoleon, says, in substance, that if Napoleon were 
 France, if he were Europe, it was because the men he 
 swayed were little Napoleons. So WEBSTER became the 
 exponent and bulwark of national unity because the patri 
 otic heart of the people longed for and demanded it. 
 
 It was a great personal as well as national victory that 
 WEBSTER won on that day. They were no mean foemen 
 whom he met and vanquished. They were masters of 
 argument, of logic, and oratory. They were powerful in 
 their combination, audacious in their attack, bitter in their 
 personal dislike, and fully determined to crush not only 
 W T EBSTER S doctrine but WEBSTER himself. 
 
 And WEBSTER stood alone to resist their attack, a single 
 knight to answer and meet every challenger. Yet his 
 
174 Address of Mr. Platt on the 
 
 triumph was complete. History, I think, records no other 
 such conflict and no such victory. Not for twenty-five 
 years thereafter could the advocates of the theory which 
 was then so boldly avowed, so audaciously championed, 
 and so completely overthrown, rally to the onset again. 
 And when at last the doctrine of nullification and seces 
 sion was once more proclaimed, national unity had become 
 a thing no longer open to debate, but a cause which men 
 were ready to die to maintain. 
 
 Gettysburg and Appomattox were but the sequel of that 
 day s conflict. The battle which WEBSTER fought then 
 in the Senate, in the day of the Nation s sorest peril, saved 
 the Union forever. If he could now live again and behold 
 a country glorious and strong, far surpassing in its present 
 and probable development all that his patriotic love had 
 ever pictured, he would find his reward in the contempla 
 tion of his Nation s glory rather than in the plaudits of 
 his countrymen. To that day, to that conflict, to that 
 triumph, all his life led up. It culminated there. 
 
 His life s greatest work was accomplished. Subsequent 
 failure can never mar that splendid record; subsequent 
 mistake can never dim the glory of the crown which a 
 grateful people placed upon his head to commemorate that 
 triumph. The great men of earth have not been perfect 
 the imperfection of humanity has attached to them all; 
 and WEBSTER constitutes no exception in this respect, 
 But mankind justly honors its great for the courageous 
 blows they have struck, for the mighty deeds they have 
 done. Their foibles and mistakes we forget; their true 
 work lives. We unveil this statue of WEBSTER to-day 
 because he saved our Nation. 
 
Acceptance of the Statue of Daniel Webster. 175 
 
 ADDRESS OF MR. CULLOM. 
 
 Mr. PRESIDENT : Every citizen of the United States, by 
 the very birthright of his citizenship, is endowed with an 
 inalienable interest in the renown achieved by those great 
 civil and military heroes of onr land whose careers have 
 long been ended, and upon whose lives history has pro 
 nounced the verdict of admiration and approval. This 
 inalienable interest which we proudly claim as a possessory 
 right is a cherished heritage, guaranteed to us under those 
 unwritten preemption laws which have decreed that the 
 glorious memories of the genius, the honor, and the 
 greatness of the earlier American statesmen and warriors 
 shall be the common property of the people of this coun 
 try through the uncounted ages of future time. 
 
 Mr. President, during the first half of the nineteenth 
 century, among all the great statesmen of the Republic, 
 no man occupied a higher place in the forum of the Sen 
 ate, none achieved greater success as an advocate at the 
 bar, and no one so completely challenged the criticism 
 and admiration of the American people as DANIEL WEB 
 STER, " the great expounder" of the Constitution. And 
 although more than forty years have passed since his lips 
 forever ceased to pronounce those commanding sentences, 
 or paused in most emphatic periods, yet the halo of fresh 
 ness still crowns his finished oratory, and the vigor of his 
 arguments still thoroughly impresses the reader w r ith his 
 greatness of mind and the scope and breadth of his power 
 of comprehension. 
 
176 Address of Mr. Cullom on the 
 
 The works of DANIEL WEBSTER are among those which 
 adorn the collection of American classics, and many of 
 them would not suffer by comparison with the greatest 
 orations delivered in the Roman senate. It might be an 
 extravagance to say that WEBSTER stood highest among 
 the orators and thinkers of his day, but it is not too much 
 to claim him as the equal of the greatest. And if the 
 United States, like France, had possessed a Society of Im 
 mortals, a body in which the wondrous gifts of eloquence, 
 forensic skill, statesmanship, and knowledge of law were 
 among the requisites for the exalted membership, there, 
 high upon the roll, would have been found the name of 
 WEBSTER. 
 
 How apt and true were the words of Edward Everett in 
 his address at Faneuil Hall in Boston upon the death of 
 WEBSTER! He said: 
 
 There is but one voice that ever fell upon my ear which could do 
 justice to such an occasion. That voice, alas! we shall hear no 
 more forever. No more at the bar will it unfold the deepest myste 
 ries of the law; no more will it speak conviction to admiring Sena 
 tors; no more in this hall, the chosen theater of his intellectual 
 dominion, will it lift the soul as with the swell of the pealing organ, 
 or stir the blood with the tones of a clarion in the inmost chambers 
 of the heart. 
 
 Mr. President, the student of to-day, the teacher, the 
 merchant, the farmer, the American citizen of whatever 
 calling, would feel himself poor in knowledge and sadly 
 equipped even for humble life not to know of the men 
 upon whose brows the laurels of civic victories have been 
 justly placed. 
 
 Calhoun, Clay, and WEBSTER, naming them in the 
 order in which they were claimed by death, were, each in 
 
Acceptance of the Statue of Daniel Webster. Ml 
 
 his sphere, the embodiment of the ideas, theories, and 
 opinions entertained by his respective admirers and adher 
 ents, and they composed a trinity of statesmen to which 
 
 
 
 any land might look with pride. But WEBSTER was the 
 great leader, and was, as Rufus Choate once said: 
 
 The last of that surpassing triumvirate; shall we say the greatest, 
 the most widely known and admired of them all ? 
 
 Mr. President, while WEBSTER was regarded in his day 
 as the great expounder of the Constitution, he was also a 
 great master of oratory. There are two kinds of oratory, 
 differing widely in character and expression; oratory 
 which sheds luster upon the orator, and oratory which stirs 
 the minds and hearts of men to lofty aspirations and noble 
 deeds. It is said that after Cicero had spoken the people 
 exclaimed, u What a splendid orator is Cicero!" but when 
 Demosthenes declaimed the cry arose, u L,et us march 
 against Philip!" 
 
 The eloquence of WEBSTER was of the Demosthenean 
 type. It stirred the hearts and inflamed the patriotism of 
 his fellow-countrymen. Happily this great American 
 master of oratory has left to us his own conception of 
 what true eloquence is. It is found in his immortal 
 oration at Faneuil Hall in commemoration of the lives and 
 services of Adams and Jefferson, the two patriotic ex- 
 Presidents who died on the Fourth of July, 1826: 
 
 Pure eloquence 
 
 Says he- 
 does not consist in speech. It can not be brought from far ; labor 
 and learning may toil for it, but they will toil in vain. Words and 
 phrases may be marshaled in every way, but they can not com 
 pass it. It must exist in the man, in the subject, and in the occa- 
 12 s w 
 
178 Address of Mr. Cullom on the 
 
 sion. Affected passion, intense expression, the pomp of declamation, 
 all may aspire to it; they can not reach it. It comes, if it comes at 
 all, like the outbreaking of a fountain from the earth, or the bursting 
 forth of volcanic fires with spontaneous original native force. The 
 graces taught in the schools, the costly ornaments and studied con 
 trivances of speech, shock and disgust men when their own lives and 
 the fate of their wives, their children, and their country hang on the 
 decision of the hour. Their words have lost their power, rhetoric is 
 vain, and all elaborate oratory contemptible. Even genius itself 
 then feels rebuked and subdued as in the presence of higher quali 
 ties. Then patriotism is eloquent ; then self-devotion is eloquent. 
 The clear conception outrunning the deductions of logic, the high 
 purpose, the firm resolve, the dauntless spirit speaking on the tongue, 
 beaming from the eye, informing every feature and urging the whole 
 man onward, right onward to his object this, this is eloquence, or 
 rather it is something greater and higher than all eloquence : it is 
 action, noble, sublime, godlike. 
 
 No words of mine could possibly convey the concep 
 tion of the eloquence of DANIEL WEBSTER as do these 
 grand words, which constitute at once an inspiration to 
 patriotism and an ornament to English literature. His 
 words have become to all generations a priceless inherit 
 ance. No statesman and orator of our country has ever 
 inculcated in the minds of his countrymen a truer or more 
 devoted Americanism. In one of his impassioned utter 
 ances, apparently carried away by his enthusiasm, he ex 
 claimed: 
 
 America, America, our country, fellow-citizens; our own dear and 
 native land! 
 
 How his soul would have abhorred that petty political 
 doctrine of discontent which has been inculcated in this 
 country in these latter years. One of the grandest tributes 
 which he ever paid to his fellow-citizens of Massachusetts 
 was the following: 
 
Acceptance of the Statue of Daniel Webster. 179 
 
 You have conquered an inhospitable clime, you have conquered a 
 barren soil, you have conquered the ocean which lashes your shores, 
 and have made yourselves the glory and esteem of all the world. 
 
 WEBSTER reserved his greatest utterances for grand occa 
 sions and great inspiration. On one occasion, in referring 
 to the affairs of Hungary, then in her struggle for liberty, 
 he said: 
 
 I see that the Emperor of Russia demands of Turkey that the 
 noble Kossuth and his companions shall be given up to be dealt 
 with at his pleasure, and I see that this demand is made in derision 
 of the established laws of nations. Gentlemen, there is something 
 on earth greater than arbitrary or despotic power. The lightning 
 has its power, the whirlwind has its power, and the earthquake has its 
 power, but there is something among men more capable of shaking 
 despotic power than the lightning, the whirlwind, or the earthquake, 
 and that is the excited and aroused indignation of the whole civilized 
 world. 
 
 The story is told that before the great audience was 
 aware of what was coming his majestic form began to 
 tower, his eyes to kindle, and his voice caught the keynote 
 of the vast building, till, in the illusion of the senses, the 
 lightning flashed, and the whirlwind shook the place, and 
 the firm foundation seemed to rock as with an earthquake. 
 Such was the power of DANIEL WEBSTER as an orator. 
 
 Mr. President, for centuries the relations between na 
 tions were largely determined in whispered conversations 
 betw r een statesmen and ambassadors. Whatever a states 
 man said, even in private, \vas treated as a public utterance, 
 and nations were held responsible for remarks made by 
 public men even in the social circle. If the representa 
 tives of one nation at the court of another were re 
 ceived with smiles, it was regarded as evidence of amity 
 and good will, but if received with a frown, this was 
 
180 Address of Mr. Cullom on the 
 
 regarded as evidence of hostility. If a sovereign turned 
 his back upon an ambassador, this was regarded as almost 
 a declaration of war, and dispatches were sent forthwith 
 by flying couriers to all parts of the world. We may 
 recall the history of that celebrated congress of nations 
 which met at Ryswick, Holland, about 1697, to settle one 
 of the most disastrous wars of that age. 
 
 Almost every court in Europe sent its representatives, 
 and the entire body spent months in determining how they 
 were to meet, who should be entitled to precedence, and 
 how many attendants each should have. Much time was 
 spent in advancing toward each other at the place of 
 meeting. No representative was willing to appear more 
 anxious than the other, and the consequence was that as 
 they advanced if one took a step more than another they 
 all had to go back and begin over again ; and so they con 
 tinued in dancing a sort of minuet and counting the steps 
 of each other. William III of England and Louis XIV 
 of France each sent a trusty representative to confer 
 together by themselves. They met in an orchard, and 
 while walking up and down for an hour or so these two 
 practically settled the controversy and left the ambassadors 
 to go on with their dance until they heard that the busi 
 ness was settled. 
 
 In 1850, if I remember rightly, when WEBSTER was Sec 
 retary of State, he made a speech at a dinner in Washington 
 in which he commented bitterly on the conduct of Austria 
 in the treatment of the Hungarian revolutionists. Baron 
 
 o 
 
 Hulsemann was the Austrian ambassador to this Govern 
 ment. He immediately wrote the Secretary asking him 
 what he meant by his speech, and in reply received an 
 answer which deservedly made a great noise in the world. 
 
Acceptance of the Statue of Daniel Webster. 181 
 
 With the utmost politeness Secretary WEBSTER substan 
 tially told the Austrian ambassador to mind his own busi 
 ness, declaring that the purpose and intentions of the 
 American Government were not to be learned from the pri 
 vate, unofficial remarks of anybody. He took the position 
 that this country would speak to other countries officially, 
 and by such communications alone this country should be 
 pledged. This, I think, was a new departure in diplomacy, 
 and struck a powerful blow at the old and childlike methods 
 which had prevailed for centuries. 
 
 It is just and proper that nations should communicate 
 with each other in written words, leaving no uncertainty as 
 to what is said or intended. It is remarkable that in 1880, 
 while Mr. Gladstone was making a canvass for his election 
 to Parliament, he reflected, in a public speech, on Austria, 
 charging that nation with entertaining the deliberate pur 
 pose of violating treaty obligations. Mr. Gladstone was 
 not then in office, but in a few weeks became prime minis 
 ter of England. The Austrian ambassador at once wrote 
 to him asking what he meant by his recent speech. The 
 Grand Old Man did not reply as DANIEL WEBSTER did. 
 Reflecting on the matter, he finally, with that proud humil 
 ity which always characterized him, admitted that he was 
 wrong. WEBSTER pursued the more statesmanlike course. 
 He struck at the old, childish methods of diplomatists, 
 carried on by whispers and smiles and frowns and petty 
 actions, which were not manly and were liable to be mis 
 understood. 
 
 It is to be hoped that this Government will continue to 
 follow the example of WEBSTER, and extend the practice 
 of communicating with other nations in writing, so that 
 
182 Address of Mr. Cullom on the 
 
 there can be no possible dispute as to what is said, and that 
 the amenities of social intercourse shall not be held as 
 meaning- anything whatever in diplomacy. 
 
 Mr. President, I feel some pride in the fact that DANIEL 
 WEBSTER, as early as 1837, when in the full tide of his 
 manhood, impressed with the importance of the West, 
 sought out and purchased a tract of land in my own State 
 of Illinois, something like a thousand acres, not very far 
 from my own home, where he contemplated the possibility 
 of enjoying his later days when he should be relieved from 
 public duties. In conversation he often referred to this 
 investment, and in his will he refers especially to its 
 disposition after his death. 
 
 DANIEL WEBSTER, in all the relations of public life, was 
 dignified and manly. His social intercourse with even his 
 greatest political antagonists was sincere and enjoyable. 
 The greatest possible admiration for each other existed 
 between WEBSTER and Calhoun, and the latter, feeble and 
 broken, but a few days before his death almost risked his 
 life to listen to a great speech of WEBSTER in the Senate. 
 WEBSTER was generous and sympathetic, and although 
 between him and Ben ton there had for some years existed 
 a solid barrier over which neither would step, he brought 
 about a reconciliation, and a perfect and happy fellowship 
 thereafter existed between them. But to others more 
 properly belongs the privilege of eulogy and praise, and to 
 them I leave it. 
 
 Mr. President, Senators, we to-day receive and accept 
 from New Hampshire, the State which gave DANIEL 
 WEBSTER to the country and to the world, the semblance 
 of his commanding figure 
 
 In pallid marble fashioned. 
 
Acceptance of the Statue of Daniel Webster. 1 83 
 
 His statue is to take its place in the appropriate hall 
 yonder, amid that noble group of noble men, where his 
 sculptured form may claim just fellowship with all. In 
 such association may we not imagine that the enduring 
 stone shall for a time stand forth clothed anew with life, 
 endowed with the divine adornments of humanity, and be 
 given voice to speak immortal words to the wondrous 
 audience in that great chamber of patriots and heroes ? 
 Let the imagination go further, and show to us Washington, 
 and Lincoln, and Adams, and all the illustrious company, 
 once more sentient with life, and stepping down from their 
 pedestals to hail and join each other in a great chorus of 
 joy over the stability of the Government which their great 
 minds had conceived and their earnest hands builded and 
 maintained. And then, when silence reigns, following the 
 final invocation and dedication, the oration, an oration from 
 the godlike WEBSTER, shall close and terminate forever this 
 imaginary quickening into life, upon which each marble 
 form will resume its place, inanimate, eternal, glorious. 
 
184 Address of Mr. Mitchell on the 
 
 ADDRESS OF MR. MITCHELL, OF OREGON, 
 
 Mr. PRESIDENT: After the many able and interesting 
 speeches to which we have listened, any words of mine would 
 seem to be a superfluity, and nothing but the honor done 
 the State I in part represent here, by the invitation from 
 the distinguished Senators from New Hampshire that I 
 should say something, would induce me at this late hour 
 to trespass on the patience of the Senate. 
 
 Seldom is it that the Senate of the United States is 
 privileged to participate in a ceremonial like the present; 
 infrequent that any State in the Union is permitted to 
 enjoy the distinguished honor which the State and people 
 of New Hampshire enjoy to-day. That New Hampshire 
 should have been the birthplace of DANIEL WEBSTER is 
 an honor of much more than ordinary distinction, and one 
 of which the State may well be proud. 
 
