RY rvOF N1A EGO DANIEL WEBSTER. LIFE DANIEL WEBSTER. REV. B. F. TEFFT, D.D., LL.IX AUTHOR OF "HUNGARY AND KOSSUTH." PHILADELPHIA: PORTER & COATES. Entered /vi>T<1in Jne months, and six days old, the day he died. He was born in obscurity, on the north-eastern frontier of the United States, on the verge of civilization in that direction, his father living in the last occupied house next to the Canadian line. He died as Secretary of State of the United States, the most known, the most celebrated, the most powerful and influential citizen of his country. The family of the Websters, which had settled in Kingston, llockingham county, New Hampshire, at the beginning of the eighteenth century, seems to have been highly respectable. Strength of mind, and decision of character, appear to have been the most notable of its chai'acteristic traits. Another feature was its desire to establish and perpetuate itself. With- out any of the aristocracy of family, as exhibited in monarchical countries, it looked well to its own existence, and wished to hand down, from one generation to another, a reputation that should honor the past and give promise of the future. As a specimen of this feeling, it is a curious fact, that the eldest brother of Daniel, his father, grandfather and great-grand- FAMILY TRAITS. 23 father, who were all eldest sons, were named Ebenezer. Not only this cherished name, but the history of the whole family, in all its branches, evinces, also, its third strongest peculiarity, a decided inclination to religion. Perhaps no family in the country, not excepting any of New England, can show in its records a larger list of names, in proportion to the whole num- ber, taken from the Scriptures. Another marked peculiarity of the Webster family was its love of knowledge. They were strikingly intellectual. It is related of Daniel Webster's father, who was apprenticed to a trade at an early age, that, though he never went to school a day in his life, he made himself a good reader while quite a youth, and afterwards became a man noted for the extent, depth and accuracy of his information. While a boy, he studied late of nights, by the blaze of pitch-pine knots, when his master and the family were asleep. Those who remember him in mature age say, that he was then the best reader, the best elocutionist, and the most thoroughly informed man, of the place where he lived. The books he read most, and which he most admired, were the plays of Shakspeare and the bible ; and his taste, in this respect, seems to have followed him to the most distin- guished of his children. Patriotism was another mark of the Webster family. All through the earliest periods of the history of New England, it furnished soldiers, but more commonly officers, to the compa- nies raised for the defence of the inhabitants. In 1757, the French and Indian war was raging with uncommon violence. The enemy seemed to be advancing regularly and successfully with the plan of destroying the American colonies. An emer- gency at length arose. A new enlistment was ordered for the protection of the north-eastern frontier against the savages. It was at this time, and for this purpose, that that celebrated corps, known in history as Roger's Rangers, was commissioned. All its members were to be picked men, selected from the lead 24 WEBSTER AND HIS MASTER-PIECES. ing families, and known to be hardy, able-bodied, and courage ous. By the side of Stark, and Putnam, and several others, who afterwards became heroes in the revolution, the father of Daniel Webster, then but eighteen years of age, was enrolled to fight the battles of his country. Some of those battles are reputed as among the most brilliant ever fought even on the blood-stained soil of New England. The services required of this band of men were exceedingly difficult and dangerous. They were to do their work in winter. They were to be doubly armed, to be prepared for all the rigors of the season, to carry with them snow-shoes that they might be able to march through the trackless forests, ascend and descend the snow-clad mountains, and pursue the enemy without regard to the changes or chances of the weather. They were also to carry ekates, to enable them to cross the frozen streams and lakes, or to meet the savage foe upon the ice. Into this company, for this busi- ness, and with these horrors in the prospect, Ebenezer Web- ster, the eldest son, wiis permitted to enlist. The love of coun- try was stronger than the love of family. The son went and performed his duty. The exploits of his company, when told by the few that lived to see their own firesides again, appeared like fiction ; and from that day, the survivors were marked men, the heroes of their neighborhoods, set down in public opinion as equal to any demand that could be made upon them. A demand afterwards arose. At the age of thirty -six, under the command of Stark, he was commissioned as a captain, and joined the army of the revolution. General Burgoyne had entered the territory of New York. He had taken Ticon- deroga, and was advancing, by rapid marches, across the state. His object seemed to be to penetrate New England and reach the seaboard. General Stark marched out to meet him. On his way, he fought the battle of Bennington, in which Captain Webster took a leading part. Subsequently, at the battle of White Plains, Webster was again among the heroes of the HIGH AND LOW BIRTH. 25 day ; and, at a still later period, he had the satisfaction of wit- nessing, as a soldier, the surrender of the British general on the plains of Saratoga. In other countries, to be descended from the most ancient family is accounted the greatest honor. In this, we have no prejudices of such a nature ; but if we had, it would be honor enough for any young man to be the son of a revolu- tionary soldier. This honor Daniel Webster had ; and this, except that patent to nobility which nature stamped upon hia mind, was his only fortune. His father, it is true, before the close of the revolutionary war, had purchased a large tract of land north of Concord, in New Hampshire ; but the land was wild, the growth of the primeval forest still standing dense upon it. With his own hands, principally, the soldier cleared a few acres and erected a log cabin for his family. In this humble spot, far enough from the refinements of life, such as they were in this country at that period, several of Daniel Webster's brothers and sisters were born ; but, upon his birth, his father had so improved in his circumstances, as to have built a small framed addition to the original structure. In this new part, Daniel first saw the light; and nearly sixty years af- terwards, he referred to the event in a characteristic manner. In a speech delivered at Saratoga, in the month of August, 1840, he was advocating the election of General Harrison, who was sneeringly styled the " log cabin candidate ; " and Mr. Webster took occasion, in a very beautiful and artful manner, to make capital out of the epithet for his client, by a reference which he knew would cast no dishonor upon himself: " It is only shallow-minded pretenders," said the orator, " who either make distinguished origin matter of personal merit, or obscure origin matter of personal reproach. Taunt and scoffing at the humble condition of early life, affect nobody in this country but ohose who are foolish enough to indulge in them ; and they are generally sufficiently punished by public rebuke. A man. 26 WEBSTER AND HIS MASTER-PIECES. who iir not ashamed of himself, need not be ashamed of his early condition. It did not happen to me to be born in a log cabin, but my elder brothers and sisters were born in a log cabin, raised amid the snow-drifts of New Hampshire, at a period so early, as that 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 of Canada. Its remains still exist. I make to it an annual visit. I carry my children to it, to teach them the hardships endured by the generations which have gone before them. I love to dwell on the tender recollec- tions, the kindred ties, the early affections, and the touching narrations and incidents, which mingle with all I know of this primitive family abode. I weep to think that none of those who inhabited it are now among the living; and if ever I am ashamed of it, or if I ever fail in affectionate veneration for him who raised it and defended it against savage violence and de- struction, cherished all the domestic virtues beneath its roof, and through the fire and blood of a seven years' revolutionary war shrunk from no danger, no toil, no sacrifice to serve his country, and to raise his children to a condition better than his own, may my name, and the name of my posterity, be blotted forever from the memory of mankind ! " The emphatic part of this quotation, however, is the reference made to the father of the speaker. From every account, and most of all, from every allusion made to him by his distin- guished son, it is certain that he must have been a man of un- common mold. His success, both in business and in his social standing, was decided. He became independent, if not wealthy ; he was frequently elected to represent his township in the state legislature ; and in advanced life he was appointed a judge of the court of common pleas, the duties of which he is said to have discharged, to the close of his career, with integrity and honor. THE OLD HOMESTEAD. 27 Such was the life of Ebenezer Webster. His character has been diawn by a master's hand: "He had in him," says Dan- iel Webster, in a letter, " what I recollect to have been the character of some of the old Puritans. He was deeply reli- gious, but not sour on the contrary, good-humored, facetious showing even in his age, with a contagious laugh, teeth all white as alabaster gentle, soft, playful and yet having a heart in him that he seemed to have borrowed from a lion. He would frown a frown it was ; but cheerfulness, good-humor and smiles composed his most usual aspect." Did ever a fa- ther receive such a eulogy from such a son ! The house in which Daniel Webster was born does not no\r stand. There is no part of it left, excepting the cellar, which is a ruin, and, if preserved, will be a shrine. It lies on what is called the North Road, on the side of a hill which comes down to the bank of the Merrimack. Near this cellar stands a soli- tary tree, an apple-tree, which, though dead in its trunk, has sprouted from the roots below. It should be allowed to revive and mark the spot to be held in reverence by a whole people as long as it can be certainly defined. Still farther from the site of the old homestead is the family well, dug by Daniel Webster's father, who planted near it, about the year 1768, a young elm, which has now grown to be so large as to cover with its branches a circle of a hundred feet in diameter. It is to this well, in particular, that Mr. Webster has made his annual pilgrimages for the last thirty years. It is there, under the shadow of that broad tree, that he has been accustomed to recline, in the soft weather of every summer, and think of his father and mother, of his brothers and sisters, of all the scenes of the family in that early day, and thus reju- venate his heart, and keep it tender and delicate, in spite of all the influences of his laborious public life. That well, and that tree, should be guarded safely, that they may remain to refresh the pilgrims who are yet to visit the birth-place of the greatest TOL. i. B 28 WEBSTER AND HIS MASTER-PIECES. of Americans, from every part of our own country, and from other lands. Of the brothers and sisters of the great statesman, little is now known. They were persons, generally, of strong minds, sound sense, and sterling worth. As a family, like their ances- tors, they were notable for their religious sentiment, for the moderation of their views and feelings, and for their attachment to private life. Ezekiel, the brother next older than Daniel, became a lawyer of almost equal eminence, and was thought by many to have possessed a mind of equal strength. The mutual affection of these two brothers was remarkable. The younger was the first to obtain an education ; but he could not rest, and did not rest, till he had helped the elder through his course of study. Ezekiel died at the age of forty-nine, in the act of making a plea before a court at Concord ; and from that day till the hour of his own death, Daniel Webster was never known to mention his brother's name, or hear it mentioned, without shedding tears, or showing in his tremulous lips the of his emotions. CHAPTER III. THE YOUTH OF WEBSTF .C. DANIEL WEBSTER, both in infancy, and in his early boyhood, was feeble in health and of a slender constitution. Being, also, the youngest son of his mother, he could hardly be other than the mother's pet ; but that mother, a woman of most extraor- dinary rniiid and character, knew how to foster and not spoil the child. As her darling boy could not bear his part with the other children, either in their home frolics, or in their attendance upon the distant school, she kept him very much in her own pres- ence, where she taught him the alphabet at an age so early, that he could never recollect the time when he could not read. She instructed him, also, by conversation. She would ask him ques- tions, on matters of some consequence, not so much to hear what he would say, as that he might le:mi to think. She would walk with him, at early morning, and show him the growing grass, the swelling bud, and the bursting and full-blown flow- ers ; she would take him again at nightfall, as the stars began to shine, and point them out to him as they successively ap- peared ; she would lead him to the fields, and along the banks of the river, and up the rugged hills of the neighborhood, to give him a growing idea of the greatness of the external world. During all these rambles, she would teach him things as they are, rather than confine him to the mere pictures of things, rude and imperfect, as they appear in books. It is a remark of Burke, that, " in an inquiry, it is almost everything to be once 30 WEBSTER AND HIS MASTER-PIECES. in the right way ; " and it applies to the education of children with great force. The mother of Daniel Webster, though she had never heard of the English statesman, seemed to know the value of his maxim ; and she began the mental development of her son, as if she had been a philosopher, rather than a far- mer's wife. To such mothers America has been indebted, and will be indebted, for her greatest and her best. The first reading-book of Daniel Webster, which was given him by his mother, was the bible. He had scarcely learned the names of the letters of the alphabet, before he surprised her by reading aloud to her several verses ; and from that hour, she prophesied his future eminence, and doubled her exertions in giving him instructions and opening his mind. Sitting upon the hearthstone, or following her in her movements about the house, he would spend hours in reading those beautiful lessons for children so numerous in the sacred volume. He was par- ticularly delighted, at that time, with the books of Samuel and of Kings. All parts of the Old Testament then pleased him better than any of the New. The stories of Joseph, of Goliah, of Samson, of David and Jonathan, of Solomon ; the wars of Canaan, of the later Jews, of the great empires of the early times; and all those episodes of universal history, so entertain- ing in themselves, and so beautifully told, captivated his young mind. In a very short time, he became a most excellent reader, his voice having then something of the depth, strength and flexibility of after years ; and it is related, that, when his father had opened his dwelling as a place of refreshment to travelers, custom was drawn to the house by the privilege afforded the guests of hearing the child read. When older, Daniel became unwilling to exhibit himself in this manner ; but, when not at school, he used to take the book, which he happened to be reading at the time, and go into the forest, or down the river, or into some lonely glen, and read for many hours together. There was a sawmill not far from THE POCKET-HANDKERCHIEF. ^1 the house, which belonged to his father, in which he was put tc work while yet a mere boy ; but such a boy wo; Id soon learn to do any task, where mere skill is requisite, which could be intrusted to a man. There, after he had set the log and started the saw, he would sit and pore over his book, never forgetting however, to attend to every demand of his labor at the proper time. In these ways, before he was twelve years old, he had read extensively in history, in travels, and in the English clas- sics ; and such was the grasp of his mind, and the tenacity of his memory, that he understood and remembered nearly every thing he perused. About this time, the boy chanced to be sent to a neighboring store. lie there found a curiosity, or what was a curiosity tc him. It was a pocket-handkerchief, covered all over with some- thing printed in good, fair type. All the money he had in the world was a quarter of a dollar ; and that was exactly the price of this rare specimen of a book. Of course, the bookish boy bought the curious thing and took it home. That evening, and till very late, he sat by the large fire-place, in the presence of his father and mother, perusing, re-perusing, studying, commit- ting to memory, the remarkable production thus obtained. What philosopher will reveal the impressions, the influences, the results of that memorable night? What artist will picture the event? It was Daniel Webster reading, for the first time, a copy of the constitution of his country ! At this period of his life, the future statesman could not bear an insult, or any thing like a personal opposition, any better than when, in after years, he made a senate and a party trem- ble at his frown. The story of his cock-fight is sufficient proof. One of his father's neighbors had a cock noted for his prowess. Among the feathery tribes he was the acknowledged monarch, and used to roam, with impunity, beyond the legitimate limits of his kingdom. More than once, at the head of his troop, he appeared on the territory belonging to a r avorite fowl owned 32 WBBBTER AND HIS MASTER-PIECES. by Daniel. Hostile encounters frequently occurred between the barn-yard rivals, in which Daniel's pet was nearly always worsted. The boy, who was but the ungrown man, took the defeats of his champion as his own ; but he could not help him- self, or turn the victory in his favor with a beaten combatant. He was greatly chagrined and even worried. At length, when on a visit to a distant relative, he heard of a cock famed all through those parts for his fighting propensities, and for his suc- cess in battle. Daniel at once purchased the pugnacious fowl, giving for it half a dollar, which was all his treasure. With his game-cock under his arm, though he had expected to spend several days on this visit, he promptly started for home. He had gone but a short distance, when he passed a yard well stocked with poultry, among which he saw a large cock strutting defi- ance to any thing that might venture to dispute his sway. Daniel thought it a good opportunity to test the value of his purchase. By a battle or two he could judge, with his own eyes, whether he was destined to meet with a victory at home. So, down went the cock from his arms, and the fight began. But it was soon over ; and the reputation of the new champion was triumphantly maintained. Several similar engagements took place on the journey, for, as in graver contests, one victory feeds the martial spirit, and each triumph is the seed of future battles. Not far from the set of sun, after numerous exploits of this nature, in which the result had been constantly on the same side, the boy approached the yard where the only important engagement was to be fought, and the question of* supremacy was to be fairly tried. His cool judgment dictated the propri- ety of giving his champion a night's rest; but he could not sleep with so weighty a matter on his mind. He could not endure suspense. So, down went the war-worn cock again, and the sparring at once began. * For a while," as the statesman has told the story to his friend, "the contest was an even one ; but in ten minutes, he had the satisfaction of seeing his hero victo LETTER TO HIS MASTER. 33 He saw tne cock, against which he had the grudge, and which had again and again driven his own fowls from his own yard, led about by the comb, in a manner as degrading as the old Romans led their conquered foes, while celebrating their triumphs of arms. Wellington, after the battle of Waterloo, was not better satisfied with the results of the day, than he was with the results of his day." Years after this event, the states- man, Daniel Webster, took to himself the credit of having a good talent for sleeping. That night, he undoubtedly slept well. Numerous anecdotes are told to show, that Daniel Webster, the boy, was as quick and as pertinent at a repartee, as ever was Daniel Webster, the man, the orator, the debater of his times. On a certain occasion, Daniel and Ezekiel had retired to bed ; but, having been engaged in a literary dispute during the evening, they continued the controversy in their room. Getting into a scuffle about a passage in one of their school books, they set their bed-clothes on fire. In the morning, they were severely ques- tioned upon the matter. Ezekiel, a very bashful boy, took the reproof silently ; but Daniel apologized by saying, that " they had only been in pursuit of light, of which, he confessed, they got more than they desired." The first instructors that Daniel had at school were Thomas Chase and James Tappan. The former of these personages died many years ago ; but the latter lived till after the decease of his most distinguished pupil. What influence Mr. Tappan had in opening the mind of his little pupil, is not cer- tain ; but whatever it was, or whether he performed any great part in the matter, Mr. Webster never forgot him, but seemed to remember him with gratitude. In 1851, the old pedagogue addressed a letter to the statesman, reminding him of their for- mer connection. The statesman, though surrounded by the duties of his office, and overloaded with the cares of an empire, 31 WEBSTER AND HIS MASTER-PIECES. promptly returned an answer, which enclosed a bank-bill for fifty dollars: "MASTER TAPPAN, u I thank you for your letter, and am rejoiced to know that you are among the living. I remember you perfectly well as a teacher of my infant years. I suppose my mother must have taught me to read very early, as I have never been able to rec- ollect the time when I could not read the Bible. I think Mas- ter Chase was my earliest schoolmaster, probably when I was three or four years old. Then came Master Tappan. You boarded at our house, and sometimes, I think, in the family of Mr. Benjamin Sandborn, our neighbor, the lame man. Most of those whom you knew in 'New Salisbury' have gone to their graves. Mr. John Sandborn, the son of Benjamin, is yet living, and is about your age. Mr. John Colby, who married my sister Susannah, is also living. On the North Road is Mr. Benjamin Pettingil. I think of none else among the living whom you would probably remember. You have, indeed, lived a chequered life. I hope you have been able to bear prosperity with meekness, and adversity with patience. These things are all ordered for us far better than we could order them for ourselves. We may pray for our daily bread ; we may pray for the forgiveness of sins; we may pray to be kept from temptation, and that the kingdom of God may come, in us, and in all men, and his will everywhere be done. Beyond this, we hardly know for what good to supplicate the divine mercy. Our heavenly Father knoweth what we have need of, better than we know ourselves ; and we are sure that his eye and his loving kindness are upon us and around us every mo- ment I thank you again, my good old schoolmaster, for your kind letter, which has awakened many sleeping recollections; and, with all good wishes, I remain your friend and pupil, " DANIEL WEBSTER." VALUE OF LEARNING. 3i> During all the years of Daniel's boyhood, his mother contin- ued her efforts to instruct him so far as she was able, and undoubtedly gave him his first impressions respecting the value of a thorough education. The first impressions, however, were repeated and strengthened by the father. In a letter, written particularly to throw light upon this part of his history, the statesman has stated an incident, which must have been only a sample of many others : " Of a hot day in July it must have been one of the last days of Washington's administration I was making hay with my father, just where I now see a remaining elm tree, about the middle of the afternoon. The Hon. Abiel Foster, M. C., who lived in Canterbury, six miles off! called at the house, and came into the field to see my father. He was a worthy man, college learned, and had been a minister, but was not a person of any considerable natural powers. My father was his friend and supporter. He talked awhile in the field, and went on his way. When he was gone, my father called me to him, and we sat down beneath the elm \>n a hay-cock. He said, ' My son, that is a worthy man he is a member of congress he goes to Philadelphia and gets six dollars a day, while I toil here. It is because he had an educa- cation, which I never had. If I had had his early education, I should have been in Philadelphia in his place. I came near il as it was. But I missed it ; and now I must work here, 'My dear father,' said L, 'you shall not work. Brother and I will work for you, and wear our hands out, and you shall rest' and I remember to have cried, and I cry now, at the recollec- tion. ' My child,' said he, ' it is of no importance to me I now live but for my children; I could not give your elder bro- ther the advantages of knowledge, but 1 can do something for you. Exert yourself improve your opportunities learn learn and when I am gone you will not need to go through the hardships which I have undergone, and which have made oie an old man before my time.' " VOL. i. B* 3 36 WEBSTER AND HIS MASTER-PIECES. It seems, in fact, from many circumstances connected with the boyhood of Webster, and from several anecdotes not im- portant now to be repeated, that his father and mother both ap- preciated the remarkable talents of their son ; but the first reli- able evidence of his genius, or that which must have been the strongest at that time, was given to Mr. Thomas W. Thomp- son, a young lawyer, who had only a little before set up an office in the place. Having no students, and yet wishing to keep his door open, whether at home or absent, that his clients might always know when to expect him, he engaged Daniel to sit in the office, whenever he should be away, to give to stran- gers the proper information. The arrangement was entered into by the consent of all concerned. He was to sit there, not to do any service ; but such a mind as that of Daniel Web- ster, though he was then but thirteen years of age, could not stand still in a room occupied, more or less, with books and papers. Among so many of both kinds, however, as must have been found on the premises of a man of talents and am- bition, as Mr. Thompson was, there would be something of a choice. Besides law books, there were probably some histories, some books of poetry, some of travels, some biographies, some romances and other works of fiction. Any one of these would have been interesting to the little office keeper ; and most boys would have made a selection from them. But it was not so with Daniel. His choice was a book most repulsive to lads of his age generally; but, it was one, which a better judgment than an ordinary boy's would consider as the most useful. It was a Latin grammar, which Mr. Thompson had saved as a relic from his own days of classical study. This volume, a very poor companion, probably, by the side of the grammars of later generations, Daniel committed entirely to memory, and repeated it alcud to his new friend and future patron. Mr. Thompson was surprised. He was surprised, not only at the taste of the youth, but at the tenacity and readiness of his mem 18 TO BECOME A SCHOOL TEACHER. 37 ory. He was surprised to see a boy perform such a feat without any apparent object. It seemed to him only the playful frolic of a little giant without employment. He concluded at once, that such a mind ought to have employment ; and the incident was mentioned to the father, who was evidently pleased, but did not seem to be struck by it as if it were anything not to be ex- pected. The truth is, he knew the talents of his son ; but he now began to think more seriously, under the advice of Mr, Thompson, about setting him free immediately from manual labor, that he might commence in earnest a course of life bet- ter fitted to his capacities. It is the advice of a French writer, who has addressed many valuable maxims to the young : "Aim high, aim at the highest mark ; for it is as easy to shoot at the sun, as at a clod of earth; and by shooting high, you will not be so likely to hit the ground." This precept has roused the ambition of many youths; but it was too elevated for the ambition, at that time, of Daniel Webster's father. After a deliberation with his wife, to which Mr. Thompson was invited, it was settled, that Dan- iel should be released from the labors of the farm, and sent to some good academy, that he might prepare himself for the use- ful and honorable profession of a country school teacher ! The choice of an institution could not be a matter of much debate, as Phillips' Academy, at Exeter, New Hampshire, was among the best of New England, and not very distant. Mr. Webster has often told the story of his journey : The roads, at that time, were exceedingly bad even in New England, where they are now so smooth and agreeable. There were few car- riages in the country, as they could not be much used. It was the custom, as in all new countries, to ride on horses, not only to places quite near, but to localities the most remote. It was BO on this occasion. Mr. Webster, and his son, went to Exe- ter on horse-back ; and there was one circumstance in the story of the ride to which the son, to his latest days, used to refei 38 WEBSTER AND HIS MASTER-PIECES. with laughter and delight. A neighbor was desirous, on the very day of the departure, of sending a horse and side-saddle to Exeter for the convenience of a lady, who wished to ride back to Salisbury. The order of travel, therefore, put Mr. Webster, senior, on the back of one of his own horses, and Mr. Webster, junior, on the horse with the lady's saddle. " So," as the junior Webster used afterwards to say, with great mer riment, " my first appearance in the world was that of a boy of fourteen riding behind my father on the saddle of a woman." On the third day of their journey, they reached their place of destination so early in the afternoon, that the inhabitants of the village saw, what they afterwards remembered, the first en- trance of Daniel Webster into Exeter, then the Athens of Now Hampshire. Daniel's introduction to this school has been often published. The principal of the institution was Benjamin Abbott, LL. D., at that time a man of consequence in the field of letters, and since the patriarch of American instructors. Through life, he was pompous in his manners, though his excessive dignity never seemed to rise from any pride of disposition. The father and son, on the morning after their arrival, walked up to the Acad- emy ; and the father stated to the Principal the object of his visit. " Well, sir," said he, putting on his cocked hat, " let the young gentleman be presented for examination." The lad, holding his hat in his hand and no man ever held a hat more elegantly than did he in after life modestly ap- proached the magnificent and fearful dignitary, and stood before him. Though never in such a place before, it was certainly a trait of his in mature age, and probably in his youth, not only to be entirely self-possessed, but to know and feel at the instant, from a quick, intuitive perception, what is fit to be said and done. His manner, though very modest and becoming a per- son of his youthfulness, in spite of the lofty demeanor of the ENTERS THE ACADEMY. 39 Preceptor, seemed to say " Here I am, sir, what will you have me do ? " " What is your age ? " " Fourteen." "Take this bible, my lad, and read that chapter." It was the twenty-second chapter of the Gospel according to St. Luke. It could scarcely have been a more difficult chapter for a faulty reader, or a better one for the display of such a reader as was, even at that time, Daniel Webster. He took the volume handed him and began. A few verses, generally, are all that are required on such occasions, but the boy had not gone far, before the high-headed listener became absorbed in the manner of the reader, and lost a portion of his own self-possession. The reading was new to him. The boy, as it was afterwards with the man, seemed to banish everything from his thoughts but the business then in hand. He threw himself wholly into his performance, and yet without overdoing it. His voice was exceedingly sonorous and musical. There were a depth, a richness, a flexibility in it, which could not fail to arrest atten- tion ; and then his appreciation of what he read, his change of style to suit the changes of his topics, his correct emphasis, his beautiful inflections, in fact his elocution, for he was then an orator without knowing it, captivated the stiff doctor, and lim- bered his dignity riot a little. Daniel, after reading the chap- ter out, shut the book and handed it to his Preceptor, who, without farther examination, was satisfied. " Young man," said he, " you are qualified to enter this insti- tution." It is doubtful whether there was another person in Exeter, besides the new pupil, who could have read so large an extract with equal force and elegance. It has been unwisely said, by those who wish to give undue credit to the natural abilities of Mr. Webster, in contradis- tinction to the powers acquired by education, that he had no 40 WEBSTER AND HIS MASTER-PIECES. training in his youth, and very meager academical opportuni- ties. The care taken of his mind by his mother, during all tne early years of his boyhood, seconded by the assent and enrour- ogement of his father, are a sufficient denial of the first part of this statement ; and, as to his academical course, though brief, it could not have been undertaken at an institution better adapted to his peculiar character, or more likely to give him the great- est development in the shortest time. Phillips' Academy, though lower than a college, has equalled any college of the country in the rearing of great men. Within its halls, such men as Lewis Cass, Levi Woodbury, Jared Sparks, George Bancroft, John G. Palfrey, Joseph S. Buckminster, and both the Everetts, obtained the first rudiments of their classical educa- tion, and, doubtless, their strongest aspirations to a thorough, earnest and great life. It was there, too, that Daniel Webster began to take hold of intellectual matters with a giant's grasp, and prove to himself, and to his friends, the depth and breadth of his own intellectual might. During the nine months of his stay at Exeter, he accom plished as much for himself, according to every account, as most young gentlemen would have accomplished in two years. When he left, he had as thoroughly mastered grammar, arithmetic, geography and rhetoric, as the majority of college graduates usually have done after a full collegiate course. He had also made rapid progress in the study of the Latin language. Dr. Abbott, appreciating fully the capacity of his most remarkable pupil, did not tie him down to the ordinary routine of study, nor compel him to lag behind with the other pupils, but gave him free scope, and a loose rein, that he might do his utmost; and the venerable Preceptor, after the lapse of more than half a century, during all which time he continued to be a teacher, declared on a public occasion, that Daniel Webster's equal, in the power of amassing knowledge, he had never seen, and nevei expected to see again. It is not enough to say of him, accord COULD NOT DECLAIM. 41 ing to Dr. Abbott's description of him at this time, that he had a quick perception and a memory of great tenacity and strength. He did not seem barely to read and remember, as other people do. He appeared, rather, to grasp the thoughts and facts given by his author, with a peculiar force, to incorporate them into his mental being, and thus make them a part of himself. It is said of Sir Isaac Newton, that, after reading for the first time the geometry of Euclid, and on being asked what he thought of it, modestly observed, that he knew it all before. He under- stood geometry, it seems, by intuition, or by a perception so rapid as to appear like intuition ; but it was also true of the great astronomer, that he had great difficulty of remembering even his own calculations, after he had gone through them. Daniel Webster, on the other hand, though endowed with a very extraordinary quickness of insight, worked harder for his knowledge than did Newton ; but when once he had gained a point, or learned a fact, it remained with him, a part of his own essence, forever afterwards. His mind was also wonderfully fertile. A single truth, which, with most boys of his age, would have remained a single truth, in him became at once a starting-point for a remarkable series of ideas, original and stri- king, growing up out of the seed sown, by that mighty power of reflection, in which no youth of his years, probably, was ever his superior. It is singular, however, though not unaccountable, that, at this period of his life, he could not speak in public. In a brief me- moir of his first tutor at Exeter, Joseph S. Buckminster, he makes an allusion to this circumstance. " My first lessons in Latin," says he, " were directed by Joseph Stevens Buckmin- ster, at that time an assistant at the academy. I made tolera- ble progress in all the branches I attended under his instruc- tion ; but there was one thing I could not do. I could not make a declamation I could not speak before the school. The kind and excellent Buckminster especially sought to persuade 42 WEBSTER AND HIS MASTER-PIECES. me to perform the exercise of declamation, like other boys, but I could not do it. Many a piece did I commit to memory, und rehearse in my own room, over and over again ; but when the day came, when the school collected, when my name was called, and I saw all eyes turned upon my seat, I could not raise myself from it. Sometimes the masters frowned, some- times they smiled. Mr. Buckminster always pressed and en- treated with the most winning kindness, that I would venture only once; but I could not command sufficient resolution ; and when the occasion was over, I went home and wept tears of bitter mortification." " Here, then," says an anonymous biographer of Webster, " is a striking fact : the man, who, during his first nine months at an academy, though a good reader, and naturally self-pos- sessed, could not deliver a speech ! and yet, afterwards, he be- came the greatest orator of his time! Bashful boys, take courage ! " This, undoubtedly, is a very good practical moral, which those concerned may well heed ; but the philosopher will look into the causes of this anomalous timidity, and give some ac- count of it to himself. A man will do with indifference that in which he is conscious he is not destined to excel ; but bring him to the matter, whatever it may be, which, his heart and soul tell him, and every fibre of his being constantly assures him, is the thing for which he was made, which is to form the glory of his life, the burden of his fame, and the man shrinks from it, dreads to undertake it, pauses, trembles, fears, and per- haps flies from it. It is the momentous feeling of responsibility, of responsibility to himself and to his calling, and that keen and nervous sensibility that always comes with genius, which make him modest, and sometimes timid, in what he has the greatest promise of success. More than one man of parts, who has resolved on some great work of art, some master-piece, to which he would commit his reputation, has spent the whole of INFLUENCE OF DR. ABBOTT. 