 Forty-two years ago the morning of the 24th of October 
 last the great heart of DANIEL WEBSTER performed its 
 final office, gave its parting throb, and a great man died. 
 Then it was that the tomb uncovered to welcome to its 
 shades America s intellectual giant, one among that class 
 of great men of this and other ages endowed with extraor 
 dinary discursive faculties. Then one of the ablest, if not 
 indeed the ablest, interpreter of the Constitution and one 
 of the most stalwart champions of constitutional govern 
 ment surrendered his life to Him who gave it. Then the 
 bar, not only of the State of his birth and the State of his 
 adoption but of the United States, was deprived 01" one 
 
Acceptance of the Statue of Daniel Webster. 185 
 
 of its most conspicuous and shining ornaments. Then the 
 Nation, represented by all the people, following the decla 
 ration of the immortal Dryden, said: "I will myself be the 
 chief mourner at his obsequies," and stood with uncovered 
 head before the waiting tomb, in obeisance to the name 
 and memory of one whose public services had been of the 
 very highest order and of inestimable value to the state. 
 
 Having lived in a generation that has passed away, we 
 can only see him in the light of history; but viewed in 
 that light we behold in him the greatest of all the great 
 expounders of the Constitution, if we may indeed except 
 perhaps the late Chief Justice Marshall; abreast of the 
 foremost in rank of the great lawyers of his time, second 
 perhaps to none, but excelling all in solid ability, depth 
 and breadth of thought, and in power of demonstration, 
 among the entire list of American statesmen. Peerless in 
 mentality, gifted in prescience, thoroughly instructed in 
 historical and governmental literature, endowed with 
 extraordinary oratorical powers, he was surpassed in these 
 respects by none of his day and generation, and only 
 equaled by the most intellectual and accomplished of either 
 ancient or modern times. 
 
 WEBSTER was a human prodigy, a unique intellectual 
 entity. He towered above his fello\vs in his lines of supe 
 riority like Napoleon in France, Bismarck in Germany, 
 Gladstone in England, in their respective traits of greatness. 
 The light of his marvelous mind did not "shine eccentric, 
 like a comet s blaze," but clear and steady, like the sun in 
 his splendor when it "shines serenely bright." 
 
 That he was endowed by nature with rare gifts, all will 
 agree. That he was a patriot in the grandest and loftiest 
 
186 Address of Mr. Mitchell on the 
 
 sense of that term, none will deny. That as a logician, 
 statesman, orator, he ranked inferior to none among the 
 logicians, statesmen, and orators, not only of the times in 
 which he lived but of any period, but was superior to 
 most, there are few to dispute. 
 
 To WEBSTER more than to any other American is due 
 the credit of infusing into the American mind and crystal 
 lizing in the American conscience a correct interpretation 
 of the Constitution. Fortunate for his country, he lived 
 at a time when his commanding presence, his great intel 
 lect, his legal learning, his acknowledged familiarity with 
 constitutional law, his remarkable oratorical powers, his 
 grand patriotism, his wide influence, all combined to equip 
 him to correctly interpret the fundamental law under 
 which we live in respect of the relation existing between 
 the National Government and the States respectively, and 
 in respect of the jurisdiction and powers of each. 
 
 That the interpretation which he placed on the Consti 
 tution in these respects has stood the test not only of the 
 most able criticisms of lawyers eminent in their profession 
 as constitutional and statutory constructionists, but of the 
 more trying ordeal of the conflict of arms, is of itself a 
 monument of commendation to his sagacity, his great 
 ability, his legal learning, his constitutional knowledge, 
 his proficiency as a dialectician, his patriotism. 
 
 The inspiration of his matchless speeches in support of 
 the integrity of the Constitution and the Union, and in 
 opposition to a vicious construction of the fundamental 
 law sought by some to be ingrafted on that great instru 
 ment, infused patriotism into the minds and hearts of a 
 million men and prompted them to the rescue when thirty 
 
Acceptance of the Statue of Daniel Webster. 187 
 
 years or more later that integrity was assailed by force of 
 arms. 
 
 That DANIEL WEBSTER was in respect of rare intellec 
 tual powers unexcelled, if indeed equaled, by any Amer 
 ican logician or statesman that has ever lived, may well 
 be questioned. That he was not as brilliant, or as thor 
 oughly accomplished in classical literature, or perhaps 
 not as well grounded in the law as a few others, are also 
 facts recognized by history. 
 
 In the generation in which WEBSTER lived there were 
 many men of great aptitude and power, of distinguished 
 lineage, of great learning, of incomparable capacity as law 
 yers, logicians, orators, and statesmen; but among all these 
 looms up in history the great, the immortal WEBSTER, as 
 has been stated of Napoleon, "grand, gloomy, and pecu 
 liar," endowed with those superb and varied intellectual 
 qualities which united in making him but little less, if at 
 all, than the peer of any of them in every one of these rare 
 endowments and attainments, and preeminent in respect to 
 most of them. 
 
 The names of many men of ability, of genius, of power, 
 who lived in the generation in which WEBSTER lived; 
 the names of illustrious lawyers, statesmen, logicians, con 
 temporary with him, may, and doubtless will, as time shall 
 complete its coming cycles, fade away and be forever 
 forgotten in the history yet to be written, when the name 
 of WEBSTER will in that same history be remembered 
 with pride, and the light of his undying fame as states 
 man, orator, logician, patriot, will shed unfading luster 
 upon its pages. 
 
 Although he was denied that -prestige and eminence 
 
188 Address of Mr. Mitchell on the 
 
 which attach to those upon whom has been conferred the 
 highest honor the Republic can bestow on any of its citi 
 zens, yet the names of many of those so honored will be less 
 conspicuous in future history than that of WEBSTER. 
 
 That he was as great a jurist as John Marshall, or 
 Jeremiah Mason, or Pinckney, I do not believe. That he 
 was not naturally as oratorically brilliant as Henry Clay, 
 in the common acceptance of that term, must, I think, be 
 conceded; but that he was greater than all these in solidity 
 of intellect, breadth, depth, and expansion of mind, and 
 in capacity and power to grasp, unfold, elucidate, demon 
 strate, and make clear and plain to all, great, intricate, 
 fundamental governmental questions, there can be no 
 room for doubt. 
 
 That DANIEL WEBSTER, forty years after he had lived 
 and died, having such contemporaries as Clay, Calhoun, 
 Hayne, Everett, Choate, and many more scarcely less illus 
 trious, and after having been followed since then by such 
 accomplished orators and statesmen as Sumner, Seward, 
 Conkling, Carpenter, Elaine, Douglas, and Lincoln, who 
 have in their respective spheres shed the unfading glory of 
 their eloquence on the pages of our history, adorned them 
 with the elegance of their erudition, and garnished them 
 with the beauty of their matchless diction, should have 
 been characterized in the cyclopedia of universal history 
 as "the greatest master of American oratory" is of itself a 
 tribute to his name and memory in that regard of unexcep 
 tionable character. 
 
 Whether WEBSTER was really the most gifted and thor 
 oughly equipped lawyer of his time has been a question of 
 serious disputation among lawyers of high rank. The late 
 
Acceptance of the Statue of Daniel Webster. 189 
 
 Senator Carpenter, of Wisconsin, acknowledged by all as 
 standing in his time in the front rank of the American bar, 
 gave Choate the preference. In Neilson s Memoirs of 
 Ruftis Choate, Mr. Carpenter, in his contribution, says: 
 
 He (Choate) always stood in awe of WEBSTER, and spent nights 
 in preparation when about to contend with him at the bar. This I 
 never could understand. As a mere lawyer I think Choate as much 
 the superior of WEBSTER as WEBSTER was the superior of lawyers 
 generally. 
 
 Possibly the fact that Choate was Carpenter s tutor when 
 he studied law may, to some extent, have warped his judg 
 ment. However, all agree that Rufus Choate was one of 
 the most gifted and accomplished lawyers the American bar 
 has ever known. 
 
 DANIEL WEBSTER was, in the opinion of General 
 Butler- 
 
 the foremost lawyer of Massachusetts, as well as the foremost lawyer 
 of the country. 
 
 The two most distinguished lawyers of the New Hamp 
 shire bar in WEBSTER S earlier practice were Jeremiah 
 Mason and Jeremiah Smith, both eminent in their profes 
 sion, the latter being the chief justice of the State. As 
 mere lawyers they were, I believe, almost universally 
 regarded as WEBSTER S equals in legal attainments, and by 
 many as his superiors. Later on, in his professional career 
 in the city of Boston, when but thirty-five years of age he 
 crossed legal swords with such distinguished lawyers as 
 Dexter, Story, Shaw, Prescott, Otis, and others, all then 
 men of national reputation in their profession. And in 
 legal contests with them he won unfading laurels. In his 
 more advanced life, when the cares of state enveloped him 
 
190 Address of Mr. Mitchell on the 
 
 as with a cloud, he, at intervals, in the Supreme Court of 
 
 
 
 the United States, added additional jewels to a professional 
 wreath of fame already lustrous in its brilliancy by his 
 legal battles with Pinckney, and Wirt, and Johnson, and 
 Seward, and Holmes, and other men of like world-wide 
 reputation as lawyers. 
 
 His matchless and successful constitutional argument in 
 the Supreme Court of the United States in the Dartmouth 
 College case, in 1818, when but thirty-six years of age, and 
 his equally great though unsuccessful effort in the Girard 
 will case in the same court twenty-six years later, in 1844, 
 were, by the concurrent historic testimony of bench and 
 bar, forensic efforts characterized by great knowledge of 
 constitutional and statutory law, by irrefutable logic, by 
 clearness and power of elucidation and demonstration, and 
 by impressive and impassioned jurisprudential oratory, un 
 surpassed by any ever heard in that august tribunal either 
 before or since. 
 
 Milliard, in speaking of WEBSTER S argument in the 
 Dartmouth College case, says: 
 
 No better argument has been spoken in the English tongue in the 
 memory of any living man, nor is the child that is born to-day likely 
 to live to hear a better. Its learning is ample, but not ostentatious; 
 its logic irresistible; its eloquence vigorous and lofty. 
 
 While Justice Story, then a member of the court, is 
 reported by the same historian as saying, in speaking of it: 
 
 For the first hour we listened to him with perfect astonishment; 
 for the second hour with perfect delight; for the third hour with 
 perfect conviction. 
 
 Mr. Hilliard thus estimates him as a lawyer: 
 
 Of his eminence in the law, meaning the law as administered in 
 the ordinary tribunals of the country, without reference for the 
 
Acceptance of the Statue of Daniel Webster. 191 
 
 present to constitutional questions, there is but one opinion among 
 competent judges. Some may have excelled him in a single faculty 
 or accomplishment; but in the combination of qualities which the 
 law requires no man of his time was, on the whole, equal to him. 
 
 Mr. Charles L,anman, long his private secretary during 
 the later years of his life, in the "preliminary note" to a 
 little volume published in this city the month succeeding 
 Mr. WEBSTER S death, entitled "Private Life of Daniel 
 Webster," pays him this high tribute: 
 
 His fame as a patriot, a jurist, a statesman, an orator, and a 
 scholar is coextensive with the civilized world 
 
 Mr. Hiram Ketchum, in his eloquent address to the bar 
 of New York City on the death of WEBSTER, said: 
 
 The great luminary of the bar, the Senate, and the council 
 chamber is set forever, but it is a subject of rejoicing that it is set in 
 almost supernatural splendor, obscured by no cloud; not a ray 
 darkened. 
 
 Mr. WEBSTER was a master of the English language the 
 good, old-fashioned Anglo-Saxon kind. In his demon- 
 stration of intricate political problems, in his grand efforts 
 at the bar, as well also as in his marvelous literary addresses, 
 there is no trace of " circuitus verborum," nothing peri 
 phrastic; while, upon the other hand, he could never have 
 truthfully said of himself, ^brevis esse laboro, obscurus 
 fio " in endeavoring to be concise, I become obscure but 
 yet he was brilliant. Milton, on the great handiwork of 
 Him who is greater than all, says: 
 
 He sovv d with stars the heav n. 
 
 So this master mind on great occasions bedecked and 
 beautified the literary, the professional, the national firma 
 ments with jewels as rare, as matchless in beauty and 
 
1 92 Address of Mr. Mitchell on the 
 
 expression, as were ever coined by human speech or fell 
 from mortal tongue. 
 
 In WEBSTER S more conspicuous oratorical efforts were 
 unified the various arts of directness, dignity, pertinency, 
 condensation, energy, persuasiveness, grace, and power. 
 Lacking, perhaps, somewhat in brilliancy those of Clay, in 
 erudition those of Everett or Sumner, he excelled them all 
 in irrefragible logic, in solid ability, and in power of dem 
 onstration. 
 
 Macaulay, in speaking of Goldsmith, said: 
 
 He was a great and perhaps an unequaled master of the arts of 
 selection and condensation. 
 
 Among the statesmen of America WEBSTER in this 
 respect perhaps had no superior and but one equal. Abra 
 ham Lincoln was the peer of any American that ever lived 
 in respect of endowment of these peculiar, rare, and attract 
 ive qualities of mind. 
 
 One of WEBSTER S most gifted contemporaries and 
 eulogists said of him: 
 
 More than any living man he has instructed the whole generation 
 of American citizens in their political duties, and taught the young 
 men of the country how to think clearly, reason fairly, and clothe 
 thought in the most simple and beautiful English. 
 
 What more exalted passage can be found in the world s 
 eloquent literature than WEBSTER S closing words in that 
 memorable address on the settlement of New England, 
 delivered at Plymouth, December 22, 1820, when, rising 
 even superior to himself, with a beckoning smile, casting 
 his eyes through the vanishing twilight as it gradually 
 receded before the dawn of approaching years, and speaking 
 as though inspired, he extended a cordial welcome to the 
 
Acceptance of the Statue of Daniel Webster. 193 
 
 advancing generations of the future in these sublime 
 words : 
 
 Advance, then, ye future generations! We would hail you as you 
 rise in your long succession to fill the places which we now fill and 
 to taste the blessings of existence, where we are passing, and soon 
 shall have passed, our own human duration. We bid you welcome 
 to this pleasant land of the fathers. We bid you welcome to the 
 healthful skies and verdant fields of New England. We greet your 
 accession to the great inheritance which we have enjoyed. We wel 
 come you to the blessings of good government and religious 
 liberty. We welcome you to the treasures of science and the 
 delights of learning. We welcome you to the transcendent sweets 
 of domestic life, to the happiness of kindred, and parents, and 
 children. We welcome you to the immeasurable blessings of 
 rational existence, the immortal hope of Christianity, and the light 
 of everlasting life. 
 
 Or where else in all the choicest national panegyrics 
 with which the altar of any nation was ever decorated; 
 where among all the beautiful creations with which the 
 name and fame of nations have been forever embalmed in 
 human speech; where in the most classic written history 
 or in the most erudite national essays of either ancient or 
 modern times, is to be found a passage surpassing in 
 elegance of diction, in sublime pathos, in superb grandeur, 
 in matchless eloquence, that of the closing sentences of 
 WEBSTER S reply to Hayne: 
 
 When my eyes shall be turned to behold for the last time the sun 
 in heaven, may I not see him shining on the broken and dishonored 
 fragments of a once glorious Union; on States dissevered, discordant, 
 belligerent; on a land rent with civil feuds, or drenched, it may be, 
 in fraternal blood! Let their last feeble and lingering glance, 
 rather, behold the gorgeous ensign of the Republic, now known and 
 honored throughout the earth, still full high advanced, its arms and 
 trophies streaming in their original luster, not a stripe erased or 
 polluted, noi a single star obscured bearing for its motto no such 
 13 s w 
 
194 Address of Mr. Mitchell on the 
 
 miserable interrogatory as, What is all this wortJi ? nor those other 
 words of delusion and folly, Liberty first, and Union+afterwards ; but 
 everywhere, spread all over in characters of living light, blazing 
 on all its ample folds, as they float over the sea and over the land 
 and in every wind under the whole heavens, that other sentiment, 
 dear to every true American heart Liberty and Union, now and 
 forever, one and inseparable! 
 
 His oration of December 22, 1820, at Plymouth, on the 
 bicentennial anniversary of the landing of the Pilgrims; 
 that of June 17, 1825, at the laying of the corner stone of 
 the Bunker Hill Monument; on the lyth of June, 1843, a ^ 
 its completion; on August 2, 1826, in Faneuil Hall, com 
 memorative of the lives and services of John Adams and 
 Thomas Jefferson, two signers of the Declaration of Inde 
 pendence, and each an ex-President of the United States, 
 and who had, on our national anniversary, died within a 
 few hours of each other; his oration in this city in 1832 at 
 the services commemoratory of the birth of George Wash 
 ington; his eulogies on Mason and Story, on Calhoun and 
 Taylor; his grand constitutional arguments in the judicial 
 courts of the country; his able and patriotic speeches in 
 the two Houses of Congress on an infinite variety of 
 topics on finance, on our foreign relations, on commerce, 
 foreign and domestic, on naturalization and bankruptcy, 
 on the Mexican war, on the Texan question, on the exclu 
 sion of slavery from the Territories, his reply to Hayne, 
 and various other notable speeches; and finally his last 
 national address, delivered on the 4th day of July, 1851, 
 at the laying of the corner stone of the addition to the 
 Capitol of the United States will all forever live on his 
 tory s brightest pages, embellishing them with their beauty 
 and embalming them with their fragrance, as specimens of 
 
Acceptance of the Statue of Daniel Webster. 195 
 
 erudite, captivating, chaste oratory, unexcelled by that of 
 any country or of any age. 
 