43 his life in the execution of minor works, to which he attributed no value, only as they were studies preparing him for the grand design, and thus lived and died without ever touching the work which was to have immortalized his name. After remaining in the school at Exeter about nine months, young Webster left, never to return to it ; but the impressions made there upon his mind he never lost. He never lost any- thing, in fact, which he had once fairly possessed. Among the recollections of the academy, which he often mentioned, and which he carried with him to his grave, his early and continued veneration for his Preceptor took, perhaps, the most conspicu- ous place. Dr. Abbott was a wonderful man ; he was univer- sally respected by his pupils ; and it has been thought by some, that he not only was the first to rouse the ambition of Daniel Webster to its utmost pitch, but imparted to him a portion of his own dignity of manner. He continued at the institution at Exeter till 1839 ; and, on his retirement, at the age of seventy- seven, his scholars made it the occasion of a grand rally, from all parts of the Union, to the shades of the old academy. It must have been a scene of surpassing interest. The notices given of it in the public prints, though brief, and even ineager, will help an imaginative mind to get an idea of the reality, and to look back, with an appreciating eye, on the influences so early at work on the destiny of Daniel Webster. " Having attained the age of seventy-seven years, and having filled the measure of his long and faithful services, Dr. Abbott an- nounced his determination to resign his office at the conclusion of the summer term. This was to a large number of his pu- pils, to all whose health or business would permit their attend- ance, a signal for a spontaneous rally once more around their venerable teacher and friend, to offer him a heart-felt tribute of gratitude and respect. His portrait, painted by Harding for the occasion, will faithfully transmit the lineaments of his coun- tenance to aft-T days. The dining hall, selected for the festival, 44 WEBSTER AND HIS MASTER-PIECES. was filled by a long procession of Dr. Abbott's former pupil* from all parts of the country, once more gladdened by the fa- miliar salutation, and grown young again in the presence of their ancient instructor ; renewing the friendships which time had interrupted ; revisiting the homes of the hospitable inhabitants which had sheltered their early days ; tracing once more the scenes of their boyish sports, and sadly bidding farewell to friends, whom most of them were to see no more. Political and all other divisions were, for the time, forgotten, as they lis- tened to the eloquent and appropriate addresses of Daniel Webster, Edward Everett, and the other speakers, whom the occasion inspired. All eyes were directed to the man of the day. Dr. Abbott had prepared an address to the assembly. They clustered about him in breathless expectation. He arose to tender his acknowledgments and a parting benediction. The scenes and events of so many years came crowding upon his mind. His ' boys,' of days long gone by, were gathered in his presence with every demonstration of the warmest attachment His eye fell upon those whom he had instructed, counseled, guided, and for whom his prayers had so often ascended to the throne of mercy. Some had fallen asleep.. Perhaps at that moment of intense emotion, the image of his lamented son, taken from him in early life, might have passed before his mind, as it glanced from the present to the past. Overcome by the conflict of his emotion, he faltered and paused. His utterance was choked ; his eyes were filled with tears ; and he sank into his seat, wholly unable to proceed, amid the sympa- thy, the enthusiasm, and the overwhelming applause of the whole concourse," The relative standing of Daniel Webster, as a scholar, while attending school at Exeter, will be sufficient to dissipate the idle stories set afloat by those who wish to give all the credit of his greatness to nature, and to depreciate the value of a thorough discipline, of a careful education. It was the practice, it would FIRST SCHOLAR OF THE SCHOOL. 45 seem, at Exeter academy, to place all new pupils at the foot of the lowest class, leaving each to demonstrate his fitness for a higher position. This regulation was always trying, and some- times disheartening. It was so in the case of Daniel. He began at the bottom of the school ; and, a poor country boy as he was, with a head too big for his slender body, and with eyes too large for his head, he may have made a laughable appear ance by the side of the boys from Boston, and other large towns, who came there well dressed, and with heads and eyes, probably, of no very remarkable expression. At all events, the city boys laughed at the country boy ; and the country boy, with a soul as keen as the apple of an eye, was chagrined, discouraged, and almost despairing. All this, too, when en- tirely unknown to himself, he was winning golden opinions from, his teachers, and surprising them hourly by his masterly exhi- bitions of mental power. After school, weary of his thoughts and sadly crest-fallen, he would go to his lodgings, to weep and study, to study and weep, in secret. His tutors encouraged him ; but that availed him little, while the well-dressed boys laughed. His time, however, at length came. One morning, when he had been in school about a month, Mr. Nicholas Em- ery, who was then an instructor at Exeter, marshaled the boys of his department before him for a general recitation. It was then that the laughed-at boy, and the laughing boys, could meet face to face, and try the questions of laughing and of being laughed at, before a competent tribunal. When the recitation was over, and each one had done his best, the master gave his decision in the following language : " Webster, you will pass into the other room, and join a higher class. Boys, you will take your final leave of Webster, for you will never see him again ! " The next winter, after leaving Exeter, he devoted to study at home, and to teaching a class of young people of about his own age. His school assembled in the house of his uncle Wil 46 WEBSTER AND HIS MASTER-PIECES. liam Webster, where he gave them all the instruction the) re quired, without materially retarding the pro ress of his own in tellectual pursuits. The act of teaching, in fact, was doubtless of great benefit to him at that time. It gave him a fine op- portunity for reviewing his former studies ; and it impressed upon his mind, more deeply than ever, the first rudiments of an English education, in which even our public men, and the greatest of them, are frequently deficient. At the village of Boscawen, a place not far from Salisbury, lived the Rev. Samuel Wood, LL. D., a man of great learn- ing, a patron of the young and aspiring, and an ardent friend of a liberal education. He graduated at Dartmouth, in 1779, with the highest honors of his class. His time, and talents, and means, were all devoted to the spread of piety and knowledge among the people of his charge. In the course of a long life, he is said to have helped, in one way or in another, more than one hundred and fifty pupils. Of these, more than a hundred entered college, nearly fifty became ministers of the gospel, about twenty became lawyers, some of whom were very emi- nent, and eight or ten became physicians. It is related, that, in his advanced years, he could count, among his older pupils, sev- eral governors, a number of councilors of state, some distin- guished judges, and some members of congress. As an en- courager of youth, as a mind to make his mark upon other minds, he was probably quite superior to Dr. Abbott. In his zeal for the cause of learning, he actually went about searching for the objects of his charity, and for those whose native abili- ties gave promise of distinguished usefulness. Such a man could not fail to fall in with such a youth as Daniel Webster. The two met in Salisbury, and the result of the meeting could not be doubtful. Daniel soon after became a pupil of Dr. Wood, with whom he stayed several months, and who fully appreciated the remarkable capacities of his new acquaintance. Th teacher had soon done what was necessary to fit the scholar IS TO GO TO COLLEGE. 47 for the university ; but the idea of entering college, or of ever seeing more than the outside of one, had nevei dawned upon the highest summit of his ambition. Dr. Wood, who was a prudent man, did not venture to men tion the matter of a college education to Daniel, until he had made due preparation for the announcement. He wrote to Dr. Abbott. Dr. Abbott replied to Dr. Wood. Dr. W T ood, with the letter of Dr. Abbott, and with his own warm heart and judi- cious head, went to Colonel Webster, the father of the youth, and laid his plan before him. It seemed to the father too great an undertaking. He was then poor, comparatively, at least not rich, when the size of his family is taken into consideration. He thought, too, that the act of sending one of his boys to col- lege, while the others had had only the first rudiments of an education, would be an act of partiality. These, and all similar scruples, were finally overcome by the eloquence and zeal which accompanied the application. The question was at last decided. It was decided in the affirmative. Dr. Abbott and Dr. Wood were to open the door of Dartmouth; and Daniel Webster was to go to college. The decision was made ; but it was not reported to the one most interested. For several days, Daniel knew nothing of it. He was still studying his books, and pursuing his usual avoca- tions, as if he was about finishing his literary course, pre- paratory to his becoming a country schoolmaster. Colonel Webster seemed to be even coy about stating to Daniel the important result of his deliberations. The truth is, the father and the son were both exceedingly delicate in their sensibili- ities ; both would probably be moved by such a revelation ; and a matter of this magnitude could not be mentioned by the one, or listened to by the other, excepting at a proper time, and under fitting circumstances. The time at length came. One day, as they were driving alone to Boscawen in a rude sleigh when the horses had slackened their speed in the ascent of a 48 WEBSTER AND HIS MASTER-PIECES. long hill, the secret was told : " I remember," says Daniel Webster, in his own account of the conversation, "the very hill which we were ascending, through deep snows, in a New Eng- land sleigh, when my father made known this purpose to me. I could not speak. How could he, 1 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." W hat art- ist will give the. world a picture of this scene ! CHAPTER IV. WEBSTER IN COLLEGE. THB first ajpearance of Daniel Webster at Dartmouth haa been given to the public by his class-mate, subsequently a mem ber of the Faculty of that college, Professor Shurtliff: " When 1 came to enter this Institution, in 1797, 1 put up, with others from the same academy, at what is now called the Olcott House, which was then a tavern. We were conducted to a chamber, where we might brush our clothes and make ready for exami- nation. A young man, a stranger to us all, was soon ushered into the room. Similarity of object rendered the ordinary forms of introduction needless. We learned that his name was Webster, also where he had studied, and how much Latin and Greek he had read, which, I think, was just to the limit pre- scribed by law at that period, and which was very much below the present requisition." Webster had come from home through a violent rain. He wore a suit of blue, dyed at home, as well as woven and made up at home. It need not be doubted, that the color of the cloth may not have been very fast, for the art of dyeing was not likely to be thoroughly understood, or well practiced, in the backwoods of New Hampshire at that time. Be this as it may, when Daniel arrived at his hotel, according to his own ac- count, he made no figure calculated to help him in the presence of his examiners. The rain had completely soaked his gar- ments ; the indigo, which had taken only the slight hold men- tioned on the texture of the cloth, had run down upon his limbs M) WEBSTER AND HIS MASTER-PIECES. arid arms; and, in wiping the water from his face, he had spread the color over his eyes and around his mouth and chin. The professors were waiting for him on his arrival. He had no time to make due preparation. Soaked with rain, his garments stiff and smoking, and his face spotted and smeared with indigo, he hastened to meet the Faculty, on their summons, to pass the great ordeal of his life. He has often laughed at the figure he cut that day, when, as he used to express it, " he was not only black Dan but blue Dan." He is reported, nevertheless, to have passed a good examination. According to his usual man- ner, and in spite of the disadvantages of his appearance, he was entirely self-possessed. What he lacked in classical lore, he more than made up by the ease and dignity with which he re- lated to his judges the early beginning of his education, how many books of the course he had read, what authors outside of it he had perused, and all the matters concurrent to the case in hand, which he narrated with as much eloquence, probably, simple and direct, as any of them had ever heard. His case was easily decided. If he was not the best scholar, which could hardly be expected of a youth prepared for college in about ten or eleven months, he was certainly the most remark- able and promising member of his class. This the professors all saw as soon as he stood up before them. They saw it more plainly when they listened to his voice. Even then, according to the testimony of two of his classmates, one of whom is still living, he was as dignified, as easy, as elegant, as he ever was in after life. His appeal to the Faculty, after his examination was concluded, and they were about to deliberate, as he thought, upon his merits, was exactly after the manner of his riper years. Referring to the haste, in which he had been sum- moned before them, and the unfortunate apsect he presented, he made use of language, which, before many a tribunal, would have gained the case : " Thus you see me," said he, " as I am, if not entitled to your approbation, at least to your sympathy." DEMEANOR AS A STUDENT. 51 His general demeanor as a student is worthy of particular remark: "Mr. Webster, while in college," says Professor Shurtliff, " was remarkable for his steady habits, his intense ap- plication to study, and his punctual attendance upon all the pre- scribed exercises. 1 know not that he was absent from a reci- tation, or from morning and evening prayers in the chapel, or from public worship on the Sabbath ; and I doubt if ever a smile was seen upon his fiice during any religious exercise. He was always in his place, and with a decorum suited to it. He had no collision with any one, nor appeared to enter into the concerns of others, but emphatically minded his own busi- ness. But as steady as the sun, he pursued with intense ap plication the great object for which he came to college." Many a young man in college has been misled, deceived, ruined by the vaunted examples, like those of Byron and of Shelly, of successful idleness. They forgot, however, while following such guides, the laborious efforts of nine-tenths of the greatest men of modern history. If they wish to behold another proof of the value of hard study, let them look here into the early life of Daniel Webster, who, though endowed by nature beyond any one of his day, did not reach the highest eminence, nor could he satisfy the requirements of his mind, without the most diligent and thorough application to his studies. The freshman and sophomore classes at Dartmouth, at this time, devoted themselves to the rudiments of the mathematics, to the Latin and Greek languages, and to regular exercises in speaking and in composition. In mathematics, especially the higher mathematics, Daniel Webster took no great interest, as he did not regard this branch of study as very practical, nor therefore as very important. His mind, indeed, always leaned toward facts, and the proper use of facts, rather than to- ward calculations. The languages, however, were his delight. He pursued them as did no other student of the institution. He went to the bottom of them, making himself thoroughly VOL. i. C 4 52 WEBSTER AND HIS MASTER-PIECES. acquainted with their elements, their first principles, and their philosophy. He was the best, the deepest, grammarian of his college. He studied carefully the origin, the history, the exact meanings, and the perversions of words. His philosophical and comprehensive mind would not be satisfied with knowing the use of words simply, but he at once sought out their relations to other words, and put them into their etymological places according to their mutual relationships, thus abridging the im- mense task of learning the vocabulary of the languages by ma- king out for himself brief and logical classifications. lie paid special attention, also, to the formation of a good style of ren dering his classics into English. He endeavored to catch the manner of his author and then copy it in his version. He thus studied language and rhetoric together. Among all the works of the first two years, Gcero, as might be expected, was his favorite author. Him he read, day and night, not barely as a school-boy, but as a philosopher, as a critic, and particularly with a view to a knowledge of the fundamental principles of elocution. He would read, and re-read, those orations which charmed the Roman senate and the Roman people, as if they were his own speeches, and he was delivering them to an actual auditory. He made himself perfectly familiar with them, so that he could repeat several of them from memory, and make large quotations from any of them, without a moment's warning. After uttering long passages to his class-mates, he would criticise their style, showing up the faults, or pointing out the merits, of the great orator. In this way, he made the pervading spirit of Roman eloquence, in its highest form, his own spirit, a part of his own way of thinking and of speaking, which continued with him, and was afterwards always manifest in him, in his greatest efforts. It was at this time, too, that he acquired that taste for classic poetry, and especially his partiality for Virgil, which never left him. The author of the iEneid, next to Cicero, was to him HIS LOVE OF THE CLASSICS. 53 the most captivating of the Roman writers. He read :he poems of this classic, and particularly his great epic, so re- peatedly and constantly, that he could quote the most remark- able passages, while yet a boy. as he used to quote them after he became a man. Those who have had the good fortune to hear him, on the platform, or at the bar, or in the senate, have often wondered at the readiness with which, on the spur of a moment, without the opportunity of any preparation, he would rise to his feet, and, in the course of an extemporaneous debate, not only utter himself in the most classic English, but make the most apposite quotations from the Roman classics, and es- pecially from the Roman poets. His quotations always seemed to be, indeed, more to the point, than those of any other ora- tor of modern times. This facility, which was actually a pow- er, he laid the foundation for during his first and second years in college. While he was thus making such deep and lasting acquisi- tions in the department of language, it must not be supposed, that, though not enthusiastic in the mathematics, he was neg- lectful of them. It was never his habit to neglect anything that properly belonged to him. He studied this branch well, and obtained a good reputation in it ; and, in spite of the modera- tion of his zeal in these studies, he was always at home, and could stand his ground under the most critical examination. It is probable, however, that it was sometimes his power of mind, rather than his knowledge, by which he maintained his points, and made himself even popular in this department. " He gained me," says the venerable Judge Woodward, at that time the professor of mathematics, " by combatting my opinions ; for I often attacked him, merely to try his strength." During the whole of these first two years, he devoted a great share of his time to general reading and to composition. His class-mates spent their hours principally in preparing their les- sons, making but few excursions into the world of knowledge 54 WEBSTER AND HIS MASTER-PIECES. outside of their class-room authors. He, on the othr hand, after making a thorough preparation for his recitations, found time to read extensively in history, in poetry, and in criticism. American and English history, however, and the American and English classical belles-lettres writers, were his chief study. The history of England he studied with a glowing interest. He seemed to have a passion for it. Every book written about England, for or against, historical, political, or de- scriptive, he devoured. The discovery and first settlement of this country, also, the struggles of the several American plan- tations, the wars with the Indians, and everything pertaining to that primitive period of our annals, he read with equal interest. Our great men were then just in the act of giving a perma- nent existence, an established character, to our national govern- ment. What they were doing, and what they generally pro- posed to do, arrested and occupied his serious attention. From the day of the cotton handkerchief, he had been a student and a great admirer of the constitution. While in college, he could repeat it, and did more than once repeat it, from beginning to end, from recollection. He could remark upon it, too, and that wisely, as well as rehearse it. He took special pleasure in tracing the various provisions of the constitution to something that had preexisted in the institutions of Great Britain, or to the historical attempts made, at different periods, by the En- glish patriots, to introduce new features into the government of their country. Questions frequently arose, in the debates of the students, relating to English and American affairs, in none of which could any student stand a moment against the thorough knowledge, the wide views, the deep reasoning, and the graceful as well as commanding and overpowering elocu- tion of Daniel Webster. Not only in books, studied as described with the ardor of a devotee, and with the penetration of a philosopher, but from living examples, from existing models, did he pursue his inves- STUDIES THE GREAT ORATORS. 5ft tigations respecting eloquence. The same spirit, which, at Ex eter, would not suffer him to make a declaration, was now burning in his bosom like a vestal fire, and urging him on to a most profound knowledge of the principles and practice of true oratory. After Cicero had become as familiar to him as his alphabet, he read Demosthenes with great animation, but, per- haps, not with so perfect an appreciation. The mind of De- mosthenes, though forcible, w r as not so wide and comprehensive as to make him, in this respect, preeminent. He was a man of sound thought, of clear ideas, of great skill in argument ; but his fame arose rather from the quickness and keenness of his temper, from the rapidity of his conceptions, from the im- petuosity of his spirit, from the irresistible bursts of his fiery passion. Such a man, such a mind, could not be the favorite with a cool, deliberate, broad, slow, but mighty mind, like that of Daniel Webster. Demosthenes, though laborious in writing out his speeches, did not think enough, was not calm enough, for Webster. Cicero, on the other hand, was calm. He was also deep, wide, philosophical, and yet passionate. There were many points of resemblance between the American and the Roman ; and the Roman was always, both in youth, and in mature age, the chosen model, so far as there was any model, with the great American. The truth is, however, young Web- ster made no one man his model. The classic orators were read, studied, criticised ; and all that suited the temper and taste of the student were thoroughly incorporated into his own mental being. But he studied, particularly at about the end of his first two years in college, the English and American orators with as much zeal as ever he had studied the Roman and the Grecian. What a galaxy of great debaters were then before him, in England and in this country ! Pitt, Fox, Burke, on the other side of the Atlantic, had electrified all Europe, and im- mortalized their names, in the wilds of a new continent, by those wonderful efforts, the like of which Europe had never before 50 WEBSTER AND HIS MASTER-PIECES. witnessed. On this side of the Atlantic, Fisher Ames, Patrick Henry, Samuel and John Aclams, and Alexander Ilamiltoa had won for themselves, both here and in England, an equal im- mortality. All these great orators were thoroughly studied by young Webster. No man could he meet from Boston, or from New York, or from Philadelphia, where our eloquent patriots were most in the habit of making their celebrated speeches, but the young student would exhaust the vocabulary in asking ques- tions about their personal appearance, their style of speaking, their voice, their gesture, their general demeanor on the plat- form. In this way, he acquired a large stock of the most use- ful information, respecting the art that nature had chosen for him ; and he thus drew up his own judgment, and formed his own style, with the advantages of much previous study, and from a wide induction of the most illustrious examples. If there was any one individual, that deserves to be considered as Daniel Webster's model in oratory, that man was undoubtedly Alexander Hamilton ; and it is not singular, that the elder should also have been almost a pattern to the younger states- man, in nearly every other matter pertaining to their political character and public services. A man's oratory, in fact, is an expression, and the best possible expression, of his character ; it is the man himself making a revelation of his own inward being ; and it was never more thoroughly such a revelation, than in the example of the two patriots, whose memories are thus linked together. It is fortunate for the reader, and for all students of true eloquence, that Webster has happened to give the ideal of oratory as formed within him, at the period and in the manner before mentioned ; and it is equally fortunate, that this ideal happens, also, to be a perfect exposition of what was common to two statesmen, whose superiors have nevei risen up, and possibly may never rise up, among us : " True eloquence, indeed, does not consist in speech. It cannot be brought from far. Labor and learning may toil for it, but they will toil in HIS DESCRIPTION Of TRUE ELOQUENCE. 57 vain. Words and phrases may be marshaled in every way,, but they cannot compass it. It must exist in the man, in the subject, and in the occasion. Affected passion, intense expres- sion, the pomp of declamation, all may aspire after it, but they cannot reach it. It .c^oies, if it comes at all, like the outbreak- ing of a fountain from the earth, or the bursting forth of vol- canic fires with spontaneous, origin;il. native force. The graces taught in the schools, the costly ornaments and studied contri- vances 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 ; then words have lost their power, and rhetoric is vain, and all the elaborate oratory is con- temptible. Even genius itself then feels rebuked and subdued, as in the presence of higher qualities. Then patriotism is elo- quent ; 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 elo- quence ! " At the end of the first two years, the young student weno home to pass the time of the long vacation. Keeping with his books at night, and at all times when not otherwise demanded by his father, he went into the field by day, and entered into all the labors of the farm as if he had never left it for an hour. When at his studies, or engaged in any serious occupation of the mind, he was always himself serious, and would sit hour after hour, in the family circle, surrounded by all sorts of ope- rations, absorbed, swallowed up, lost in the author, or in the topics, he had in hand. The moment, however, that he had fin- ished his intellectual labor, or was called away by other duties from the employments of his mind, he was at once changed, transformed completely, into a perfect embodiment of sport His health was good ; his intellect was sound and active; hw 58 WEBSTER AND HIS MASTER-PIECES. studies were giving delightful exercise to all his faculties; he was emerging, every day, from the life of a mere plough-boy, in an obscure portion of the country, into the great world of letters, which, covering the world, makes of it something like a universal brotherhood of kindred spirits. . Though not yet a member of that brotherhood, he was a candidate for member- ship, and every step he took forward, which brought him nearer to the final goal, gave him new animation, and increased the buoyancy of his ever-buoyant soul. Whenever his books were thrown aside, he seemed no longer the studious recluse, the thoughtful and brow-knitting scholar, but the jovial companion, overflowing with genuine wit, and equally ready to laugh at or to make a joke. It was his growing mirth, rather than the in- creasing acquisitions of his mind, that made him more and more the universal favorite of the field. He could then tell a good story ; and his powers of representing characters, of mim- icking, of taking off what was ludicrous, of dashing along with the lively and the gay, of making the hayfield ring with laugh- ter, or of raising sport that would set the long drawn table in a roar, marked him then, as they have marked him through the soberest periods of his life. On a certain day, his father, who was about leaving home to be gone till night, gave directions to Ezekiel and Daniel to per- form a piece of work. After he was gone, the boys took it into their heads, not out of a spirit of disobedience, but with that discretion which they thought they were now about old enough to use, to defer the work enjoined upon them to another day. Still, they were not entirely certain that their decision would be approved, especially as it left them little or nothing at all to do. Ezekiel, as usual, was rather sober about it. Daniel was as lively as ever. At night, on his return, the father, seeing the work unperformed, spoke rather sharply to them : " Ezekiel, what have you been doing all day ? " " Nothing," said the culprit " And what have yon been doing, Daniel ? " " Help- OENERAL SERIOUSNESS OF DIE POSITION. 59 ing Zeke, sir," said the rogue in a very solemn way. Tlie re- ply of Ezekiel left the father not softened. Daniel's wit warmed him into a pleasant smile. That same wit has often gained other victories of more importance to the world. On another day, during the long vacation, Daniel was put to mowing, when he had a book about him that he was exceed- ingly anxious to peruse. The work was not very pressing, and Daniel knew it. He was, therefore, the more at liberty to drop his scythe, now and then, and fall under a bush, or into the shadow of an elm, and read. He was perfectly aware, too, that his father, though anxious always to have every person do a good day's work, was never so easily satisfied with his boys for doing less than was expected of them, as when they neg- lected their labor for their books. On that day, certainly, Daniel was not doing much ; and lie complained, whenever his lather came to him, that the scythe was not properly hung. The father set it for him a number of times; but all to no pur pose. Daniel was still doing but little. At length, a little im patient, the father came and inquired into the matter more mi- nutely. The answer still was, that the scythe was not well hung. " Hang it yourself, then," said the father, " and hang it to suit you." Taking the full advantage of these instructions, Daniel went to where the scythe was lying, picked it up leis- urely, brought it to the place where he had been sitting, and hung it up very carefully on a limb of the tree. "There, sir," said the laggard, " it now hangs just right." In the mean time, the father had seen the book ; he accordingly received the witticism with another of his smiles ; and that was the end, to Daniel, of that day's work. With all these pleasantries, however, the general tenor, the main current, of Daniel's life, at this period, was serious. He had undertaken a great matter. He had engaged in it with all his might. He understood its import, and meant to be thorough and complete. He road, stwiied, and conversed, with the one VOL. i. C* 60 WEESTER AND HIS MASTER-PIECES. end in view, of disciplining his faculties, jf enlarging the amount and sphere of his knowledge, of laying a broad and deep foun dation for future use. His diligence, instead of abating, grew with his advancement day by day ; and that advancement had even now become such as to inspire all his friends with the most exalted expectations of his after life. His growth in knowledge was particularly gratifying to Mr. Thompson and Dr. Wood, his early friends, whose patronage came to him as a tribute to the strength, originality, and promise of his mind. Colonel Webster, a sagacious man, could not fail to see the maturing greatness of his son. He began to behold the first fruits of his education ; and, on several occasions, mentioned the satisfaction that Daniel's success had given him, to his mother. That mo- ther, his first teacher, and a glorious woman, had seen it all, had enjoyed it all, had looked upon him with a mother's eye, and regarded him as her noblest jewel. She needed no one to tell her of the superiority of Daniel's mind, no one to assure her of his ultimate greatness and success, no one to display to her admiration the excellent qualities of his moral nature, his mag- nanimity, his disinterestedness, his kindness of heart, his great tenderness and benevolence of soul. All these she had discov- ered, had admired, had doted on in secret, had treasured up among her fondest recollections, from the earliest years of his infancy. It must be acknowledged, without doubt, that she was even proud of him ; but it may be left to other mothers, who have had similar fortune, to urge this against her as a fault. The moral sentiment of Daniel Webster, at this season of his life, was never more happily illustrated, perhaps, than by the interest he took in the education of his brother. Then in the full enjoyment of study, with the highest prospects rising up before him, which gave him the utmost exhileration of soul, he could not rest, he would not rest, he did not rest, till the same advantages were furnished to Ezekiel. This part of his history is told by Professor San horn : "After a residence of HIS AFFECTION FOB HIS BROTHER. 61 two years at college, he spent a vacation at home. lie had tasted the sweets of literature, and enjoyed the victories of in tellectual effort. He loved the scholar's life. He felt keenly for the condition of his brother Ezekiel, who was destined to remain on the farm, and labor to lift the mortgage from the old homestead, and furnish the means of his brother's support. Ezekiel was a farmer in spirit and in practice. He led his laborers in the field, as he afterwards led his class in Greek. Daniel knew and appreciated his superior intellectual endow- ments. He resolved that his brother should enjoy the same privileges with himself. One night the two brothers retired to bed, but not to sleep. They discoursed of their prospects. Daniel utterly refused to enjoy the fruit of his brother's labor any longer. They were united in sympathy and affection ; and they must be united in their pursuits. But how could they leave their beloved parents, in age and solitude, with no pro- tector ] They talked and wept, and wept and talked, till dawn of day. They dared not broach the matter to their father, finally, Dawiel resolved to be the orator on the occasion. Judge Webster was then somewhat burdened with debts. He was advanced in age, and had set his heart upon having Ezekiel as his helper. The very thought of separation from both his sons was painful to him. When the proposition was made, he felt as did the patriarch of old, when he exclaimed, ' Joseph is not ; and will ye also take Benjamin away 1 ' A family council was called. The mother's opinion was asked. She was a strong minded woman. She was not blind to the superior endowments of her sons. With all a mother's par- tiality, however, she did not over-estimate their powers. She decided the matter at once : ' 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, and they may enjoy the benefit of that which remains after our debts are paid.' This 02 WEBSTER AND HIS MASTER-PIECES. was a moment of intense interest to all the parties. Parents and children all mingled their tears together, and sobbed aloud, at the thought of separation. The father yielded to the en- treaties of his sons and the advice of his wife. Daniel returned to college ; and Ezekiel took his little bundle in his hand, and sought on foot the scene of his preparatory studies. In one year, he joined his younger brother in college." When it is said of a man, in order to indicate the character and amount of his mental discipline, that he is a graduate of college, no reliable idea is given. Nothing more indefinite could be said. The colleges of one country differ exceedingly, in every way, from the colleges of another. The institutions of a single country, at one period of its history, differ as greatly from the same institutions at another period. The schools of the same nation, and of the same age, are often scarcely com- parable with each other. And these facts must not be forgot- ten in estimating the native abilities and the intellectual train- ing of Daniel Webster. He studied four years in a university. This is certain. It is certain that he entered the institution re- spectably prepared. It is equally certain that he maintained a good rank as a member of the college classes. The rumor, so current once, and so readily caught up by injudicious gossip, that he stood low at school as a student, is entirely without foundation. As things then were, as education was then under- stood, he was decidedly above the average standing, and in many respects without a rival. He was as much a lion, while a school -boy among his associates, as he ever was in congress, at- the bar, or on the platform, among the greatest men of the nation, and of other nations. As the discipline he received was not such as is now given at our universities, it will be pertinent to state farther, for the benefit of those who will wish to see the whole meaning and force of his great example, the course of studies he pursued till he removed from college. Having, during hie first two years, completed the classks, a* HIS CHOICE OF STUDIES. 