 And although the luster reflected on his name by these 
 great arguments and orations, and the fame which his half 
 a century of highly distinguished professional life and his 
 thirty years of invaluable service to the State, had made 
 him conspicuous in the history of his time as lawyer, 
 statesman, orator, had secured for him the unstinted admi 
 ration and seemingly the unfading gratitude of his coun 
 trymen, yet some would have us believe, even at this late 
 day, that this grand monument which he had builded to 
 himself was, in the gathering shades of a waning life, shat 
 tered and destroyed by a single destructive blow wielded 
 by the arm of its own great builder. They would have us 
 believe that his speech in this body of March 7, 1850, prac 
 tically confirmed by that of June 17, 1850, and the senti 
 ments of which were substantially repeated in his speech 
 on the compromise bill, July 17, 1850, had wrested immor 
 tality from a name otherwise immortal, and that by this 
 one act the glory thence hitherto attaching to his name 
 had departed forever. 
 
 True it is, there is some room for criticism, and ap 
 parent grounds for insistence that the opinions of Mr. 
 WEBSTER on the subject of slavery in the Territories, as 
 shown by these speeches, had undergone a change from 
 those held by him in former years, and so vigorously 
 asserted and ably and patriotically maintained in his 
 speech in relation to the exclusion of slavery from the Ter 
 ritories delivered August 12, 1848, on the bill to organize 
 a government for the Territory of Oregon, and in many 
 former speeches. 
 
196 Address of Mr. Mitchell on the 
 
 In that of August 12, 1848, Mr. WEBSTER made the fol 
 lowing declaration: 
 
 My objection to slavery is irrespective of lines and points of lati 
 tude; it takes in the whole country and the whole question. I am 
 opposed to it in every shape and in every qualification, and am 
 against any compromise of the question. * * * I will never 
 vote to extend the area of slavery. 
 
 And again in the same debate he said: 
 
 I shall consent to no extension of the area of slavery upon this 
 continent, nor to any increase of slave representation in the other 
 House of Congress. 
 
 This, however, was but a repetition of many of his pre 
 vious declarations on the same subject. 
 
 His subsequent opposition, however, to the Wilmot pro 
 viso and his support of the Soule amendment present an 
 apparent inconsistency with his previous record. But 
 when viewed in the light of his vigorous and persistent 
 contention that there were natural, and to his mind conclu 
 sive, existent reasons and causes sufficient to forever ex 
 clude African slavery from the Territories, to which this 
 proviso and this amendment were intended to apply; that 
 their assertion was unnecessary to prevent the introduction 
 of slavery into those Territories, and would do no good, but 
 on the contrary, in his judgment, be a source of humilia 
 tion and irritation to the people of the South, are we not 
 bound to accerrd to him honorable motives and consistency 
 of action in this regard, even though we are unable to 
 accept his assumptions and arguments as valid? And this 
 is the conclusion I long since reached in regard to this 
 whole matter. 
 
 And though Whittier may have written his "Ichabod," 
 and though the poetic beauty and power of that lyric dirge 
 
Acceptance of the Statue of Daniel Webster. 197 
 
 and the honest criticisms of patriotic men, coupled with 
 the hypercriticisms of an unjust and carping world, may 
 for a time have cast a shadow over a planet of the first 
 magnitude, may have partially obscured for a brief period 
 the splendor of its former glory, I, while not indorsing 
 some of the sentiments and expressions it contains, am 
 not of those who can in that speech, by any fair construc 
 tion of which it is susceptible, taken as a whole and inter 
 preted as it should be in the light of the accompanying 
 assumptions and arguments, see any justifiable cause for 
 detracting from or for casting any just reflection on the 
 name or fame of DANIEL WEBSTER. But, on the con 
 trary, I see in the ceremonials of this hour impartial his 
 tory to-day rising in its majesty above the clamor of the 
 discordant elements of those times, and, wielding the pen 
 of justice, rejecting the insinuations of "Ichabod," as its 
 distinguished author himself in a great measure rejected 
 them before his death, and the name and fame of WEB 
 STER, notwithstanding this speech, shining again serenely 
 in the firmament of our nation s history. 
 
 If the sentiments expressed in that speech on the subject 
 of slavery as it then existed in this country must be re 
 garded as a cloud upon an otherwise immortal name, then 
 with much more force might it be justly held that the acts 
 on that subject of the great men who framed our Consti 
 tution in giving slavery recognition should consign their 
 names to lasting infamy. 
 
 WEBSTER in that speech but dealt historically with the 
 subject of slavery as it existed from the earliest history of 
 the world, and as it then existed in the United States in 
 virtue of the fact that the convictions of the fathers on that 
 
198 Address of Mr. Mitchell on the 
 
 subject, that is, as to the best mode of dealyig with what 
 they all then regarded as a great evil, had caused them to 
 recognize it in the fundamental law of the land. The 
 same course of reasoning by which WEBSTER is condemned 
 for the sentiments contained in that speech would tarnish 
 the names of the thirteen Northern Senators, including 
 those of John A. Dix and Daniel S. Dickinson, of New 
 York; Levi Woodbury and Charles G. Atherton, of New 
 Hampshire; John M. Niles, of Connecticut; John Fairfield, 
 of Maine; James Buchanan and Daniel Sturgeon, of Penn 
 sylvania, and Benjamin Tappan and William Allen, of Ohio, 
 all of whom voted for the admission of Texas into the 
 Union as a slave State, with a provision attached making 
 it possible for four more slave States to be carved out of it. 
 
 WEBSTER S public life presents overwhelming evidence 
 of the fact that he was unalterably opposed to the exten 
 sion of African slavery into the Territories of the United 
 States. 
 
 The sentiment of the South in regard to slavery had 
 materially changed from that held by the framers of the 
 Constitution. When the Constitution was framed, its 
 authors had declared without dissent or qualification that 
 slavery was an evil, moral and political, but they recog 
 nized its existence in the fundamental law; whereas, in 
 1848, John C. Calhoun, the great Southern leader, the 
 master mind of the South, the great exponent of Southern 
 sentiment, in his place in the Senate on August 10, on the 
 bill providing a Territorial government for Oregon, made 
 this startling declaration : 
 
 Slavery has benefited all mankind, all countries but the South. 
 Slavery, like the waters of the Nile, has spread its fertilizing influ 
 ence over all the world. 
 
Acceptance of the Statue of Daniel Webster. 199 
 
 WEBSTER, therefore, with other Northern statesmen of 
 his time, was brought face to face with a great controversy 
 that threatened the dissolution of the Union. He had to 
 contend with a changed sentiment, a hostile and formida 
 ble power in the South, and in his intense desire to prevent 
 secession and a bloody war and to preserve the Union 
 intact he compromised in speech and act to an extent that 
 brought upon him the condemnation of many well-mean 
 ing men." 
 
 The great purpose, it seems to me, of Mr. WEBSTER S 
 speech of March 7, 1850, was the preservation of the 
 Union. He seemed to be impressed for years with an ap 
 prehension that an attempt to dissolve the Union peaceably 
 might be made, and that such an experiment would in his 
 judgment surely result in bringing on a bloody and destruc 
 tive war, and in that very speech he uttered these remark 
 able and prophetic words: 
 
 Mr. President, I should prefer to have heard from every member 
 on this floor declarations of opinion that this Union could never be 
 dissolved than the declaration of opinion that in any case, under the 
 pressure of any circumstances, such a dissolution was possible. We 
 hear with distress and anxiety the word "secession." especially when 
 it falls from the lips of those who are patriotic and known to the 
 country and known all over the world for their political services. 
 Secession! Secession! Peaceable secession ! Sir, your eyes and mine 
 are never destined to see that miracle. The dismemberment of this 
 vast country without convulsion ! The breaking up of the foun 
 tains of the great deep without ruffling the surface ! Who is so 
 foolish, I beg everybody s pardon, as to expect to see any such thing! 
 
 Sir, he who sees these States, now revolving in harmony around a 
 common center, and expects to see them quit their places and fly off 
 without convulsion, may look the next hour to see the heavenly 
 bodies rush from their spheres and jostle against each other in the 
 realms of space without causing the wreck of the universe. There 
 
200 Address of Mr. Mitchell on the 
 
 can be no such thing as peaceable secession. Peaceable secession is 
 an utter impossibility. Is the great Constitution urfder which we 
 live, covering the whole country, to be thawed and melted away by 
 secession as the snows on the mountain melt under the influence of 
 the vernal sun, disappear almost unobserved, and run oft"? No, sir! 
 No, sir! I will not state what might produce the disruption of the 
 Union; but, sir, I see as plainly as I see the sun in heaven what that 
 disruption must produce. I see that it must produce war, and such 
 a war as I will not describe in its twofold character. 
 
 Some men accounted great rise above their fellows in 
 but a single department or line of professional, scientific, 
 or public life some as lawyers at the bar, others as states 
 men in the halls of legislation, while others excel only in 
 the more intricate fields of diplomacy. WEBSTER excelled 
 
 in all. 
 
 Excelling- others, these were great ; 
 Thou, greater still, must these excel. 
 
 This master mind left the lasting impress of its great 
 ness not only on the records of his profession as a lawyer 
 and on the journals of both branches of Congress, but on the 
 diplomatic pages of his country s history. The historian 
 tells us his diplomatic discussion with Lord Ashburton, 
 which led to the adoption of the Webster- Ashburton treaty, 
 resulting in the final settlement of the disturbing contro 
 versy relative to the northeastern boundary of the United 
 States, was, to use the language of the historic writer, "as 
 able as were the questions involved intricate." 
 
 True it is, although the treaty settled a controversy 
 that had existed and been a source of aggravating irritation 
 between this country and Great Britain from the date of 
 the treaty of peace in 1783, a period of nearly sixty years, 
 and although after long and able discussion in this body it 
 had received five-sixths of all the votes of the Senate in 
 
Acceptance of the Statue of Daniel Webster. 201 
 
 favor of its ratification, it was subsequently bitterly 
 assailed here and in the House of Representatives and 
 elsewhere, notably by Senators Dix and Dickinson, of 
 New York, in the Senate, and Ingersoll, of Pennsylvania, 
 in the House, and Mr. WEBSTER, as one of its authors, 
 was severely arraigned on the alleged grounds 
 
 First. For its unconstitutional surrender, as claimed, of 
 a portion of the State of Maine and certain strategic mili 
 tary points; 
 
 Second. Because of the mode in which the subject of 
 the search of vessels suspected of being engaged in the 
 slave trade on the coast of Africa was disposed of; and 
 
 Third. Because it was insisted no proper redress had 
 been obtained for the violation of the territorial rights of 
 the United States in the destruction of the steamboat 
 Caroline in the harbor of Schlosser by a British force in 
 December, 1837, and which subsequently led to the arrest 
 of one Alexander McLeod, a British subject, composing 
 part of the force, by the authorities of the State of New 
 York, for an alleged murder committed by him on that 
 occasion. 
 
 But all these objections are to my mind completely 
 answered and absolutely overthrown by Mr. WEBSTER 
 himself in his two-days speech in this body in defense of 
 that treaty, April 6 and 7, 1846. In that great speech 
 Mr. WEBSTER demonstrated beyond all question the just 
 ness of the appeal contained in its closing sentences, when 
 in concluding he said: 
 
 I am willing to appeal to the public men of the age whether, in 
 1842 and in the city of Washington, something was not done for the 
 suppression of crime, for the true exposition of the principles of pub 
 lic law, for the freedom and security of commerce on the ocean, and 
 for the peace of the world. 
 
202 Address of Mr. Mitchell on the 
 
 Were "I disposed, or if proper on this occasion, to in 
 dulge in criticism, the one thing in Mr. WEBSTER S public 
 career, as I understand it, with which I should find most 
 fault was his attitude on the Oregon question. 
 
 Mr. WEBSTER, I regret, did not estimate Oregon Terri 
 tory at its true merit. He did not seem to comprehend its 
 importance as an integral part of the Republic, either in a 
 domestic or an international sense, and he failed utterly 
 and absolutely to properly assert and defend our rights to 
 that Territory, either as Senator or as Secretary of State. 
 He was indisposed always to give any countenance whatever 
 to our claim to territory farther north than the forty-ninth 
 parallel. And when President Polk, in his message in 
 1845, declared that, in his judgment, our title to the whole 
 of the country that is, to fifty-four degrees forty minutes 
 was "clear and unquestionable," Mr. WEBSTER, in his 
 place in the Senate, not only took issue, but insisted we 
 had no claim whatever, nothing to arbitrate or settle, be 
 yond the forty-ninth parallel. He insisted this boundary 
 had been established by the treaty of Utrecht and assented 
 to by the people of the United States. But not only so; 
 he left even our rights to the south of the line in doubt, 
 and suggested that should the forty-ninth parallel be recog 
 nized there would still be left open for negotiation, arbitra 
 tion, and settlement the right of Great Britain to the use, 
 either permanently or for a term of years, of the Columbia 
 River, and also, to use his own language, "in regard to all 
 that respects straits and sounds and islands in the neighbor 
 ing seas," referring evidently to the Strait of San Juan de 
 Fuca and the waters and islands of Puget Sound. 
 
 It is not generally believed that Mr. WEBSTER in dealing 
 
Acceptance of the Statue of Daniel Webster. 203 
 
 with the Oregon question either exhibited that knowledge 
 of facts or the possession of that faculty of prescience gen 
 erally so characteristic of and attributed to him. This is 
 clearly indicated by a remark in his speech in the Senate 
 of April 6 and 7, 1846, in defense of the Treaty of Wash 
 ington. In that treaty our right to float logs down the 
 river St. Johns, through the province of New Brunswick, 
 to the Bay of Fundy had been secured, and Mr. WEBSTER, 
 in referring to what he regarded as its immense value, said: 
 
 We have heard a vast deal lately of the immense value and im 
 portance of the river Columbia and its navigation, but I will under 
 take to say that for all purposes of human use the river St. Johns is 
 worth a hundred times as much as the Columbia is or ever will be. 
 * * * It (the St. Johns) is navigable from the sea and by steam- . 
 boats a greater distance than the Columbia. 
 
 The naked fact is, Mr. President, the river St. Johns was 
 not then, is not now, and never will be, for any consider 
 able distance, more than a highway for rafts of logs from 
 the forests of Maine and New Brunswick to the city of 
 St. Johns and the Bay of Fundy. And the statement of Mr. 
 WEBSTER, it is submitted, was not warranted by the then 
 existing facts, nor has it ever been confirmed, and never 
 will be, by subsequent history. The vast commerce borne 
 to-day upon the waters of the Columbia River and the im 
 measurable possibilities as to the future, which all now 
 concede, present conclusive evidence as to how very much 
 at times even the greatest of public men may be mistaken. 
 
 That DANIEL WEBSTER, great as he was, had his weak 
 nesses and failings, as every mortal man, however great or 
 good he may be, has in greater or less degree, no one will 
 controvert. But that these, unlike the weaknesses and 
 failings of those less conspicuous, in either private or 
 
204 Address of Mr. Mitchell on the 
 
 public life, were greatly exaggeiated, truthful^ history at 
 tests. One of his contemporaries, eminent in his time, in 
 an eloquent eulogium delivered at his death, in delicately 
 referring to this aspect of the great statesman s life, and 
 after premising it with a declaration that it was due to 
 truth and sound morality to say that no public services, no 
 eminent talent, can or should sanctify errors, said; 
 
 To say that he had no weaknesses and failings would be to say 
 that he was not human. These failings have been published to the 
 world, and his friends would have no reason to complain of that if 
 they had not been exaggerated. 
 
 And after further stating that he had a close personal 
 intimacy with Mr. WEBSTER in private and domestic life 
 for a period of over twenty-five years, and had during that 
 time received numerous letters from him, he said : 
 
 I have had the pleasure of meeting him often in private circles 
 and at the festive board where some of our sessions were not short, 
 but neither in his letters nor conversation have I ever known him to 
 express an impure thought, an immoral sentiment, or use profane 
 language. Neither in writing nor in conversation have I everknown 
 him to assail any man. No man, in my hearing, was ever slandered 
 or spoken ill of by DANIEL WEBSTER. Never in my life have I known 
 a man whose conversation was uniformly so unexceptionable in tone 
 and edifying in character. No man had more tenderness of feeling 
 than DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 On this same occasion J. Prescott Hall pronounced a 
 eulogy, in which, among other things, he said: 
 
 1 have partaken of his innocent and manly amusements; I hive 
 walked with him at twilight upon the shore of the "far-resounding 
 sea;" I have seen him in the forum and the Senate Chamber, his 
 gigantic intellect towering above ail his compeers, and under no cir 
 cumstances and on no occasion did I ever know him to forget his 
 own dignity or cease to impress, if not overwhelm, with the sense of 
 
Acceptance of the Statue of Daniel Webster. 205 
 
 his surpassing greatness. From his lips I never heard an irreverent, 
 a profane, or an unseemly expression, while his playful wit. his deep 
 philosophy, his varied acquirements, and unrivaled powers of conver 
 sation are among the choicest treasures of my recollection. 
 
 One writer truthfully says: 
 
 Many take pleaure in speaking about the weaknesses of an 
 exalted character. 
 
 That WEBSTER was, in a measure, incautious, perhaps 
 to an extent improvident, in personal monetary matters, 
 seems to be conceded. This failing, however, it is not 
 believed was the result of any lack of personal integrity, 
 but rather of indifference as to his own individual neces 
 sities and comforts, present and future, coupled, doubtless, 
 in a great measure with the fact that his life, professionally ^ 
 and as a public man, was devoted to a service the least of 
 the purposes of which was that of getting money, much 
 less getting rich. 
 
 While, therefore, we would reject the Shakespearean 
 philosophy suggested in the phrase 
 
 Condemn the fault and not the actor of it ? 
 Why, every fault s condemned ere it be done 
 
 but rather remembering the beautiful sentiment of 
 Moore 
 
 As sunshine broken in the rill, 
 
 Though turned astray, is sunshine still 
 
 may it not be said, and truly and justly said, now that the 
 rains of forty-two summers and the driving snows of as 
 many winters have beat upon the tomb of the great 
 departed and we come to-day to bear fitting testimony to 
 his name and memory by placing in the Statuary Hall of 
 this great Capitol his marble bust, there to remain while 
 this proud edifice shall stand, that the delinquencies of 
 
206 Address of Mr. Mitchell on the 
 
 DANIEL WEBSTER, if any, whatever they may have been, 
 whether moral or political, whether venial or otherwise, 
 have, by common consent, by universal acquiescence, in 
 the light of his grand intellectual powers, which none can 
 dispute, which all must acknowledge, and in view of his 
 great public service to the State which entitl es him to 
 universal commendation, been condoned? 
 
 The Senate of the United States to-day pauses in its de 
 liberations and does honor to DANIEL WEBSTER, a former 
 member of this body, distinguished, illustrious, preeminent 
 among the men of his time. And in the Statuary Hall of 
 this great Capitol, by common consent of the people and 
 government of the State, of his nativity, of the people of 
 the State of his adoption, and of the Government and 
 people of the United States, he takes his place among those 
 who are deemed fit to stand in silent representation in that 
 historic presence. 
 
 And when we, the representatives in this Chamber to 
 day of forty-four sovereign States, composing a nation the 
 greatest, the grandest on the face of the earth, shall have 
 passed away; when our names, or at least the names of 
 most of us, shall be no longer remembered among men, 
 the name of WEBSTER will live in history, and will reflect 
 unfading glory on the pages of the future historian. 
 
 And when generations yet unborn shall walk through 
 these historic halls, and shall pause as they come and go 
 in yonder part of this great edifice, to look upon the 
 speechless marble representations of the great men of this 
 and former times, they will, in contemplating in the light 
 of faithful and accurate history the lives and characters of 
 the men there represented, without hesitation and with 
 
Acceptance of the Statue of Daniel Webster. 207 
 
 common consent accord to WEBSTER a place first among 
 the great intellects of departed statesmen. Of course, ris 
 ing above him in other and different attributes and in 
 political and patriotic attainments and power and in the 
 estimate of peoples and of nations, will ever stand pre 
 eminent, rightfully demanding and forever receiving the 
 first consideration and the unrestrained and enthusiastic 
 plaudits of all patriots, of every lover of human liberty, of 
 every coming generation George Washington and Abra 
 ham Lincoln. 
 
208 Address of Mr. Lodge on the 
 
 ADDRESS OF MR. LODGE. 
 
 Mr. PRESIDENT: Some time ago the Congress of the 
 United States decreed that statues of distinguished Ameri 
 cans presented by the States to the nation should be placed 
 in the old Chamber of the House of Representatives. 
 That hall is a very fine one, and it may be doubted 
 whether its beauty has been enhanced by the collection of 
 statues now ranged about its walls. The hall, both in its 
 proportion and its design, is simple, dignified, and harmo 
 nious; but no one, I imagine, would think of applying 
 those adjectives to the collection of statues which it con 
 tains. They certainly are not harmonious, for they are of 
 all sizes, diverse heights, and different substances. There 
 is, to be sure, a certain uniformity of artistic execution, 
 but even in this direction the uniformity is not complete, 
 for among the figures there are some good statues. The 
 most remarkable thing about the collection, however, is the 
 choice of subjects, which ranges from George Washington 
 to a governor of very passing if not purely local reputa 
 tion. This offers certainly a wide range of selection, but it 
 seems to lead to some confusion as to what entitles a man 
 to have his statue in the national Capitol when we consider 
 who have been omitted and who let in. 
 
 In view of these facts, therefore, it is a peculiar pleasure 
 to receive to-day from the State of New Hampshire two 
 statues which rightfully belong in any place set apart to 
 commemorate the distinguished men who have served the 
 Republic. One of these two was a soldier, conspicuous 
 among those who established by arms the independence 
 
Acceptance of the Statue of Daniel Webster. 209 
 
 of the United States. He sprang from that sturdy stock 
 which brought to the north of Ireland the blood of the 
 Scotch Covenanters and of Cromwell s Ironsides. He was 
 of that race of men who flung back the forces of the 
 Stuarts in the desperate siege of Londonderry, and who 
 have played such a noted part in the history of this coun 
 try as soldiers, statesmen, and pioneers. New Hampshire 
 to-day places his statue in the national Capitol, but the 
 American people will always think of JOHN STARK, not 
 in the cold repose of bronze or marble, but as he looked 
 leading the van through snow, and sleet, and darkness 
 when Washington saved the Revolution at Trenton, or 
 still more as he was when, blackened with powder, he 
 charged with his men upon the British lines at Bennington. 
 
 But it is not for me to dwell upon the services of this 
 brave soldier of the Revolution. That more fittingly 
 belongs to the Senators of his own State. New Hamp 
 shire, however, presents the statue of not only JOHN 
 STARK, but also that of a famous lawyer, statesman, and 
 orator, DANIEL WEBSTER, one of the greatest names in 
 our national history. In New Hampshire WEBSTER was 
 born and bred, and it is most fitting that she should give 
 his statue to the nation. There he first practiced law, and 
 thence he was first sent to Congress ; but his later career 
 and his great fame belong to Massachusetts, the State 
 which he served and honored and which loved and honored 
 him for so many years. We may well pause a moment in 
 the business of the day to look back at such a man and 
 such a career. 
 
 Nature was generous almost without stint to WEBSTER. 
 He was endowed with marvelous gifts, both physical and 
 14 s w 
 
210 Address of Mr. Lodge on the 
 
 mental. The splendid lines of Shakespeare so often abused 
 in eulogy could be applied to him without either exaggera 
 tion or bad taste. He in very truth had 
 
 The front of Jove himself; 
 An eye like Mars, to threaten and command; 
 A station like the herald Mercury, 
 New-lighted on a heaven-kissing hill ; 
 A combination, and a form, indeed, 
 Where every god did seem to set his seal, 
 To give the world assurance of a man. 
 
 It were much to be wished that some painter or sculptor 
 could set him before our eyes as Hamlet beheld his father, 
 
 even 
 
 In his habit as he lived. 
 
 And with these physical gifts, which WEBSTER had in 
 such large measure, there went also a personal charm as 
 strong as it was impalpable, something quite apart from 
 the intellect, and which is too often overlooked by the 
 biographer and historian. From the day when as a small 
 boy he sat by the roadside and read the Bible to the admir 
 ing teamsters who stopped to water their horses, or went to 
 the fair and spent not only his own money but his 
 brother s, WEBSTER was followed and admired, supported 
 and sustained, by hundreds of men and women who asked 
 nothing more than to be able to serve and love and follow 
 him. He awed and impressed the multitude who merely 
 saw and heard him. He charmed and fascinated those 
 with whom he came in closer touch. 
 
 At the end of his life, wearied and disappointed in his 
 immediate ambition, he declared that "law was uncertain 
 and politics utterly vain." Yet his career had been 
 crowded with all that men most desire. He had stood at 
 
Acceptance of the Statue of Daniel Webster. 211 
 
 the head of the bar of the United States. He had had all 
 that his great profession could give of renown and achieve 
 ment. No arguments before our highest court have a 
 fame equal to some of his, and he has left in his works the 
 greatest speech to a jury in the language. As strong in 
 argument as it is powerful in its appeal to the emotions, the 
 diction as beautiful as the style is finished, the speech 
 which avenged the murder of Stephen White stands unsur 
 passed. For nearly thirty years in the politics which he 
 called "utterly vain" he filled a place and wielded an in 
 fluence unsurpassed by any other man in a generation 
 which included Clay and Calhoun. As an orator he had 
 no rival, and the literary quality of his speeches is so fine 
 that they are repeated and familiar to-day, while those 
 of his great antagonists are scarcely read except by stu 
 dents. 
 
 The disappointment and regret of his last days came 
 from the fact that he had failed to gain the one great office 
 which he felt should have been his. The ambition was 
 honorable, as the disappointment was natural. He could 
 not see, as we see, how completely fame and achievement 
 like his overshadow and outweigh the mere office for which 
 he longed. Schoolboys declaim his sentences; lawyers 
 quote his opinions, and orators and statesmen appeal to his 
 arguments to uphold their own, while some of the men 
 who grasped the glittering prize for which he strove in 
 vain are little more than names in the catalogue of history. 
 
 His speeches, his writings, his work, are all part of our 
 history and our literature, and will so remain. The mem 
 ory of the man fills almost as great a place now as his 
 living presence did fifty years ago. Of all the men whose 
 
212 Address of Mr. Lodge on the 
 
 statues have been placed or are yet to be placed in yonder 
 hall there is not one so identified with this national Capitol 
 as WEBSTER. The old House recalls the speech for the 
 Greeks and the denunciation of the Triple Alliance. The 
 first thing that is said to any stranger who enters the 
 Supreme Court room is that this was the spot where 
 WEBSTER replied to Hayne. The new wings remind us 
 that it was his stately eloquence which commemorated the 
 laying of their corner-stones. 
 
 It is most fit that it should be so. WEBSTER S memory 
 ought to be part of the Capitol, which stands as the 
 symbol and expression of the National Government, for to 
 the nation and to the Union the love of his life and the 
 best work of his noble intellect were given. 
 
 WEBSTER is too great a man to treat with the contempt 
 which is implied by mere eulogy and the consequent 
 implication that he was faultless. He had serious imper 
 fections and grave moral defects. This is not the place to 
 enter into any analysis of either the strength or the weak 
 ness of his character. History recognizes and judges both. 
 We set up his statue here beneath the dome of the Capitol 
 in memory of his public career. There is 110 need, nor is 
 there time or space, to follow that career in all its varied 
 achievement, in its successes or its shortcomings. It is the 
 "Teat central fact of his life and work that is of most con- 
 
 o 
 
 cern to us here. For what did this man so marvelously 
 gifted stand preeminent? For what does he stand preemi 
 nent to-day? In his own lifetime he was called "the 
 expounder of the Constitution." The title is too dry and 
 too narrow. He stood then and now stands as the great 
 defender and champion of Union and of the nation in the 
 
Acceptance of the Statue of Daniel Webster. 213 
 
 days when they needed defense. Not even the jth of 
 March changed him in that respect. 
 
 That famous speech was the great crisis of WEBSTER S 
 life. He then turned his back upon his past, deserted his 
 lifelong opposition to slavery, and sustained the compro 
 mise in which slavery was dominant. In so doing he 
 defended the Union with all the fervor of his earlier days, 
 but of the vast change in his attitude toward slavery there 
 could be no question. The North fell away from him in 
 grief and pain. The Northern people felt that he had 
 deserted them as he had deserted his own past. In the 
 heat of that bitter time it was said that he had sold his 
 birthright for a mess of pottage, that he had abandoned his 
 principles and his people, and bowed his knee in the house 
 of Rimmon, bribed by a Southern promise of the Presi 
 dency which would never be fulfilled. It was a terrible 
 explanation, but it was a simple one, and the simplest 
 explanation is usually accepted at the moment. 
 
 History, however, can not be content with what is 
 merely obvious. In the tangled network of human mo 
 tives only omniscience can accurately decide which one 
 governs. But this much can easily be seen, that human 
 motives, so difficult always to determine, are rarely simple. 
 Many influences may work to the same end. That the 
 passion for the Presidency and the longing for Southern 
 support played an important part in WEBSTER S change of 
 attitude can not be doubted. But it is narrow and unjust 
 to think that this meaner influence was the only one. 
 Then as always the dominant motive with WEBSTER was 
 his love for the Union. That he made a capital mistake 
 on the 7th of March is clear enough to all who look 
 
214 Address of Mr. Lodge on the 
 
 calmly at our history and who, in the words of Washing 
 ton, "think continentally. " That he of all*men should 
 have seen that the Union could not be saved by compro 
 mise and that he above all men should not have tried to 
 save the Union by compromise are equally plain. Yet, 
 when all is said and all admitted, the fact remains that on 
 the 7th of March, 1850, dread of secession and love of 
 Union moved him to action however mistaken that 
 action may have been as they had always moved him 
 before. 
 
 As in his earliest so in his latest years, that love of Union 
 was the passion of his life. When the excitement of the 
 compromise period had passed, and when the war had 
 been fought out, this became more and more apparent. 
 Men looked back behind the yth of March speech, forgot 
 the hour of weakness, and recalled the days of strength. 
 There we can see, above all, in the mighty speech known 
 as the reply to Hayne, what WEBSTER really did for us. 
 He depicted the Union as it was. He showed how the Con 
 stitution had ceased to be an experiment and had made a 
 nation and not a confederacy or a league. His words sank 
 into the hearts of the people, and not only offered them 
 arguments but gave them faith. He did more to create 
 the national sentiment in the years before the war than 
 any other man, and it was this national sentiment that 
 he expressed so passionately which nerved the arms and 
 stirred the hearts of the Northern people when war came, 
 and which drove forward the bayonets of the national 
 armies on many a stricken field. 
 
 WEBSTER S devotion to the Union was as heartfelt as it 
 was fervent. He not only believed in it as a patriot, but it 
 
Acceptance of the Statue of Daniel Webster. 215 
 
 was a part of his very nature. He had "no Alleghanies in 
 his politics," and, like one of Lowell s pioneers, u he had 
 empire in his brain." In the great rush of the closing 
 passages of that 7th of March speech he cried 4 Peaceable 
 secession! peaceable secession! What States are to secede ? 
 What is to remain American? What am I to be?" This 
 was not the utterance of a colossal vanity or an overwhelm 
 ing egotism. It was a cry of the heart. The thought of 
 a broken Union filled him with horror. He could not con 
 ceive himself as other than a citizen of the United States. 
 He felt that he should stifle and die if he were forced to be 
 a dweller in one of half a dozen little republics on the 
 South American model, and this he knew, as we all know 
 now, was what secession carried in its train. It was this " 
 conception of Union and nationality, this imperial instinct, 
 which inspired WEBSTER S noblest words. If all else were 
 forgotten, the memory of his battle for the Union and the 
 nation would still survive. To the man who rendered this 
 great service and who brought such splendid gifts to its 
 performance we do well to raise a monument, and no place 
 can be so fit for it -as the very Capitol itself of the nation 
 he so dearlv loved. 
 
216 Address of Mr. G ailing er on the 
 
 ADDRESS OF MR. GALLINGER, 
 
 Mr. PRESIDENT: The career of DANIEL WEBSTER has 
 been so ably and elaborately set forth on former occasions 
 and to-day that nothing remains for me to do but to add a 
 single word. Spending my summer vacations in the town 
 where WEBSTER was born, and frequently passing the spot 
 on which the farmhouse stood where he first saw the light 
 of day, it would be a labor of love to trace his steps from 
 the obscure surroundings of his boyhood days to the time 
 when he became the foremost figure in the Senate of the 
 United States and the universally recognized leader of the 
 political party to which he belonged. But this has already 
 been done by others better than it could be done by me. 
 
 The word I will say is simply to emphasize WEBSTER S 
 devotion to the Union and his broad and all-pervading 
 nationality. He loved his country and its institutions. 
 He revered the Constitution, which he defended with con 
 summate ability in the National Legislature. He deplored 
 sectional strife, and exerted himself always to strengthen 
 the bonds of good feeling between the States and the 
 sections of our common country. Nullification, secession, 
 disunion, were to him things of horrid import, and his 
 influence and words were always in behalf of an insep 
 arable and indissoluble Union. 
 
 Were WEBSTER alive to-day, no fact connected with the 
 Republic would give him so much joy as that the contest 
 for a separation of the Union had been fought out and 
 settled, and that the great principles of government which 
 
Acceptance of the Statue of Daniel IVcbstcr. 217 
 
 he so ably advocated are forever established in the hearts 
 and consciences of the American people. Here to-day, as 
 a statue is unveiled in the nation s Capitol to his memory, 
 and his virtues and achievements are recalled, we may 
 well adopt his words as our own, and, renewing our vows 
 to the cause of constitutional government, say to the people 
 of all parts of this great land: 
 
 Let our object be our country, our whole country, and nothing 
 but our country; and by the blessing of God may the country itself 
 become then a splendid monument, not of oppression and power, 
 but of peace and prosperity, at which the whole world may gaze in 
 admiration forever. 
 
 The PRESIDING OFFICER. The question is on agreeing 
 to the concurrent resolutions submitted by the Senator 
 from Massachusetts [Mr. Hoar]. 
 
 The concurrent resolutions were unanimously agreed to. 
 
ACCEPTANCE OF THE STATUE OF DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 PROCEEDINGS IN HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES. 
 