63 they were then read, together with pure mathematics, the third year was devoted to natural philosophy, to moral philosophy, and to rhetoric. Natural philosophy was then, what it is now, an application of the higher mathematics to natural science. In this department, while he was prepared to be delighted, and was delighted, with the views of nature thus presented to him, he failed to realize as much pleasure and profit from it, as he would have realized, had he not chosen not to be very deeply inter- ested in mathematics. With this disadvantage, nevertheless, he was about equal to the best of his competitors, but was estima- ted lower than he should have been, because he permitted such a difference to exist between his marked ability and his recita- tions. A person acknowledged to be remarkable, must always be remarkable in every thing he does, or he fails to receive the credit positively belonging to his performances. Milo must always carry the ox, whether lie wished to carry him or not, or the superficial were ready to believe, that he could not bear a heavier burden than common people. In moral philosophy, and in rhetoric, however, no such con- siderations need be offered. In both these studies, Daniel Web- ster had no equal in the university among the students. It is doubtful whether he had his superior, in all respects, among the teachers. His style as a writer and speaker, it is true, was then far from being what it became afterwards ; and it might have been decidedly inferior, in point of accuracy and finish, to that of the weakest professor. But, taking his mind, his thought, his logic, his energy and power into the account ; taking into consideration the earnest spirit, the lofty tone, the depth and breadth, of his range and reach of thought ; and it is nearly certain, if not quite certain, from what we now possess of the efforts of that day, that no man in college, student or professor was entirely his equal. His conceptions, it is confessed, were frequently too glaringly bold for good taste, but they were not bald. They were full of meaning, of sense, of powerful thought- 64 WEBSTER AND HIS MASTER-PIECES. His diction, too, was daring, bombastic, sometimes turgid to the last degree of fault ; but it was the diction, as every one could see, and as every one could see with all needful apology, of a masterly mind, crowded with ideas too big for such utter- ance as he had then acquired. On the 4th of July, 1800, when he was in his seventeenth year, and a junior in college, he delivered an oration to the cit- izens and students, at their joint request. It is still extant ; and though, in comparison with the immortal efforts of mature life, it bears no great resemblance to them, an inquirer into his genius and character might rather lose almost any one of his master-pie- ces, than to fail of reading and studying this. The master-pieces are numerous; they show what a great man is; but the first performance can be only one ; and that one exhibits clearly the starting-point, the origin, the germ, of all that was to come. In the later efforts, we see what the man is by simple induction, by arguments a posteriori, by a very common and hackneyed process. In the first attempt, where nature speaks, before art has taken the control of nature, when the inner soul utters it self unconsciously, we look forward to the future being, to his coming greatness, by the more beautiful method a priori, as a man traces a stream from its fountain-head till it reaches the great ocean, or as a seer, a prophet, looks down the track of time, and beholds the grandest developments from the most inconsiderable of causes. No one, familiar with Daniel Webster's style, \vill fail to see, in every part of his virgin effort, much of the man in the style and manner of the boy. Let the reader, who has heard him speak for the last ten or fifteen years, call up to his imagination a picture of the mature orator, as he was whenever he saw and heard him, and with that in view. draw another picture, as he peruses the exordium of that juvenile address : " Countrymen, brethren and fathers: We are now assem- bled to celebrate an anniversary, ever to be held in dear remem- HIS FIRST ORATION. 65 brance by the sons of freedom. Nothing less than the birth of a nation, nothing less than the emancipation of three millions of people from the degrading chains of foreign dominion, is the event we commemorate. " Twenty -four years have this day elapsed, since these United States first raised the standard of Liberty, and echoed the shouts of Independence. " Those of you, who wera then reaping the iron harvest of the martial field, whose bosoms then palpitated for the honor of America, will, at this time, experience a renewal of all that fervent patriotism, of all those indescribable emotions, which then agitated your breasts. As for us, who were either then unborn, or not ilir enough advanced beyond the threshold of existence, to engage in the grand conflict for Liberty, we now most cordially unite with you to greet the return of this joyous anniversary, to welcome the return of the day that gave us Freedom, and to hail the rising glories of our country ! " That, every reader will say, in spite of its grandiloquence, in spite of one or two inaccuracies in the use of language, such as the man was never guilty of, is a splendid exordium for a boy of sixteen years. The statement of the subject, as in all his future speeches, is brief, clear and simple : " On occasions like this, you have hitherto been addressed, from the stage " he means the plat- form " on the nature, the origin, the expediency of civil go- vernment." lie must have been a close observer to have ar- rived, at so early an age, at an induction so general and truthful. "The field of political speculation has here been explored by persons possessing taler.ts to which the speaker of the day can have no pretensions. Declining therefore, a dissertation on the principles of civil polity" which he pretty clearly understood, but which he was too diffident to offer as the topic of a dis- soqrse " you will indulge me in slightly sketching those events, 66 WEBSTEB AND HIS MASTER-PIECES. which ha^ originated, nurtured and raised to its present grand- eur this n-rw empire." The orator now proceeds directly to his argument, in which he gives ft succinct history of the country, from its settlement to the close of the revolutionary war. The diction, in this part of the performance, by no means equals that of the exor- dium : " As no nation on the globe can rival us in the rapidity of our growth, since the conclusion of the revolutionary war, so none, perhaps, ever endured greater hardships and distresses, than the people of this country previous to that period. " We behold a feeble band of colonists engaged in the ar- duous undertaking of a new settlement in the wilds of North America. Their civil liberty being mutilated, and the enjoy- ment of their religious sentiments denied them, in the land that gave them birth, they fled their country, they braved the dan- gers of the then almost unnavigated ocean, and sought on the other side of the globe, an asylum from the iron grasp of tyr- anny and the more intolerable scourge of ecclesiastical perse- cution. " But gloomy, indeed, was the prospect when arrived on this side of the Atlantic. '' Scattered in detachments along a coast immensely exten- sive, at a distance of more than three thousand miles from their friends on the eastern continent, they were exposed to all those evils, and encountered or experienced all those difficulties, to which human nature seemed liable. Destitute of convenient habitations, the inclemencies of the seasons harrassed them, the midnight beasts of prey prowled terribly around them, and the more portentous yell of savage fury incessantly assailed them. But the same undiminished confidence in Almighty God, which prompted the first settlers of this country to forsake the un- friendly climes of Europe, still supported them under all their calamities, and inspired them with fortitude almost divine. Having a glorious issue to their labors now in prospect, they FIRST ORATION CONTINUED. 6T cheerfully enduied the rigors of the climate, pursued the sav- age beast to his remotest haunt, and stood, undismayed, in the dismal hour of Indian battle. " Scarcely were the infant settlements freed from those dan- gers, which at first environed them, ere the clashing interests of France and Britain involved them anew in war. The colonists were now destined to combat with well appointed, well disciplined troops from Europe ; and the horrors of the tomahawk and the scalping knife were again renewed. But these frowns of fortune, distressing as they were, had been met without a sigh, and endured without a groan, had not Great Britain presump- tuously arrogated to herself the glory of victories achieved by American militia. Louisburg must be taken, Canada attacked, and a frontier of more than one thousand miles defended by untutored yeomanry, while the honor of every conquest must be ascribed to an English army. " But while Great Britain was thus tyranically stripping her colonies of their well-earned laurels, and triumphantly weaving them into the stupendous wreath of her own martial glories, she w r as unwittingly teaching them to value themselves, and effectually to resist, on a future day, her unjust encroachments. " The pitiful tale of taxation now commenced the unhappy quarrel, which resulted in the dismemberment of the British Empire, has here its origin. " England, now triumphant over the united powers of France and Spain, is determined to reduce to the condition of slaves her American subjects. " We might now display the legislatures of the several States, together with the general congress, petitioning, praying, remon- strating ; and, like dutiful subjects, humbly laying their griey- ances before the throne. On the other hand, we could exhibit a British parliament, assiduously devising means to subjugate America, disdaining our petitions, trampling on our rights, and menacingly telling us, in language not to be misunderstood, VOL. j. 5 68 WEBSTER AND HIS MASTER-PIECES. ye shall be slaves? We could mention the haughty, tyranni- cal, perfidious Gage, at the head of a standing army ; we could show our brethren attacked and slaughtered at Lexington ; our property plundered and destroyed at Concord ! Recollections can still pain us, with the spiral flames of burning Charlestown, the agonizing groans of aged parents, the shrieks of widows, orphans and infants ! " Indelibly impressed on our memories, still lives the dis- mal scene of Bunker's awful mount, the grand theatre of New England bravery, where slaughter stalked grimly triumphant ; where relentless Britain saw her soldiers, the unhappy instru- ments of despotism, fallen in heaps, beneath the nervous arm of injured freemen ! " There the great Warren fought, and there, alas ! he fell ! Valuing life only as it enabled him to serve his country, he freely resigned himself, a willing martyr in the cause of Lib- erty, and now lies encircled in the arms of glory : " ' Peace to the patriot's shade let no rude blast Disturb the willow that nods o'er his tomb ; Let orphan tears bedew his sacred urn, And fame's loud trump proclaim the hero's name, r w as the circuit of the spheres extends 1 ' " But, haughty Albion, thy reign shall soon be over. Thou shalt triumph no longer ; thine empire already reels and tot- ters ; thy laurel even now begins to wither and thy fame de- cay. Thou hast, at length, roused the indignation of an insulted people ; thine oppressions they deem no longer tolerable. "The 4th day of July, 1776, has now arrived, and America, manfully " the young orator does not now regard America personified a female " manfully springing from the torturing fangs of the British lion, now rises majestic in the pride of her sovereignty" now he does " arid bids her Eagle elevate his wings! " The solemn Declaration of Independence is now pronounced, ORATION CONTINUED. 69 amidst crowds of admiring citizens, by the supreme council of the nation, and received with the unbounded plaudits of a grate- ful people ! That was the hour when heroism was proved when the souls of men were tried ! "It was then, ye venerable patriots" he here addresses the revolutionary soldiers present " it was then you lifted the in- dignant arm, and unitedly swore to be free ! Despising such toys as subjugated empires, you then knew no middle fortune between liberty and death ! " Firmly relying on the protection of Heaven, unwarped in the resolution you had taken, you then, undaunted, met, engaged, defeated the gigantic power of Britain, and rose triumphant over the aggressions of your enemies ! " Trenton, Princeton, Bennington and Saratoga were the suc- cessive theatres of your victories, and the utmost bounds of creation are the limits of your fame ! The sacred fire of free- dom, then enkindled in your breasts, shall be perpetuated through the long descent of future ages, and burn, with undi- minished fervor, in the bosom of millions yet unborn ! " Finally, to close the sanguinary conflict, to grant America the blessings of an honorable peace, and clothe her heroes with laurels, Cornwallis, at whose feet the kings and princes of Asia have since thrown their diadems, was compelled to submit to the sword of Washington ! " The faults of this portion of the address, in point of style, are certainly very numerous; but the most critical reader will see the most clearly its intrinsic excellencies. The faults are not those of a weak mind, but of a mind of powerful and in- dependent thought. The thoughts, in fact, are, or rather were then, quite original and apposite to the occasion ; but the ex- pression, like that of all young writers, is rendered less forcible by a boyish attempt at too great strength. The second division of the discourse, which introduces the subject of our national polity, a topic, which, in the introd c- 70 WEBSTER AND HIS MASTER-PIECES. tion, the aathor had modestly declined, is characterized by a more sober style of thinking and a less bombastic diction, though the general tenor of it is still too dazzling and senti- mental : " The great drama is now completed ; our Indepen- dence is now acknowledged ; and the hopes of our enemies are blasted forever. Columbia is now seated in the Forum of na- tions; and the empires of the world are amazed at the bright effulgence of her glory. "Thus, friends and citizens, did the kind hand of overruling Providence conduct us, through toils, fatigues and dangers, to Independence and Peace. If piety be the rational exercise of the human soul, if religion be not a chimera, and if the vestiges of heavenly assistance are clearly traced in those events which mark the annals of our Nation, it becomes us, on this day, in consideration of the great things which have been done for us, to render the tribute of unfeigned thanks to that God, who su- perintends the universe, and holds aloft the scale that weighs the destinies of nations. " The conclusion of the Revolutionary war did not accom- plish [he means, constitute, or complete] the entire achievements of our countrymen. Their military character was then, indeed, sufficiently established ; but the time was coming which should show their political sagacity their ability to govern them- selves. " No sooner was peace restored with England (the first grand article of which was the acknowedgment of our Independence) than the old system of confederation, dictated, at first, by ne- cessity, and adopted for the purposes of the moment, was found inadequate to the government of an extensive empire. Under a full conviction of this, we then saw the people of these states engaged in a transaction which is undoubtedly the greatest ap- proximation towards human perfection the political world ever witnessed, and which, perhaps, will forever stand in the history of mankind without a parallel. A great Republic, composed ORATION CONTINUED. 71 of different states, whose interests in all respects could not be perfectly compatible, then came deliberately forward, discarded one system of government and adopted another, without the loss of one man's blood. " There is not a single government now existing in Europe, which is not based in usurpation, and established, if established at all, by the sacrifice of thousands. But, in the adoption of our present system of jurisprudence, we see the powers neces- sary for government voluntarily flowing from the people, their only proper origin, and directed to the public good, their only proper object. " With peculiar propriety, we may now felicitate ourselves on that happy form of mixed government under which we live. The advantages resulting to the citizens of the Union are utterly incalculable ; and the day when it was received by a majority of the States shall stand on the catalogue of American anniver saries second to none but the birth-day of Independence. " In consequence of the adoption of our present system of government, and the virtuous manner in which it has been ad- ministered by a Washington and an Adams, we are this day in the enjoyment of peace, while war devastates Europe. We can now sit down beneath the shadow of the olive, while her cities blaze, her streams run purple with blood, and her fields glitter with a forest of bayonets. The citizens of America can this day throng the temples of freedom, and renew their oaths of fealty to independence, while Holland, our once sister Re- public, is erased from the catalogue of nations ; while Venice is destroyed, Italy ravaged, and Switzerland the once happy, the once united, the once flourishing Switzerland lies bleeding at every pore ! "No ambitious foe dares now invade our country. No standing army- now endangers our liberty. Our Commerce, though subject in some degree to the depredations of the bel- ligerent powers, is extended from pole to pole ; our Navy, 72 WEBSTER AND HIS MASTER-PIECES. though just emerging from non-existence, shall soon vouch for the safety of our merchantmen, and bear the thunder of free- dom around the ball. Fair Science, too, holds her gentle em- pire amongst us, and almost innumerable altars are raised to her divinity, from Brunswick to Florida. Yale, Providence, and Harvard, now grace our land ; and Dartmouth, towering majestic above the groves which encircle her, now inscribes her glory on the registers of fame. Oxford and Cambridge, those oriental stars of literature, shall now be outshone by the bright sun of American science, which displays his broad circumfer- ence in uneclipsed radiance ! " Such is the second division of this interesting speech, and the reader will no doubt say, or be ready to admit, that, after so many very sober and sensible paragraphs, so grandiloquent and turgid a termination is an unwished-for blemish. The orator now proceeds to pay a passing tribute, if not more than a passing tribute, perhaps a premeditated debt of gratitude, to the heroes of the revolution : " Pleasing, indeed, were it here to dilate on the future grandeur of America ; but we for- bear, and pause for a moment to drop the tear of affection over the graves of our departed warriors. Their names should be mentioned on every anniversary of Independence, that the youth of each successive generation may learn not to value life, when held in competition with their country's safety. " Wooster, Montgomery, and Mercer fell bravely in battle, and their ashes are now entombed on the fields that witnessed their valor. Let their exertions in our country's cause be re- membered, while liberty has an advocate, and gratitude has a place in the human heart. " Greene, the immortal hero of the Carolinas, has since gone down to the grave, loaded with honors, and high in the estima tion of his countrymen. The courageous Putnam has long elept with Ms fathers, and Sullivan and Cilley, New Ilamp- ORATION CONTINUED. 73 shire's veteran sons, are no more remembered among the living. " With hearts penetrated by unutterable grief, we are at length constrained to ask, where is our Washington ? where the hero who led us to victory 1 where the man who gave us free- dom 1 where is he, who headed our feeble army, when destruc- tion threatened us, who came upon our enemies like the storms of winter, and scattered them like leaves before the Borean blast? Where, O! my country! is thy political savior? Where, O! humanity ! thy favorite son? "The solemnity of this assembly, the lamentations of the American people, will answer, 'Alas ! he is now no more the mighty is fallen ! ' " Yes, Americans, Washington is gone ! He is now con- signed to dust, and sleeps in 'dull, cold marble!' " The man who never felt a wound but when it pierced his country he who never groaned but when freedom bled is now forever silent ! " Wrapped in the shroud of death, the dark dominions of the grave long since received him, and he rests in undisturbed re- pose ! Vain were the attempt to express our loss vain the attempt to describe the feelings of our souls? Though months have rolled away, since his spirit left this terrestrial orb, and sought the shining worlds on high, yet the sad event is still re- membered with increased sorrow. The hoary-headed patriot of '76 still tells tl.e mournful story to the listening infant, till the loss of his country touches his heart, and patriotism fires his breast. The aged matron still laments the loss of the man, beneath whose banners her husband has fought, or her son has fallen. At the name of Washington, the sympathetic tear still glistens in the eye of every youthful hero. Nor does the ten- der sign yet cease to heave the fair bosom of Columbia's daughters : 74 WEBSTER AND HIS MASTER-PIECES. Farewell, O Washington, a long farewell ! Thy country's tears embalm thy memory; Thy virtues challenge immortality, Impressed on grateful hearts, thy name shall live, Till dissolution's deluge drown tho world,' " Having paid his regards to the dead, he now turns his atten tion to the living : " Although we must feel the keenest sor row, at the demise of our Washington, yet we console our- selves with the reflection, that his virtuous compatriot, his worthy successor, the firm, the wise, the inflexible Adams, still survives. Elevated by the voice of his country to the supreme executive magistracy, he constantly adheres to her essential in- terests, and with steady hand draws the disguising vail from the intrigues of foreign enemies, and the plots of domestic foes- " Having the honor of America always in view, never fear ing, when wisdom dictates, to stem the impetuous torrent of popular resentment, he stands amid the fluctuations of party and the explosions of faction, unmoved as Atlas, 'While storms and tempests thunder on its brow, And oceans break their billows at his feet.'" The external relations of the United States, and the " foreign policy" of the orator, are next set off with uncommon spirit " Yet all the vigilance of our Executive, and all the wisdom of our Congress, have not been sufficient to prevent the country from being, in some degree, agitated by the convulsions of Europe. But why shall every quarrel on the other side of the Atlantic interest us in its issue 1 ? Why shall the rise or de- pression of every party there produce here a corresponding vi- bration ] Was this continent designed as a mere satellite to the other? Has not nature here wrought all her operations on her broadest scale ? Where are the Mississippis and the Am azons, the Alleghanies and the Andes of Europe, As : a and ORATION CONTINUED. 75 Africa? The natural superiority of America clearly indicates that it was designed to be inhabited by a nobler race of men, possessing a superior form of government, superior patriotism, superior talents, and superior virtues. " Let the nations of the East vainly waste their strength in destroying each other. Let them aspire at conquest, and con- tend for dominion, till their continent is drenched in blood. But let none, however elated by victory, however proud of triumph, ever presume to intrude on the neutral position as- sumed by our country." The speaker, tlipugh at that time not an enemy to England, allowed himself to tall into the popular style of remark in his allusion to that country ; but for France, it seems, then in the midst of her revolution, he had no affection. Both sides of the Republic, in fact, the Directory and the " Pilgrim of Egypt," were alike worthy of his rebuke : " Britain, twice humbled for her .aggressions, has at length been taught to respect us. But France, once our ally, has dared to insult us ! She has viola- ted her treaty obligations she has depredated our commerce she has abused our government, and riveted the chains of bondage on our unhappy fellow-citizens! Not content with ravaging and depopulating the fairest countries of Europe ; not yet satiated with the contortions of expiring republics, the convulsive agonies of subjugated nations, and the groans of her own slaughtered citizens she has spouted her fury across the Atlantic, and the stars and stripes of the United States have almost been attacked in our harbors! When we have de- manded reparation, she has told us, 'Give us your money and we will give you peace.' Mighty nation ! Magnanimous re- public ! Let her fil her coffers from those towns and cities which she has plundered, and grant peace, if she can, to the shades of those millions whose death she has caused. " But Columbia stoops not to tyrants ; her spirit will never cringe to France ; ne\ f .her a supercilious, five-headed Directory, VOL. i. D 76 WEBSTER AND HIS MASTER-PIECES. nor the Pilgrim of Egypt, will ever dictate terms to sovereign America. The thunder of our cannon shall insure the perform- ance of our treaties, and fulminate destruction on Frenchmen, till the ocean is crimsoned with blood, and gorged with pirates ! " The peroration of a discourse, according to the rhetoricians, should at least never be feeble, but respectably able and even dignified, if not strong. The college orator seemed to know the virtue of this rule. Taking the popular side of the French question, as it then stood, he closes his performance with con- siderable emphasis of style, and doubtless at the top and bot- tom of his then splendid voice : " It becomes MS, on whom the defence of our country will ere long devolve, this day most seriously to reflect on the duties incumbent upon us. Our an- cestors bravely snatched expiring liberty from the grasp of Britain, whose touch is poison. Shall we now consign it to France, whose embrace is death 1 We have seen our Fathers, in the days of our country's trouble, assume the rough habili- ments of war, and seek the hostile field. Too full of sorrow to speak, we have seen them wave a last farewell to a discon- solate, a woe-stung family. We have seen them return, worn down with fatigue, and scarred with wounds ; or we have seen them, perhaps, no more. For us they fought for us they bled for us they conquered. Shall we, their descendants, now basely disgrace our lineage, and pusillanimously disclaim the legacy bequeathed to us ? Shall we pronounce the sad vale- diction to freedom and immortal liberty on the altars our fathers have raised to her 1 No ! The response of the nation is, ' No ! ' Let it be registered in the archives of Heaven. Ere the religion we profess, and the privileges we enjoy, are sacrificed at the shrine of despots and demagogues let the sons of Europe be vassals ; let her hosts of nations be a vast congregation of slaves ; but let us, who are this day free, whose hearts are yet unappallnd, and whose right arms are yet nerved LESSONS FOR YOUNG MEN. 77 for war, assemble before the hallowed temple of American freedom, and swear, to the God of our fathers, to preserve it secure, or die at its portal ! " Such, then, is the first oration of Daniel Webster ; and it will furnish a lesson of great value to every young man, who will take the pains to study it carefully, and compare it, as to style and thought, with the orator's most able and celebrated efforts. To young men, whose opinion of their own abilities is raised too high, it will clearly show, that even Webster, at their age, could write bombast and empty declamation ; and that they, unless more than his equal, in the native endowments of their minds, are probably the authors, when they write what they and their admirers most admire, of still more empty dec- lamation, and a yet more sonorous bombast. To young men, who have a modest opinion of their own talents, and who are disposed to be discouraged by the faults they witness in them- selves, this oration will show, that the greatest orator of Amer- ica, and the greatest mind of the rge, could indite puerilities when himself a boy. This first effort, however, is not to be disparaged too far. Without any disparagement, but left without remark to make its own impression, it might induce a superficial reader to sup- pose, that the talents of the college junior were overrated by his early friends, or that his mature productions have reflected an unreal splendor upon the promise of his youth. We are inclined, indeed, to glorify every peculiarity, if not every act, of the unripe youth, if they are subsequently the peculiari- ties and customary acts of the great and celebrated man. Still, after viewing the matter on both sides, it must be acknowl- edged, that, while the diction of this performance is exceedingly faulty, its faults are those of a very vigorous mind ; and that the strength of the thoughts, regarded individually, and their comprehensiveness token as a whole, are clearly the attributes of a person, whose life was not to be measured by its years. 78 WEBSTER AND HIS MASTER-PIECES If the philosophical reader, who wishes to study the character of the man in the characteristics of the boy, will trace out the thought of the speech, and make a sketch of its topics, he will see many proofs, that the elements of the great orator existed from the first. He will see that the general plan of the oration is very good, and even skillful ; that the course of the argu- ment is natural in itself and well managed ; that the allusions to history, as well as those made to passing events, indicate a wide-reaching mind ; that that mind, indeed, was not customa- rily occupied with the trivial concerns immediately about it, but going out, even then, to think upon, to study, to compre- hend, the world. If Daniel Webster, at any time within the last twenty years, ever saw this juvenile effort, it must have made him smile ; for in his present style, the style of his best days, every weakness in his early composition has become a power, and in the place of nearly every blemish he has left a grace. During his fourth year in college, he studied Intellectual Phi- losophy, Moral Philosophy, and the Law of Nations. These studies made a deep and lasting impression on his mind. They suited his taste ; and his masterly reason and penetration were equal to their utmost demands. What an interesting specta- cle, to witness even in imagination Daniel Webster sounding the depths and measuring the heights and breadths of the hu- man mind by entering into and studying his own ! Was there ever a mind more worthy of being made the example, the par- agon, of the general mind of man ? Was there ever a man better able to fathom, and survey, and comprehend whatever is comprehended in the mind ? Plato and Aristotle devoted their lives to this science of sciences ; and their researches have ever since been, to all nations, the groundwork of what is known in this department of knowledge ; but neither Aristotle, with his subtle logic, nor Plato, of sublime and universal genius, was oetter qualified by nature to go down into the lowest depths of STILL STUDIES ORATORY. 79 this incomj arably profound and important study, and discover in it everything that can be discovered, understood, or known. We have not the proof, however, that young Webster under- took the study with any zeal that could promise to make a phi losopher of the highest grade. , Long before he came to it, he had marked out a course of life, which called him to other studies more closely related to the profession of his choice. It was for this reason, that, while he was quite equal, if not more than equal, in metaphysical pursuits, to any student ever con- nected with his college, his preeminence was altogether more decided in the department of natural and international law. Here, as in oratory, he had no competitor. By universal con cession, he was solitary and alone. No class-mate pretended to be his equal. Mastering the elements of moral science suf ficiently to lay a broad foundation for this broadest and most beautiful of the legal studies, and acquiring enough of the philos- ophy of mind to teach him how to build, he read the Law of Nature and of Nations with all possible diligence, with a con- centration of all his faculties, and reared a superstructure such as had never, in that institution, been reared before. Indeed, it is questionable whether a mere student in college, in this country or in any other, was ever more thoroughly read in this science, or understood its principles so well. His chief study, neverthless, was still oratory ; and to this end he read history, poetry, and general literature with increas- ing appetite and success. Pie was constantly grasping after and trying to understand the great practical questions of the day. He made himself thoroughly acquainted with everything pertaining to his country's annals, from the first landing at Jamestown and Plymouth to the Revolution, and from the Revolution to his own time. He looked with almost a man's mind upon the external relations of the country, and compre- hended the bearings of other governments upon it, and saw what its own policy, as dictated by its history and position, ought to 80 WEBSTER AND HIS MASTER-PIECES. be. He studied other countries, their origin and progress their relative, position in the family of nations, their domestic policies and external views, their manners, their customs, and their laws. Not, indeed, that he pursued and mastered these subjects as he did in after life - f but he began to look in those directions, and to keep his mind upon such topics, as those to which he was most inclined ; and his knowledge, as well as his judgment, in all subjects of this nature, was far above what could have been expected of a youth bnt a few months beyond his eighteenth year. The oration, to which some attention has been given, had raised him as a speaker incomparably above the level of his class-mates ; and now, in his senior year, he was called upon, by the unanimous voice of his class, and by the general desire of the college, to come before the public in another perform- ance decidedly more difficult of success. A senior, who had been a favorite in the institution for some time, had died ; a very deep and general sensation had been produced ; and an orator was demanded, who, while he should speak of the deceased as a brother of his own band, should also have the ability, not likely to be possessed by a college student, to rise to a level of the feeling caused by a sudden and lamented death. On any other occasion, an intelligent and generous audience are al- ways prepared to make every allowance for those extrava- gances of style, which seem to be the common characteristic of all youthful speakers ; but death, and particularly the death of a promising young man, just in the primrose path of hope, is too serious a thing to admit of being treated in a very faulty manner. It is the daily habit of students to write exercises that are exercises simply ; they write unreal declamations on unreal subjects, with a settled consciousness, that their hearers will regard them barely as juvenile imitations of realities ; and they are apt to form their style of writing, and of speaking, after an Ideal, imaginative, unreal standard. Here, however, DEATH OF A CLASSMATE. 8l was a real event, an event of real sorrow, which had taken hold of the hearts of all interested. No pretension, no show, no im- itation, will now answer. No school-boy declamation will meet the occasion. What is to be said must be said in earnest, from the heart, in a natural, truthful, real manner. Who, then, of all the students of that college, is qualified to stand up before a critical audience, sensitive by education, and saddened by so sudden and so positive an affliction 1 On whom was every eye to turn as the person most fit, perhaps as the only person fit, for the difficult and melancholy duty ? There can be but one answer. The choice must fall, as it did fall, on Daniel Web- ster ; and, according to the traditions still existing, the eulogy pronounced by him, at this time, was far beyond the expecta- tions of those, who had heard him frequently on other subjects. He seemed to have completely thrown off the boy and put on the man. He entered, with all his soul, into the reality of the general sorrow. No ambitious soaring, no reaching after far- fetched thoughts, no extravagance of expression, none of his ordinary grandiloquence, appeared to have been left upon him, or about him. With the simplicity of real feeling, and with the soberness and pathos of actual life, he proceeded directly to his mournful task, and spoke with the fervor and eloquence of a master. His success was unbounded. During the delivery, the fall of a pin could have been heard at any moment ; a dense audience were carried entirely away and kept spell- bound by the magic of his voice and manner ; and when he sat down, he left a thousand people weeping real tears over a heart-felt sorrow. It is reported, that there was not a dry eye In all the vast congregation, which the event and the fame of the orator had brought together. It is also said, on good authority, that, for years after he left college, parts of tliis eulogy were frequently spoken on the stage for declamation, and seldom without drawing tears. A few months more, and the time arrived, the period of thfe 82 WEBSTER AND HIS MASTER-PIECES. greatest interest and moment, when the student was to leave the classic halls of his college, and try liis fortunes in the world. Twenty-eight young men, who had studied and recited with him daily for four years, were to go out with him. It is natu- ral that the reader should wish to know who those twenty-eight young men were, as, by looking at the list, it may be seen how nearly the most distinguished member of the class was approached, in after life, by any other of the number. The list is, of course, still preserved on the books of the institution ; and it is here presented as it has been given by the college to the public : " Alpheus Baker, James Henry Bingham, Lem- uel Bliss, Daniel Campbell, John Dutton, William Farrar, Habyah Weld Fuller, Charles Gilbert, Elisha Hotchkiss, Ab- ner Howe, Ebenezer Jones, David Jewett, Joseph Kimball, Sanford Kingsbury, Aaron Loveland, Simeon Lyman, Thomas Abbott Merrill, Josiah Noyes, John Nye, Daniel Parker, Na- thaniel Shattuck, Elisha Smith, William Coit Smith, Asahel Stone, Matthew Taylor, Caleb Jewett Tenney, Samuel Upham, and Jabez B. Whitaker. These were his class-mates. All these pursued the same studies, under the same teachers, in the same college. Around each of them, and all of them, were the hopes of parents and professors ; each and all of them engaged an interest, a feeling, that always accompanies young men. at school, and goes out predicting their future eminence before they have left the walls of the institution ; each and all of them gave to their friends, and to those who knew them at home, different degrees of hope, but in every case sufficient to make them prominent in the places where tl eir parents and friends resided. But, with one or two exceptions, which of their names, would have been known at this day, had they not been called out by the unequaled greatness, by the unbounded celebrity, by the universal fame of him, who was known to them simply as their class-mate, Daniel Webster ? COMMENCEMENT ORATIONS. 