 DECEMBER 12, 1894. 
 
 Mr. BAKER, of New Hampshire. Mr. Speaker, I ask 
 unanimous consent for the present consideration of the 
 resolution which I send to the desk. 
 
 The resolution was read, as follows: 
 
 Resolved, That the exercises appropriate to the reception and 
 acceptance from the State of New Hampshire of the statues of 
 JOHN STARK and DANIEL WEBSTER, to be erected in the old Hall 
 of the House of Representatives, be made the special order for 
 Thursday, the 20th day of December, at two o clock p. m. 
 
 The resolution was agreed to. 
 
 On motion of Mr. BAKER, of New Hampshire, a motion 
 to reconsider the vote by which the resolution was adopted 
 was laid on the table. 
 
 DECEMBER 17, 1894. 
 
 The SPEAKER laid before the House the following letter: 
 
 STATE OF NEW HAMPSHIRE, EXECUTIVE DEPARTMENT, 
 
 Concord, December 5, 1894. 
 
 DEAR SIR: In accordance with an act passed at the biennial 
 session of 1893, and in acceptance of an invitation contained in 
 section eighteen hundred and fourteen of the Revised Statutes of the 
 
 219 
 
220 Proceedings in House of Representatives. 
 
 United States, the State of New Hampshire has placed in the 
 National Statuary Hall in the Capitol at Washingtontwo statues in 
 marble the one of JOHN STARK, the other of DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 These statues were modeled by Carl Conrads after statues in bronze 
 now in the State House Park at Concord. The original of the 
 WEBSTER statue is by Ball, and was presented to the State by 
 Benjamin Pierce Cheney. The original statue of STARK is by 
 Conrads, and was erected by the State. 
 
 In behalf of the State of New Hampshire, I have the honor of 
 presenting these statues to the Congress of the United States. 
 Very respectfully, 
 
 JOHN B. SMITH, Governor. 
 Hon. CHARLES F. CRISP, 
 
 Speaker of the House of Representatives. 
 
 The SPEAKER. This communication will lie upon the 
 table until the House determines to act upon it. 
 
 DECEMBER 20, 1894. 
 
 The SPEAKER. The Clerk will report the special order. 
 The Clerk read as follows: 
 
 Resolved, That the exercises appropriate to the reception and 
 acceptance from the State of New Hampshire of the statues of 
 JOHN STARK and DANIEL WEBSTER, to be erected in the old Hall 
 of the House of Representatives, be made the special order for 
 Thursday, the 20th day of December, at two o clock p. m. 
 
 Mr. BAKER, of New Hampshire. Mr. Speaker, I ask that 
 the letter of his excellency the governor of New Hampshire, 
 addressed to the honorable Speaker of this House, which 
 has been read and laid upon the table, be taken from the 
 table and again reported. 
 
 The letter was read, as follows: 
 
 STATE OF NEW HAMPSHIRE, EXECUTIVE DEPARTMENT, 
 
 Concord, December 5, 1894. 
 
 DEAR SIR: In accordance with an act passed at the biennial 
 session of 1893, and in acceptance of an invitation contained in 
 section eighteen hundred and fourteen of the Revised Statutes of the 
 
Acceptance of the Statue of Daniel Webster. 221 
 
 United States, the State of New Hampshire has placed in the 
 National Statuary Hall in the Capitol at Washington two statues in 
 marble the one of JOHN STARK, the other of DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 These statues were modeled by Carl Conrads after statues in bronze 
 now in the State House Park at Concord. The original of the 
 WEBSTER statue is by Ball, and was presented to the State by 
 Benjamin Pierce Cheney. The original statue of STARK is by 
 Conrads, and was erected by the State. 
 
 In behalf of the State of New Hampshire, I have the honor of 
 presenting these statues to the Congress of the United States. 
 Very respectfully, 
 
 JOHN B. SMITH, Governor. 
 Hon. CHARLES F. CRISP, 
 
 Speaker of the House of Representatives. 
 
 Mr. BLAIR. Mr. Speaker, I have the honor to submit a 
 resolution, for which I ask immediate consideration. 
 The resolution was read, as follows : 
 
 Re solved by the House of Representatives (the Senate concurring], 
 That the thanks of Congress are presented to the State of New 
 Hampshire for the statue of DANIEL WEBSTER, a citizen of that 
 State, illustrious for distinguished civic services rendered to his State, 
 his country, and mankind 
 
 Resolved, That the statue be accepted and assigned to a place in 
 the National Statuary Hall, and that a copy of these resolutions, 
 duly authenticated, be presented to his excellency the governor of 
 the State of New Hampshire. 
 
222 Address of Mr. Blair on the 
 
 ADDRESS OF MR. BLAIR. 
 
 Mr, SPEAKER: In recognition of the inseparable blend 
 ing of our National and State Governments, each necessary 
 to the^ other and together forming one complete organic 
 whale, Congress has set apart the old Hall of the House 
 of Representatives for assembling in everlasting compan 
 ionship the statues of such of the superior men of the 
 States, not exceeding two in number from each, as they 
 respectively may select. 
 
 No great American belongs wholly to his State, nor yet 
 to the nation at large, but equally to both, and the presence 
 of these silent but perpetual reminders of the high exam 
 ples and illustrious lives of those who have been most con 
 spicuously identified with the creation and growth of our 
 institutions, States, and nationality can not fail to produce 
 an ennobling and far-reaching effect upon our people. 
 
 The presence of these monuments will forever educate 
 and instruct their beholders to emulate those actions which 
 constitute the high careers of the great men whom they 
 represent. 
 
 In times of peace they will increase our peace; they may 
 help to save us many wars, and to make those successful 
 in which we are compelled to engage. By the influence of 
 these august forms their great originals will hold perpetual 
 session and legislate for the good of their country until the 
 foundations of the Capitol are subverted and the city of 
 Washington is no more. 
 
 New Hampshire is one of the old thirteen. Founded in 
 1623, three years after the Pilgrims landed on Plymouth 
 
Acceptance of the Statue of Daniel Webster. 223 
 
 Rock, she was for one hundred and fifty years a frontier 
 State, and the Revolution found her with a population of 
 about eighty thousand, when Massachusetts had five times 
 that number of people. But the two colonies always had 
 much in common, far more than either had with any other 
 colony, and in a certain way there was between them a true 
 sisterly affection. 
 
 Massachusetts has done many a kindly deed for New 
 Hampshire, and in turn, for the century during which our 
 little State fought the savages and the Frenchmen for the 
 protection of her more flourishing, populous, and wealthy 
 neighbor, as well as for her own existence, Massachusetts, 
 by her enlarged opportunities, has often furnished, as she 
 is still doing, the arena on which the sons of New Hamp 
 shire have found a more ample scope for their abilities 
 and replenished the already well-filled records of the old 
 Bay State with achievements of the highest order of 
 ability. 
 
 One notable, and the greatest man ever given by one 
 American State to another, is the subject of the present 
 exercises, and if it be suggested, as it has been suggested, 
 that it might have been better if Massachusetts had been 
 left herself to fitly honor the immortal orator, lawyer, and 
 statesman by placing his counterfeit presentment in 
 Statuary Hall, it should be remembered that, besides the 
 facts of birth, education, and of a distinguished career 
 already accomplished when Mr. WEBSTER removed to 
 Massachusetts, she has precluded such action on her part 
 by having already presented statues of two of her own most 
 distinguished sons, whose illustrious lives fully entitle 
 them to that high distinction. The quota of Massachusetts 
 
224 Address of Mr. Blair on the 
 
 among these immortals is already full, but the complete 
 galaxy of her sons who will never die would fill the heavens. 
 
 Nor is even the great WEBSTER necessary to the fame of 
 New Hampshire, for she has innumerable soldiers, orators, 
 statesmen, and patriots, with their records of eternal honor. 
 But Mr. WEBSTER was essentially a product of New 
 Hampshire, born in the fullness of time, out of her stern 
 conditions, there bred and educated, planted, exercised, 
 and developed in professional life and in national public 
 life, and so prepared for the more fortunate arena which he 
 afterwards found in his adopted State. Therefore it is 
 most appropriate that New Hampshire claim here and now 
 and always that she produced the great North Star, whose 
 steady light shall bid the ship of our liberties, as it navi 
 gates the ocean of our national destiny, l forever know its 
 place." 
 
 The family of DANIEL WEBSTER is said to be of Scotch 
 origin, although its first American settler came from Eng 
 land and established himself at Hampton, N. H., in the 
 year 1636. The descent is traced through Kingston and 
 Salisbury, where DANIEL was born on the i8th day of 
 January, 1782. His father was born at Kingston in 1739. 
 He fought in the French and Indian war, rising to the rank 
 of captain in the famous regiment of Rodgers s rangers, 
 the most remarkable body of fighting men ever produced 
 by the combination of civilized and savage warfare. 
 
 When Canada became an English province by the 
 cession in 1763, Ebenezer Webster removed to Salisbury 
 and settled on the farm said to have then been the nearest 
 the savages and Canada of any resided upon by civilized 
 man in New England. He was a man of great natural 
 
Acceptance of the Statue of Daniel Webster. 225 
 
 abilities, but without any of the advantages of education 
 in early life. In spite of it all, however, he became a 
 judge and one of the most influential men in that part of 
 the State. 
 
 He determined to educate DANIEL, and in due time sent 
 him to Phillips Academy, Exeter, and to Dartmouth Col 
 lege. The tale of the struggles of the family to accom 
 plish this, and also the education of DANIEL S remarkable 
 older brother Ezekiel, which was not thought of until 
 the opening genius of DANIEL aroused him to the im- 
 < portance of giving to Ezekiel the same advantages he 
 was receiving himself, is pathetic to the last degree, and 
 no man can read it without tears. 
 
 In 1805 DANIEL commenced the practice of law at 
 Salisbury, where his father still lived, and where he sur 
 vived for a short time, and until he listened to the first 
 plea of his son and foresaw the inevitable celebrity which 
 was in store for him. 
 
 In the town of Plymouth, where I formerly lived, the 
 old court-house in which he made his first plea in an im 
 portant case is still preserved in its ancient form, being 
 used for the purpose of a public library. On his last visit 
 to Plymouth, Mr. WEBSTER, with a party of friends, vis 
 ited this ancient building, then being used for the humble 
 purposes of a wheelwright s repair shop, and pointed out 
 the location of the judges, lawyers, and jury, and described 
 the scenes of the trial which was the real commencement 
 of his professional career. After completing this intensely 
 interesting account, he carelessly took a piece of chalk 
 from the bench before him and wrote his name DANIEL 
 WEBSTER on the wooden wall of the room, where it was 
 15 s \v 
 
226 Address of Mr. Blair on the 
 
 for years afterwards pointed out to visitors as DANIEL 
 WEBSTER S autograph written in chalk, until one cold 
 morning an uncouth apprentice boy daubed it out of sight 
 in softening his brush, which had stiffened with paint the 
 previous night. 
 
 Knowing of these things and of the historic interest 
 which would always attach to this old court-house, I res 
 cued it from destruction, and it is one of the pleasant mem 
 ories of my life that I saw it dedicated to a purpose not 
 ignoble in comparison with that for which it was origi 
 nally erected. Traditions still survive in that community 
 of the tremendous effect produced by this first plea of a 
 then unknown young lawyer, but who has been famous ever 
 since. When I was a boy, an old man with an extraordi 
 nary memory was still surviving, who would repeat page 
 after page of it by heart with great verbal accuracy. I 
 may further add that on the occasion of his last visit to 
 Plymouth, which was in 1851, Mr. WEBSTER alluded to 
 his old friend, Dr. Thomas J. Whipple, who was once a 
 member of Congress from that vicinity, as "the greatest 
 reasoner he had ever known." Dr. Thomas J. Whipple 
 was the father of the famous Col. Thomas J. Whipple, 
 who lately died in the city of Laconia. 
 
 In the year 1807 Mr. WEBSTER removed to the wealthy 
 and patrician city of Portsmouth, when he at once took his 
 place in the front rank along with Jeremiah Mason, prob 
 ably the greatest master of the common law that ever lived 
 in this country, and who was, in the deliberately expressed 
 opinion of Mr. WEBSTER, in no wise the inferior of Chief 
 Justice Marshall himself. There is no doubt that the 
 masterly professional struggles between these two giants 
 
Acceptance of the Statue of Daniel Webster. 227 
 
 did more to make DANIEL WEBSTER the greatest all- 
 around lawyer of his time than anything else. He first 
 took his seat in Congress on the 24th day of May, 1813, 
 serving four years, and achieving national fame during the 
 Thirteenth and Fourteenth Congresses as a member of the 
 House from New Hampshire. 
 
 In 1816 he removed to Boston, and resided in the State 
 of Massachusetts until his death, which took place at 
 Marshfield on the 24th day of October, 1852. 
 
 Before Mr. WEBSTER left New Hampshire he had done 
 some of the best work of his life in the three great depart 
 ments of culture and intellectual service wherein he after 
 wards surpassed all contemporaries, as an orator, a lawyer, 
 and a statesman. 
 
 New Hampshire gave to Massachusetts and to the world 
 a full-grown giant, with powers drawn from her inexhaust 
 ible resources for the production of men preeminent and 
 sufficient for the demands of any arena. 
 
 It is not the least of the abounding glories of the first of 
 American States, save only the peerless mother of WEB 
 STER herself, that Massachusetts took him to her bosom 
 with the pride and affection of a natural mother, and that 
 from her then unapproachable vantage ground of oppor 
 tunity she enabled the savior of the Constitution and of the 
 Union to perform the tremendous work of the next thirty- 
 six years. But, sir, it was no sapling, but a full-grown 
 oak, which from the mountains of New Hampshire was 
 transplanted to the shores of Massachusetts, there to flour 
 ish with increased vigor in the commingling breezes of the 
 land and of the sea. 
 
 Mr. WEBSTER once said that New Hampshire was a 
 
228 Address of Mr. Blair on the 
 
 good State to emigrate from; and whatever may have been 
 his meaning at the time, not only he but thousands of her 
 sons, who have gone forth to found and fashion the desti 
 nies of other States and of the whole Union of all the 
 States, have found out too that New Hampshire is a good 
 State to emigrate from; for to the qualities and powers and 
 -training with which she endowed arid equipped them the 
 obstacles of nature and of society have helplessly yielded 
 and their home-given superiority has been acknowledged 
 by grateful Commonwealths which trace their own eleva 
 tion to the influence of our granite hills. 
 
 No emigrant from New Hampshire ever yet found it for 
 his interest to conceal the State he came from, and it is 
 her own greatest pride to feel that her sons need no written 
 certificate of excellence as they turn their faces worldward 
 to mingle in the great struggle of the generations of men, 
 for they carry with them in their own sinewy and well- 
 knit and self-reliant natures an endowment which no Spar 
 tan or Athenian mother ever gave to her boy, and which, 
 coupled with the resources and opportunities of other 
 States, have placed them in the front rank of every pro 
 cession wherever they are found, and demonstrated that 
 New Hampshire is indeed a good State to emigrate from. 
 And of us who have remained on our native soil and who 
 know her best, who does not thank God that he is per 
 mitted there to live? Who is not ready anywhere at any 
 time to maintain her honor and for her to die? 
 
 We are now, sir, approaching the great service of 
 DANIEL WEBSTER to mankind. Upon it depends his 
 fame, because it was as the expounder of the Constitution 
 and the demonstrator of the nature of the government 
 
Acceptance of the Statue of Daniel Webster. 229 
 
 formed by the union of these States that he placed himself 
 above all the benefactors which his generation gave to his 
 country, and laid the foundation of that intelligent con 
 viction and profound sentiment for patriotic nationality 
 which permeated the heads and hearts of the people, and 
 which, when in after years the grand trial of battle came, 
 preserved the Union and the supremacy of its laws. 
 
 The necessary brevity of these remarks will not permit 
 the general discussion of his life and character. I shall, 
 therefore, confine myself mainly to this part of the work 
 of Mr. WEBSTER, trusting, perhaps, to the courtesy of the 
 House, on some future occasion, to place a more adequate 
 estimate of his public services upon the records of the . 
 country, when I shall have had the opportunity for proper 
 preparation, which circumstances have now denied. I do 
 this the more willingly because I know that, besides my 
 colleague and other eminent gentlemen who will honor the 
 occasion in what they may have to say, the distinguished 
 member from Massachusetts, himself the worthy son of 
 one of the superior men whose frequent association with 
 Mr. WEBSTER was to the increased honor and benefit of 
 the whole country, and which association in youth he 
 witnessed, will do ampler justice than I possibly can to 
 the subject before us and to his own great Commonw T ealth. 
 
 A real nation is a growth of many people into one sensi 
 tive and compact society, capable of united action, both 
 for offense and defense, and in which all individuals and 
 parts composing it, harmoniously blended, are important 
 for its happy and powerful existence. It is not a mere herd 
 or agglomeration of individual men, however numerous or 
 even intelligent they may be. 
 
230 Address of Mr. Blair on the 
 
 Nationality is essentially a thing of the mind. It can be 
 produced only by processes which are chiefly mental, and 
 by experiences which, although they may appertain much 
 to the body, are yet incapable of creating a nation except 
 as they produce a mental and moral unity, upon the 
 strength of which, as a force directing and controlling 
 animal existence and material things, the power and hap 
 piness and existence of the nation depend. 
 
 In most of the great examples of history, states and em 
 pires have been the result of ages of slow evolution from 
 families and tribes, gradually increasing, improving, and 
 surpassing and absorbing or destroying their neighbors, 
 hardening and compacting and yet ever enlarging and as 
 cending with the vicissitudes of time, until at last they have 
 become mighty social units, which have already played 
 their parts in or are still in action upon the great drama of 
 human affairs. The progress has always been not only 
 from a given point forward and outward, but upward also. 
 There has been increase not only in numbers, but intel 
 lectually and morally, and those only are in the highest 
 and truest sense great nations in which the individual man 
 is most intelligently patriotic. 
 
 True it is that the influence of association upon the same 
 soil or the same climate, and the existence of those rela 
 tions essential to the perpetuation, the support, and the 
 defense of the community, will create a patriotic devotion 
 formidable to those who assail it. But the existence of 
 this tie the tie of patriotism which is of the essence of 
 nationality, can only result from a feeling so strong that it 
 has become such an essential part of the affections and of 
 the intellectual structure of the people that their existence 
 
Acceptance of the Statue of Daniel Webster. 231 
 
 together as a whole, as many in one, is absolutely indis 
 pensable to their happiness and that of their children. 
 And this sentiment of patriotic devotion founded upon 
 conviction of the mind must have become so strong and 
 universal and unquestioned and unquestionable that it 
 bursts forth spontaneously whenever the national autonomy 
 is assailed. Thus at last men are for their country because 
 it is their country. Whatever its cause may be, the coun 
 try must be right. Our country, right or wrong! Then 
 men die for the flag without a question. Individuals are 
 like atoms of the body, and partake of life and motion 
 only as collectively they are the great body politic, living 
 and dying in it and of it and with it. The Frenchman 
 lives and dies for France, the German for Fatherland, the " 
 Englishman for Old England and for the Empire of the 
 Seas, and the American for the Union of these States. 
 
 Generally, in the history of the world, the evolution of 
 this idea of nationality has been the work of ages. Not so 
 in America. The circumstances of the origin of the States 
 made it impossible. Yet an intense sentiment of national 
 ity was as necessary here as elsewhere for the existence of 
 the nation and the preservation of the Union upon which 
 it depends, because the laws of human nature are univer 
 sal. Our continent was unknown to the modern world 
 and to the ancestors of those who now live in it until 
 within the last four hundred years. The United States 
 has been practically settled and developed within the last 
 two hundred and fifty years. 
 
 Three warring nations England, France, and Spain 
 struggled together in our foundation, to say nothing of the 
 German, the Dutch, the Dane, the Swede and Norwegian, 
 
232 Address of Mr. Blair on the 
 
 and many other European elements, the savages, the 
 negro, and all the conflicting forms of creed aftid rank and 
 of prejudice, and of other distracting and inharmonious 
 conditions which obtained in our early history and during 
 the brief period of settlement and growth in thirteen 
 primal colonies which preceded the organization of the 
 Government in 1789, at which time the whole were actu 
 ally dissolving in ruin, notwithstanding the great but 
 terrible pressure of the then recent war for independence. 
 
 There was then no nation. Notwithstanding the strong 
 reasons, based upon common interest and ties, which re 
 sulted from participation in common dangers, and to some 
 extent of kindred blood, there was no general, all-per 
 vading sentiment of patriotism and of nationality when the 
 Government was founded. The best that could be done, 
 the best that even the wisest and greatest attempted to do, 
 was to organize a union which should leave the control of 
 local and domestic conditions to the sovereignty of the 
 States, parting with and conferring upon the General 
 Government nothing except because of absolute necessity, 
 and not from a general and spontaneous love of the whole 
 mass of the people for each other, based upon long and 
 tried association or upon intelligent conviction of what 
 was best for them and their posterity. 
 
 It was necessity and not love which led to the Union of 
 these States. The original confederation was but a union 
 of corporations, and there is little evidence that those cor 
 porations had souls which were inclined to cement them 
 selves into one grand nationality any further or faster than 
 stern necessity compelled them to unite or die. When the 
 pressure of imminent destruction was relaxed by the peace 
 
Acceptance of the Statue of Daniel Webster. 233 
 
 of independence in 1783, the true nature of the confeder 
 acy was revealed. Kach State and section was in it for 
 what could be made out of it, and for no more. 
 
 And then ensued, without actual violence, all the essential 
 conditions of absolute separate State sovereignty, but for 
 which there would have been outright civil war. In their 
 legal relations they were thirteen nations inclined to hos 
 tilities among themselves, and the interior condition of 
 many of the individual States was hardly better than that 
 which prevailed in the alleged confederacy at large. It is 
 not too much to say that if, when it was adopted, the terms 
 of the Constitution under which we now live had been 
 universally and clearly understood by all the people in all 
 the States precisely as they have turned out to be in the 
 light of the construction given them since that time, this 
 Union would not then have been formed. America would 
 not then have become a nation. 
 
 Time had not then welded us together. Intelligent con 
 viction had not done its work. There was no union of the 
 minds and hearts of the people of the several States such 
 as is indispensable to the existence of a nation a great 
 society which will die to preserve its internal as well as 
 external autonomy. At once the warfare over the contra 
 dictory constructions of the Constitution began. The Vir 
 ginia and Kentucky resolutions recorded the anti-national 
 views as early as 1798. A great party, strong in the whole 
 country and soon in control of the Government, and retain 
 ing it most of the time until 1840, generally upheld this 
 construction of the Constitution. 
 
 Meanwhile domestic slavery became a most powerful in 
 stitution in one-half of the country, and the development 
 
234 Address of Mr. Blair on the 
 
 of the cotton -raising industry identified the existing 
 prosperity as well as the social condition ef the great 
 South with the anti-national doctrines ; and during all 
 those forty years, from the foundation of the Government 
 until the debate between Mr. WEBSTER and Mr. Hayne 
 in 1830, the masses of the American people had been 
 taught (so far as they had been taught at all) to believe 
 that our Government was a confederacy of States which 
 might peaceably dissolve at will, and not a nation which 
 had the rightful power to coerce a State and reduce a 
 rebellion within a State by war against the will of the 
 State. 
 
 A free people will not fight for that in which they do 
 not believe. 
 
 Notwithstanding the decisions of the Supreme Court 
 and the luminous opinions of Marshall and of other great 
 jurists and statesmen, it is probable that when Mr. 
 WEBSTER stood up in the American Senate to reply to 
 the masterly speech of Mr. Hayne upholding the doctrine 
 of nullification and the right of secession, two-thirds of 
 the American people believed with Mr. Hayne and not 
 with Mr. WEBSTER, and nearly, perhaps quite, one-half 
 of the Northern people were of the same belief. The 
 jury was with Mr. Hayne. 
 
 Before the sentiment of nationality could become the 
 controlling one in this country, before there could be 
 created a devotion to the Union of the States and to the 
 sovereignty of that Union in all that had been granted to 
 it by the Constitution, even if need be to the shedding of 
 blood, it was necessary that some great spirit should 
 explore the whole ground of the relations between the 
 
Acceptance of the Statue of Daniel Webster. 235 
 
 States and the Union, should examine every proposition 
 advanced on either side, meet every sophistry, and resolve 
 every doubt that could be raised; weigh all conflicting 
 interests and duly balance them with each other; enlighten 
 all men and all sections with the torch of reason, and 
 enforce the truth by the most formidable powers of 
 eloquence upon the minds and hearts of the whole people. 
 
 It was necessary that the people should be aroused to 
 study the nature of their situation as a part of the great 
 system of human affairs, and that they be led profoundly 
 and anxiously to study the great problem of their relations 
 to each other and to mankind then and for all coming 
 time, that whenever in the future the test should come, as 
 come it did, they should give that construction to the Con- 
 stitution by which a generation afterwards welded the 
 Union of these States into one glorious sovereign whole, 
 a Union national and inseparable and indestructible in its 
 character, consecrated in the holiest blood of a million of 
 her sons, and ordained to last forever. 
 
 This was the great task that the God of nations set 
 before DANIEL WEBSTER when he replied to Robert Young 
 Hayne on the 26th day of January, A. D. 1830. Mr. 
 WEBSTER said: 
 
 Sir, I understand the honorable gentleman from South Carolina 
 to maintain that it is a right of the State legislatures to interfere 
 whenever in their judgment this Government transcends its consti 
 tutional limits, and to arrest the operation of its laws. * * * 
 And that if the exigency of the case, in the opinion of any State gov 
 ernment, require it, such State government may by its own sover 
 eign authority annul an act of the General Government which it 
 deems plainly and palpably unconstitutional. 
 
 Would anything with such a principle in it, or rather with such a 
 destitution of all principle, be fit to be called a government ? No, 
 
230 Address of Mr. Blair on the 
 
 sir. It should not be denominated a constitution. It should be 
 called rather a collection of topics for everlasting controversy; heads 
 of debate for a disputatious people. It would not be a government. 
 
 This Government, sir, is the independent offspring of the popular 
 will. It is not the creature of State legislatures; nay, more, if the 
 whole truth must be told, the people brought it into existence, estab 
 lished and have hitherto supported it- for the very purpose, among 
 others, of imposing certain salutary restraints on State sovereignties. 
 
 The people, then, sir, erected this Government, and have wisely 
 provided in the Constitution itself a proper and suitable mode and 
 tribunal for settling questions of constitutional law. The Constitu 
 tion has itself pointed out, ordained, and established that authority 
 by declaring, sir, that the Constitution and the laws of the United 
 States made in pursuance thereof shall be the supreme law of the 
 land, anything in the constitution or laws of any State to the con 
 trary notwithstanding, and that the judicial power shall extend to all 
 cases arising under the Constitution and laws of the United States. 
 
 These two provisions, sir, cover the whole ground. They are in 
 truth the keystone of the arch. With these it is a government; 
 without them it is a confederacy. 
 
 While the Union lasts we have high, exciting, gratifying prospects 
 spread out before us for us and our children. Beyond that I seek 
 not to penetrate the veil. God grant that in my day at least that 
 curtain may not rise ! God grant that on my vision never may be 
 opened what lies behind! When my eyes shall be turned for the 
 last time to behold the sun in heaven, may I not see him shining on 
 the broken and dishonored fragments of a once glorious Union ; on 
 States dissevered, discordant, belligerent ; on a land rent with civil 
 feuds, or drenched, it may be, with fraternal blood ! 
 
 Let my last feeble and lingering glance rather behold the gor 
 geous ensign of the Republic, now known and honored throughout 
 the earth, still full high advanced, its arms and trophies streaming 
 in their original luster, not a stripe erased or polluted, nor a single 
 star obscured, bearing for its motto no such miserable interrogatory 
 as "What is all this worth?" nor those other words of delusion and 
 folly, "Liberty first and Union afterwards;" but everywhere, spread 
 all over in characters of living light, blazing on all its ample folds, 
 as they float over the sea and over the land and in every wind 
 
Acceptance of the Statue of Daniel Webster 237 
 
 under the whole heavens, that other sentiment, dear to every true 
 American heart, Liberty and Union, now and forever, one and 
 inseparable. 
 
 Sir, to us upon whose vision that curtain did rise, and 
 who saw and suffered what lay behind, these words seem 
 like the utterances of inspiration ; and with the added 
 emphasis of four years of bloody debate on a thousand 
 battlefields, and with the shrieks and prayers of a million 
 of our countrymen still ringing in our ears, let us of the 
 North, and us of the South, and all of us from every part 
 of our chastened, reunited, and glorified country, com 
 mend them to ourselves and to our posterity generation 
 after generation, until the Union shall dissolve and blend 
 in millennial peace and governments among men shall- 
 be no more- 
 
 When Mr. WEBSTER sat down at the close of that tre 
 mendous oration the work was done. 
 
 A nation had been born in a day. That day was the real 
 turning point in American history since the Declaration of 
 Independence. It, too, should be celebrated with bonfires 
 and illuminations, the ringing of bells, and the acclaim of 
 rescued and happy millions forever. It insured the exist 
 ence of the nation, because it furnished the argument 
 which convinced the reason and stormed and overwhelmed 
 the hearts of the people. For the first time they saw and 
 felt that they must be a nation, that nationality and the 
 perpetual union of these States are inseparable and indis 
 pensable to their existence, and that the patriot must die 
 to maintain the supremacy of the flag of the Union against 
 domestic revolt as well as against the foreign foe. 
 
 During the next thirty years the sentiments of this great 
 
238 Address of Mr. Blair on the . 
 
 argument were repeated everywhere throughout the popu 
 lous and ever-increasing North. 
 
 Its magnificent diction made it a classic at once to live 
 forever by the side of the oration of Demosthenes on the 
 Crown, while the occasion and the consequences of its 
 delivery were infinitely more important. Every schoolboy 
 declaimed it, every student studied it, every professional 
 man sought culture and inspiration from its grand and 
 impressive sentences, its logic, its sarcasm, its majesty, and 
 almost supernatural power. 
 
 The people read it and reread it and read it again, and 
 ever afterwards they called him the "godlike." That 
 speech was the platform of the Union armies throughout 
 the war for the Union, and if its sentiments had not been 
 growing in the hearts and minds of the people of the North 
 for thirty years the war would have been a failure and the 
 nation would have been lost. Even as it was, at its out 
 break a Northern President declared that he could not 
 coerce a State. But if he could not, the American people 
 had so studied the Constitution under Mr. WEBSTER that 
 they could and they did. But they never would have 
 made war for the Union if they had not first been welded 
 into a real nation by the logic and power of Mr. WEBSTER S 
 reply to Mr. Hayne. 
 
 Mr. WEBSTER performed twenty-two years of very im 
 portant public service after the reply to Hayne, which was 
 his greatest work, and the greatest work ever performed 
 by any man in speech. 
 
 But I rest his fame and the tributes we bring him now 
 upon the reply to Hayne. All else he ever did, and it 
 would be enough to immortalize a hundred men, is as 
 
V 
 
 Acceptance of the Statue of Daniel Webster. 239 
 
 nothing in comparison to the argument which made us a 
 nation, and will preserve us a nation forevermore. 
 
 In the autumn of 1852, at Marshfield, on the shore of 
 his beloved adopted State, his majestic form gave up his 
 mighty spirit, and, as though the mortal was conscious 
 of the transition to immortality, exclaiming, "I still 
 live!" he died. 
 
 Sir, his excellency Governor John B. Smith, with his 
 honorable council, have made it one of the important meas 
 ures of his wise, beneficent, and distinguished adminis 
 tration of the affairs of New Hampshire, in accordance 
 with the action of her legislature, to place in Statuary 
 Hall the figure of this extraordinary man, and thus to 
 commemorate the great actions of her illustrious son. 
 
 JOHN STARK and DANIEL WEBSTER represent New 
 Hampshire in yonder Hall filled with the immortal men 
 whom their respective States do most delight to honor. 
 
 STARK in war, WEBSTER in peace and in that prepara 
 tion for war which in time of peace his labors made in the 
 minds of the people, and without which the greatest of all 
 wars would have failed. Who shall say that the selection 
 of New Hampshire is not well made? Yet she had many 
 other worthy sons, and among her Langdons and Whipples 
 and Bartletto and Thorntons and Weares and Livermores 
 and Sullivans and Cilleys, and hundreds of others of Revo 
 lutionary and later days, the choice of preeminence was not 
 an easy task. These, I may proudly say, sir, are specimens 
 of her equal rather than of her greatest work. 
 
 As I linger in thought over her noble history; as I dwell 
 upon the enchantment of her scenery, her mountains, her 
 vales, and her waters; her soil, stubborn but producing 
 
240 Address of Mr. Blair on the 
 
 the choicest growths of her latitude; her forests, which 
 defy the storm and the thunderbolt, so thai it scarcely 
 rends the stalwart trunk which conducts it to the earth ; her 
 waters, which surpass the nectar of the gods in ambrosial 
 purity, and which move more wealth-producing machinery 
 than any equal power anywhere else on earth ; her beauty 
 of form and feature; her sweet breath, that heals the sick 
 and inspires the exhausted sons and daughters of toil from 
 other States and lands still more remote with life and hope 
 and resolution; of her institutions of civil and religious 
 liberty and of her rich contributions to all that is great 
 and good and glorious in this world, and of the deeds of 
 the great dead whom she has given to the eternal and the 
 unseen, but whose examples survive forever to instruct and 
 ennoble mankind, I feel the eulogium spontaneously spring 
 ing to my lips, which I suppress only because I know that 
 the modesty of New Hampshire will leave to the Genius 
 of Columbia to utter it in this high presence and among 
 her generous sister States: 
 
 Many daughters have done virtuously, but thou excellest them all. 
 
Acceptance of the Statue of Daniel Webster. 241 
 
 ADDRESS OF MR. EVERETT. 
 
 Mr. SPEAKER: When the State of New Hampshire pre 
 sents to the nation statues of JOHN STARK and DANIEL 
 WEBSTER, the Commonwealth, of Massachusetts feels that 
 she has no doubtful part to take in the appropriate exer 
 cises. It was on her soil that JOHN STARK hastened to 
 join the gathering armies of American liberty; and his 
 courage, his persistency, and his prudence exhibited 
 themselves in their fullest luster at Bunker Hill, close to 
 the spot which Winthrop chose for his plantation. Without 
 JOHN STARK that glorious defeat might have been a real as 
 well as a nominal victory for the oppressors of Massa 
 chusetts. 
 