83 On commencement day, Daniel Webster, strangely devia- ting from his customary topics, pronounced an oration con- nected with natural science. The only reliable notice of this performance, now extant, is contained in a memoir made by Prof. Alexander, of Princeton, of a journey he took in the sum- mer of 1801, through portions of New England. He visited Dartmouth ; and on his way there, he fell in with the father of the under-graduate : " In passing from Massachusetts ovur the mountains of New Hampshire, I lodged within a few rods of the house of a farmer, the father of the Hon. Daniel Web- ster. The old gentleman came over to the tavern in the morn- ing and chatted for half an hour. Among other things, he said that he had a son at Dartmouth, who was about to take his bachelor's degree. The father was large in frame, high-breasted and broad-shouldered, and, like his son, had heavy eyebrows. He was an affable man, of sound sense and considerable infor- mation, and expressed a wish that I might be acquainted with his son, of whom, it was easy to see, that he was proud." W r ho could blame him ? The speech is alluded to, by the venerable Professor, in the briefest manner : " At the Dartmouth Commencement, Gen. Eaton, of eccentric memory, was the marshal of the day, and was unceasing in busying himself about the order of the pro- cession to the church, giving to each graduate, of every college, the place due to his seniority. Among the speakers was young Daniel Webster. Little dreaming of his future career in law, eloquence, and statesmanship, he pronounced a discourse on the recent discoveries in chemistry, especially those of Lavoisier, then newly made public." It is not so certain what was the character of the young man's dreams, notwithstanding this singular selection of a subject. He knew, he must have known, by his previous success in speaking, and by what his heart told him, that he was to be an orator, and that oratory was to be to him the art of arts, the VOL. i. D* 84 \VEB8TER AND JUS MASTER-PIECES. great study and business of his life, his highway to honor. But he shrunk, as when a school-boy at Exeter, from the first great occasion, where he was to prove, or should have proved, the nature and grandeur of his talent. If this is not the solution of the question, it may be found in the fact, that, at the same commencement, he had had another duty to perform, which had given him a better scope for ex- erting himself in his great vocation. The most numerous and creditable society of the institution, styled "The United Fra- ternity," had chosen him as its orator. He had addressed them on the day previous to commencement. This speech, judged from its title and the slight notices of it now extant, not only coincided with the known predilections oiMiis genius, but entirely confirmed the universal judgment of its originality and power. It was on "The Influence of Opinion;" and it is yet spoken of, by aged persons in the neighborhood of Dartmouth, who were so fortunate as to hear it, as a performance quite signifi- cant of his coining fame. Who can tell, that his celebrated allusion to the same topic, in his speech on the Greek Revolu- tion, was not the mature expression of the thought here first conceived ? It was a remark of Seneca, that " youth must pre- pare what age must use;" and Burke has somewhere said, that his " acts as a man were the working out of his thoughts as a boy." Both Seneca and Burke are sustained by the common experience of great men ; and it is a natural and interesting in- ference that the patriotic eloquence of 1823 was but a repro- duction, so far as this topic goes, of the best thoughts of an earlier day. Be this as it may, the press of that day still re- ports, that " a numerous audience manifested a high degree of satisfaction at the genius displayed," and that the address was characterized by that " elegance of composition and propriety of delivery," for which, while yet a youth, he liad become dis- tinguished. Mr. Webst er was once asked, by a particular friend, respecting RECEIVES HIS DEGREE. 85 his personal appearance about the time of his leaving college. " Long, slender, pale, and all eyes," was his answer ; " indeed," he added, "I went by the name of 'All-Eyes' the country round." A lady, now living near Hanover, gives a fuller de- scription of his general aspect at this time. According to her recollection, he was " slender, and evidently had a feeble con- stitution. He was a brunette in complexion ; his hair was as black as jet ; and when it was turned back, there was displayed a forehead that always excited admiration. His dark eyes shone with extraordinary brilliancy ; and when engaged in agreeable or amusing conversation, he wore a smile that was bewitching, and showed teeth as white as pearls." On the afternoon of the 26th day of August, 1801, in the Congregational Meeting-House, of the town of Hanover, New Hampshire, Daniel Webster received at the hands of the Fac- ulty of Dartmouth College, and by vote of the Board of Trus- tees of the institution, his diploma of graduation, which con- ferred upon him his first honorary title. He is now no longer merely Daniel Webster. He is no longer to be known as the son of Colonel Ebenezer Webster, of Salisbury, a revolution- ary officer, and a judge of some notoriety. He is now Daniel Webster, A. B., a graduate of a learned university, carrying with him the honors of his college. How many a youth has toiled his ten years to attain this title to distinction ! How many have valued it as more to them than health, or fortune, or even friends and kindred ! How many have periled life and every earthly comfort, to obtain it ; and when obtained, how have they clung to it as the richest and most enviable of their possessions ! Would not so ardent a young man, one evidently so ambitious, so aspiring, as Daniel Webster, put an equally high value on it 1 It was for this, was it not, that he had studied, had sacrificed, had labored with his hands, had taken the hard earnings of his father, had been buoyed up by the prayers and approbation of his mother, and liad spent the 86 WEBSTER AND HIS MASTER-PIECES. brightest days of his youth in retirement from the coveted en joyments and pleasures of the young 1 No, it was not for this. It was not for a piece of parchment that he had labored. It was for that, which the parchment but faintly represented. It was for the education, the discipline, the development of his faculties, implied in the language of the document ; and having these, he cared nothing for the document itself. Indeed, he did not want it. lie was afraid of it. lie was fearful that he might rely too much upon it. He resolved to rely solely on himself. With this self-reliance proudly working at his heart, on this memorable afternoon, he enacted a scene peculiarly ex- pressive of his character through life. Calling his class-mates by particular invitation, he proceeded to the green in the rear of the college, and there deliberately tore into a hundred pieces the honorable diploma, which had cost him the toil of years. " My industry," said the remarkable youth, " may make me a great man, but this miserable parchment cannot." Saying this, he mounts the horse which his father had sent to carry him horn >,, and enters the great world, without a title, without an honor, single-handed and alone. Such a young man > how- ever, is to be heard from in after days. CHAPTER Y. WEBSTER THE LAWYER. ON returning home, the graduate of Dartmouth immediately entered his name, as a law student, with Thomas W. Thomp- son, in whose office, when a bare-footed boy, he had st to tell visitors where they might find his employer, when he hap- pened to be absent. Having, thus far, given some account of the persons who have acted parts in the education of Daniel Webster, that the thoughtful reader may see all the influences exerted upon him, while his character was being formed, it will be useful, in the same way, to say something of him who introduced the young man to his knowledge of the law. Mr. Thompson was a na- tive of Boston, Massachusetts, a son of a Deacon Thompson, an Englishman. His mother was a Scotch woman. Removing to Newburyport, when the son was yet a lad, the father put him under the care of Samuel Moody to be fitted for college. Soon after, he entered Cambridge and graduated with high honor, perhaps the highest honor, in 1786. From this time, for several years, his fortunes were quite checkered. Entering the army, as an aid to General Lincoln, in the celebrated "Shay's Rebellion," he served to the close of the campaign with great credit. He then studied theology, intending to be a cler- gyman ; but, on being appoinied tutor at Cambridge, on ac- count of his rare attainments and polite behavior, he reentered the walls of the university. Subsequently, he studied law at Newburyport under Theophilus Parsons, who was styled the 88 WEBSTER AND HIS MASTER-PIECES. Giant of the Law; and upon completing his studies, he opened an office near the residence of Colonel Webster, with whom he boarded. He at once had a lucrative practice, purchased property, married, and settled down for life. By diligent at tention to business, he soon acquired a handsome fortune, an extensive reputation as a lawyer, no little fame as a state poli- tician, and finally a seat in congress. In every post, as well as at home, he was remarkable for his industry, his acquirements, his kindness of heart, the general suavity of his manners, a sort of native eloquence in speech and conversation, and a polite re- gard for the feelings of others, which made him a general favor- ite. He died in 1819, in consequence of exposures endured in escaping from the ill-fated steamer, Phoenix, which was burnt to the water's edge at midnight. Such was the man with whom Daniel Webster first undertook the study of his profession. The young student, however, was too poor to remain here long in quiet ; and he wished, also, to earn money with which to aid his brother Ezekiel, who was still in college. Just at this time, through the influence of a personal friend, he was called to take charge of an academy at Fryeburg, in the State of Maine, where he spent nine months, which must be accounted as among the most interesting and important of his life. The most reliable statement of this part of his personal history has been given to the public by G. B. Bradley, Esq., now a resi- dent of Fryeburg ; and the reader will be ready to enter heartily into the enthusiasm with which he writes. The occa- sion of forming a connection with the school is very correctly stated : " Mr. Webster's connection with the academy com- menced in January, 1802, and terminated in August of the same year. The circumstances that directed his course to Fryeburg, arose from an early intimacy with the family of Hon. John Bradley, of Concord, New Hampshire, whose two oldest f*ons, Robert and Samuel A., were then residing at Frye TEACHES AN ACADEMY. 89 burg. Mr. Webster was graduated at Dartmouth College in 1801 ; his father had assisted him through his college course with considerable sacrifice and personal embarrassment, and at its close, he looked about for some employment that would en- able him to pay the debts contracted in his behalf. Advised by his friend, Samuel A. Bradley, who had received his degree at the same college two years earlier, and who was then about commencing the practice of law at Fryeburg, he applied for the post of instructor in the academy, and was appointed. Mr. Bradley afterward introduced Mr. Webster to Hon. Christo- pher Gore, of Boston, as a student of law, who subsequently told him that he had brought him a very remarkable young man." Mr. Webster's first entrance into Fryeburg is given us by this writer, in nearly the words which the statesman, in re- cently referring to it, employed himself: *' In a late interview with Mr. Robert Bradley, Mr. Webster, to show the minute- ness of his recollection, recalled to his mind an incident con- nected with his first arrival at Fryeburg. Said he, ' at that time I was a youth not quite twenty years of age, with a slen der frame of less than one houndred and twenty pounds weight ; on deciding to go, my father gave me rather an ordinary horse, and after making the journey from Salisbury, upon his back, I was to dispose of him to the best of my judgment, for my own benefit. Immediately on my arrival, I called upon you, stating that I would sell the horse for forty dollars, and requesting your aid in his disposal ; you replied, that he was worth more, and gave me an obligation for a larger sum, and in a few days suc- ceeded in making a sale for me at the advanced price. I well remember that the purchaser lived about three miles from the village, and that his name was James Walker ; I suppose he has long since deceased.' On being told that he was still living, he said with great heartiness, ' please give him my best re- spects.' " 90 WEBSTER AND HIS MASTER-PIECES. His connection "with this institution, if not profitable, was honorable. When his time was out, he not only received his Bmall pay, which was at the rate of three hundred and fifty dol- lars per year, but the marked respect of his patrons in a vote of thanks still left upon their academic books : "SEPTEMBER 1, 1802. " Voted, That the Secretary return the thanks of this Board to Mr. Daniel Webster, for his faithful services while Precep- tor of Fryeburg Academy. "WM. FESSENDEN, Secretary." While teaching in this academy, he ardently pursued the study of the law. Borrowing a copy of Blackstone's Com- mentaries, he read them thoroughly, and, at the same time, reviewed several of his favorite authors. He also read, during these months, Cassar, Sallust, Cicero, Virgil, and Horace, ma- king himself still more familiar with the splendid passages, which, afterwards, he was always so prepared to quote. These, however, were not the whole of his labors, while preceptor at this school. He boarded at the Osgood House, the proprietor of which was then the Registrar of Deeds ; and, thus getting the post of assistant, he spent many of his hours in writing out those records, which are still preserved, and which he often re- ferred to as the most laborious work of his youth. " The ache is not yet out of my fingers," he used to say, " which so much writing caused them." When out of school, and not otherwise employed, he used to spend not a little of his -rime on the bosom of that beautiful sheet of water, called Lovell's Pond, which lies about one mile south of the village. It was at that time full offish ; and, like Rousseau, he was in the habit of getting into a small boat, and ly- ing out upon the water, angling and thinking, or floating alor. carelessly, hour after hour, and frequently from morning tiT MAKES THE TOUR OF MAINE 91 night. Those hours were by no means idle hours. They were hours of thought ; and they probably exerted as grent an in- fluence on his subsequent career, as any of the time that he spent in the most ardent study at his desk. At the close of his engagement at Fryeburg, he was joined by his brother Ezekiel ; and, on horseback, then the most or- dinary mode of travel, they started for the tour of Maine. u Soon after the commencement of the journey," says the writer before quoted, " while riding along on horseback, they saw a bright, new horseshoe lying in the road. Ezekiel suggested that it was worth picking up. Daniel thought it was not ; his brother, however, dismounted, and carefully wrapping a new silk handkerchief about the shoe, placed it in the pocket of his coat. Some time after, on searching for his treasure-trove, he only found a sorry opening worn in the coat, through which shoe and handkerchief had jointly disappeared." No sooner was he gone, than his remarkable talents became, for a time, the topic of general conversation ; and more than one person predicted his future eminence : " While at Frye- burg," says Mr. Bradley, " he delivered an oration before the citizens on the fourth of July, and although still in his minority (if such ever was the fact) he exhibited in a marked degree the elements of his future greatness. Mr. Ketchum, of New York, in a late speech says : ' In early life, when Daniel Webster first came from college, when he first assumed the post of principal of an academy in one of the interior towns of New England, it was predicted by an intelligent citizen of that place that he would be the first man in the country.' Reference is here made to Rev. Dr. N. Porter, then one of the trustees of the academy. At about the same time two citizens of Fryeburg were discoursing on the future promise of the youthful orator, when one remarked that he should not be surprised if, before his death, he should be chosen governor of New Hampshire. The other replied that he would fill the office before five years, 92 WEBSTER AND HIS MASTER-PIECES. if the people could appreciate him, but that so far as Mr. Web ster was concerned, it would be too small business for him." Mr. Webster never forgot his friends ; and he was seldom forgotten by them. To the latest day of his life, he remem- bered and mentioned this beginning of his long career, his con- nection with the academy at Fryeburg ; and the citizens of that place, as well as the surrounding country, still hold him dear in their recollection, as in that admiration which all men bestowed upon him : " As an instructor," says Mr. Bradley, " he is still held in affectionate and grateful remembrance by those who were so fortunate as to be his pupils ; and in the social circle, the recollections of his vivacity, as well as dignity and refine ment, are still fresh and enduring. Nor did Mr. Webster for get the scene of his first appearance on the stage of active life. Often, when relating this passage in his history, did he ' recur to pleasing recollections, and indulge in refreshing remembrance of the past ' and to the close of life, he preserved a strong regard for the friends he there found. To one of them he thus concludes a letter which I now have before me : ' I am happy to hear of your establishment, and the growth of your fame. You have a little world around you ; fill it with good deeds, and you will fill it with your own glory. Youi's, in love, D. W.' To another, a short time since, he sent a likeness of him- self, as a ' token of early and long-continued friendship.' I have, also, in my possession, a letter of recent date, expressing his readiness to forward a public enterprise, in which some of the citizens of Fryeburg were engaged. So late as September, 1851, on being informed that the trustees were struggling to rebuild the academy, although with sadly diminished resources, he proposed, if his life was spai'ed, and his engagements would permit, to be present at its dedication, and to deliver the open- ing address. While in common with his afflicted family, and, we might add, the whole family of civilized man, \re profoundly and sincerely mourn that the grave has closed over RE-ENTERS MR. THOMPSON'S OFFICE. 93 the great man of the nineteenth century, there is also mingled with our grief a selfish sorrow that his strong arm could not hdve been spared to assist in placing on a firm foundation the institution that was so proud to acknowledge his fostering care in early youth." There is a fact connected with Mr. Webster's residence at Fryeburg, of a nature to encourage the young and aspiring, who have poverty to contend with, while it will convey instruction to all readers. On the books of the academy there is still this record: "Voted, That the thanks of this Board be presented to Preceptor Webster for his services this day, and that he would accept five dollars as a small acknowledgement of their sense of his services this day performed. " WILLIAM FESSENDEN, Secretary." This was m 1802 ; and it is essential to state, that the ser vice here acknowledged, as the writer was once told by the late Hon. Judah Dana, of Fryeburg, a trustee of the academy at the time, consisted of extra exertions at the annual exhibition of the school, including a very fine address to the citizens and students. All this, then, was performed by Daniel Webster when unknown to the great world, for the sum of five dollars. At a later period, when known and appreciated ajt his true value, a similar amount of labor, perhaps not much better done, would have brought, as it has often brought, thousands to his purse. Such, youthful reader, is the worth of a reputation ! After making a brief tour through the most picturesque and important parts of Maine, whose scenery can scarcely be sur- passed even in this country, Mr. Webster returned to Salis- bury, and reentered the law-office of Mr. Thompson. Having paid his bo.ird, and his other expenses, by his labors in the re- gistrar's office, he was now possessed of mora money than he 94 WEBSTER AND HIS MASTER-PIECES. had ever had before at one time. It was all his ov/n. lie had earr.ed it himself, and it gave him a feeling of self-ieliance. which he had never felt before. But he did not keep his money. Ezekiel was still at school ; and, after having -paid the expenses of both, on their joint trip, he divided the re- mainder with his brother, when he was about starting off again for college. He had enough k>ft, however, for all his own im- mediate purposes. He boarded at home, and pursued hia studies with Mr. Thompson nearly without cost. He remained with Mr. Thompson about eighteen months, during which time he probably acquired more legal learning, than most young men would have acquired in three years. He was an exceedingly hard student. He was also a judicious student. He knew what to read, and when to read, and how to read. In this respect, as perhaps in almost every other, ex- cepting the amount of learning in the law, he was even supe- rior to his master. It was a habit of Mr. Thompson to put into the hands of his pupils the most difficult authors first, in- tending, as he used to say, in this way " to break them in," and show them what they had to do. Mr. Webster dissented from this course. He told his patron, that, instead of breaking his pupils in, it was almost a sure way to break them down. The teacher and scholar could not agree ; but, as in all his future career, the scholar, perfectly convinced of his own opinion, would take his own way ; and his example, together with Avhat he has often said upon the subject, has done much to bring about the reformed method, the more inductive method, of studying the law, which is now almost universally pursued. During this residence in the office of Mr. Thompson, in ad dition to the regular studies of his course, he undertook to re- view the most important duties of the office, in college, and particularly such of them as pertained especially to the law. He read almost incessantly, from morning till night, every day or a year and a half, he raid, thought, reflected, and thus fillet GOES TO BOST>JT. 95 his mind with those facts and principles, which he was after- wards to use. When the office was crowded with clients, or visitors, 01 neighbors, he would sit by himself, silently perusing his author and taking notes, as if there were no other persons in the world, but the reader and the writer of the book. No matter what occurred, no matter what was said, unless he was himself addressed, there he sat, his huge eyes fixed in deep study upon the page, his mind lost in its profound, intricate, all-absorbing work. When thus engaged, he was an object of general observation to all who visited the office ; and a picture of the scene, of Daniel Webster the law-student at his books, would be a picture, which any student might well wish to see on canvas, but might far better have imprinted upon his ima- gination, his memory, or his heart. After completing his year and a half with Mr. Thompson, during wliich time he had probably about reached the level of his master's knowledge in the profession, he began to look about him for a situation suited to his demands. He looked all over New Hampshire to find a man of exactly the charac- ter to make him a fit instructor. There were several then there, whose abilities, whose acquirements, whose position, were of a very high order ; but the more he thought upon the sub- ject, and the more he compared the advantages of one man and one place with other men and other places, the more he was convinced, that he ought to find the best place and the best man, not of New Hampshire, but of the whole country. When entirely settled in this conviction, it required no great length of time to settle all that it carried with it. Boston, of course, was the place ; and, though there were several lawyers in the capi- tal of New England of nearly equal fame, the talents and learn- ing of Governor Gore marked him out as the most proper per- son for the business now in hand. In the month of July, therefore, in the year 1804, Mr. Webster removed to Boston, and began what may be termed his second course as a law 9O WEBSTER AND HIS MASTER-PIECES. student, under one of the best masters, at the age of twenty two. In this office, at an age comparatively mature, Mr. Webster commenced a higher life, such as he had scarcely dreamed of be- fore. The Hon. Christopher Gore was a man of great natural strength of mind, of remarkable versatility of talent, learned in every department of his profession, an able counselor, an elo- quent banister, familiar with the broader as with the narrower fields of the law, and a statesman of clear, positive, and rather comprehensive views. With all his lore, and all his native abilities, he was no wayward genius, but a man of sound, sober, sterling common sense. Indeed, in every respect, he was truly a great man. His advice to Mr. Webster was always useful ; his instructions added daily to the mass of the student's acqui- sitions ; and his conversation was always so learned, so practi- cal, so instructive, and yet so eloquent, that it was a continuous lesson, while it never failed to charm. Though endowed with that wonderful power of concentra- tion, which made him remarkable in the office of Mr. Thomp- son, and for which he has been celebrated ever since, Mr. Webster often found the intercourse held between Governor Gore and the great men of the day, who used to visit him, more entertaining and more immediately instructive than his books. Apart, in a corner by himself, he would nevertheless sit with his eyes upon his author, but with his mind upon the men, who used to visit his instructor, whenever they came in to talk ; and, in this way, he began to look out upon the great world, into which he was soon to enter, through the free revelations of those remarkable characters, who, though a part of that world, still would thus abandon and betray it for a time. W r hat a flood of light can be thus thrown, respecting all that more intricate and more important part of life, not known in books, upon the mind of a young man prepared and eager for it ! And there never was a mind better prepared, or more eager, more in HIS STUDIES WITH MR. GORE. 97 tensely eager, for every kind and degree of information, in re- gard to men and things, than that of the young man, Daniel Webster ; and scarcely ever was such a mi .id so thoroughly, so constantly, furnished with what it craved. While yet unknown himself, he thus made an acquaintance', a sort of daily and fa- miliar acquaintance, with many of the first characters of the age. In after life, as an example of his opportunities, in this regard, he used to tell how he became acquainted with a gen- tleman, whose reputation was then wide, and whose name will not soon die : " I remember one day," says the narrator, " as I was alone in the office, a man came in and asked for Mr. Gore. Mr. Gore was out ; and he sat down to wait for him. He was dressed in plain gray clothes. I went on with my book, till he asked me what I was reading, and, coming along up to the table, took the book and looked at it. ' Roccus? said he, l de Navibus et Nando. Well, I read that book too when I was a boy ; ' and proceeded to talk not only about ships and freif/kts, but insurance, prize, and other matters of maritime law, ia a manner 'to put me to all I knew,' and a good deal more. The gray-coated stranger turned out to be Mr. Rufus King." From July, 1804, to March, 1805, Mr. Webster remained in the office of Governor Gore ; he there read in the higher de- partments of the law altogether ; he made himself well ac- quainted with the common law, with maritime law, and with special pleading, reading for this latter purpose the old folio edition of Saunders. As an exercise of his skill in language, but more espcially to impress facts and principles upon his memory, he translated the Latin and Norman French into good English. What is still more remarkable, he made a manu- script brief of every case in the book ; and these briefs were presented to his master for inspection, who, always ready with instruction, would pour out comment after cc mment, and explanation upon explanation, till everything was as clear as 98 WEBSTER AND HIS MASTER-PIECES. sunlight. Tliis, in fact, was Mr. Gore's usual method with his pupils. It was a pleasure to him to instruct them ; and his ex- temporaneous discourses, as Mr. Webster has said, were fre- quently as learned, and always more eloquent and captivating, lhan the book. h was in this office, that Mr. Webster first fully learned, or dfti began to see with the force of a conviction, that the law is a historical science, and that if the student would understand it thoroughly, he must lay his foundation on history. At that time, Lingard, Turner, Hallam, and other similar though not equal critics, had written not a line of their celebrated works, which now lead the law-student directly and easily, along a beaten path, to the basis of his profession. The connection be- tween law and history had not then been formed ; but Mr. Webster, seeing the connection, and feeling his way along alone, by daily reading of the great historians, especially of Hume, made himself familiar, at last, with the elements of his science. The principles, which he saw were established by general con- currence and long precedent, he not only learned and fixed hi his memory, as most law students try to do, but traced them back, from country to country, and from age to age, till he found their starting-points in time and their origin as ideas. This, indeed, is what made Mr. Webster a lawyer such as he undeniably was. He was a lawyer, not of facts barely, but of reasons, able to go to the bottom of everything belonging to the law. It is this ability, founded upon this practice of thorough investigation, that 7iiakes, or will make, any man a lawyer, while nothing else will do it ; and it is remarkable, that, of the vast multitude of young men, who make the law their pro- fession, so few study it in this philosophical and thorough man- ner. If every law-student in the land would take up the study in this way would take a principle of American law, (or ex ample, and trace it through our own history into the history of the mother country, then back to its introduction into the juris- TOUR TO ALBANY. 99 prudence of Great Britain, then still back to the older practice of the continental codes and courts, then farther and farther back to its germ in the Roman laws, where its relations to Ro- man civilization, and possibly its birth in the times of the Gre- cian lawgivers, might be clearly seen then should we have lawyers worthy of their great profession, worthy of their coun- try, worthy of that admiration which many receive but few merit. No language can utter the fact with due force, that, as a general rule, the law is studied, in this country, very super- ficially. That science, which lies at the bottom of all social knowledge, which is the exponent of the civilizations of all peo- ple, which is the only key to an understanding of the world that now is, as well as a certain index of past and future peri- ods, and which demands the best faculties fully developed by the best of discipline, is commonly undertaken by raw youth, whose education is very limited, whose ideas of their profession are equally narrow, and whose highest ambition is gratified after a brief course of hasty and superficial study. It is for this reason that we are a nation of pettifoggers. Every city, every town, every small village, swarms with these buzzing busy- bodies. In all the cities, and in all the land, we have, or rather have had, occasionally, a Hamilton, a Pinckney, a Clay, a Story, to redeem the profession from utter insignificance. It was dig- nified, noble, in fact sublime, in the hands of Daniel Webster ; and he prepared himself to elevate his calling, to the degree here acknowledged, by that deep and thorough study, for which, in the beginning of his career, he is justly noted. This severe labor of mind, however, began to wear upon the student's physical constitution. Rest was prescribed ; and to rest he added recreation. In company with a Mr. Baldwin, an eccentric but very intelligent gentleman of considerable wealth and some position, he made quite a tour, during the autumn of 1804, through various parts of New England, and extended his rambles finally as fki as the Hudson river. The friends trav- VOL. i. E 7 100 WEBSTEFv AND HIS MASTER-PIECES. eled hi an open carriage, which gave them a fine opportunity for seeing the country, as well as for that free and familiar con versation, from which they would have been restricted in a public conveyance. On reaching Albany, they put up at a hotel at the foot of State street, where they remained a fort night. Into what sort of society, it is natural to ask, would such a man as Mr. Taylor Baldwin, unknown in those parts, and an equally obscure law-student, be likely to find themselves, among a wealthy and rather aristocratic population, such as at that time inhabited the old Dutch metropolis? From all we know of Mr. Baldwin, he was not the man to introduce Daniel Webster into such society as his talents claimed , and from all we know of Daniel Webster, he was not the person to take up with what was positively below him. So, in this dilemma, he is doomed to be without society, or to introduce himself. The latter, however, was no difficult thing for such a young man to do. He had no sooner taken his place at the hotel, than his remarkable appearance,-his dignified and graceful man ners, his easy and captivating conversation, the apparently boundless extent of his knowledge and information, marked him as an object of general observation. Instead of trying to introduce himself to others, it was the desire of all to be intro- duced to him. Mr. Baldwin, though a man of years and self- consequence, had to act between the parties as a sort of gentle- man usher to his young friend. During the journey, the rela- tion between the travelers had been, that Mr. Webster was traveling with Mr. Baldwin. Here, where neither was known, Mr. Baldwin found himself suddenly transformed iirto a gentle- man traveling with Mr. Webster. The law-student was now all. He was soon known by all the guests. They r consisted of transient boarders and citizens, among whom were merchants and lawyers. They, learning the object of Mr. Webster's visit, and forward to show him the town and all it contained worthy of his notice, at once put him into the hands of the leading characters of the IS OFFERED A CLERKSHIP. 101 city. In this way, he made the acquaintance of nearly every prominent citizen. He visited the Schuylers at Schuyler Place. He was at the house of Stephen Van Rensselaer, the patrooi* of that day, and the first man in wealth of the whole region of the Hudson. He saw the institutions, literary, social and re- ligious ; and, in the course of his short visit of fourteen days, he made himself entirely familiar with everything there was, at that time, in Albany. It was his first attempt to enter into soci- ety ; and, unlike young men of ordinary abilities, who experience such difficulties in their introduction to the world, he found every door and avenue wide open, with every one within the charmed circle beckoning and pressing him to enter. Such marked respect, such sudden popularity, would have turned the head of many a young man. It was not so with Webster. Without a particle of pride, but with his usual simplicity of manner, he received it all as if he thought that nothing extraordinary, nothing not called for, had happened. Then, when his season of recreation was over, he returned to Boston, to the office, to his deep and laborious studies, as mo- dest, as deferential, though not quite as bashful a young man as when he left them. Just before he had completed his course of study, while still in the office with Governor Gore, an event occurred which nearly overturned the settled plans of Mr. Webster, and which would have robbed the profession of its greatest master, the nation of its most distinguished statesman, and the world, in almost every sense, of its most illustrious man. His father still remained a judge on the New Hampshire bench. He was old and infirm, but the respect of all classes still sustained him at his post. The money he had expended, and was still spend- big, for the education of his sons, had so exhausted his re- sources, that he had been obliged "to increase the mortgage upon his farm. It was the purpose, it had always been the joint promise of Ezekicl ar> 1 Daniel, at the very first opportunity 102 WEBSTER AND HIS MASTER-PIECES. after the completion of their studies, to lift this mortgage and set their self-sacrificing and patient father free. They had long known, too, that, in his age and infirmities, he could not bear up under the pressure of a debt, as he had done when well and strong. They knew that it preyed upon his spirits ; that he began to indulge in disagreeable forebodings ; that he fre- quently mentioned to his wife, as well as to them, the prospect of his dying at last, after all his struggles, a poor and perhaps a needy man. Oftentimes, the family had been affected to weeping by his distress; and the resolution had been at such times repeated, and redoubled, by both the boys, to hasten their work, and press into active employment, that they might quiet the fears and soothe the sorrows of their parent, whom it troubled them to see thus disturbed. Now, Daniel was about through his course ; now, he felt the duty and responsibility resting on him ; and now, as Providence would have it, an opportunity occurred, at the nick of time, when all these pious resolutions might be redeemed. At the solicitation of the father, and by the unanimous and free consent of all concerned, Daniel was appointed clerk of his father's court, with a salary and perqui- sites amounting to the enviable sum of fifteen hundred dollars a year. This, in a short time, would not only pay off his fa- ther's debts, but soon bring in a competency to himself. In those days, in fact, this large salary was not barely a compe- tency. It was wealth ; and Daniel, with this situation, could look fortune in the eye, soothe the troubled heart of his good old father, and almost smooth down the wrinkles of old age. Young as he was and poor as he had always been, he may be seen, in our imagination, to leap with sudden joy at the pros- pect so strangely and unexpectedly opened to him. Perhaps, reader, as we see him now, in fancy, doing what history tells he actually did leaving the office of his patron proceeding directly, by the shortest and quickest route, to the residence of his father hastening into the old homestead, with- DECLINES THE OVERTURE. 