 But when DANIEL WEBSTER is the theme of our ad 
 dresses, Massachusetts claims something more than a mere 
 appreciative or sympathetic share in his renown. He 
 came to Boston in early manhood, and, with no recom 
 mendation but \vhat appeared in his face and conversation, 
 studied law with our honored governor, Christopher Gore, 
 one of the most learned, patriotic, and high-minded of our 
 earlier jurists and statesmen. He was admitted to the bar 
 of our Suffolk County before he entered that of his own 
 Hillsboro. When his Congressional service from New 
 Hampshire was over, he transferred his home and his prac 
 tice to Boston, after hesitating between that and Albany, 
 as offering the wider field. He served in the convention 
 of 1820, which recast our ancient constitution so well 
 1 6 s w 
 
242 Address of Mr. Everett on the 
 
 that it has needed no general remodelling in the lapse of 
 seventy-four years. 
 
 In that year, 1820, he electrified the nation by a mighty 
 strain of eloquence at the anniversary of the landing at 
 Plymouth; and again in 1825 by n ^ s oration on laying the 
 corner stone of the Bunker Hill Monument in the presence 
 of Lafayette. For a few days he was a member of the 
 Massachusetts legislature. Thrice he was elected to this 
 House by the votes of the city of Boston, and as many 
 times to the United States Senate by the legislature of 
 Massachusetts. At our bar were won some of his most 
 distinguished forensic triumphs, notably that amazing 
 argument in the case of the murder of Captain White, where 
 his description of the workings of a guilty conscience 
 makes everyone with the slightest stain on his soul feel as 
 if the great pleader s hand was inserted in his breast and 
 the fingers working among the very fibres of his heart. 
 As the representative of Massachusetts, the walls of yon 
 der venerable halls rang with the thunders of his voice, 
 and statesmen from every part of our common country 
 drew in his messages of profound wisdom, of burning elo 
 quence, of exalted patriotism; pilgrims from afar flocked 
 to gaze on the man of whom it is hard to say whether the 
 admiration of strangers or the love of his own was most 
 conspicuous. 
 
 Retaining the possession and the love of his paternal 
 acres along the Merrimac, he made a seaside home on the 
 shores of Massachusetts Bay, which was consecrated by the 
 tombs of the Winslow family, the descendants of Edward 
 Winslow, second to none among those Pilgrim Fathers 
 whose services he had so nobly commemorated; and there, 
 
Acceptance of the Statue of Daniel Webster. 243 
 
 when his long work of devotion and honor was done, the 
 stalwart frame which first drew breath in the fields of New 
 Hampshire was laid to rest in the soil of his adopted State, 
 among the saints and heroes of Massachusetts. 
 
 You gave him to us as your most precious treasure; we 
 accepted, we honored, we loved, we kept him as our own. 
 For through all these years of his adoption Mr. WEB 
 STER retained the confidence and love of our Common 
 wealth. There was no one who so completely felt with 
 her feelings and spoke with her voice. Like every public 
 man, he had his opponents, and their opposition at times 
 was deep and bitter, their tones rude and harsh. At certain 
 periods of his life it seemed as if the ancient ties must be 
 severed and the ancient love wax cold, but before the sad"- 
 day of his death the clouds had parted, and few indeed 
 there were within the borders of the Bay State who did not 
 feel that that hour had removed the man who stood before 
 the nation as our one true representative. When his statue 
 holds its place by yonder entrance we feel no jealousy of 
 New Hampshire that the visitor to the Hall finds her son 
 as the doorkeeper to the representatives of the nation; 
 there is no feeling but generous rivalry that the entrance 
 lies under the overshadowing presence of him who is ours 
 as he is yours. 
 
 I shall not be guilty of the impropriety of detailing Mr. 
 WEBSTER S career at this hour; but shall speak in com 
 memoration of two things only which I conceive place him 
 upon a pinnacle of exalted honor where there are very few 
 at his side. He was an American patriot; he lived for the 
 Union. He loved New Hampshire, he loved Massachusetts 
 with all his heart; but he never thought of either except 
 
244 Address of Mr. Everett on the 
 
 as belonging to one glorious, indissoluble, perpetual whole. 
 He knew well that his own State, the first colony to form a 
 State constitution, did not do so till she had asked the 
 advice of the Continental Congress delegates from the 
 whole thirteen. The Union as the only protection, nay, as 
 the inseparable adjunct of our liberty, the Constitution as 
 the embodiment alike of our national and our State exist 
 ence, were all in all to him. He would not admit, he could 
 not conceive, of the States, his own or any other, separated 
 from the Union, any more than he could fancy one star in 
 the belt of Orion separate from the gorgeous sisterhood 
 which it joins to form those names of splendor. 
 
 In weal and in woe, in cloud or in sunshine, each State 
 looking each other in the face or presenting a serried front 
 to the other nations, he poured in the ears of his people one 
 message for encouragement or warning, that, united, we 
 are all that our wildest imagination or ambition can claim; 
 divided, we are w r orse than nothing. On every spot of 
 American soil he saw his equal home. The Buckeye and 
 the Palmetto were as dear to him as the Pine and the Oak. 
 In the paradise of our Western land, this garden planted by 
 the hand of God, he conceived that every State must send 
 up her own growth, by the blending of their sturdy stocks, 
 their verdant shades, their grateful fruits of every stature 
 and type and hue, to cast over this broad continent that 
 mingled fragrance which should breathe forever of liberty, 
 of order, of progress, and of hope for man. 
 
 As the champion of the Union, he was dear to every 
 section of the country. When others saw parts only, he 
 saw, he cheered, he inspired the whole. He was as dear 
 to Kentucky as to New Hampshire ; to Georgia as to 
 
Acceptance of the Statue of Daniel Webster. 245 
 
 Massachusetts. He died as he wished to die, before his eyes 
 might gaze "on a land rent with civil feuds and drenched 
 in fraternal blood, on States dissevered, discordant, bellig 
 erent;" and in that terrible time, Mr. Speaker, which 
 racked the hearts of all, how many were there not, in your 
 State as in mine, who turned a wistful glance to the like 
 ness of those dark features so familiar in every American 
 household and breathed with a sigh, "If thou hadst been 
 here, our brothers had not died. 
 
 This devotion to the Union was the spring whence flowed 
 all Mr. WEBSTER S Senatorial and many of his forensic 
 utterances. He impressed it upon his countrymen by 
 oratory, whereof he was an unquestioned master. There. 
 is this characteristic of Mr. WEBSTER S eloquence, wherein 
 it differs from the speech of many of his most admired con 
 temporaries, that it is of permanent value. It stands the 
 test of reading and rehearsal. You may take the speeches 
 of many illustrious men which thrilled their audiences to 
 shouts and tears, and try to reproduce their effect now; the 
 printed word is cold and dead without the magic of the 
 circumstances which evoked them and the voices which 
 uttered them. But the crudest schoolboy can elicit from 
 the most hackneyed periods of WEBSTER, as he can from 
 those of Chatham and of Gladstone, strains of conviction 
 and of pathos which shall penetrate and stir strong men and 
 tender women now as they did sixty years ago. 
 
 At home his name was the symbol of union. Of what 
 was it abroad ? I desire to recall a single episode in his 
 career, when the dispute on the Maine boundary threat 
 ened to plunge us into a war with England. President 
 Tyler s Administration had inherited from President Van 
 
246 Address of Mr. Everett on the 
 
 Buren s the seeds of strife with Great Britain. The oldest 
 States were chafing- in the Northeast; the newest Terri 
 tories in the Northwest. The people of Maine believed 
 their descendants believe to-day that the Northeastern 
 claims of Great Britain had no warrant in the treaty of 1783. 
 The line proposed by the King- of Holland had been indig 
 nantly rejected. The pioneers of the Columbia were 
 equally incensed. Throughout the country and all along 
 the frontier fiery spirits were eager to rush to arms. Sup 
 pose Mr. WEBSTER had caught up that sentiment; sup 
 pose that when Sir Robert Peel suggested the hope of i 
 compromise line and sent a special envoy, Mr. WEBSTER 
 had refused the proposal ; had defied Sir Robert Peel and 
 Lord Ashburton; had appealed to the war spirit of the coun 
 try from Maine to Louisiana; had launched the yeomanry and 
 chivalry of the Union simultaneously across the St. Croix, 
 the St. Lawrence, the Columbia, and the Sabine; had sent 
 the Princeton on her first cruise to open against the Kng- 
 lish that deep-mouthed ordnance which was to prove so 
 fatal to his own successor. Why, at the end of Mr. Tyler s 
 Administration he might have floated into the White House, 
 triumphantly borne on waves of blood, as the great war 
 Secretary ! A more brilliant prospect of glory rarely offers 
 itself to republican statesmen. Mr. WEBSTER knew bet 
 ter. He knew that the torch of war as it sweeps over 
 kindred nations, however it may dazzle or may warm at the 
 moment, leaves behind it a terrible train of woe not 
 merely the wounds and deaths of thousands who can ill 
 be spared to their country; not merely blasted fields and 
 ruined families; not merely the cost of millions, which 
 a peace of tenfold duration can hardly repair, but the 
 
Acceptance of the Statue of Daniel Webster. 247 
 
 rankling passions and nnsatiated vengeance of mighty 
 nations, which God made to live together in unity, peace, 
 and concord. 
 
 Mr. WEBSTER S acceptance of a boundary line brought 
 upon him the malignant reproaches of all that is ignorant 
 and base on both sides of the water, both for what he kept 
 and what he gave. All that he renounced would have been 
 a trifling price to pay for the first extradition treaty, \vhich 
 he achieved at the same time ; but it was repaid tenfold 
 by the glorious victory of peace between sister nations, 
 who never ought to be at war. 
 
 The honors to which Mr. WEBSTER rose, as the just 
 rewards of his exertions, were not all that his generous and 
 well-founded ambition expected; they were not all that" 
 his State deemed he deserved. Massachusetts had not been 
 afraid to cast her electoral vote for him when no other 
 State stood by her side. It was under a burden of disap 
 pointment, a sense of ingratitude, that he lay down to rest 
 at last, where his requiem is chanted by the waves of that 
 ocean to which he resorted so eagerly for sport and recrea 
 tion, on which he gazed not as the barrier which Provi 
 dence has raised to sever hostile lands, but as the great field 
 for friendly intercourse, opening for peaceful traffic, as the 
 road where the white-winged squadrons of trade and amity 
 can pass to and fro between united and trusting peoples. 
 
 Xo; he did not gain the highest reward of an American 
 statesman. And what if he did not gain it ? The crown of 
 honor as an orator, a statesman, a patriot, can afford to lack 
 a single jewel when starred with gems of such varied lustre; 
 and when his native State sets his statue in yonder sacred 
 Hall, we may repeat of him, with scarcely an alteration, the 
 
248 Address of Mr. Everett on the 
 
 lines which welcome to Westminster Abbey the dust of an 
 earlier secretary of state: 
 
 Along the walls where speaking marbles show 
 What worthies form the hallowed mold below; 
 Proud names, who once the reins of empire hel d ; 
 In arms who triumphed, or. in arts excelled; 
 Chiefs, graced with scars, and prodigal of blood; 
 Stern patriots, who for sacred freedom stood ; 
 Just men, by whom impartial laws were given, 
 And saints who taught and led the way to heaven 
 Ne er to these chambers where the mighty rest 
 Since their foundation came a nobler guest. 
 
 Mr. Speaker, I have discharged, most imperfectly I know, 
 a debt resting on me as a Representative of Massachu 
 setts, a lover of his country, and an admirer of whatever 
 is grand in public life. But I have tried to do more; I 
 have tried to pay a debt of hereditary gratitude, of friend 
 ship, of love. I am old enough to have sat by his side and 
 gazed into his face old enough to have received from his 
 lips the seal of hereditary affection, the renewal of one that 
 lasted unbroken for long over forty years. I am old 
 enough to remember how the silence of a New England 
 Sunday morning was broken by the deep-toned bell which 
 told that he had passed away, and chilled the hearts of the 
 boys and girls as well as of the men and women of Massa 
 chusetts. 
 
 It is a distinguished honor to respond for Massachusetts 
 when she welcomes the statue of that mighty son whom she 
 shares with New Hampshire. It is a delight to awaken the 
 passing echoes of that man s renown, who, besides the 
 admiration he won from all his countrymen and the respect 
 he extorted from every nation, bound to him his friends, 
 now, alas! a few and feeble band, by a chain of undying 
 love whose lustre memory only makes brighter as time with 
 draws its links farther and farther into the unseen world. 
 
Acceptance of the Statue of Daniel Webster. 249 
 
 ADDRESS OF MR. CURTIS, OF NEW YORK. 
 
 Mr. SPEAKER: It is not my purpose to ask the indul 
 gence of the House to give an extended review of the 
 services of JOHN STARK and DANIEL WEBSTER. The 
 Representatives of New Hampshire have done that in 
 fitting words and in ample form. 
 
 JOHN STARK was a striking personality. He had the 
 genius of a military leader, uniting clear conception of 
 purpose to prompt action, consummate skill to intrepid 
 boldness, and the power of imparting to others when in 
 battle his own personal characteristics, and to impel them 
 to the most heroic action. This magnetic power he had in 
 an extraordinary degree. It comes as a birthright, and is 
 a gift which it is not the province of technical schools to 
 create nor experience to teach. 
 
 He conducted compaigns against the skulking Indian 
 and the disciplined soldier of the British army with con 
 spicuous and unvarying success. When called by the exi 
 gencies of the service to strategic points, he marched with 
 the force at his disposal, calling for volunteers from the 
 section through which he passed, and organized raw re 
 cruits into battalions, which he fought with such courage 
 and impetuosity that they overwhelmed veteran troops. 
 His presence multiplied their efficiency as though their 
 numbers had been doubled, and Colonel Baum, whose 
 command (as well as his reserves, under Colonel Breyman) 
 was captured by STARK at Bennington, acknowledged 
 that in his report, saying: "They fought more like hell 
 hounds than soldiers." 
 
250 Address of Mr. Curtis on the 
 
 His important victory at Bennington contributed very 
 materially to the success of our arms in the decisive battle 
 of Saratoga, in which the Continental army won against 
 the generalship of the most accomplished soldier England 
 sent to America during the Revolutionary war. JOHN 
 STARK was, throughout his long years of public service, 
 true, valiant, and eminently successful, a conspicuous rep 
 resentative of the martial spirit and the patriotic devotion 
 which won our independence. 
 
 DANIEL WEBSTER was born in the early days of the 
 nation s independence. If the Muses attend at the birth 
 of poets and "feed them on thoughts that voluntary 
 move harmonious numbers, " so may DANIEL WEBSTER S 
 have been attended by the guardian angel of the Republic, 
 for his life was one of devotion to the Federal Union. He 
 gave a forecast of his future in his first public address, 
 delivered when a college student at eighteen years of age, 
 in which he commended "love of country," praised the 
 "grandeur of the American nationality, fidelity to the Con 
 stitution, and the nobility of the Union of the States." 
 
 One of the first important cases in which he was 
 retained related to the charter of his alma mater, and 
 involved a construction of the Federal Constitution. His 
 argument in support of the principles he maintained was 
 sustained by the Supreme Court of the United States in a 
 decision which was the first to define the scope and 
 supremacy of the Federal Constitution, and which has 
 since stood as a correct interpretation of its sovereign 
 authority. Later, in the United States Senate, preceding, 
 pending, and following nullification, he again asserted its 
 principles, then vigorously disputed; and a generation 
 
Acceptance of the Statue of Daniel Webster. 251 
 
 afterwards, at the close of a fratricidal war, his interpreta 
 tion was accepted by all. He saw with prophetic vision 
 what dire results a different construction would produce, 
 and prayed that his eyes should never behold discordant, 
 dismembered States, a land drenched in fraternal blood. " 
 The strife came after his glorious career was ended, and 
 "the error, the heresy of opinion" he so eloquently com 
 bated could never have been overcome except by the appeal 
 and the sacrifices which were made; but the end of the 
 civil war brought a full acceptance of the principles he had 
 contended for as essentially requisite to the preservation of 
 the Union. 
 
 Lamartine has said: "There are certain men whom 
 nature has endowed with distinct privileges. Their ambi 
 tion, instead of being the offspring of passion, is the 
 emanation of mental power. They do not aspire, but 
 they mount by an irresistible force, as the aerostatic globe 
 rises above an element heavier than itself, by the sole 
 superiority of specific ascendency." Among the favored 
 few thus richly endowed, whose intellect and devotion have 
 been a benefaction to the people of this country, DANIEL 
 WEBSTER stands preeminently at the head. 
 
 When Congress, on the 2d of July, 1864, "authorized 
 the President to invite each and all the States to furnish 
 statues in marble or bronze, not exceeding two for each 
 State, of deceased persons who have been citizens thereof 
 and illustrious for historic renown or for distinguished 
 civic or military services," the country was at the crisis of 
 the mighty contest for its preservation. Men of stout 
 hearts and unswerving patriotism directed public affairs, 
 and, with confidence in the ultimate triumph of the Union 
 
252 Address of Mr. Curtis on the 
 
 cause, Congress dedicated the old Hall of the House of 
 Representatives as a National Statuary Hall, thus formally 
 declaring that the Capitol at Washington was, and should 
 forever be, the Capitol of an undivided country. 
 
 The States responding to the invitation have sent, with 
 rare discrimination, life-sized images in imperishable mar 
 ble of men most conspicuous for services in establishing 
 and maintaining the Federal Government. New Hamp 
 shire sends a faithful image of her citizen soldier, who was 
 the embodiment of civic virtue and martial genius, and of 
 him whose loving heart, massive intellect, and eloquent 
 tongue were ever exerted for humanity, liberty, and prog 
 ress ; the expounder and defender of the Constitution. 
 They will stand in silent companionship with the statues 
 of eminent Americans conspicuous in the struggle for* 
 independence and the preservation of the Union; with 
 Washington, Hamilton, Jefferson, and their compatriots, 
 who achieved our independence; with Lincoln and his 
 associates in the cause of preserving the Union men who 
 preeminently excelled in the value of their patriotic 
 labors in the cause of humanity and constitutional govern 
 ment the achievements of the historic characters of any 
 previous age. 
 
 In accepting these statues, let all, and especially those 
 who took part, on whichever side, in the great conflict in 
 which these disturbing questions were finally and, as we 
 all believe, wisely and justly settled, make grateful ac 
 knowledgment to Almighty God for His blessings on their 
 beneficent services to us as a nation, and ever declare, in 
 the words of the American statesman s prayer, "Liberty 
 and Union, now and forever, one and inseparable!" 
 
Acceptance of the Statue of Daniel Webster. 253 
 
 ADDRESS OF MR. MORSE. 
 
 Mr. SPEAKER: I can hardly hope to add anything to the 
 eloquent words which have been spoken on this occasion 
 by my colleague and the distinguished gentlemen who 
 have preceded me, and my speech will be brief. 
 
 At Marshfield, in my district, was the Massachusetts 
 home of DANIEL WEBSTER, and at Marshfield lie buried 
 the mortal remains of the great expounder and defender of 
 the Constitution; and the waters of Massachusetts Bay 
 have washed the shores of that ancient town and sung a 
 lullaby to the sleeper there for nearly half a century. 
 
 Air. Speaker, New Hampshire, the birthplace of the 
 godlike DANIEL, honors the State and her illustrious son 
 by this act in the presence of her distinguished governor 
 to-day, and honors Massachusetts as well by this tribute to 
 her illustrious and adopted son. 
 
 Yes, at Marshfield, in my district, hard by old Plymouth, 
 where sleep the Pilgrims, and where the gigantic statue 
 of Faith surmounts the monument to their memory; hard 
 by old Duxbury, where the monument to Miles Standish 
 casts its shadow on the sea; hard by old Hingham, where 
 stands the statue of Massachusetts great war governor, 
 John A. Andrew, whose finger points to the bar of God, 
 whose evenhanded justice he invoked for all men without 
 regard to race, color, or condition; hard by old Quincy, 
 where rest the mortal remains of two Presidents John 
 Adams, the second President of the United States, and 
 John Quincy Adams, the Old Man Eloquent, who, after he 
 had been President, for sixteen years stood in this Capitol as 
 
254 Address of Mr. Morse on the 
 
 the representative of substantially the same district which 
 I have the honor to represent, and who died a,t the post of 
 duty in yonder hall, February 23, 1848, saying, "This is 
 the last of earth; I am content" in that part of the old 
 Commonwealth, rich in history, big with great men, re 
 nowned in all our history; I say, in the old God-fearing 
 town of Marshfield DANIEL WEBSTER lived and died. 
 Here he looked out on the scenes of earth for the last time, 
 and uttered his last words, "I still live." 
 
 Surrounded by his friends and those he loved, he bade 
 adieu to the scenes of earth, and, as all must do, great and 
 small, sooner or later, he crossed the great divide; he 
 entered on the awful and untried realities of the eternal 
 world. From the windows of his chamber he took his last 
 long look at the waters of Massachusetts Bay and the old 
 ocean he loved so well the old ocean whose farthermost 
 waters washed the shores of sunny Spain, but to his eye as 
 boundless and shoreless as eternity, upon which he was 
 soon to enter. And the men of Massachusetts clasped 
 each others hands and looked in each others faces, and 
 said, "Our pilot has dropped from the helm; who now 
 shall guide our ship of state?" And Massachusetts and 
 the country were stilled in mourning and sorrow for the 
 great man who had fallen, for the patriot who lay dead on 
 his shield, for the orator and statesman who had died at 
 the post of duty, and forty-two years later we have met on 
 this solemn occasion to do honor to his memory. 
 
 Mr. Speaker, as I looked up in the face of the marble 
 statue after it was unveiled to-day, I said to myself, could 
 the stone heart beat, could the marble lips move, could 
 the tongue of marble speak, what would he say to his 
 
Acceptance of the Statue of Daniel Webster. 255 
 
 countrymen here now assembled? Methinks he would 
 repeat over the prayer contained in his immortal reply to 
 Hayne, of South Carolina: 
 
 When these eyes shall behold the sun in heaven for the last time, 
 may they not behold it shining upon the broken and dishonored 
 fragments of a once glorious Union. 
 
 Mr. Speaker, how can we close the services of this 
 solemn and interesting occasion better than by repeating 
 over- the watchword of this great son of Massachusetts in 
 the speech to which I have referred? How can we close 
 these historical and memorial services better than by 
 repeating his immortal words, the watchword of this great 
 expounder and defender of the Constitution ; this man of 
 giant mind and masterly intellect and overmastering- 
 genius, the great DANIEL WEBSTER, made immortal on 
 the canvas in Faneuil Hall: 
 
 Liberty and Union, now and forever, one and inseparable. 
 
256 Address of Mr. Baker on the 
 
 ADDRESS OF MR. BAKER, OF NEW HAMPSHIRE. 
 
 Mr. SPEAKER: DANIEL WEBSTER was born in the best 
 room of the small frame house which had succeeded the 
 log cabin of early days, on a rocky upland farm, that, nest 
 ling among the New Hampshire hills, gently sloped to 
 ward the east and south. Near by was his father s saw 
 mill, which furnished employment when the farm work 
 was done and supplemented the scanty returns of the soil. 
 He was the son of Ebenezer and Abigail Eastman Webster. 
 Ebenezer Webster had served with STARK in "Rodgers s 
 Rangers," was with him on Dorchester Heights and at 
 Bennington. He was a brave, honest, hardy, patriotic, and 
 progressive pioneer, a leader among his neighbors, who 
 held their personal esteem and full confidence, so that he 
 was elected to many offices of honor, responsibility, and 
 trust. He was a prominent member of the New Hamp 
 shire convention which ratified the Constitution of the 
 United States, and was very influential in securing the 
 favorable action which made that State the ninth to ap 
 prove the Constitution and thus establish our Government. 
 
 Mrs. Webster was the worthy wife of such a husband, 
 patiently and lovingly bearing her full share of the cares 
 and privations incident to their country life and poverty. 
 Their family was large, and they labored incessantly to 
 support and educate them. Their entire property was 
 heavily mortgaged to give their sons Ezekiel and DANIEL 
 a collegiate education. Mrs. Webster did not hesitate to 
 approve the loan which might have left her homeless, but 
 
Acceptance of the Statue of Daniel Webster. 257 
 
 which was necessary to educate her sons. While the 
 children were small Mr. Webster sold the old farm where 
 DANIEL was born, and moved to a better one on the Mer- 
 rimack River. There much of DANIEL S childhood was 
 passed. In later life he owned this farm, and occasionally 
 retired to it to rest from the cares of public life and escape 
 from the crowds which frequently followed him to Marsh- 
 field. 
 
 The time at my disposal will not permit a detailed nar 
 rative of young W T EBSTER S boyhood or education. When 
 fifteen years old he entered Dartmouth College, and grad 
 uated four years later with high honors. While in college 
 he delivered several public addresses and for a time edited 
 a weekly paper. After graduation he read law in his na- " 
 tive county and in the office of Christopher Gore, in 
 Boston. Upon admission to the bar he practiced for a few 
 years in the courts of central New Hampshire with great 
 success, impressing court and jury with his wonderful 
 personality and persuasive oratory. 
 
 Soon he outgrew this country practice and moved to 
 Portsmouth, where he encountered Jeremiah Mason, the 
 leader of the bar and one of the soundest lawyers New 
 England ever produced. This was very fortunate for 
 WEBSTER. He had an opponent worthy of his great pow 
 ers, and was compelled to exert them to the utmost. At 
 no period of his life did he work harder or his reputa 
 tion increase more rapidly. 
 
 Thus far he had devoted himself to the law, and had 
 
 accepted no office. The people now called him to public 
 
 duty. He was elected to the Thirteenth Congress, and 
 
 took his seat in May, 1813. He opposed some of the ultra 
 
 17 s w 
 
258 Address of Mr. Baker on the 
 
 war measures, and was particularly bitter against the 
 embargo and non-importation acts. He as earnestly favored 
 the establishment of a sound national bank. 
 
 He was reelected to the Fourteenth Congress, and again 
 advocated a sound currency based upon specie payment, 
 and favored liberal internal improvements. He believed 
 them authorized by the Constitution. 
 
 At the close of this Congress he retired for a time from 
 public life, and, leaving his native State, opened an office 
 in Boston. His practice at once became extensive and lu 
 crative, for his reputation had been established and he was 
 well known at the Suffolk bar. While in Congress he had 
 become one of the leaders of his party. Everywhere he 
 was in honor, and was beginning himself to realize his 
 tremendous power before the courts and in the nation. 
 The next year he argued the famous "Dartmouth College 
 case" in the Supreme Court, and established the doctrine 
 of vested rights on so firm a basis that even now it over 
 shadows the land. Seldom, if ever, did WEBSTER surpass 
 in dramatic power his speech in this case. When at the 
 close of the argument his heart found expression in the 
 words, "It is, sir, as I have said, a small college ; and yet 
 there are those who love it," he broke down under the 
 intensity of his feelings, his voice faltered, and his eyes 
 filled with tears. This departure from the usual course of 
 legal argument was unpremeditated and genuine. It won 
 the sympathy of the court, and possibly the case. In no 
 instance in his long professional career did he show greater 
 power or better management than in this defense of his 
 alma mater. 
 
 Clients now thronged his office, and probably more cases 
 
Acceptance of the Statue of Daniel IVebster. 259 
 
 were declined than accepted. He argued many causes in 
 the Supreme Court each one of which would have become 
 an era in the life of most lawyers. This occasion will not 
 justify an enumeration of them, much less an attempt to 
 state the important points involved or an abstract of 
 WEBSTER S arguments. They were of wide range, and 
 frequently turned upon some constitutional right or pro 
 hibition. His argument in the famous White murder 
 case, tried at Salem, Mass., is one of the most noted of 
 his renowned pleas. It is complete in every detail, but 
 especially remarkable for its wonderful analysis of the 
 influence of conscience and fear upon human action. 
 Through the ages it will be known as a classic in forensic 
 speech, and will lose nothing by comparison with the best 
 examples of ancient and modern oratory. 
 
 It is probable that WEBSTER preferred not to return to 
 Congress; that his legal and oratorical duties were congenial, 
 and vastly more remunerative than any public service; 
 but the people of Boston in 1822 insisted that he should 
 become their Representative, and from that time until 1841 
 his service in House and Senate was continuous. During 
 all these years his life was so crowded with private and pub 
 lic affairs that little time seems to have been reserved for 
 recreation. No one without his wonderful physical and 
 mental organization could have performed such continuous 
 and arduous duties. 
 
 No year of his Congressional life was without distin 
 guished service, but his highest reputation as an orator 
 and a statesman was secured by his reply to Hayne. It 
 was the greatest speech ever delivered in the Senate, and 
 upon it Mr. WEBSTER S fame as a public man will rest. 
 
260 Address of Mi-. Baker on the 
 
 Its power will be recognized wherever constitutional 
 government shall exist. Its influence was "and is un 
 bounded. Every schoolboy has declaimed selections from 
 it, and each year it is taught to the children of the land 
 and lives anew in the hearts of his countrymen. No one 
 can estimate its effect when, thirty years later, the theories 
 of Hayne culminated in open rebellion and the issues 
 of the old debate were settled by an appeal to arms. 
 Throughout the loyal North, WEBSTER S defense of the 
 Constitution and appeal for national life were universally 
 cherished. The people had enshrined the Union in their 
 hearts, and they freely gave their treasure and lives that 
 "Liberty and Union" should ever be "one and insep 
 arable." 
 
 In 1841 Mr. WEBSTER resigned his seat in the Senate 
 and became Secretary of State under President Harrison, 
 and after the latter s death retained the office under Presi 
 dent Tyler until May, 1843. During these two years he 
 proved himself a successful diplomatist. By the Ashbur- 
 ton treaty, and the negotiations attending it, he established 
 the northern and eastern boundaries of the United States, 
 secured the extradition of criminals, and enforced his 
 denial of the right of search by an argument so unan 
 swerable that the British claim has ever since been 
 abandoned and every ship finds its protection in its na 
 tional flag. 
 
 Upon his retirement from the Department of State he 
 returned to his home at Marshfield, attended to his private 
 affairs, which had been too long neglected, and renewed 
 the practice of his profession. 
 
 But his State and party would not permit him to retire 
 
Acceptance of the Statue of Daniel Webster. 261 
 
 from public life, and in 1845 he was reelected to the Senate. 
 At once he became prominent in its deliberations, defended 
 -the Ashburton treaty in an elaborate argument, opposed 
 the annexation of Texas, deprecated the war with Mexico, 
 and delivered his famous 7th of March speech, which 
 disappointed his constituents, alienated many friends, and 
 brought upon him the condemnation of the North. The 
 opposition to him steadily increased, and embittered his 
 life; it may have hastened his death. It could not obliter 
 ate his patriotic public service or destroy the glory of the 
 past. That was secure, and brightens with the years. 
 
 In 1850 he again resigned his seat in the Senate to 
 become Secretary of State. He was the leader of Mr. 
 Fillmore s Administration. No great international ques-"- 
 tions required his attention, but the honor and dignity 
 of our country were fully maintained. 
 
 Mr. WEBSTER was no longer a young man. His health 
 and strength were impaired, but he continued to discharge 
 his duties as Secretary of State until the 8th of September, 
 when he returned home, and died October 24, 1852. His 
 last words, "I still live," are emblematic of the loving 
 memory in which his life and services are held by his 
 countrymen. 
 
 No American life is comparable with his. The poor 
 New 7 Hampshire boy had struggled through school and 
 college into his profession, had won a place in its front 
 rank, had represented his native and adopted States in 
 Congress, had become a Senator and won an imperishable 
 Siame as the Defender of the Constitution, had managed 
 the foreign affairs of his country with discretion and credit, 
 securing recognition of the inviolability of American citi- 
 
262 Address of Mr. Baker on the 
 
 zenship and the sanctity of his country s flag, and had five 
 times been presented to his party by prominent and enthus 
 iastic admirers for nomination to the Presidency. Such, 
 in brief, is the life which we commemorate to-day by the 
 statue presented to the nation. 
 
 WEBSTER needs no monuments or statues; but the world 
 is enriched by every testimonial to great talents, to high 
 resolve, to noble endeavor, and to patriotic service, which 
 stimulates the people to right thought and earnest action, 
 teaching them not only to understand public affairs, but 
 wisely to discharge their share of a government for and by 
 themselves. 
 
 Mr. Speaker, I move the adoption of the pending 
 resolutions. 
 
 The resolutions offered by Mr. Blair were again read, and 
 were unanimously adopted. 
 
 DECEMBER 21, 1894. 
 
 A message from the Senate, by Mr. Platt, one of its 
 clerks, announced that the Senate had passed the following 
 resolutions; in which the concurrence of the House was 
 requested : 
 
 Resolved by the Senate (the House of Representatives concurring], 
 That the thanks of Congress be presented to the State of New 
 Hampshire for the statue of DANIEL WEBSTER, a citizen of that 
 State, illustrious for historic renown and for distinguished civic 
 service. 
 
 Resolved, That the statue be accepted and placed in the National 
 Statuary Hall in the Capitol, and that a copy of these resolutions, 
 duly authenticated, be transmitted to his excellency the governor of 
 New Hampshire. 
 
Acceptance of the Statue of Daniel Webster. 263 
 
 The SPEAKER. The Chair will call the attention of the 
 gentleman from New Hampshire. On yesterday afternoon 
 the House passed a concurrent resolution and sent it to the 
 Senate. The Senate has passed a concurrent resolution 
 and sent it to the House. The Chair would suggest to the 
 gentleman from New Hampshire that the House had better 
 concur in the Senate resolution. 
 
 Mr. BAKER, of New Hampshire. Will it not become 
 necessary to reconsider our vote? 
 
 The SPEAKER. Not at all. 
 
 Mr. BAKER, of New Hampshire. Then I move that the 
 House concur in the Senate resolution. 
 
 The resolution was read, as follows: 
 
 Resolved by the Senate (the House of Representatives concurring], 
 That the thanks of Congress be presented to the State of New 
 Hampshire for the statue of DANIEL WEBSTER, a citizen of that 
 State, illustrious for historic renown and for distinguished civic 
 service. 
 
 Resolved, That the statue be accepted and placed in the National 
 Statuary Hall in the Capitol, and that a copy of these resolutions, 
 duly authenticated, be transmitted to his excellency the governor of 
 New Hampshire. 
 
 The concurrent resolution was adopted. 
 
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