103 out waiting to fasten his horse, the moment he has reached the door perhaps, with the letter of appointment in his hand, he is going in to fall down before the aged sire, or to embrace him in his filial arms, that he may tell him in person with what gratitude he accepts the overture which the court has made. Be this as it may, one thing history has made certain. The old man, touched by the alacrity of the son, and grateful for the- independence now at last freely offered to them both, burst into tears the moment that he saw Daniel's face. His passion could not wait for ceremony : " I only mentioned it to them," said he in tearful triumph, and without a word of introduction " I only mentioned it to them, and it was no sooner said than done ! " Daniel did not seem to be as intemperate in his joy, or in his gratitude, as the occasion appeared to warrant. In fact, he was rather embarrassed for a moment, but quickly recovered. The father noticed the manner of the son, and saw that all was not just right. " What do you mean, Daniel," said Colonel Webster. " I know not what to make of your appearance." " Father," said Daniel, who always knew exactly how to say what he wished " Father, suppose I should decline this magnificent offer of their honors?" The judge was at once perplexed. He did not relish the hint thrown out. Indeed, he was manifestly displeased, for tie saw at a glance what Daniel's manner and words meant : u Do you mean to decline the appointment 1 " said he to Daniel. " Most certainly, father," said the young clerk, " I cannot do otherwise." " Cannot do ! cannot do ! what can you do 1 " said the old man, sternly. " I can do much better, father," replied the law-student, " as I can show you, if you will listen." "Well, my son," said the father, softening a littln, "your 104 WEBSTER AND HIS MASTER-PIECES. mother has always said, that you would come to something or to nothing, she was not sure which. I think you are now about settling that doubt for her." Daniel began and went on with his explanation, which he concluded by pouring into his father's lap as much gold as would di-charge him from all his debts, and set his heart at rest. Sur prised, overwhelmed, by this sudden freak of fortune, the old man could hardly believe his eyes, but thought he was acting a character in some fairy tale, of which his son was the presiding spirit He now wept again, and wished to know what all this could mean. Daniel was good at oratory, and could answer every demand made upon his tongue. He told him all about it. He told him, in short, how a friend of his in Boston, a man by the name of Emery, had strangely and kindly offered to let him have the money, which he was to pay back when he might find it convenient to do so ; and that all the security he had given for the repayment of the loan was his naked word. At this, the old man fell to shedding tears more than ever, in which, it is said, the mother and the son had to join at last. At all events, Daniel carried the point. The fixedness of purpose with which Mr. Webster with- stood the temptation of the clerkship, was due in part to the advice and encouragement of his patron. Mr. Gore used every argument, which the occasion would naturally suggest, to dissuade him from accepting the appointment, to which, at the first, he was more than half inclined. In fact, at one time, he had made up his mind to take it, and thus end the struggle for existence, as well as gratify what he knew to be the wishes of his father. No man, perhaps, of all his acquaintance, was bet- ter qualified to overturn this resolution, than Mr. Gore. He had Mr. Webster's confidence to the utmost. He had been to him, not so much a master, as a familiar friend. He was thor- oughly impressed with the extraordinary talents of his pupil, and used to say to his visitors, that the name of that pupil TS ADMITTED TO THE B \R. 105 would one day bo a name of which the -whole country would be proud. He was himself emphatically a lawyer a lawyer by choice, by education, by long-practice, and by natural incli nation and feeling ; and he was exactly the man to portray the good points of the profession in such a manner, so to draw out the picture of his ideal, as to seize upon the imagination, rouse the enthusiasm, and determine the resolution of a young man of Mr. Webster's high ambition and elevated sentiments. All these advantages, and every other possessed by him, he had used upon his pupil, with all the. fervor and eloquence that be- longed to him in conversation. He had succeeded entirely in changing the purposes of Daniel ; and Daniel himself, when he sat down with his father, at the time just mentioned, to talk the matter over, had the satisfaction of being able to add Mr. Gore's advice to his own views, which had thus become settled never again to be disturbed or diverted. On returning to Boston, he was received with open arms by all his new friends ; and, after spending a few weeks more in the office, he was presented by Governor Gore to the court for admission. This was in the month of March, 1805 ; and the governor, on offering his name, is said to have departed some- what from the usual manner of such proceed ing, and to have made a brief speech on the extraordinary abilities and promise- of the candidate. Webster was admitted ; and from this hour, he is no longer a youth, a school-boy, a preceptor, or a law-student, but a man, a member of the bar, a lawyer of Massachusetts., Perhaps no lawyer of Massachusetts, or of any other state, ever entered the profession under so enviable a prestige. As a student, he had become well acquainted with the lawyers of the city ; and Mr. Gore's eulogy, which was from his heart and very eloquent, at once gave him a reputation in advance of the ordinary probation. On the day of his admission, he had a better standing, and was better known, than some old lawyers then in practice 5n the metropolis. He was actually courted 106 WETiSTER AND FITS MASTER-PIECES. by those of the profession, who foresaw his future eminence, and who perceived that his good will might be of use to them in coming time. His friends wrote to him from New Hamp- shire to return home, by all means, and settle among his first acquaintances, who thought they had the first right to him. They urged him to corne on the ground of policy. They told him, that the members of his family, and the people of his state, would naturally feel an obligation to stand by him, and a pride in giving him success, which he could not expect from strangers. On the other hand, the citizens of Boston were advising him, at the same time, to remain with them, where his talents would have a wider field of action, and where competition would be more likely to draw him out and thus develop him. They insisted too, that he ought to think something of the chances of emolument, which, in a new and sparsely-settled country, like New Hampshire, would be few and seldom, but would be abundant in the metropolis of New England. Several of the leading merchants of the city offered him their patronage, one firm alone actually putting into his hands a collecting business amounting to over thirty thousand dollars. Between these two oflers, Mr. Webster could not long hesi- tate, when he took into consideration the arguments of both parties ; but there was an element in the question, which neither his friends in New Hampshire, nor his friends in Boston, had thought to mention. It was an element, too, which had more weight with him, it seems, than all other considerations. It was the fact, that his good old father, who had spent his life for his children, who had periled his property to send his two boys to college, was now very infirm, and wished the younger son to be with him, or near him, in his declining years. This wish brought the ambition and filial love of a very ambitious, and a very affectionate young man, into opposite sides of the same scale. Which, reader, will outweigh the other ? No one, who HIS FIRST CAUSE IN COURT. 107 knows the heart of the young man, or who ever knew the heart, of the same man through every period of his life, need hesitate to answer. He who, to the latest hour, could never write the name of his father, and who never did wiite it, without putting af- ter it a point of admiration, could not long debate, could not and did not debate at all, the question between ambition and affection. The point was immediately decided. He at once left Boston, left his interesting and useful associations, left his most numer- ous and most powerful friends, left all the pictures that had been drawn out to his warm imagination, left the entreaties of all who knew him, to begin his career in a comparative wilder- ness, among a population who could not then entirely appreci- ate nor half employ his talents, that he might be a comfort to him, who had sacrificed his own comfort, and risked all of his worldly means, to give him the advantages of a thorough edu- cation. He went to Boscawen and opened an office near the residence of his father. Over his door he put up the unpre- tending sign, which is still preserved as a memento of a great man's start in life "D. Webster, Attorney" In the month of March, 1805, in the twenty-third year of his age, and after a nine years' period of study, Mr. Webster here commenced, in a small but healthful and beautiful village, in the interior of New Hampshire, the practice of his profession ; and it is probably not too much to say of him, that, though yet but little more than a youth, he was the most remarkable in- dividual, and the individual most marked, most spoken of, if net in the whole state, at least in that section of the state. His practice was, consequently, of very rapid growth. It began, in fact, on the day of his opening an office ; and his first cause in court followed immediately this event. It was a civil suit, but a suit of considerable consequence to the litigants, though of no general interest, excepting what it derived from the notoriety of the young barrister who was to try it. The circumstances of the occasion were peculiar and interesting It was a cause VOL. i. E* 108 WEBSTER AND HIS MASTKR-PIECES. to be tried before his own father, who still occupied his post as judge ; and the sheriff of the county, Colonel William Webster, was a distant relative, who, whatever he might have heard of Daniel, had never seen him till that day. The young lawyer there met his former master, Hon. Thomas W. Thompson, as well as several other lawyers of ability and experience ; and they were all on the tiptoe of excitement to listen to the maiden effort of their junior brother, about whom so many predictions had been uttered. When he came into court, he must have felt, and felt keenly, the importance of the hour to him ; but, though modest in his demeanor, he did not seem to be embar- rassed. His old patron, Mr. Thompson, would naturally greet him with an affectionate and hearty welcome ; the older law- yers would as naturally follow the example, in form at least, if not with the same spirit ; while the younger members of the bar might have had some feelings of an indescribable character, such as they would scarcely have been willing to acknowledge. There was one there, however, who, it appears, was not afraid to acknowledge, or to say openly and frankly, just what he thought and felt upon the occasion. That man was the sheriff. When he saw his kinsman coming into the audience-room, " he felt ashamed," as he said, " to see so lean and feeble a young man come into court, bearing the name of Webster." His shame, nevertheless, soon left him ; and from the time that the young man walked out of court, he had more reason to be proud that his own name was Webster. In the trite but pithy language of the Hon. Mr. Russel, who heard Daniel's effort of that day, not only the lawyers, but all present, came to the conclusion, that he had " an old head on young shoulders." Indeed, contrary to the idle tales told about it in later times, this first speech of Mr. Webster's, as a specimen of oratory, was a good effort, and, as a specimen of legal tact and know- ledge, was triumphant. The fact that the speech, the argu ment, was to be delivered in the presence of his father, who OPENING SUCCESS. 109 would then and there see what all his own sacrifices had been made for, and what they had come to, undoubtedly nerved Daniel up to do his best. He always needed some motive of a powerful kind to draw out all his power ; and it is equally well known, that never, when thus drawn out, did he make anything less than a grand and irresistible demonstration of his abilities. The impression made upon the bar, by this argument, and by his general practice at the beginning of his career, is seen in the history of a criminal .prosecution occurring at this time. It was a case in which a man was tried for murder ; and Mr. Webster, though not yet admitted to practice before the su- preme court, as the, -period of his candidacy had not yet ex- pired, was appointed, by express commission of the judges, to defend the prisoner. An account of the manner in which he discharged this duty, with the attending circumstances, was many years ago given to the public: "The murder," says the writer, " was foul and horrid, perpetrated on an innocent man, a fellow prisoner for debt. They were in the same room. No provocation was given by the sufferer, or none that would, in the slightest degree, palliate the offense. The fact of killing could not be questioned; and the defense, of course, was narrowed toonepoint the insanity of the prisoner. There were no proofs of his former insanity, but, on the contrary, the malignity of his disposition was well known to all the country around. His counsel, nevertheless, was not de- terred from going on, with all these formidable circumstan- ces to contend with. He argued, that the enormity of the deed, perpetrated without motive, or without any of those motives operating upon most minds, furnished presumptive proof of the alienation of the prisoner's mind ; and even the cool deliberation, and apparent severity which he exhibited at the time the deed was done, were proofs that reason wag perverted, and that a momentary insanity had corae over 110 WEBSTER AND HIS MASTER-PIECES. nim. The advocate astonished the court and jury, and all who heard him, by his deep knowledge of the human mind. He opened all the springs of action, and analyzed every fac- ulty of the mind, so lucidly and philosophically, that it was a new school for those who heard him. He showed the dif- ferent shapes insanity assumed, from a single current of false reasoning, upon a particular subject, while there is a perfect soundness of mind upon every other subject, to the reasoning aright upon wrong premises, or to the reasoning wrong upon right premises, up to those paroxysms of madness, when the eye is filled with strange sights, and the ear with strange sounds, and reason is entirely dethroned. As he laid open the infirmities of human nature, the jury were in tears, and the bystanders still more affected ; but common sense pre- vailed over argument and eloquence ; and the wretch was convicted and executed. Notwithstanding the fate of the murderer, the speech lost nothing of its effect upon the peo- ple. It was long the subject of conversation in every public place ; arid it is often mentioned now with admiration." During his residence in the beautiful village of Boscawen, Mr. Webster did not permit himself to devote all his time and attention to the law. His appetite for general knowledge, and his warm and active imagination, constantly led him off, in the intervals of his severer occupation, into the delightful fields or history, biography, and poetry. History he had studied pro- foundly and extensively ; but he "still wished to cultivate par- ticular departments, that all the world, and the annals of all nations, might be perfectly familiar to him. He could not bear to hear an allusion to any event, of remote or recent date, re- lating to any people, barbarous or civilized, or having any re- lation to the events of the present day, and not entirely under- stand it. His reading, in this respect, was so extensive, and so thorough, that, before he was twenty-five yea^s of age, he was able to stand his ground in conversation or HIS LOVE OF POETRY. Ill most eminent of his cotcmporaries; and, from that time to the clo.se of his long life, he is not known to have made a mistake, as a writer, or as a speaker, though speaking frequently with- out notes, in making historical references or quotations. In biography, too, in his knowledge of great men, ancient and modern, he here began to lay out that broad foundation, which, in after life, never disappointed him ; nor can it be de- nied, that his study of the lives of the most illustrious of his species, to which he now gave up a great portion of his leisure hours, evidently exerted a controlling influence in the formation of his own character. It fired his ambition, enlightened his un- derstanding, imparted to him a great many maxims of success- ful living, derived from the fortunes and misfortunes of the great, while it tended to check his passions, to regulate his will, and induce such habits of industry, sobriety and energy as sel dom fail in giving the greatest possible development to the fac- ulties, and the highest elevation, at last, to their possessor. In poetry, particularly, he was at this period a very constant and careful reader. He was exceedingly fond, at this time, of the English classic poets. He perused them with a relish, and with a grasp of conception and of fancy, which filled his mind with their most charming images, and imprinted their finest passages upon his memory. Not only the poets best known, but those lying outside of the general range of readers, such as Chaucer, Spenser, and the dramatists earlier than Shakspeare, he studied daily. Shakspeare, however, as was to have been expected, was alone a study. He read him, as few do read him, criti cally, closely, philosophically, as well as for the exalted pleas- ure of the perusal. He read him as a pupil reads the produc- tions of his master. He considered him as his master, as the master of all men in the department of human nature, as the great master and teacher of the English language, of English composition, and of true eloquence. He set him above ev- ery poet, ancient and modern, as the sublimest genius ever 112 WEBSTER AND HIS MASTER-PIECES. known among mortals. His admiration of him was then as high, as supreme, as it ever was afterwards ; and he is known to have regarded him, through all his career, as superior to Milton, to Sophocles, and to Homer. He was once inquired of respecting the particular play he liked best : " Always the one," said he, " that I have read last, and the others better than any thing else on earth, outside of revelation." Mr. Webster always made an exception, as in this instance, of the bible, which he ever regarded as the most admirable and wonderful of books. At the period of his life now before us, he read this volume every day, with great reverence, but with a special design to comprehend it. As a profound, fundamen- tal, universal lawyer, he could not neglect a production, as ha often said, which contained in it the elements of all law, the first principles of human society, and the histories of the earli- est forms of government. He could here trace the growth and progress of civilization from its origin. He here had, in the annals of the great empires of antiquity, the most memorable and magnificent illustrations of the different styles of govern- ment, of the several forms of human association, and of the influence and effect of nearly every system of laws and every species of legislation. Among the rest, there was one style of government, one system of laws, so peculiar, so consistent, so complete, that it demanded and received his most unquali- fied attention, his deepest and severest study. A theocracy es- tablished by divine omniscience, and put into actual operation among a most practical and worldly people, he considered a thing so abnormal, so out of the ordinary course, and yet so entirely authenticated as a fact, and as the greatest fact in the history of the human race, that he could not do otherwise than give to it a most careful and thorough investigation. In this way, he became a regular and unremitting student of the bible ; and as he read on. and mastered the great topic of his inquiry, other topics opened up before him, and fixed his attention, til] WRITES FOR THE PRESS. 113 he had formed the habit, as a professional man, of reading the scriptures consecutively and thoughtfully. This habit, mingled with the instructions of his mother, and with the recollections of his youth, now established in his mind that admiration, in his heart that reverence, for the word of God, which never left him. He has often been heard to say, that, merely as literary compositions, the psalms and the prophets have no superiors, and that the book of Job has nothing like an equal. About this time, Mr. Webster began to write for the public press. There was a magazine then published at Cambridge, Massachusetts, known as the Monthly Anthology, conducted by his o'd friend, Joseph S. Buckminster, and supported by several gentlemen of more than ordinary standing in the republic of letters. Though the work can hardly endure a comparison with the Spectator, or the Tattler, or the Rambler, as a work of literary merit, it had merits of a high order, and is now re- membered with satisfaction as a first-fruit from the garden of our literature. The biographer of Mr. Buckminster, in speak- ing of this review, mentions the names of the principal con- tributors, and the general character of their articles. When he reaches the name of Webster, he pauses long enough to pay him a special compliment : " Daniel Webster, from the rocky wilds of New Hampshire, enriched its pages with his winged thoughts." It seems, therefore, that^ at this early day, when he was but about twenty -five years of age, he had begun to be cel- ebrated as a writer ; and those " winged thoughts " were such, doubtless, as he has been sending out, for half a century, into all parts of the earth, and which have been lighting down upon all men, in all departments of life, hovering over their memo- ries, and over their imaginations, with mysterious effect. As a specimen of his written style, at this period of his life, his Concord oration, delivered on the 4th of July, 1800, may be read with satisfaction. Though not a politician, perhaps not intending to be one, his mind naturally traveled out of his pro- 114 WEBSTER AND HIS MASTER-PIECES. fession into the world, which was then filled with questions of a political character Among them all, there was one question, which had formed a topic of juvenile inquiry, had gone and re- mained with him in the halls of college, and had come out of college with him as the topic of his daily meditations, and which was to constitute the great topic of his life. It was the constitution of his country, which he had first studied from his little handkerchief, by the side of his father and mother, and which he had continued to study with increasing interest from that day forward, to which his thoughts now turned ; and the particular point of inquiry, the point of special value, was the possibility, the probability, of its preservation. The matter of his thoughts, and the style of their expression, are clearly dis- tinguished in his own words : " When we speak of preserving the constitution," says the young orator, " we mean not the pa- per on which it is written, but the spirit which dwells in it. Government may lose all its real character, its genius, its tem- per, without losing its appearance. Republicanism, unless you guard it, will creep out of its case of parchment, like a snake out of its skin. You may have a despotism under the name of a republic. You may look on a government, and see it possess all the external modes of freedom, and yet find nothing of the es- sence, the vitality, of freedom in it ; just as you may contemplate an embalmed body, where art hath preserved proportion and form, amid nerves without motion, and veins void of blood." The oration, all of which ran very much in this style, and after this spirit, made a powerful impression on his audience, and was w:dely celebrated in New Hampshire. The newspa- pers of that state spoke of it in high terms : " We have sel- dom read," says one of them, "any production of this kind, which has contained more correct sentiments, expressed with so much felicity of fancy and purity of style. It is free from the rancorous colorings of paity spirit, w r hich are wholly inconsist- ent with true eloquence. If there is any fault in the style, it REMOVES TO PORTSMOUTH. 115 is that the sentences, though not colloquial, are in general too sententious, and expressed with too much brevity for the flow of a public harangue." Ti at is, though a young man of only twenty-five, he had too much thought for the number of his words ! In the month of Septernb r, 1807, after a residence of two years at Boscawen, where his health had become bad by se vere study, he removed to the city of Portsmouth, where, it was thought, he would have less seclusion, and a more active and healthful manner of life. His practice, which had become good, though not lucrative, he relinquished to his brother Eze- kiel, who was just from college. The elder still followed in the footsteps of the younger. So true it is, that genius is more than years, giving a man precedence contrary to the estab lished laws of nature. In Portsmouth, which was then, as it is now, the chief com mercial city of the state, and distinguished for its good society, Mr. Webster entered into a field better corresponding to his talents. He there met a number of lawyers, most of whom he had known before, but whom he was now to meet, in daily practice, face to face. Had he been himself a lawyer of no pretensions, so close a connection would not have greatly an- noyed him ; he* could have lived in obscurity, in the shade of their overtowering reputations, thankful for the privilege of oc- casionally enjoying the benefit of their counsel ; but to go there and live upon their own ground, as an independent individual, to live there as their equal, to live there, perhaps, in spite of them, was a very different matter. It was a matter, however, that gave him no concern. He knew his own strength, though he was never vain of it ; and his position, his rights, were soon acknowledged. The oldest and ablest lawyers of the metrop- olis w r ere glad to divide with him what they could not monop- olize. He was sought after, in fact, rather than repelled by them. Jeremiah Mason, and Jeremiah Smith, with other law- 116 WEBSTER AND HIS MASTER-PIECES. yers of nearly their repute, received him with open arms; and a friendship was formed between them, which, without a day's interruption, lasted to the end of life. The reader may wish to know what was thought of Mr. Webster, at this time, by those qualified to render a sound judgment ; and it is fortunate that his reputation and character, as he was when he went to Portsmouth, have oeen given to the world by so competent a critic as Jeremiah Smith : " In single qualities," said Mr. Smith, " I have known men superior to Mr. Webster. Hamilton had more original genius, Ames greater quickness of imagination. Marshall, Parsons and Dex- ter were as remarkable for logical strength ; but in the union of high intellectual qualities, I have known no man equal to Daniel Webster." Such was the opinion, which one great man had formed of another, who, at that time, had not made a sin- gle manifestation of all the power that was in him. For a year, or more, prior to this period, Mr. Webster had been an occasional visitor to the house of the Rev. Elijah Fletcher, of Hopkinton, a Congregational clergyman, who was known for his piety and the patronage he bestowed upon young men. The visits became more and more frequent, till, on the eleventh of June, 1808, the Portsmouth Oracle, a newspaper of that day, appeared with the brief announcement : " Married in Salisbury, Daniel Webster, Esq., of this town, to Miss Grace Fletcher." This is all that is said respecting the most inter- esting event in the life of the greatest man of modern times. Such is republican simplicity ! The wife of Mr. Webster was one of three daughters, whose talents, accomplishments, and virtues were the joy of their father's house. Grace was particularly attractive, not only for her personal beauty, but for her acquirements, and still more for her amiable disposition. The three were all married in early life, one to a Mr. White, of Pittsfield, another to the Hon. Israel W. Kelley, of Salisbury, and the third to Mr. Webster, THE HAPPINESS OF HIS LIFE. 117 who, fill tne day of her untimely death, loved and honored her with almost a devout affection. Now Mr. Webster was fairly settled in life. He was twen- ty-six years of age, in improving health, well educated, happily married, a sound and thorough lawyer, and entering into an ex- tensive practice. Having many friends, and no enemies, moral in his life, and by education religious in his sentiments, there was nothing around him, or before him, but happiness, useful- ness and honor. It was the most beautiful and blissful period of his life. It was the period to which he most often looked back, in after years, with that mellow and thoughtful cast of countenance, that always characterized his serenest meditations. More than once has he attempted to tell a friend how happy he then was ; how pure and peaceful his daily course ; how calm and contented his repose at night ; how satisfied he was with the moderate independence afforded him by his profession ; with what disrelish he looked out upon the din and confusion of the troubled world ; with what unspeakable delight, in the midst of what little fell to him of that world's noisy strife, he turned his eyes to his sweet home, where was the wife of his heart, where his thoughts and affections centered, and to which he trusted he might some day retreat from every worldly care, from every disturbing influence, to spend his best days in do- mestic quiet, with his family and his books. More than once, when the attempt has been made, and the picture has been half- drawn, has the tear run down his cheek, his lip quivered, his speech faltered, till his utterance became choked. This portion of his life, however, was not constituted entirely of tender scenes and sentiments. In the daily practice of his profession, he met with many things of a most amusing char- acter ; and, with all his constitutional gravity, there was a vein of natural humor in him, as has been seen, that gave him the highest possible relish for what was genuinely ludicrous. Long years after this part of his career was passed, indeed, to the end 118 WEBSTER AND HIS MASTER-PIECES. of life, he used to tell professional anecdotes connected with hi* stay in Portsmouth, which, while they never failed to amuse his hearers to the highest pitch, threw a flood of light on his personal history, and on the manners and customs of that early day : "Soon after commencing the practice of my profession at Portsmouth," said Mr. Webster once, when he happened to be in a story -telling mood, " I was waited on by an old ac- quaintance of my father's, resident in an adjacent county, who wished to engage my professional services. Some years previ- ous he had rented a form, with the clear understanding, that he could purchase it, after the expiration of the lease, for one thou- sand dollars. Finding the farm productive, he soon deter mined to own it ; and, as he laid aside money for the purchase, he was prompted to improve what he felt certain he would possess. But his landlord, seeing the property greatly in- creased in value, coolly refused to take the one thousand dol- lars, when in due time it was presented ; and, when his extor- tionate demand of double that sum was refused, he at once brought an action of ejectment. The man had but the one thousand dollars, and an unblemished reputation, yet I wil- lingly undertook his case. "The opening argument of the plaintiff's attorney left me little ground for hope. He stated that he could prove that my client hired the farm, but that there was not a word in the lease about the sale, nor was there a word spoken about the sale when the lease was signed, as he should prove by a witness. In short, it was a clear case ; and I left the court-room at din- ner time with feeble hopes of success. By chance, I sat at ta- ble by the side of a newly-commissioned militia officer; and a brother lawyer began to joke him about his lack of martial knowledge. 'Indeed,' he jocosely remarked, 'you should write down the orders, and get old W to beat them into your sconce, as I saw him this morning, with a paper in his hand, teaching something to young M in the court-house entry.' POPULARITY AS A LAVWER. 119 " Gin it be, thought I, that old W , the plaintiff in the case, was instructing young M , who was his reliable witness ? " After dinner the court was reopened, and M was put upon the stand. He was examined by the plaintiff's counsel ; and he certainly told a clear, plain story, repudiating all know- ledge of any agreement to sell. When he had concluded, the opposite counsel, with a triumphant glance, turned to me, and asked me if I was satisfied. ' Not quite,' I replied. " I had noticed a piece of paper protruding out of M 's pocket, and, hastily approaching him, 1 seized it before he had the least idea of my intention. ' Now,' I asked, ' tell me if this paper does not detail the story you have so clearly told ? And is it not false 1 ' The witness hung his head with shame ; and when the paper was found to be what I supposed, and in the very hand-writing of old W , the case was lost at once. Nay, there was such a storrn of indignation against him, that he even removed to the West. " Years afterward, when visiting New Hampsire, I was the guest of my professional brethren at a public dinner ; and, toward the close of the festivities, I was asked if I would solve a great doubt by answering a question. ' Certainly.' ' Well, then, Mr. Webster, we have often wondered how you knew what was in M 's pocket ! '" During the four years next succeeding his marriage, Mr. Webster's popularity as a lawyer was constantly rising ; and, at the age of thirty, when most young men are satisfied if they have begun to establish a business, his reputation was higher than that of any lawyer in New Hampshire. Almost every advantage seemed to cener in him. In the first place, his health had greatly improved ; his manly frame had put on a full, round form ; and he was justly celebrated, beyond any man of his time, for the combined dignity and beauty of his person. Then, intellectually, he had made daily advancement 120 WEBSTER AND HIS MASTER-PIECES. in every vai 'cty of knowledge ; he had studied, and thought, and written, almost incessantly ; all his mental faculties were thoroughly awake ; and every effort he had made, with tongue or pen, had been successful, giving him the invaluable prestige of never failing. But, what was even of more consequence, he had begun the world, not with a pure moral character merely, but with a name for everything noble, high and dignified ; he was supposed to be incapable of a low word, a mean act, or an unworthy principle ; he was looked to as a pattern of correct behavior, of sound worth, as well as of the most exalted talents ; and he seemed to be determined, in every act of his life, to maintain this lofty elevation. As a lawyer, even, he would do nothing, and say nothing, whatever might be the motives, that could in any way dishonor him. lie laid it down as a rule of his professional life, that he would undertake no man's cause, without first assuring himself of its being, at least in all proba- bility, worthy of defense. He would defend no villain. Though a lawyer, and only a lawyer, he considered it his duty, and he made it his business, to defend the innocent, to help the needy, and to maintain the interests of society. The same elevated bearing distinguished him when actually engaged at coiwt. There was no tricking, no cunning, no pettifogging, in his argu- ments. Seizing hold of the strong points of his case, he urged them, and them only, with all the force of his masterly abili- ties, and with all the learning needful, but never with false, or garbled, or distorted quotations. The facts he stated were al- ways facts ; his authorities were real authorities, acknowledged by all good lawyers ; and the application he made of his cita- tions were always fair, legitimate, and to the point. In this way, he obtained an overwhelming influence over courts and juries. They relied on his word ; and it is probably true, that, in many instances, his statements had as much to do with the verdict, as the testimony of the most reliable of his wit- nesses. He once said in court, that, sooner than he would de HIS REPUTATION STILL RISING. 121 liberately misstate a fact, or knowingly misquote an authority, or dishonorably misapply a precedent, he would lose his case ; and the people everywhere, as well as the barristers and judges, believed him when he said it. It is no wonder, then, that such a man, with such principles of action, could carry all before him. It is no wonder, that his name was a tower of strength to his clients, giving them, almost certainly, the victory. It is no wonder, that, far and near, that name took wing, going to every hamlet in his native state. The best critics about him had given their decision in his favor ; and the people, though not prepared, perhaps, to give an enlightened judgment of their own, could easily believe what was so abundantly demonstra- ted by his success : "Applause Waits on success. The fickle multitude, Like the light straw that floats along the stream, Glide with the current still, and follow fortune," In this manner, and precisely at this time, New England be gan to hear of the name of Daniel Webster. We shall now see the first fruits of this popular reputation. CHAPTER VL REPRESENTATIVE TO CONGRESS. IT was not to be expected, in spite of his domestic spirit *id his disrelish of the turmoil of public life, that a man born amidst the excitements of one war, and beginning the world at the opening of another, when every citizen was called to think and act, could keep himself entirely clear of politics. Mr. Web- ster, also, was not only a lawyer, but by education, by study, by the habit of his mind, a statesman. He was better in- formed respecting the history, character, wants and prospects of the republic, than any man about him. His opinion was vei y likely to be looked for ; and, such was his manly indepen- dence, he was free to give it to every one that asked it. But when a man has given an opinion, he has something at stake ; and he is certain to defend himself, whenever he is called in question. Exactly in this way was Mr. Webster drawn into politics, which he had always shunned and dreaded. The leading political question of the day was that of the pol- icy, or impolicy, of the war with England ; and this was the immediate outgrowth of the war between England and the French republic. Bonaparte, springing from the bosom of the people, had gradually risen to such power as to put under his feet the government of the people ; and on the ruins of this popular government he had erected an empire, which, in the pride of his ambition, he had resolved to make universal. In the pursuit of this grand design, in which he had intoxicated the French nation with the belief, that his own aggrandizement and HE IS DRAW* INTO POLITICS. 123 their glory were identical, he had subdued nearly every nation of Europe. England and Russia, for once made friends by their common danger, were almost the only exceptions, and really the sole barriers, to his European empire. Nearly all of the great powers, however, either secretly or openly, had combined against him ; but, in the general struggle, no one of them had given him so much trouble as Great Britain. By land, he could cope, and had coped, with everything that could be brought against him ; but the English navy, then at the acme of its power, had taken from France most of her insu- lar possessions, and swept her shipping from the seas. To ac complish this result, England had been compelled to employ all her naval force, and to abandon almost entirely her foreign trade, on which she depended, of course, for the greater part of her bread-stuffs in a time of peace, and for immensely increased agricultural supplies in a time of war. Her vast military es- tablishment, growing with every day's continuance of the war, had gradually drawn so much upon the rural and manufactur ing districts, had transformed so many producers into wasters, that the success of all her gigantic military efforts, if not the existence of the nation, seemed to depend on such stores as could be obtained from other lands. France, at the same time, shaken by internal revolutions for more than twenty years, and exhausted by a succession of the most bloody and most expen- sive foreign wars, had been compelled by degrees to call her agricultural population to take arms, and thus, like England, to throw herself upon other countries for a supply of bread. This, in a pecuniary point of view, was the harvest day for America, which, even then, could export more grain and flour than all Europe combined ; and it actually became the leading business of this country to carry food to the belligerent and hungry na- tions of the old world, and particularly to England and to France. Peace, therefore, to be maintained by a most positive neutrality, was evidently thp r-f*?t policy, th* only good politics, VOL. I. F 124 WEBSTER AND HIS MASTER-PIECES. of this country. Our people, and our politicians, had a right to remain, so far as their financial interests were concerned, cool and even calculating spectators of the European struggle, to enrich and strengthen their country at the expense of a gen- eral conflict which they could neither govern nor prevent. In every democratic country, however, the passions of the multitude, at a period of popular excitement, are more likely to get the ascendency, than the better judgment of the more sagacious and reflecting class of minds. It was so, in this coun- try, at that time. A few years before, England had been our enemy, and France our ally, in the most illustrious and impor- tant of modern wars. This was the first thing thought of by superficial men ; and this consideration alone had been sufficient, from the very opening of the French revolution, to carry the feelings of a large portion of our citizens to the side of France. This revolution of France, too, in its inception, with all its bar- barities and opposition to Christianity, had been called a demo- cratic movement ; and, as usual, thousands of the uninformed, honest and true-hearted as they were, had been cheated by a name. The third and perhaps the most powerful of the causes, that had thus worked together to create the public opinion of the United States, in relation to this subject, was the efforts made by a class of American infidels, led on by Thomas Paine and favored by Thomas Jefferson, which, cooperating with Voltaire, and the French atheists, who were the high-priests of the French democracy, in their attempt to overthrow the church of France, expected in this way to begin the overthrow of Christianity in every land. In this manner, and chiefly for these reasons, during all the wars of the French Directory, and in the midst of the wars of Bonaparte, a majority of the Ameri- can people had given their sympathies to France. Bonaparte, waxing hotter in his hatred to England, as the final contest between him and her drew more near at hand, see- ing her dependence upon foreign countries, and chiefly upon EUROPEAN POLITICS. 125 this country, for her supplies of food, resdved to 2t off those supplies at a single stroke, and thus starve her into a submis- sion which he had not been able to compel by force of arms. While at the city of Berlin, in the midst of his victories of the German war, he issued a decree, which blockaded all the ports of England, but opened wider than ever, to the shipping of all nations, excepting England and her allies, the ports of France. This, though aimed at Great Britain, was a still heavier blow against the United States ; and it was clearly the policy of the United States to join with England in repelling an attack, which, in a business point of view, gave to the two countries a com- mon cause. England, however, had given to our people a very grave of- fence. Her seamen, weary of the long war, or envious of the rich gains of the peaceful commerce of our merchantmen, had been deserting the English navy, and entering into the Ameri- can trade, in large numbers ; and the sea-faring population of Great Britain, who had had no connection with the British mar- itime service, had numerously followed this example. England, alarmed at these desertions from her navy, and equally alarmed at the loss of so many of that class of her people, from which her navy, in any emergency, was to be supplied, saw no other alternative, than to pass laws, and send out orders to her naval officers, to reclaim all such of her refugee citizens, and compel them to return to their allegiance, wherever they might be found. Such laws had been passed ; but their execution, easy in respect to nations speaking other languages and marked by different costumes and manners, was exceedingly difficult in re- lation to our own ; and the result often was, without doubt, with all the care possible in such a case, that hundreds if not thousands of American citizens, mistaken for Englishmen in disguise, were thus taken from their own vessels and thrust into the English men-of-war. Though the English government of- fered to return every American citizen thus abducted, whose 126 WEBSTER AND HIS MASTER-PIECES. citizenship could be proved, the haters ot England, those cheated by the French use of the word democracy, and the American infidels, constituting the republican or democratic party in the days of Jefferson, overlooking the sublime position of Great Britain at that time, as the great and last bulwark of Christianity, overlooking the extinction of everything demo- cratic in France under the imperial ambition of Bonaparte, and secretly favoring the infidels of America, whose success, rt was supposed, would tend to widen the distance in our government between church and state, were willing enough to brook the in- sult and the injury of the Berlin decree, but took fire at once against England for her attempt, carelessly executed, it is con- fessed, to recover the services of her own citizens in a time of uncommon need. Actuated by such motives, the party in power, under the ad- ministration of Jefferson, instead of going forward to keep up our lucrative commerce with Great Britain, and with her allies, in spite of the French embargo, which France had not navy enough to enforce against us, or against any other nation at peace with England, had sent an ambassador to Paris and be- come the ally of France. They had taken the weaker and the wicked side, when the material welfare of their country, and a just regard for the cause of morality and religion throughout the world, in a word, when duty and interest both, had de- manded the utmost stretch of charity toward England, in her day of embarrassment and peril, since that very peril she was suffering not more for herself, than for the highest and holiest interests of mankind. Not daring, however, in a manly way, if war with England was right and just, to make an open dec- laration of war, and meet the enemy upon an open sea, in a weak and cowardly manner, they had laid a second embargo, an American embargo, on American shipping, not only forbidding trade with England, which trade France most desired should be forbidden, but with all th* rest of the world, thus at the EUROPEAN POLITICS CONTINUED. 127 same time helping Bonaparte in his effort of annihilating Great Britain at a cost little less than ruinous to ourselves. Our soil, it is true, remained fertile, and could give us the necessaries of existence ; but the great surplus of produce, on which we de- pended, through our flourishing commerce, for the comforts and the elegancies of life, and for the means of developing the hid- den resources of our country, had been allowed to perish in our fields. Wheat had fallen in a day from the price of two dol- lars per bushel to that of seventy cents ; and the whole land, while aiding a traitor to republicanism in an attempt to break down the best government of the best people, next to our own, on the face of the earth, had been bereft of its business, its pol icy, and its power. Immediately upon this, England, still struggling for her ex istence against the great aspirant to universal dominion, and seeing no other way of meeting the force of the Berlin decree, had published her celebrated orders in council, which, in sub- stance, were another embargo, which blockaded against all na- tions the pgyts of France ; but in the execution of these orders, still looking with a friendly eye upon the United States, as the natural ally of the great Anglo-Saxon and Protestant power of Europe, England had treated our shipping with a favor, which she had denied to all the commerce of the world. Publishing her orders suddenly, after a lengthy but secret deliberation, she had permitted all American vessels, then in her ports, to leave peaceably with their cargoes, and had given directions to her naval commanders, in every part of the globe, to allow our merchantmen quietly to return home. In this state of things had the country been left, at the expi- ration of Jefferson's second term ; and when his successor, Mr. Madison, had come into the presidency, he had seen so much evil to our commerce, and consequently to our agriculture, and to all the business of our hitherto thriving population, flowing from this policy that he had been, at the beginning of his pros- 128 WEBSTER AND HIS MASTER-PIECES. idential career, favorable to a repeal of the embargo, and a friend to more peaceful measures. But his party, heterogene- ous and yet united, could not be controlled by a weak, a hesita- ting, a timorous man. Madison was borne on, by the force of party feeling, through four years of irresolution and -fear ; but when he had approached the termination of his first term, he had seen no way of maintaining his position with his partisans, and of retaining his high office for four years longer, but to smother his convictions and his conscience, and rush forward to a still more " entangling alliance " with Napoleon, the end of which, as every one could see, and as he had plainly seen and confessed, would be a second war with England. That war, indeed, soon came ; and it was at the time of its declaration, in 1812, that Mr. Webster, in the manner hereto- fore described, had been compelled, by the demands of his fel- low-citizens, and by the wants of a distracted country, to utter his opinions, and to enter into the internal conflict of the nation. What those opinions were, or what special part he took, and continued to bear, in the conflict, he has left no room to doubt. In the first place, he was opposed to the embargo, and to the policy that dictated the embargo, because he regarded it as an indirect but effectual mode of aiding the ambition of Bona- parte in rooting out or trampling down the last remains of the originally genuine democracy of France, and of setting up a bitter though splendid tyranny in its place. He was opposed to this policy, because it was giving equal succor to the same man in his unprovoked attacks upon the governments of Eu- rope, and especially upon Protestant Great Britain, which the aspirant looked upon with the deepest hatred, and which he was determined, as the master-piece and conclusion of his bloody career, to blot from the map of nations. He was opposed to this policy, because, while it strengthened France and weak- ened England, it destroyed our own commerce, cast a alight HIS FIRST POLITICAL SPEECH. 129 upon our agriculture by shutting off our markets, and thus com- pletely paralyzed the business of the country. He was oppo- sed to this policy, also, and was warm in his opposition, be- cause, as he saw it, and as others saw it, it was a powerful sup- port tt the rampant infidelity of the French atheists, who, in their nvidness, had declared the scriptures to be a fraud, Chris- tianity a lie, the Almighty a fiction, and Jesus Christ an im- postor and a wretch. This infidelity, indeed, had been the original and exciting cause of the French Revolution, which, in its turn, had opened the way for the ambition of Bonaparte, who now looked upon the people of the United States as his ally against their own republican principles, against their kin- dred, their religion, and their God. The particular occasion, which drew Mr. Webster out into the arena of politics, has been described, by a class-mate of his brother : " The first halo of political glory, that hung around his brow, was at a convention of the great spirits in the county of Rockingham, where he then resided, and such representatives from other counties as were sent to this convention, to take into consideration the state of the nation, and to mark out such a course for themselves as should be deemed advisable by the collected wisdom of those assembled. On this occasion, an ad- dress, with a string of resolutions, were proposed for adoption, of which he was said to be the author. They exhibited uncom- mon powers of intellect and a profound knowledge of our na- tional interests. He made a most powerful speech in support of these resolutions, portions of which were reprinted at the time, and which were much admired in every part of the Union." The speech is lost, but it is still remembered in Ports- mouth, that, from the moment of its delivery, Mr. Webster was at once acknowledged as the first man of the city, and the leading spirit of New Hampshire. Those popular assemblies were frequent ; they everywhere demanled tin attendance of Mr. AVebster ; and though all the 130 WEBSTER AND HIS MASTER-PIECES. public speeches delivered by him, at this period, are gone be- yond recovery, one of them was listened to by an intelligent traveler, who has given of it a very readable description " His carriage was brought to the door, and he was about to get into it, when the hostler said, ' Sir, are you going to leave town 1 Mr. Webster is to speak to-night.' Finding all classes so delighted that Mr. Webster was going to speak, he ordered his horses to the stable, and put off his journey till the morrow. At early candle-light,. he went to the hall, where the meeting was to be held. It was filled to overflowing, but some per sons, seeing him to be a stranger, gave way ; and he found a convenient place to stand. No one could sit. A tremendous noise soon announced that the orator himself had arrived ; but as soon as the meeting was organized, another rose to make some remarks on the object of the meeting. He was heard with a polite apathy. Another, and yet another came. ; and all spoke well ; but this would not do ; and if Chatham himself had been among them, or St. Paul, they would not have met the expectations of the multitude. The admired orator at length arose, and was for a while musing upon something, which was drowned by a constant cheering ; but when order was restored, he went on with ^reat serenity and ease to make his remarks, without apparently making the slightest attempt to gain applause. The audience was still, except now and then a murmur of delight, which showed that the great mass of the hearers were ready to burst into a thunder of applause, if those who generally set the example would have given an intima tion, that it might have been done; but they, devouring every word, made signs to prevent any interruption. The harangue was ended ; the roar of applause lasted long, and was sincere and heart-felt. It was a strong, gentlemanly, and appropriate speech ; but there was not a particle of the demagogue about it nothing like the speeches on the hustings to catch atten- tion. He di u\v a picture of the candidates, on both sides of A CANDIDATE FOR OFFICE. 131 the question, and proved, as far as reason and argument could prove, the superiority of those of his own choice." Next day, the traveler went on his journey, and found to his surprise, that, though there was then no telegraph, the fame of the speech had everywhere preceded him. It was at this election, during the month of November, 1812, after the war had been declared by the Madison congress against England, that Mr. Webster first suffered himself to bf brought forward as a candidate for office. He had been soli cited before ; but he had invariably and positively declined. Now, however, there seemed to be a crisis, a crisis in the af- fairs of the whole nation. The two great measures, which had been carried through by the democratic party, the embargo and the war, had brought the Union to the brink of a dissolu- tion. New England, which scarcely had a business, or any means of self-support, when she was token from the sea, though loyal to the . constitution and the Union, indulged the feelings toward the administration, and toward the measures of the ad- ministration, which a hungry population are likely to have against those who make them starve ; and the southern States, which depended on New England shipping to carry their sugar, their cotton, their tobacco, and their rice to market, and to bring back to the producers such commodities as were abso- lutely necessary in the working of their plantations, and for the comfort of their homes, went so far beyond their New En- gland brethren as to talk of opposition to the general govern- ment. Both sections were opposed to the war ; and many of the federal party were so violently against it, as to withdraw from it their support even after it had been declared. Web- ster, though sympathizing with the opposition, and regarded as a member of the federal party, would not desert the coun- try, nor the cause of the country, though he certainly looked upon the war with no favoring eye. Since war had been de- clared, congress, he maintained, and the people, ought to sus- VOL. i. F* 9 132 WEBSTER AXD HIS MASTER-PIECES. tain it as long as it must continue ; but an honorable peace, he likewise maintained, should be accepted as soon as it should be offered, and offered as soon as there should be a possibility of its being accepted. Peace he regarded as the organic policy of this country ; and he saw no good reason why England, then struggling for her life against an atheistical and imperial tyr anny, which was now finally supported by the pope and by the papal church, should not be eager to terminate, in a manner honorable to both countries, a needless, a voluntary, and an unnatural war, against a people speaking the. same language, cherishing the same customs, boasting of the same principles, and serving by the same worship the same God. Standing thus between the extremes of both parties, he ap- peared before the citizens of his district as a candidate for the lower house of congress ; and the result showed, that, though he had been manly enough to stand alone, at the very begin- ning of his career, when weak minds are always the most sec- tarian and violent in their zeal, his reputation at home, his abil- ities, and his exertions had been sufficient to conquer his own party, and to rout the ultra-partisans of the administration on their chosen field. The people, trusting in his honesty and tal- ents, rallied round him ; and, after a spirited canvass, he and his entire ticket were triumphantly elected. According to the established custom, in a time of peace, Mr. Webster would not have taken his seat at Washington before the month of December of the succeeding year; but there was now a war upon the hands of the administration ; and the pre- sident called an extra session to be opened in the month of May. Early in that month, therefore, after spending the whole winter in studying and reviewing the condition of the country, and preparing himself ibr his new duties, he left Portsmouth for the captital of the nation. His journey he has often Je- seribed for the amusement of the private circle ; and his ac- count ne^ei failed to create convulsions of laughter among th REPRESENTATIVE TO CONGRESS. gravest of his auditors. How he went from Portsmouth tc Boston in an old mail coach, at the rate of four miles the hour ; how he rumbled and jerked along from Boston over to Hart- ford ; how, from Hartford, he "worked his passage" round by land, a long and weary way. first to New Haven, and then to New York city ; how he progressed, day after day, through the state of New Jersey, stopping a night with Governor Stockton, where they talked over the prospect of one day making por- tions of the trip by water ; how he made his way into Phila- delphia in a big wagon, and thence to Baltimore, and from Baltimore to Washington, through many perils ; and how, af- ter nearly two weeks of laborious travel, he found himself, on the 24th of May, at the seat of government, in no plight to stand before the assembled wisdom of the nation all these things he would picture out. as no other man, in his day, could oicture anything. The classic reader may have wondered, pro- bablv, how the Greek poet could have made so long, so com- plicated, so rich and beautiful an epic, out of a mere voyage of a few hundred miles from Troy to Italy. It is not the amount of materials, however, that decides what can be said by a man of genius ; and no man, not even Homer, could make more amusement, or more instruction, out of such matter as hap- pened to fall to him, than Daniel Webster. No person, who never heard him tell an anecdote, can realize what an amount of merriment he was accustomed to draw out of his first trip to Washington. The young representative of New Hampshire might well think of his personal appearance, when about to take his place as a member of the memorable war congress. He had never been a member of a legislative body. He had never held a publio office. He had leaped over all the steps, which ordinarv men have to take, in their ascent to high positions, and found a seat in the supreme council of his country. He was to meet there men, whose fame was as wide as the Union, and whose talents 134 WEBSTER AND HIS MASTER-PIECES. were respected in other countries. It is said, however, by those who remember the day, that, in spite of the imposing noveltj of the scene, in spite of his comparative youth and inexpcii- ence, when he first entered the hall, he walked as calmly, as unhesitatingly, and with as much dignity and self-possession, as he ever did in those days when he was the acknowledged prince of congress. The truth is, he was a prince, and more than a prince, by nature ; and his whole aspect, and every movement, were the noble and dignified expression of a noble and digni- fied mind. Though his first appearance, and the manner of his entrance, are thus remembered by a single witness or two, who knev something of him, to the majority of the members, and tc nearly all of them, he entered there a perfect stranger. . The old members were well acquainted with each other ; but the New Hampshire representative was a new member, and they did not know him. His name they may have seen in the elec tion returns, or in the printed lists in the metropolitan newspa pers ; but the name, at that time, carried nothing with it, either personal or historical, to attract notice. All that it now means ; in law, in politics, in congress, throughout the country, and over the face of the civilized world, and especially wherever the English language is spoken or read, has since been added to it What it now meant was simply that it was the name of a young man who had come to the lower house from a certain locality in New Hampshire. The person, however, who bears the un- known name, is now among them. He is one of them. He meets, there, it is true, a few old friends, arid, among the rest, his special friend, Governor Gore, of Boston ; but the governor, though proud of his distinguished pupil, and ready enough to give him introduction, is too disci'eet a man, though he had pro- nounced a eulogy and a prophecy of him on a previous occa- sion, and at a very proper time, to pronounce any eulogies, or to utter any prophecies at this time. He leaves him to make ON THE COMMITTEE OF FOREIGN RELATIONS. 135 his own introduction, and his own impression, in his own time and way, but certainly with a secret anticipation of a great day, and of a heart-felt joy, whenever that introduction, and that impression, should chance to come. That the time would come, for the fulfillment of his own prophecy, and that before the members would be prepared, the governor felt perfectly as- sured ; but when, or in what manner, could hardly be divined from what was seen of the young man on that day. There he sits, in his own seat, quietly though not carelessly, giving such attention to the opening business of the house, as only a great mind, full of strong thoughts and conscious of power, can give. Some are constantly getting up from their seats, and sitting down again, in a restless anxiety, or because their heads have nothing in them weighty enough to hold them down. Ot! ers, all over the hall, are starting little motions, followed by little speeches, by which ordinary minds expect to acquire a sort of prominence, and all the prominence they can expect, at the opening of such assemblies. Others, not so quick at this sort of gaming, but eager in their own way, are moving about among the members, ostensibly as very social and well-mean- ing gentlemen, but really picking up from the fraternity a little private capital for private purposes. When the hammer of the clerk comes down, and the call is made to cast the votes for speaker, on the decision of which question hang an unknown number of little private expectations, and perhaps as many pri- vate promises, the fulfillment of which are the sole or main re- liance of many a dandiprat politician, for the entire coming ses- sion, there is something of a sensation, and many a little cloud of anxiety may be seen on the faces of many of the members. The young representative from New Hampshire, however, still keeps quiet in his seat ; and none of these dapper little states- men trouble him with their attentions, because none of them chance to know him. As the ballots are being collected, which will shortly decide who is to be the speaker, the second great 136 WEBSTER AND HIS MASTER PIECES. question is busily discussed in loud whispers, as to the per- sons who are to fill, under this speak er.od that flows from the veins of unarmed yeomanry, and women and children. Give to the living time to bury and la- ment their dead in the quietness of private sorrow. Having performed this work of beneficence and mercy on your inland HI8 OPINION OF THE WAR. 153 border, tun. and look with the eye of j istice and compassion on your vast population along the coast. Unclench the iron grasp of your embargo. Take measures for that end before another sun sets upon you. With all the war on your com- merce, if you would cease to make war upon it yourselves, you would still have some commerce. That commerce would give you some revenue. Apply that revenue to the augmentation of your navy. That navy in turn will protect your commerce. Let it no longer be said, that not one ship of force, built by your hands since the war, yet floats upon the ocean. Turn the current of your efforts into the channel which national senti- ment has already worn broad and deep to receive it. A na- val force competent to defend your coasts against considerable armaments, to convoy your trade, and perhaps raise the block ade of your rivers, is not a chimera. It may be realized. If then the war must continue, go to the ocean. If you are seri- ously contending for maritime rights, go to the theater where alone those rights can be defended. Thither every indication of your fortune points you. There the united wishes and ex- ertions of the nation will be with you. Even our party divis- ions, acrimonious as they are, cease at the water's edge. They are lost in attachment to the national character, on the element where that character is made respectable. In protecting naval interests by naval means, you will arm yourselves with the whole power of national sentiment, and may command the whole abundance of the national resources. In time you may be able to redress injuries in the place where they may be of- fered ; and, if need be, to accompany your own flag throughout the world with the protection of your own cannon." Such was Mr. Webster's opinion of the war, in which/ there can be discovered nothing inconsistent in itself, or opposite to the opinions of his subsequent career. His course was so clear, and it had been pursued with such extraordinary ability, that he had molded to himself a majority of the federal party be- 154 WEBSTER AND HIS MASTER-PIECES. fore the termination of his first congress. He had so com pletely gained the confidence of New England, and particularly of his own constituents, that, in August, 1814, without raising a finger for himself, he was reflected to the house, from his former district, by a majority seldom witnessed in that part of the country, or in any other, before or since. The first subject, or one of the first, and decidedly the most important, which Mr. Webster met, on his return to congress, was the question of a United States bank. The reader will remember, that the charter of the first United States bank had expired between two and three years before the period now under consideration. There was no such institution at the be- ginning of the war ; and the war party, with a few individual exceptions, had strongly advocated the rechartering of the bank, as a fiscal agent of the government particularly essential in transacting the heavy financial business which the war had devolved, and would always devolve, upon the administration. In a season of active hostilities, it was argued, money had to be raised at a moment's warning; and without the existence of an institution so large as to be able to render aid to the gov- ernment, in an emergency, great embarrassments, perhaps- dis- asters, might fall upon the common interests of the country. The constitutionality of the institution was based on the pro- vision of the constitution giving to the general government the right of coining money, which, of course, carried with it the regulation of the currency. On these grounds, and for these leasons, a bill was brought into the house, under the lead of Mr. Madison's secretary of the treasury, proposing to erect a new bank, whose capital should be fifty millions. Forty-five millions of this capital should consist of the public stocks. The remainder was to be in specie; but this small amount of gold and silver being evidently inadequate, the new institution was to be a non-spccie-paying bank, which could send out fifty mil- lions of irredeemable paper t<"> deceive the confidence of the THE DEMOCRATIC UNITED STATES BASK. 155 people. In payment for this immunity, it was to be held un- der a perpetual obligation to loan the government thirty mil- lions of dollars, at any time when demanded. Such was to have been the democratic bank of eighteen hun- dred and fourteen. It was opposed by Mr. Calhoun, by Mr. Lowndes, and by Mr. Webster. Mr. Webster, after listening to the discussion of the bill by the older members for several days, rose in his place, on the second of January, 1815, and moved that the bill be recommitted to a select committee, who should be instructed to make the following alterations: "To reduce the capital to twenty -five millions, with liberty to the government to subscribe five millions ; to strike out the thir- teenth section ; to strike out so much of said bill as makes it obligatory on the bank to lend money to government ; to in- troduce a section providing, that if the bank do not commence its operations within the space of a given number of months, from the day of the passing of the act, the charter shall thereby be forfeited ; to insert a section allowing interest at the rate of a given per cent, on any bill or note of the bank, of which pay- ment shall have been duly demanded, according to its tenor, and refused ; to inflict penalties on any directors who shall issue any bills or notes during any suspension of specie payment at the bank ; to provide that the said twenty-five millions of cap- ital stock shall be composed of five millions of specie, and twenty millions of any of the stocks of the United States hav- ing an interest of six per cent., or of treasury-notes ; and, finally, to strike out of the bill that part of it which restrains the bank from selling its stock during the war." Such was the motion ; and the speech made in support of it was one of the clearest specimens of argument ever listened to, even on the floor of congress. This very speech, however, and the course pursued by Mi Webster at this time, have been often men- tioned, by those who either did not know the facts in the case, or who were interested not *o state them as they were, as to meet any new demands of business and the altered wishes VOL. i. il 164 WEBSTER AND HIS MASTER-PIECES. of the people. But that time, he thought, had not yet come. The people, as a whole, did not desire protection, and their business, as a whole, would be injured by it. For these rea- sons, Mr. Webster opposed the protective tariff of the four- teenth congress ; but, notwithstanding his opposition, which was almost insurmountable, the middle and southern stales united in its support and earned it through. Upon this opposition, on the part of Mr. Webster, to the policy of the protective tariff, the old charge of political vacil- lation has long been urged. The force of the charge, if it is to have any force, must rest on the assumption, that any change in a statesman's opinions, between youth and age, must of ne- cessity demonstrate an inconsistency of character. Is such a premiss, in any of the walks of life, to be admitted 1 If a man is found guilty of frequent changes, the fact will weaken the public confidence in his judgment. If the many changes hap- pen also to have been experienced suddenly, the person's mo- tives are apt to be suspected. But when a man's opinions, though different at different periods of his life, are known to have come on gradually, about as much so as the maturity of manhood follows upon the immaturity of youth, there is evi- dence furnished, not of inconsistency, but of consistency, of a natural and healthy growth of mind, of the best development and discipline of the mental and moral faculties. No man, whether citizen, or divine, or statesman, should be afraid to modify or put off opinions, if he take sufficient care in arriving at his ultimate conclusions. But opinions may change from a change in the things respecting which the opinions are enter- tained. In morals, in divinity, in the exact sciences, this state- ment will not hold good, because right and wrong, the facts and doctrines of religion, and the axioms and demonstrations of mathematics, are immutable. It is not so with the practical sciences. It is not so in politics. There is no question of le- gislation that is not liable to fluctuation. To-day, it may oe REASONS FOR THAT OPPOSITION. 165 expedient and politically right to declare war against a foreign nation. To-morrow, the casus belli may be removed, which fact would make a declaration of war impolitic and immoral. To-day, the situation of a country may require a general bunk ing institution, and the want of it may be felt as a public evil. To-morrow, circumstances have changed ; nobody wants it ; and consistency requires of every patriot a corresponding change of opinion and of action. To-day, there may be no reasons tor the establishment of a protective tariff. To-morrow, nothing but such a tariff will meet the altered demands of business. Such changes, in fact, are common in all countries ; but they are a part and parcel of the condition of new settlements. This country, in its first years, could certainly lay down no general maxims for all future ages. The best that the colonies could do might have been the worst thing for sovereign states. The states themselves, at the commencement of their confederation, were but so many experiments entering into one grand experi- ment. Their origin, their government, their whole condition, were without a parallel in history. They could look to no pre- cedents for wisdom. New principles had to be applied to new circumstances. No dogmatism would be wisdom. Trials had to be made of such general principles as were at first deemed best ; and these principles had to be fitted slowly, and carefully, and with various modifications certainly, to the great problem of American free government. A dogged adherence to first attempts would have been the height of folly. At a time, when all the manufactories in the United States used less cap- ital than is now used in some of the smaller manufacturing towns of Massachusetts, and less than was then employed in the shipping interests of so inconsiderable a sea-port as Salem, it might have been reasonably supposed by Mr. Webster, that he was not called upon to vote for a protective tariff. The facts of the case, however, soon changed. The protective tariff, in spite of his opposition, was carried and became the policy of 106 WEBSTER AND HIS MASTER-PIECES. the country. Capital began at once to be invested in manufac- tories. New England itself, finding but a scanty resource in its rocky and comparatively unproductive soil, soon entered largely into this new field of labor. By holding out this legis- lative encouragement to the business, by which thousands of citizens were led to invest all their means in this direction, gov- ernment virtually pledged its faith not to disappoint or aban- don it. To do so, as many originally opposed to the policy believed, would be a fraud upon the people, which would tend to unsettle, not only their business, but their confidence in our form of government, to which not a few still looked as a doubt- ful experiment. It would have been a most evil example, to every citizen, in a way virtually to affect the stability and even the morality of every individual in the nation. Mr. Webster, perceiving the new wants of the country in this way produced, and feeling the full force of the positive necessity, that the government should forever keep its faith with all men, and particularly with our own citizens, not only felt at liberty, but felt bound, in view of these changes, from that time to sustain a policy, which, at first, he deemed inexpedient. -All that can be said of him is, that the whole country changed, in this re- spect, making it patriotic for him to change with it. What was once improper had become proper ; and he continued to act according to his convictions of the existing though altered demands of a new and rapidly growing country. Had he not done so, he would not have been a statesman, or a phi- losopher, but a bigot. He would never have been Daniel Webster. The bill for a United States bank, discussed and amended by Mr. Webster in the previous congress, but lost in the senate, was now again brought forward; and he again introduced his amend- ments. He particularly opposed, at this second trial, that part of the bill which gave the government -a sort of copartnership in the bank. He wished the bank to be entirely independent AGAIN OPPOSES A UNITED STATES BANK. 167 of the government, and the government to be as entirely indepen dent of the bai ik . He thought that a direct and interested al liance, on so vast a scale, between the great money holders of the coun try and the head of the federal government, was at least danger- ous, and might be disastrous. For the bill suitably amended, for a bank properly and constitutionally established, he ex- pressed a decided favor ; but he did not think it expedient to incorporate so large a bank and then make it virtually a de- partment of the general government. His opposition had ef- fect ; and the bank finally erected was very different from the bank concocted by the cabinet of the current administration. He carried an amendment, "which required deposits, as well as the notes of the bank, to be paid on demand in specie." But the majority of his amendments were rejected ; and, therefore, when the bill came up on its final passage, he voted against it. It was carried, however, and Mr. Webster afterwards became its friend on the same ground, and for the same reason, that he became the friend of a protective tariff, after having exerted himself against it. Once established, the bank raised such ex pirtations, and gave such a new direction to all the capital of the country, that it could not be abolished without great detri ment to the business of the nation. Mr. Webster always ex erted himself for a settled policy ; and he regarded frequent and sudden changes in the laws as an evil to be dreaded and avoided, and frequently as a greater evil than those sought to be remedied by a changeful legislation. " The old building stands well enough." said Burke, " though part Gothic, part Grecian, part Chinese, until an attempt is made to square it into uniformity; then it may come down upon our heads with much uniformity of ruin." In this country, however, the building is scarcely al lowed to stand long enough to become old; for our smaller poli ticians spend their time, as children do, in erecting merely for the sport of tearing down again. Mr. Webster, on the con arery, through his whole life labored to give every great meas 108 WEBSTER AND HIS MASTER-PIECES. ure, even that to which he had been somewhat opposed, a fair trial, rather than suddenly to reverse it ; and sometimes, as in the case before us, he came tc look upon a measure already established as so much better than none at all, or such as could be afterwards secured, that he became the friend and supporter of what he at first did not perfectly approve. On the 26th of April, 1816, Mr. Webster introduced to the house a series of resolutions, three in number, respecting the collection of the public revenue. For those resolutions, and the speech delivered in advocacy of their passage, the whole country, and particularly New England, owe, and will forever owe, to Mr. Webster a deep debt of gratitude. This one act should be enough to give him a lasting reputation as a states- man and a patriot. The war had been carried through with funds borrowed from the various banking institutions of the several states ; and these institutions, encouraged by the clam- oring necessities of the government greatly to extend their is- sues, had so flooded the country with their paper, that, after the peace, there had been a general suspension of specie pay- ments by the banks out of the New England states. The ad- ministration, however, with an improper partiality, or a still more improper carelessness, had been able to establish the policy, that the revenue collected in any state might be paid in the bills of tne banks of that state, but not in the bills of any other state. New England, for example, could pay her cus- toms only in New England bills, which were everywhere as good as gold ; while the other states were permitted to pay !L the bills of their respective banks, which, by the suspension, had depreciated on an average nearly twenty-five per cent, b other words, New England paid about twenty-five per ceni. more on all goods imported by her and she was the chief im- porter than the other states did on goods which they im- ported. In addition to the exceeding inequality and injustice cf this course, it deranged the exchanges of the whole country HIS SPECIE RESOLUTION. 169 by giving manifest support to a system of corrupt and fraudu- lent banking ; and there never could have been, under this state of things, such a currency as should inspire confidence, or satisfy the demands of business. Business itself go-js down, or becomes hopelessly embarrassed, under such cii /umstances. It was for this general purpose, therefore, of restoring the cur- rency of the country, and of defending the rights of New En- gland in particular, that Mr. Webster offered his three resolu- tions on the subject. Two of the resolutions, which simply contained declarations of principles, were withdrawn at the suggestion of those, who, though friends to the object, could not agree with Mr. Webster on the abstract grounds of action. The third resolution put into the hands of the secretary of the treasury power to adopt any measures by him deemed expe- dient, to cause all sums due to the United States "to be col- lected and paid in the legal currency of the United States, or treasury -notes, or notes of the bank of the United States, as by law provided and declared, or in notes of banks which are pay- able and paid on demand, in the said legal currency of th United States." That is, all debts due to the government were to be paid, in all the states alike, either in gold and silver, or in the bills of such banks as paid specie at their counters. This was known as the "specie resolution ;" arid it was the greatest step ever taken by this country to establish, by gen- eral law, a currency uniform in every portion of the Union. It met with unexpected favor. The speech made in its behalf is one of the ablest ever made even by Mr. Webster. The measure was so popular, that it passed " through all the stages of legislation," according to Mr. Everett, on the day it was pro- posed ; and, approved by a two-thirds vote, and signed by 1/1 r. Madison four days later, it was at once equally popular outside of congress, and soon regenerated the fallen currency and business of the whole nation. Thus it happened, that one of the youngest men then in con 170 WEBSTER AND HIS MASTER-PIECES. gress, following in a path where Calhoun himself had failo 1, sue ceeded, not in securing some trivial grant to some favorite place, or in the passage of some law of local value only, but in establishing a general principle, for all the states of the Union, which has been exerting a most salutary influence upon every citizen from that day forward, and which will exert it, if per- mitted to remain, so long as the United States shall continue to be a country. Such, even then, was the character of the youth- ful representative. His mind was not satisfied with efforts of limited importance. He looked over the whole land with a broad and comprehensive vision. He looked through the fu- ture, and sought to set up influences that should be felt in com- ing times. " Cases are dead things," said Burke, " but princi- ples are living and productive ;" and this, even at the opening of his career, seemed to be the leading maxim of that remark- able young congressman, whom the world began now to know under the name of Daniel Webster. CHAPTER YII. A LAWYER IN MASSACHUSETTS. " WHATEVER else concerning him has been controverted by anybody," says Mr. Seward, a rival and yet a friend of Web- ster, "the fifty thousand lawyers of the United States, inter- ested to deny his pretensions, conceded to him an unapproach- able supremacy at the bar." This, certainly, is a eulogy suf- ficient for the ambition of any man ; but it is a eulogy which had been anticipated, and repeated by the ablest jurists, civil- ians, barristers and attorneys of this country, for the last thirty years. All of them, without an exception, when comparing him with the most distinguished of his profession, have ac- corded to him this preeminence : "Qnantnm lenta sclent inter viburna cupressi." With all the honors and triumphs of his public life, which, for a man so young, surpassed all precedent on this side of the Atlantic, Daniel Webster still looked to the scenes he had left behind him, and to the profession he so dearly val ued, with desire, with ambition, and with hope. "I ain sick," said William Wirt, in a letter to his intimate friend, Dr. Kice, "of public life. My skin is too thin for the business. A pol- itician should have the hide of a rhinoceros to bear the thrusts of the folly, ignorance and meanness of those, who are dis- posed to mount into momentary consequence by questioning their betters if I may be excused the expression, after pro- fessing my modesty. 'There's nought but care on every hand VOL. J. H 172 WEBSTER AND HIS MASTER-PIECES. all, all is vanity and vexation of spirit, save religion, friend- ship and literature." Not for the same reason, 'for no thrusts had been made at Webster, but for his love of retirement and of domestic tranquillity, he longed to return, after this brief trial of himself before the country, to his books, to his private business, and to that dignified and yet easy way of life, divided between work and recreation, which had always been to him the ideal of existence. By natural taste, he was rather a liter- ary man, than a politician ; but his studies, his profession, his position in society, compelled him to be, in spite of his strong est resolutions, and wherever he placed himself, a man of the public. A star of the first magnitude, created for a luminary and a blessing, might as well hold its position in the zenith, as on the verge of the horizon ; for, hide itself where it might, its own brilliancy would betray it; and m n would climb rnoun tains, or descend into pits and caverns, to witness and ad mire it. It was thus with Daniel Webster in the retirement he sought, at the close of the fourteenth congress, in Boston. His posi tion in New Hampshire, though highly honorable, had not been sufficiently lucrative for a man of his generosity of char- acter, with an increasing family. Though he had no great love of money, scarcely enough for the ordinary purposes of life, he had felt that he was doing too little for himself in Portsmouth, and that he must establish himself at a point where he would be likely to find a larger amount of practice. He had thought of several localities, but chiefly of Boston and Albany, in both of which, as the reader will remember, he had made valuable acquaintances in his younger days. Albany, at that time, was not only, as it is now, the capital of the most populous of the states, but a city of greater commercial importance, compara- tively, than it is at present. Boston, however, was the capital of Massachusetts, and the metropolis of New England ; and Mr. Webster's affection for his native country, added to th? KEMOVES TO BOSTON. 173 solicitations of numerous warm and admiring friends, nad pre- vailed on him to make Boston the place of his future residence; and he had moved to that city, and opened an office, at the ter- mination of the first session of the fourteenth congress. It was here, during the succeeding seven years, that Mr. Webster rose to that eminence as a lawyer, which he ever afterwards main- tained. "The promise of his youth," says Mr. Everett, "and the expectations of those who had known him as a student, were more than fulfilled. He took a position as a counselor and an advocate, above which no one has ever risen in the country. A large share of the best business of New England poured into his hands ; and the veterans of the Boston bar ad- mitted him to an entire equality of standing, repute, and influence." His position, however, was not gained without an effort. With his residence in Boston, Mr. Webster began a more thorough course of reading, as a lawyer, and particularly as a constitutional lawyer, than he had ever before undertaken. His short career in congress had shown him, probably, more than all his former experience, the peculiar nature of his genius. He saw, that, while he could stand equal to his first competi- tors in the ordinary departments of his profession, he was more than their equal in his fitness for those general questions, com- ing directly under the constitutions of the states, and the con- stitution of the Union, which require the best exercise of the best faculties of the human mind. His mind ran in that direc- tion. He was always looking to the foundation of every sub- ject ; and he delighted to lay down his work, his argument, his business, on the bottom of established truths, or everlasting principles. There is no doubt, that, in the intricacies of com- mon practice, such as every lawyer meets with in every court, Mr. Webster had, then and always, his equals if not superiors. In this department, it is probable that Jeremiah Mason, Jere miah Smith, Franklin Dexter, and several others in New En 174 WKDSTER AND HIS M ASTER-PIEOE8. gland, were nearly a match for him in his best days ; but not one of them could stand before him, when he rose to trace a cause to its ultimate grounds, or deduce it from the secret ele- ments of human nature. Farther south, there were Emmett, and Wirt, and Pinckney, who, as advocates merely, on an oc- casion not entirely of the first magnitude, but such as a great deal of technical learning, an exquisite tact, and a finished and fine elocution could easily cope with, could venture to meet Mr. Webster even before the supreme court at Washington ; but, as will be soon seen, when a cause involving fundamental axioms, and reasoning ab origitie, and a thorough mastery of the structure of society was to be undertaken, the technicalities, and legal artifices, and racy eloquence of those gentlemen, cap tivating as they were to a crowd of uninitiated spectators, were nothing in the way of Mr. Webster. He scarcely seemed tc notice them. He would walk directly up to the main points of his case, seize them with a mighty grasp, and hold them, as a lion holds his prey, in perfect defiance of the rattling small arms of his assailants. In this field, in fact, he was always en- tirely at home, and more than the equal of any man of his age, or of his country, with the single exception, perhaps, of Alex- ander Hamilton. The first cause of public importance, which Mr. Webster un- dertook after his removal to Boston, was the celebrated de- fense of the Kennistons against Goodridge, who had charged them with highway robbery. So few of Mr. Webster's legal arguments have been reported, and the case now mentioned furnishes so characteristic a view of his peculiar talents, that the careful reader will not fail to peruse with pleasure, doubt- less, quite a full and satisfactory account of it, which was writ- ten out, at the time, by Stephen W. Marston, Esq., of New- buryport, who was associated with Mr. Webster in the trial : " Major Goodridge," says the writer, " was a young man of good education, and respectable connections, of fine personal appear CASE OF THE KENNISTONS. 175 anee, gentlemanly deportment, and good character. His place of business was Bangor, Maine, and, at the time of the alleged robherv, he was on his way to Boston, traveling in a one-horse sleigh, alone with a considerable sum of money. Before leav- ing home he procured a pair of pistols, which he discharged and loaded daily, as he said, in some 'unfrequented piece of woods, for he did not wish it to be known that he was armed. He said, moreover, that he took the precaution to ptit a pri- vate mark upon every piece of money in his possession, so as to be able to identify it if he should be robbed. His some- what singular reason for these preliminary measures was, that he had heard of a robbery in Maine, not long before. " When he arrived at Exeter, New Hampshire, he procured nine balls, and then, for the first time, made no secret of hav ing pistols. At this place he left his sleigh, obtained a saddle, and started for Newburyport on horseback, late in the after- noon of the 19th of December, [1817] passing the Essex Mer- rimack bridge a few minutes before nine o'clock. On the brow of the hill, a short distance from the bridge, is the place of the robbery, in full view of several houses, on a great thor- oughfare, where people are constantly passing, and where the mail coach and two wagons were known to have passed within a few minutes of the time of the alleged robbery. " The major's story was as follows : Three men suddenly appeared before him, one of whom seized the bridle of the horse, presented a pistol, and demanded his money. The ma- jor, pretending to be getting his money, seized a pistol from his portmanteau with his right hand, grasped the ruffian at the horse's head with his left, and both discharged their pistols at the same instant, the ball of his adversary passing through the major's hand. The three robbers then pulled him from his horse, dragged him over the frozen ground, and over the fence, beating him till he was senseless, and robbed him of about sev- enteen hundred dollars in gold and paper money, and left him 176 WEBSTER AND HIS MASTER-PIECES. with his gold watch and all his papers in the field. Recover ing in about half an hour, he went back to the bridge ; passed several houses without calling, and, at the toll-house, accused the first person he met with, a female, of robbing htm ; and so continued charging various people about him with the rob- bery. After some time a lantern was procured, and himself with others started for the place of the robbery, where were found his watch, papers, penknife and other articles. He rep- resented to them that the robbers had bruised his head, stamped upon his breast, and stabbed him in several places. Physicians were called ; and he appeared to be insane. The next day he went to Newburyport, and was confined to his bed for several weeks. A reward of three hundred dollars, soon increased by voluntary subscriptions to one thousand, was offered for the detection of the robbers and the recovery of the money. As soon as the major was able to leave his bed, he went to Danvers, consulted his friends there ; and the result of his deliberations and inquiries was the arrest of the Kennis- tons, who were found in an obscure part of the town of New Market, New Hampshire, their place of residence. In their house the major found some pieces of his marked gold, de- posited under a pork barrel in the cellar. He also found there a ten-dollar note, which he identified as his own. " This was proof indeed of the facts of the robbery, which seemed for a time effectually fastened on the Kennistons. But one circumstance after another came to light, in regard to the transaction, until some people felt doubts creeping over their minds as to the truthfulness of the major's story. These were few in number, it is true ; but such an intimation, coming from any respectable source, was enough to startle the major and his friends from their apathy, and incite them to renewed ef- forts to probe this dark and mysterious transaction to its depths. The result was to search the house of Mr. Pearson, the toll-gatherer at the bridge ; but here nothing was found. CASK OF THE KENNISTONS CONTINUED. 177 They then procured the services of an old conjuror of Danvers, Swimmington by name, and, under his direction, with witch- hazel and metallic rods, renewed their search upon Mr. Pear- son's premises, this time discovering the major's gold and pa- per wrappers. Mr. Pearson was arrested, carried to New- buryport, examined before two magistrates, and discharged at once. This operation proved most unpropitious to the major's plans. So great was the indignation of Mr. Pearson's friends, for he was a respectable man, that they lost all control over themselves, and, .after the examination, detaching the horses from the sleigh, they drew him home themselves. " It now became more necessary than ever, that some one should be found, who might be connected with the Kennistons in the robbery ; for the circumstances in relation to these men were such, that the public could not believe that they had re- ceived a portion of the spoil. The next step, therefore, was to arrest one Taber of Boston, who had formerly lived in Port land, and whom Good ridge said he had seen at Alfred on his way up, and from whom he pretended to have obtained information in regard to the Kennistons. In Taber's house were found a number of the marked wrappers, which the major had put round his gold before leaving home. Taber was likewise brought to Newburyport, examined, and bound over for trial with the Kennistons. " Notwithstanding all this accumulation of evidence, the pub- lic were not satisfied. It seemed to be necessary that some- body living near the bridge should be connected with the trans- action ; and Mr. Joseph Jackman was fastened upon as that unfortunate man, he having left Newbury for New York very soon after the alleged robbery. Thither Goodridge immedi- ately proceeded, found Jackman, who was living then with his brother, searched the house, and in the garret, among some old rubbish, found a large number of his marked wrappers ! The majoj's tpuoh was magical, and underneath his fingers gold an)d vnth his best COLLEGE CASE CONTINUED. 187 affections, rose unbidden to his lips. lie remembered that the institution he was defending was the one where his own youth had been nurtured ; and the moral tenderness and beauty this gave to the grandeur of his thoughts, the sort of religious sen- sibility it imparted to the urgent appeals and demands for the stern fulfillment of what law and justice required, wrought up the whole audience to an extraordinary state of excitement. Many betrayed strong agitation, many were dissolved in tears Prominent among them was that eminent lawyer and states- man, Robert Goodloe Harper, who came to him when he re- sumed his seat, evincing emotions of the highest gratification. When he ceased to speak, there was a perceptible interval be- fore any one was willing to break the silence ; and when that vast crowd separated, not one person of the whole number doubted that the man who had that day so moved, astonished, and controlled them, had vindicated for himself a place at the side of the fist jurists of the country." The best account of this great performance, and of the effect it had upon those who heard it, was drawn out, only a short time since, by the agency of the Hon. Rufus Choate, on the oc- casion of his delivering his remarkable discourse commemora- tive of Daniel Webster. It came to him from the pen of Pro- fessor Goodrich, of Yale College, who went to Washington on purpose to hear Mr. Webster : " Before going to Washing- ton," says Dr. Goodrich, "which I did chiefly for the sake of hearing Mr. Webster, I was told that, in arguing the case at Exeter, New Hampshire, he had left the whole court-room in tears at the conclusion of his speech. This, I confess, struck me unpleasantly any attempt at pathos on a purely legal question like this, seemed hardly in good taste. On my way to Washington, I made the acquaintance of Mr. Webster. We were together for several days in Philadelphia, at the house of a common friend ; and as the college question was one of deep interest to literary men, WP conversed often and 188 WEBSTER AND HIS MASTER-PIECES largely on the subject. As he dwelt on the leading points of the case, in terms so calm, simple, and precise, I said to myself more than once, in reference to the story I had heard, 'What ever may have seemed appropriate in defending the college at home, and on her own ground, there will be no appeal to the feelings of Judge Marshall and his associates at Washington.' The supreme court of the United States held its session, that winter in a mean apartment of moderate size, the capitol not having been built after its destruction in 1814. The audience, when the case came on, was therefore small, consisting chiefly of legal men, the elite of the profession throughout the coun- try. Mr. Webster entered upon his argument in the calm tone of easy and dignified conversation. His matter was so com- pletely at his command that he scarcely looked at his brief, but went on for more than four hours with a statement so lu- minous, and a chain of reasoning so easy to be understood, and yet approaching so nearly to absolute demonstration, that he seemed to carry with him every man of his audience with- out the slightest effort or weariness on either side. It was hardly eloquence, in the strict sense of the term ; it was pure reason. Now and then, for a sentence or two, his eye flashed and his voice swelled into a bolder note, as he uttered some emphatic thought ; but he instantly fell back into the tone of earnest conversation, which ran throughout the great body of his speech. A single circumstance will show you the clearness and absorbing power of his argument : I observed that Judge Story, at the opening of the case, had prepared himself, pen in hand, as if to take copious minutes. Hour after hour I saw him fixed in the same attitude, but, as far as I could per- ceive, with not a note on his paper. The argument closed, and I could not discover that he had taken a single note. Others around me remarked the same thing, and it was among the on dils of Washington, that a friend spoke tc him of the fact with surprise, when the judge remarked, ' everything was sc COLLEGE CASE CONTINUED. 189 clear, and so easy to remember, that not a note seemed ae cessaiy, and, in fact, I thought little or nothing about my notes. 1 t; The argument ended. Mr. Webster stood for some mo- ments silent before the court, while every eye was fixed in- tently upon him. At length, addressing the chief justice, Mar- shall, he proceeded thus : " ' This, sir, is my case ! It is the case, not merely of that humble institution, it is the case of every college in our land. It is more. It is the case of every eleemosynary institution throughout our country of all those great charities founded by the piety of our ancestors to alleviate human misery, and scat- ter blessings along the pathway of life. It is more ! It is, in some sense, the case of every man among us who has prop- erty of which he may be stripped, for the question is simply this : Shall our state legislatures be allowed to take that which is not their own, to turn it from its original use, and ap- ply it to such ends or purposes as they, in their discretion, shall see fit? " 'Sir, you may destroy this little institution ; it is weak ; it is in your hands ! I know it is one of the lesser lights in the literary horizon of our country. You may put it out. But if you do so, you must carry through your work ! You must extinguish, one after another, all those great lights of science, which, for more than a century, have thrown their radiance over our land ! " ' It is, sir, as I have said, a small college. And yet, there are those who love it! ' " Here the feelings which he had thus far succeeded in keep- ing down, broke forth. His lips quivered ; his firm cheeks trembled with emotion ; his eyes were filled with tears, his voice choked, and he seemed struggling to the utmost simply to gain that mastery over himself, which might save him from an unmanly burst of feeling. I will not attempt to give you 190 WEBSTER AND HIS MASTER-PIECES. the few broken words of tenderness in which he went on to speak of his attachment to the college. The whole seemed to be mingled throughout with the recollections of father, mother, brother, and all the trials and privations through which he had made his way into life. Every one saw that it was wholly unpremeditated, a pressure on his heart, which sought relief in words and tears. " The court-room during t ese two or three minutes pre sented an extraordinary spectacle. Chief Justice Marshall, with his tall and gaunt figure bent over as if to catch the slight- est whisper, the deep furrows of his cheek expanded with emo- tion, and eyes suffused with tears ; Mr. Justice Washington at his side, with his small and emaciated frame and countenance more like marble than I ever saw on any other human being leaning forward with an eager, troubled look ; and the remain- der of the court, at the two extremities, pressing, as it were, toward a single point, while the audience below were wrapping themselves round in closer folds beneath the bench to catch each look, and every movement of the speaker's face. If a painter could give us the scene on canvas those forms and countenances, and Daniel Webster as he then stood in the midst, it would be one of the most touching pictures in the his- tory of eloquence. One thing it taught me, that the pathetic depends not merely on the words uttered, but still more on the estimate we put upon him who utters them. There was not one among the strong-minded men of that assembly who could think it unmanly to weep, when he saw standing before him the man who had made such an argument, melted into the ten- derness of a child. " Mr. Webster had now recovered his composure, and fix- ing his keen eye on the chief justice, said, in that deep tone with which he sometimes thrilled the heart of an audience : "'Sir, I know not how others may feel,' (glancing at the oppo of the college before him, some nf whom were its for COLLEGE CASE CONCLUDED. 191 mer graduates,) 'but, for myself, when I see my Alma Mater surrounded, like Coesar in the senate house, by those who are reiterating stab upon stab, I would not, for this right hand, have her turn to me, and say, Et tu quoque mi fili ! And thou too, my son!" 1 " He sat down. There was a death-like stillness throughout the room for some moments ; every one seemed to be slowly recovering himself, and coming gradually back to his ordinary range of thought and feeling." Were we forming a judgment of this great address, merely as a rhetorical performance, it would be quite sufficient to have the testimony of literary men ; but the philosophical reader will wish to know how it stood among gentlemen of the law. The opinion of the legal profession, perhaps without an excep- tion, has been given by George S. Ilillard, Esq., himself a law- yer of eminence, and a literary man of rising reputation. "The Dartmouth College case," says Mr. Hillard, " which has al- ready been mentioned, may be briefly referred to again, since it forms an important era in Mr. Webster's life. His argu- ment in that case stands out among his other arguments, as his speech in reply to Mr. Ilayne, among his other speeches. 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. I have often heard my revered and beloved friend, Judge Story, speak with great animation of the effect he then produced upon the court. 'For the first hour,' said he, 'we lis- tened to him with perfect astonishment ; for the second hour, with perfect delight ; and for the third hour, with perfect con- viction.' It is not too much to say, that he entered the court on that day a comparatively unknown name, and left it with no rival but Pinckney. All the words he spoke on that occtt sion have not been recorded. When he had exhausted the ra 192 WEBSTER AND HIS MASTER-PIECES. sources of learning and logic, his mind passed naturally and simply into a strain of feeling not common to the place. Old recollections and early associations came over him, and the vision of his youth rose up. The genius of the institution where he was nurtured seemed standing by his side in weeds of mourning, with a countenance of sorrow. With suffused eyes, and faltering voice, he broke into an unpremeditated strain of emotion, so strong and so deep, that all who heard him were borne along with it. Heart answered to heart as he spoke, and, when he ceased, the silence and tears of the impas- sive bench, as well as of the excited audience, were a tribute to the truth and power of feeling by which he had been inspired." In the year 1820, the District of Maine, formerly belonging to Massachusetts, became a state ; it was necessary, in conse- quence of this fact, that the manner of constituting the Massa- chusetts senate should be revised ; and this necessity led to a convention, which had power given it to revise the constitution of the commonwealth. At that time, Mr. Webster had been but four years a citizen of Boston ; but they had been such years of triumph, that he was at once appointed a member of the convention. In that capacity, he was brought into iiii me- diate contact with much of the first talent of the state ; the ven- erable John Adams, ex-president of the United States, now eighty-six years of age, was a member of the convention ; but Mr. Webster was welcomed as warmly as any other member of the body. So highly were his talents and discretion es- teemed, that he was made chairman of the committee on oath.s as a qualification for office, the most delicate and difficult topic that was to come before the convention. After no little delib- eration and discussion in the committee, he reported an amend- ment to the sixth chapter of the second part of the old consti tution, the general import of which was, that, instead of the re- ligious oaths and ecclesiastical subscriptions formerly required, which shut out from public employment all who did not make MEMBER OF CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION. 19S an external profession of religion, a simple oath of allegiance to the commonwealth and of a purpose to serve the state with fidelity and integrity was all that should afterwards be re- quired as a religious qualification for any office. In defense of this new principle, he made a brief but characteristic speech, in which he expressly concedes the right which the people have, if the.y see fit, to affix any qualification, religious or otherwise, as a test of office ; but, at the same time, he argues against the expediency of any such test, particularly in Massachusetts, where the general sentiment of the people is favorable to Chris- tianity. He thinks, however, that some recognition of the Christian religion ought to be comprised within the constitution of the state ; and he is the more willing to dispense with the test oath, because in the new instrument there is retained a pas- sage, which makes the strongest acknowledgment of the provi- dence of God and the blessings of his revealed word. " I be- lieve I have stated," says Mr. Webster, in the conclusion of his speech, "the substance of the reasons which appeared to have weight with the committee. For my own part, finding this declaration in the constitution, and hearing of no practical evil resulting from it, I should have been willing to retain it, unless considerable objection had been made to it. If others were satisfied with it, I should be. I do not consider it, however, es- sential to retain it, as there is another part of the constitution which recognizes, in the fullest manner, the benefits which civil society derives from those Christian institutions which cherish piety, morality, and religion. I am clearly of opinion, that we should not strike out of the constitution all recognition of the Christian religion. I am desirous, in so solemn a transaction as the establishment of a constitution, that we should keep in it an expression of our respect and attachment to Christianity not, indeed, to any of its peculiar forms, but to its general principles." While a member of this convention, Mr. Webster delivered another speech, on the Basis of the Senate, which has been 194 WEBSTER AND HIS MASTER-PIECES. made the foundation of a charge, long retained and frequently repeated, against his political reputation. It is the charge, that at this time, and in this critical business, he gravely advocated the propriety of making property the basis of representation. This charge is without foundation. It has been urged chiefly by newspaper politicians, who, perhaps, never read the speech which was made the ground of the charge. It has been made, and urged, and repeated by men, who had no great amount of discrimination, or who did not intend to give a perfectly fair account of Mr. Webster. The truth is, in fact, not that Mr. Webster would have made property the basis of representa- tion in Massachusetts, but that he thought it wise to make it o basis that property should be respected as well as persons in the constitution of a mixed government, -where persons and property are the objects of all legislation, and where prop- erty has to pay for the protection which the government gives to persons. The doctrine he advocated was only the doctrine of the Revolution, that representation and taxation should al- ways go together. This principle, however, he did not wish to apply to representation in general, but only to the constitution of the senate, the senate of Massachusetts. As the house, ac- cording to other provisions of the new constitution, was to be the popular branch, representing the people as persons, he thought it expedient that the senate should represent the same people as holders of property, that both property and persons might be represented, and thus effect a balance between the two great interests which are known as the exclusive topics in all governments, in all jurisprudence, in all legislation. He thought with Aristotle, with Bacon, with Sir Walter Raleigh, with Montesquieu, with Harrington, whom the fathers of the nation most admired, most read, most trusted, not that the property of the rich only should be acknowledged as an exist- ing fact in a free government, but that all the property of the commonwealth, the poor man's shilling as much as the land- ORATION AT PLYMOUTH 195 lord's acre, should be recognized, respected and represented somewhere; and, in the case before him, and for the reason just mentioned, he thought that that recognition, respect and representation could, with the greatest propriety, be permitted to exist in the senate. It was while Mr. Webster was a member of the constitu- tional convention of Massachusetts, that he was called upon by the Pilgrim Society at Plymouth, to deliver an address on the occurrence of the centennial celebration of the landing of the Pilgrim Fathers. The invitation was an honorable but merited distinction for Mr. Webster. If the reader will remember how many and what able men, eloquent men, men able and eloquent in the highest stations, were then living in New En- gland, and even in Massachusetts, he will see how great an honor it was to a young man, then but thirty -eight years of age, to be summoned from the midst of his superiors in age and office to this high duty. Massachusetts had no festival, as she has none now, comparable with this for the hold it has upon the sympathies of the people. It is a festival, too, of the whole nation. All Americans turn to it, and turn to the ever mem- orable day, the 22d of December, as the birth-day, not of one republic, but of a continent of republics. Where was the man, who, with fitting character, dignity and eloquence, could stand up and represent Massachusetts, represent New England, rep- resent every state in the union, and do them all honor in the service 1 It was a young man, the son of a New England fanner, who, but a few years before, had been keeping an acad- emy in an obscure village, that he might assist a brother and pay up the expense of his own education. But it was Daniel Webster. In that name, even then, after all that had been seen of him, and heard from his lips, there was a confidence that would have trusted him anywhere, on any emergency, on the most august occasion. Well did he answer to that confi dence. Nobly did he meet the expectations of his friends VOL. i. I 13 196 WEBSTER AND HIS MASTER-PIECES. and the demands of every American. The address then deliv ered needs no comment. No extract will do it justice. No extract is needed. All Americans, even the children of our schools, know it by heart. " The felicity and spirit," says his friend, Mr. Everett, " with which its descriptive portions are executed ; the affecting tribute which it pays to the memory of the Pilgrims; the masterly exposition and analysis of those institutions to which the prosperity of New England, under Providence, is owing ; the eloquent inculcation of those great principles of republicanism on which our American common- wealths are founded ; the instructive survey of the past, the sublime anticipations of the future of America, have long since given this discourse a classical celebrity. Several of its soul- stirring passages have become as household words through- out the country. They are among the most favorite extracts contained in the school-books. An entire generation of young men have derived from this noble performance some of their first lessons in the true principles of American republicanism. It obtained at once a wide circulation throughout the country, and gave to Mr. Webster a posititon among the popular writers and speakers of the United States scarcely below that which he had already attained as a lawyer and statesman. It is doubted whether any extra professional literary effort, by a public man, has attained equal celebrity." The reader should remember, as he reads this judgment, that it is Edward Everett, himself equal to any living American in the same department, who awards it. The next legal case, that claimed the attention of Mr. Web- ster, was that of James Prescott, judge of probate of the county of Middlesex, who was tried on an impeachment before the senate of Massacnusetts. The defense set up, and the speech delivered by Mr Webster, can be referred to as being pre- cisely what the case demanded. This was a peculiarity of the gi-eat advocate. He always met the occasion. He met it fully DEFENSE OF JUDGE PRKSCOTT. 197 but exactly. He never tried to outdo the demand of his caso. for the sake of his reputation. There was no excess of learning no striking of heavy blows merely to show that he could strike them, no indulgence of the low vanity of the mere barrister, but everything that could, in any way, help his client. His ex- pertness as a manager of a trial, and his sagacity as a speaker, in getting hold of any accidental fact, or circumstance, that could aid him in his work, were exhibited to good advantage in this defense. The concluding paragraphs of his peroration may be quoted as a fair specimen of his power of appeal to the highest sentiments and noblest feelings of a tribunal : " Mr. President, the case is closed. The fate of the respond- ent is in your hands. It is for you now to say, whether, from the law and the facts as they have appeared before you, you will proceed to disgrace and disfravhise him. If your duty calls on you to convict him, let justice be done, and convict him ; but, 1 adjure you, let it be a clear, undoubted case. Let it be so for his sake, for you are robbing him of that for which, with all your high powers, you can yield him no compensation ; let it be so for your own sakes, for the responsibility of this day's judgment is one which you must carry with you through life. For myself, I am willing here to relinquish the character of an advocate, and to express opinions by which I am prepared to be bound as a citizen and a man. And I say upon my honor and conscience, that I see not how, with the law and constitu- tion for your guides, you can pronounce the respondent guilty. I declare that I have seen no case of wilful and corrupt official misconduct, set forth according to the requisitions of the con- stitution, and proved according to the common rules of evidence. I see many things imprudent and ill-judged ; many things that 1 could wish had been otherwise; but corruption and crime I do not see. " Sir, the prejudices of the day will soon be forgotten ; tho passions, i/ any there be, which have excited or favored this WEBSra AXD BOS liASTEK-FIECKSw ptmuLUlinBi will subside; but the consequence of the judgment JOB are about to lender will outlive both them and you. The respondent is now brought, a single, unprotected individual, to this formidable bar of judgment, to stand against the power and authority of the slate. I know you can crush him, as he stands before yon, and clothed as you are with die sovertignity of the state. Ton have die power 'to change his countenance and to send him away.* Nor do I remind you, that your judgment is to be ujmkyil by die con -inanity ; and, as you have summoned him fir trial to das Ugh tribunal, dial you are soon to descend yourselves from these seats of justice, and stand before the higher tribunal of die world. I would not &il so much in re- spect to das honorable court as to hint that it could pronounce % sentence which die community' will reverse. No, sir, it is net the world's revision wl leh I would call on you to regard ; but dot of your own consciences, when years have gone by and yna shall look back on die aenfancr. yon are about to reader. If you send away die respondent, condemned and sentenced, from your bar, you are yet to meet him in the world on which you cast him out. You wfll be called to behold him a disgrace to his &mfly. a sorrow and a shame to his children, a living iiuntiJH of grief and agony to hJmadC "If you shaD d*en be able to behold him only as an unjust judge, whom vengeance has on 1 itiWn and justice has Minted, you will be able to look upon him, not without pity, but yet widuot remorse. But ^ on the odier hand, you shall see, huM.ru and wherever you meet him, a victim of prejudice or of passion, a sacrifice to a transient excitement ; if you shall see in Mm a man for whose condemnation any provision of die oniilMi^iuu has been violated or any principle of law been broken down, diem wfll he be able, humble and low as may be his condition, then wfll he be able to turn die current of com- passion backward, and to look widi pity on those who have been If you are about to visit this respondent with a 199 judgment which ahal! blast his hose; if the bosoms of the innocent and the amiable are to be made to bleed aider your infliction, I beseech yoa to be able to slate dear and grounds fcr your proceeding. Prejudice an transitory, and wfll pass away. Political expediency, of judicature, is a false and boflow principle, and will never satisfy the conscience of him who b fearful that be may have given a hasty judgment. I earnestly entreat you, far your own sakes. to possess yourselves of solid c*"""% founded in troth and justice, for the judgment yon pronounce, which yon can carry with yoa till yon go down into your graves 5 ''"'' which it will require DO argument to revive, no NpuhHiy, no excitement, no regard to popular firaor, to render satisfactory to yonr consciences ; reasons which you can appeal to hi every crisis of your lives, and which shall be able to aanure you, in your own great extremity, that TOO have not judged a fellow- creature without merer. ^ r. 1 have done with the case of this individual, and now leave it in yonr hands. But I would yet once more appeal to you as public men ; as statesmen ; as men of enlightened minds, capable of a large view of things, and of faruuing the remote consequences of important transactions ; and, as such, I would most earnestly implore you to consider rally of the judgment you may pronounce. Ton are about to give a con- struction to constitutional provisions which may adhere to that instrument for ages, either for good or eviL I may perhaps overrate the importance of this occasion to the public welfare ; but 1 confess it does appear to me that, if this body gne its sanction to some of the principles which have been advanced on this occasion, then there is a power in the state above the constitution and the law ; a power essentially aibiUury and despotic, the exercise of which may be most dangerous. If ; mpeachment be not under the rale of the constitution and the laws, then may we tremble, not only for those who nun be 200 WEBSTER AND HIS MASTER-PIECES. impeached, but for all others. If the full benefit of every con stitutional provision be not extended to the respondent, his case becomes the case of all the people of the commonwealth. The constitution is their constitution. They have made it for their own protection, and for his among the rest. They are not eager for his conviction. They desire not his ruin. If he be con- demned, without having his offenses set forth in the manner which they, by their constitution have prescribed, and in the manner which they, by their laws, have ordained, then not only is he condemned unjustly, but the rights of the whole people are disregarded. For the sake of the people themselves, there- fore, I would resist all attempts to convict by straining tho laws, or getting over their prohibitions. I hold up before him the broad shield of the constitution ; if through that he be pierced and fall, he will be but one sufferer in a common ca- tastrophe." On the night of the 6th of August, 1830,* Mr. Webster delivered his argument on the trial of John Francis Knapp, for the murder of Joseph White, Esq., of Salem, in the court-house of Essex county, Massachusetts. This argument is regarded as the great advocate's master-piece in this department of his pro- fession. " The record of the causes c^lebres of no country or age," says Mr. Everett, " will furnish either a more thrilling narrative, or a forensic effort of greater ability." The narra- tive is from the pen of the late Hon. Benjamin Merrill, of Sa- lem, who was connected with the trial ; and it is here given, with only a slight abridgment, as it is the only existing key to that wonderful speech, which has been looked upon, for a quar- ter of a century, not merely by a biographer, but by all the legal profession of the country, as Mr. Webster's greatest and grandest effort as a criminal lawyer : * Mr. Everett, by mistake, says the 6th of April, 1830 making the trial come th day before the murder. TRIAL OF JOHN FRANCIS KNAPP. 201 "Joseph White, Esq," says the narrator, "was ft.und mur dered in his bed, in his mansion-house, on the morning of the 7th of April, 1830. He was a wealthy merchant of Salem, eighty-two years of age, and had for many years given up ac- tive business. His servant-man rose that morning at six o'clock, and on going down into the kitchen, and opening the shutters of the window, saw that the back window of the east parlor was open, and that a plank was raised to the window from the back yard ; he then went into the parlor, but saw no trace of any person having been there. He went to the apartment of the maid-servant, and told her, and then into Mr. White's cham- ber by its back door, and saw that the door of his chamber, leading into the front entry, was open. On approaching the bed he found the bed-clothes turned down, and Mr. White dead, his countenance pallid, and his night-clothes and bed drenched in blood. He hastened to the neighboring houses to make known the event. He and the maid-servant were the only persons who slept in the house that night, except Mr. White himself, whose niece, Mrs. Beckfbrd, his housekeeper, was then absent on a visit to her daughter, at Wenham. " The physicians and the coroner's jury, who were called to examine the body, found on it thirteen stabs, made as if by a sharp dirk or poniard, and the appearance of a heavy blow on the left temple, which had fractured the skull, but not broken the skin. The body was cold, and appeared to have been life- less many hours. " On examining the apartments of the house, it did not ap- pear that any valuable articles had been taken, or the house ransacked for them ; there was a rouleau of doubloons in an iron chest in his chamber, and costly plate in other apartments, none of which was missing. " The perpetration of such an atrocious crime, in the most populous and central part of the town and in the most compactly built street, and under circumstances indicting 202 WEBSTER AND HIS MASTER-PIECES. the utmost coolness, deliberation, and audacity, deeply agi- tated and aroused the whole community ; ingenuity was baf fled in attempting even to conjecture a motive for the deed ; and all the citizens were led to fear that the same fate might await them in the defenseless and helpless hours of slumber. For several days, persons passing through the streets might hear the continual sound of the hammer, while carpenters and smiths were fixing bolts to doors and fastenings to windows. Many, for defense, furnished themselves with cutlasses, fire- arms, and watch-dogs. Large rewards for the detection of the author or authors of the murder were offered by the heirs of the deceased, by the selectmen of the town, and by the gov- ernor of the state. The citizens held a public meeting, and ap- pointed a committee of vigilance, of twenty-seven members, to make all possible exertions to ferret out the offenders. " While the public mind was thus excited and anxious, it was announced that a bold attempt at highway robbery was made in Wenham by three footpads, on Joseph J. Knapp, Jr., and John Francis Knapp, on the evening of the 27th of April, while they were returning in a chaise from Salem to their resi- dence in Wenham. They appeared before the investigating committee, and testified that, after nine o'clock, near the Wen- ham Pond, they discovered three men approaching. One came near, seized the bridle, and stopped the horse, while the other two came, one on each side, and seized a trunk in the bottom of the chaise. Frank Knapp drew a sword from his cane and made a thrust at one, and Joseph with the but-end of his whip gave the other a heavy blow across the face. This bold resist- ance made them fall back. Joseph sprang from the chaise to assail the robbers. One of them then gave a shrill whLstle, when they fled, and, leaping over the wall, were soon k>st in the darkness. One had a weapon like an ivory dirk-handle, was clad in a sailor's short jacket, cap, and had whiskers ; another wore a long coat, with bright buttons ; all throe were ijood- TRIAL OF KNAPP CONTINUED. 203 si/ed men. Frank, too, sprung from the chaise, and pursued with vigor, but all in vain. " The account of this unusual and bold attempt at robbery, thus given by the Knapps, was immediately published in the Salem newspapers, with the editorial remark, that ' these gen- tlemen are well known in this town, and their respectability and veracity are not questioned by any of our citizens.' " Not the slightest clew to the murder could be found for several weeks, and the mystery seemed to be impenetrable. At length a rumor reached the ear of the committee that a prisoner in the jail at New Bedford, seventy miles from Salem, confined there on a charge of shop-lifting, had intimated that he could make important disclosures. A confidential messenger was immediately sent, to ascertain what he knew on the sub- ject. The prisoner's name was Hatch ; he had been commit- ted before the murder. He stated that, some months before the murder, while he was at large, he had associated in Salem with Richard Crowninshield, Jr., of Danvers, and had often heard Crowninshield express his intention to destroy the life of Mr. White. Crowninshield was a young man, of bad reputa- tion ; though he had never been convicted of any offense, he \v;is strongly suspected of several heinous robberies. He was of dark and reserved deportment, temperate and wicked, daring and wary, subtle and obdurate, of great adroitness, boldness, and self-command. He had for several years frequented the haunts of vice in Salem ; and though he was often spoken of as a dangerous man, his person was known to few, for he never walked the streets by daylight. Among his few associates, he was a leader and a despot. "The disclosures of Hatch received credit. When the su- pivme court met at Ipswich, the attorney-general, Morton, moved for a writ of habeas corpus ad testif., and Hatch was carried in chains from New Bedford before the grand jury, and on his testimony an indictment was found against Crownin- VOL. I. I* 204 WEBSTER AND HIS MASTKli-PIECES. shield. Other witnesses testified that, on the night of the min- der, his brother, George Crowninshield, Colonel Benjamin Sel- man, of Marblehead, and Daniel Chase, of Lynn, were together in Salem, at a gambling-house usually frequented by Richard ; these were indicted as accomplices in the crime. They were all arrested on the 2d of May, arraigned on the indictment, and committed to prison to await the sitting of a court that should hnve jurisdiction of the offense. "The committee of vigilance, however, continued to hold frequent meetings in order to discover further proof, for it was doubted by many whether the evidence already obtained would be sufficient to convict the accused. " A fortnight afterwards, on the 15th of May, Captain Joseph J. Knapp, a shipmaster and merchant, a man of good character, received by mail the following letter : "'CHARLES GRANT, JR., TO JOSEPH J. KNAPP. '"Belfast, May 12, 1830. "'DEAR SIR I have taken the pen at this time to address an utter stranger, and, strange as it may seem to you, it is for the purpose of requesting the loan of three hundred and fifty dollars, for which I can give you no security but my word, and in this case consider this to be sufficient. My call for money at this time is pressing, or I would not trouble you ; but with that sum, I have the prospect of turning it to so much advan- tage, as to be able to refund it with interest in the course of six months. At all events, I think it will be for your interest to comply with my request, and that immediately that is, not to put off any longer than you receive this. Then set down and inclose me the money with as much dispatch as possible, for your own interest. This, sir, is my advice ; and if you do not comply with it, the short period between now and Novem ber will convince you that you have denied a request, the grant- ing of which will never injure you, the refusal of which will TRIAL OF KNAPP CONTINUED. 205 ruin you. Are you surprised at this assertion rest assured that I make it, raserving to myself the reasons and a series of facts, which are founded on such a bottom as will bid defiance io property or quality. It is useless for me to enter into a dis- cussion of facts which must inevitably harrow up your soul. No, I will merely tell you that I am acquainted with your brother Franklin, and also the business that he was transacting for you on the 2d of April last ; and that I think that you was very extravagant in giving one thousand dollars to the person that would execute the business for you. But you know best about that ; you see that such things will leak out. To con- clude, sir, I will inform you that there is a gentleman of my acquaintance in Salem, that will observe that you do not leave town before the first of June, giving you sufficient time between now and then to comply with my request ; and if I do not re- ceive a line from you, together with the above sum, before the 22d of this month, I shall wait upon you with an assistant. I have said enough to convince you of my knowledge, and merely inform you that you can, when you answer, be as brief as possible. "'Direct yours to "'CHARLES GRANT, JR., of Prospect, Maine.' " This letter was an unintelligible enigma to Captain Knapp : he knew no man of the name of Charles Grant, Jr., and had no acquaintance at Belfast, a town in Maine, two hundred miles distant from Salem. After poring over it in vain, he handed it to his son, Nathaniel Phippen Knapp, a young lawyer ; to him also the letter was an inexplicable riddle. The receiving of such a threatening letter, at a time when so many felt inse- cure, and were apprehensive of danger, demanded their atten- tion. Captain Knapp and his son Phippen, therefore, conclu- ded to ride to Wenham, seven miles distant, and show the etter to Captain Knapp's other two sons, Joseph J. Knaop, Jr., 00 WEBSTER AND HIS MASTER-PIECES. and John Francis Knapp, who were then residing at Wouham with Mrs. Beckford, the niece and late housekeeper of Mr. White, and the mother of the wife of J. J. Knapp, Jr. The latter perused the letter, told his father it ' contained a devilish lot of trash,' and requested him to hand it to the committee of vigilance. Captain Knapp, on his return to Salem that evening, accordingly delivered the letter to the chairman of the committee. " The next day J. J. Knapp, Jr., went to Salem, and re- quested one of his friends to drop into the Salem post-office the two following pseudonymous letters. "'May 13, 1830. "'GENTLEMEN OF THE COMMITTEE OF VIGILANCE, Hear- ing that you have taken up four young men on suspicion of being concerned in the murder of Mr. White, I think it time to inform you that Stephen White came to me one night and told me, if I would remove the old gentleman, he would give me five thousand dollars ; he said he was afraid he would alter his will if he lived any longer. I told him 1 would do it, but I was afeared to go into the house, so he said he would go with me, that he would try to get into the house in the evening and open the window, would then go home and go to bed and meet me again about eleven. I found him, and we both went into his chamber. I struck him on the head with a heavy piece of lead, and then stabbed him with a dirk ; he made the finishing strokes with another. He promised to send me the money next evening, and has not sent it yet, which is the reason that I mention this. Yours, &c., 'GRANT.' "This letter was directed on the outside to the 'Hon. Gideon Barstow,' Salem, and put into the post-office on Sunday even- ning, May 16, 1830.' TRIAL OF KNAPP CONTINUED. 20*7 "'Lynn, May 12, 1830. "'Mr. White will send the $5,000, or a part of it, before to- morrow night, or suffer the painful consequences. '"N. CLAXTON, 4iH.' " This letter was addressed to the ' Hon. Stephen White, Salem, Mass.,' and was also put into the post-office in Salem on Sunday evening. " When Knapp delivered these letters to his friend, he said his father had received an anonymous letter, and ' What I want you for is to put these letters in the post-office in order to nip this silly affair in the bud.' " The Hon. Stephen White, mentioned in these letters, was a nephew of Joseph White, and the legatee of the principal part of this large property. " When the committee of vigilance read and considered the letter purporting to be signed by Charles Grant, Jr., which had been delivered to them by Captain Knapp, they were impressed with the belief that it contained a clew which might lead to im- portant disclosures. As they had spared no pains or expense in their investigations, they immediately despatched a discreet messenger to Prospect, in Maine ; he explained his business confidentially to the post-master there, deposited a letter ad- dressed to Charles Grant, Jr., and awaited the call for Grant to receive it. He soon called for it, when an officer, stationed in the house, stepped forward and arrested Grant. On examining him, it appeared that his true name was Palmer, a young man of genteel appearance, resident in the adjoining town of Belfast. He had been a convict in Maine, and had served a term in the state's prison in that state. Conscious that the cir- cumstances justified the belief that he had had a hand in the murder, he readily made known, while he protested his own innocence, that he could unfold the whole mystery. He then disclosed that he had been an associate of R. Crowninshield, Jr. 208 WEBSTKR AND HIS MASTER-PIECES. and George Crowninshield ; had spent part of the winter at Danvers and Salem, under the name of Carr ; part of the time he had been their inmate, concealed in their father's house at Danvers ; that on the 2d of April he saw from the windows of the house Frank Knapp and a young man named Allen ride up to the house ; that George walked away with Frank, and Richard with Allen ; that on their return, George told Richard that Frank wished them to undertake to kill Mr. White, and that J. J. Knapp, Jr., would pay one thousand dollars for the job. They proposed various modes of executing it, and asked Palmer to be concerned, which he declined. George said the housekeeper would be away at the time ; that the object of Jo- seph J. Knapp, Jr., was to destroy the will, because it gave most of the property to Stephen White ; that Joseph J. Knapp, Jr., was first to destroy the will ; that he could get from the housekeeper the keys of the iron chest in which it was kept ; that Frank called again the same day, in a chaise, and rode away with Richard ; and that on the night of the murder Palmer staid at the Half-way House, in Lynn. " The messenger, on obtaining this disclosure from Palmer, without delay communicated it by mail to the committee, arid on the 26th of May, a warrant was issued against Joseph J. Knapp, Jr., and John Francis Knapp, and they were taken into custody at Wenham, where they were residing hi the family of Mrs. Beckford, mother of the wife of Joseph J. Knapp, Jr. They were then imprisoned to await the arrival of Palmer, foi their examination. " The two Knapps were young shipmasters, of a respectable family. "Joseph J. Knapp, Jr., on the third day of his imprison ment, made a full confession that he projected the murder. He knp w that Mr. White had made his will, had given to Mrs. Beckford a legacy of fifteen thousand dollars ; but if he died without leaving a will, he expected she would inherit nearly TRIAL OF KNAPP CONTINUED. xJ09 two hundred thousand dollars. In February he made known to his brother his desire to make way with Mr. White, intend- ing first to abstract and destroy the will. Frank agreed to employ an assassin, and negotiated with R. Crowninshield, Jr., who agreed to do the deed for a reward of one thousand dol- lars ; Joseph agreed to pay that sum, and as he had access to the house at his pleasure, he was to unbar and unfasten the back window, so that Crowninshield might gain easy entrance. Four days before the murder, while they were deliberating on the mode of compassing it, he went into Mr. White's chamber, and, finding the key in the iron chest, unlocked it, took the will, put it in his chaise-box, covered it with hay, carried it to Wenham, kept it till after the murder, and then burned it. After securing the will, he gave notice to Crowninshield that all was ready. In the evening of that day he had a meeting with Crowninshield at the centre of the common, who showed him a bludgeon and a dagger, with which the murder was to be committed. Knapp asked him if he meant to do it that night; Crowninshield said he thought not, he did not feel like it ; Knapp then went to Wenham. Knapp ascertained on Sunday, the 4th of April, that Mr. White had gone to take tea with a relative in Chestnut-street. Crowninshield intended to dirk him on his way home in the evening, but Mr. White returned before dark. It was next arranged for the night of the 6th, and Knapp was on some pretext to prevail on Mrs. Beckford to visit her daughters at Wenham, and to spend the night there lie said that, all preparations being thus complete, Crownin shield and Frank met about ten o'clock in the evening- of the 6th, in Brown-street, which passes the rear of the garden of Mr. White, and stood some time in a spot from which they could observe the movements in the house, and perceive when Mr. White and his two servants retired to bed. Crowninshield requested Frank to go home ; he did so, but soon returned to the same spot. Crowninshield, in the mean time, had started 210 WEBSTEK AND HIS MASTER-PIECES. and passed round through Newbury-street and Essox-street tc the front of the house, entered the postern gate, passed to the rear of the house, placed a plank against the house, dimbed to the window, opened it, entered the house alone, passed up the staircase, opened the door of the sleeping-chamber, approached the bedside, gave Mr. White a heavy and mortal blow on the head with a bludgeon, and then with a dirk gave him many stabs in his body. Crowninshield said, that after he had 'done for the old man,' he put his fingers on his pulse to make cer- tain he was dead. He then retired from the house, hurried back through Brown-street, where he met Frank, waiting to learn the event. Crowninshield ran down Howard-street, a solitary place, and hid the club under the steps of a meeting- house. He then went home to Danvers. " Joseph confessed further that the account of the Wenham robbery, on the 27th of April, was a sheer fabrication. After the murder, Crowninshield went to Wenham in company with Frank to call for the one thousand dollars. He was not able to pay the whole, but gave him one hundred five-franc pieces. Crowninshield related to him the particulars of the murder, told him where the club was hid, and said he was sorry Joseph had not got the right will, for if he had known there was another, he would have got it. Joseph sent Frank afterwards to find and destroy the club, but he said he could not find it. When Joseph made the confession, he told the place where the club was concealed, and it was there found ; it was heavy, made of hickory, twenty-two and a half inches long, of a smooth surface and large oval head, loaded with lead, and of a form adapted to give a mortal blow on the skull without breaking the skin ; the handle was suited for a firm grasp. Crowninshield said he turned it in a lathe. Joseph admitted he wrote the two anon- ymous letters. " Crowninshield had hitherto maintained a stoical composure of feeling ; but when he was informed of Knapp's arrest, his TRIAL OF KNAPP CONTINUED. 211 knees smote beneath him, the sweat started out on his stem and pallid face, and he subsided upon his bunk. " Palmer was brought to Salem in irons on the 3d of June, and committed to prison. Crowninshield saw him taken from the carriage. He was put in the cell directly under that in which Crowninshield was kept. Several members of the com- mittee entered Palmer's cell to talk with him ; while they were talking, they heard a loud whistle, and, on looking up, saw that Crowninshield had picked away the mortar from the crevice be- tween the blocks of the granite floor of his cell. After the loud whistle, he cried out, 'Palmer! Palmer!' and soon let down a string, to which were tied a pencil and a slip of paper. Two lines of poetry were written on the paper, in order that, if Palmer was really there, he would make it known by cap- ping the verses. Palmer shrunk away into a corner, and was soon transferred to another cell. He seemed to stand in awe of Crowninshield. " On the 12th of June, a quantity of stolen goods was found concealed in the barn of Crowninshield, in consequence of in- formation from Palmer. "Crowninshield, thus finding the proofs of his guilt and de- pravity thicken, on th3 15th of June committed suicide by hanging himself to the bars of his cell with a handkerchief. He left letters to his father and brother, expressing in general terms the viciousness of his life, and the hopelessness of escape from punishment. When his associates in guilt heard his fate, they said it was not unexpected by them, for they had often heard him say he would never live to submit to an ignomini- ous punishment. " A special term of the supreme court was held at Salem on the 20th of July, for the trial of the prisoners charged with the murder; it continued in session till the 20th of August, with a few days' intermission. An indictment for the murder was found against John Francis Knapp, as principal, and Joseph J VO-JL i. 14 212 WEBSTER AND HIS MASTER-PIECES. Knapp, Jr., and George Crowninshield, as accessories. Selman and Chase were discharged by the attorney-general. " The principal, John Francis Knapp, was first put on trial. As the law then stood, an accessory in a murder could not be tried until a principal had been convicted. He was defended by Messrs. Franklin Dexter and William II. Gardiner, advo- cates of high reputation for ability and eloquence ; the trial was long and arduous, and the witnesses numerous. His brother Joseph, who had made a full confession, on the government's promise of impunity if he would in good faith testify the truth, was brought into court, called to the stand as a witness, but de- clined to testify. To convict the prisoner, it was necessary for the government to prove that he was present, actually or con- structively, as an aider or abettor in the murder. The evi- dence was strong that there was a conspiracy to commit the murder, that the prisoner was one of the conspirators, that at the time of the murder he was in Brown-street at the rear of Mr. White's garden, and the jury were satisfied that he was in that place to aid and abet in the murder, ready to afford as- sistance, if necessary. He was convicted. " Joseph J. Knapp, Jr., was afterwards tried as an accessory before the fact, and convicted. " George Crowninshield proved an alibi, and was discharged. "The execution of John Francis Knapp and Joseph J. Knapp, Jr., closed the tragedy. " If Joseph, after turning state's evidence, had not changed his mind, neither he nor his brother, nor any of the conspirators, could have been convicted ; if he had testified, and disclosed the whole truth, it would have appeared that John Francis Knapp was in Brown-street, not to render assistance to the as- sassin ; but that Crowninshield, when he started to commit the murder, requested Frank to go home and go to bed ; that Frank did go home, retire to bed, soon after arose, secretly left his father's house, and hastened to Brown-street, tc await the TRIAL OF KNAPP CONTINUED. '213 coming out of the assassin, in order to learn whether the deed was accomplished, and all the particulars. If Frank had not been convicted as principal, none of the accessories could by law have been convicted. Joseph would not have been even tried, for the government stipulated that, if he would be a wit- ness for the state, he should go clear. " The whole history of this occurrence is of romantic inter- est. The murder itself, the corpus delicti, was strange; plan- ned with deliberation and sagacity, and executed with firmness and vigor. While conjecture was baffled in ascertaining either the motive or the perpetrator, it was certain that the assassin had acted upon design, and not at random. He must nave had knowledge of the house, for the window had been un fastened from within. He had entered stealthily, threaded his way in silence through the apartments, corridors, and stair- cases, and coolly given the mortal blow. To make assurance doubly sure, he inflicted many fatal stabs, 'the least a death to nature,' and staid not his hand till he had deliberately felt the pulse of his victim, to make certain that life was extinct. " It was strange that Crowninshield, the real assassin, should have been indicted and arrested on the testimony of Hatch, who was himself in prison, in a distant part of the state, at the time of the murder, and had no actual knowledge on the subject. " It was very strange that J. J. Knapp, Jr., should have been the instrument of bringing to light the mystery of the whole murderous conspiracy ; for when he received from the hand of his father the threatening letter of Palmer, conscious- ness of guilt so confounded his faculties, that, instead of destroy- ing it, he stupidly handed it back, and requested his father to deliver it to the committee of vigilance. "It was strange that the murder should have been commit- ted on a mistake in law. Joseph, some time previous to the murder, had made inquiry how Mr. White's estate would be 214 WEBSTER AND HIS MASTER-PIECES. distributed in case he died without a will, and had been erro oeously told that Mrs. Beckford, his mother-in-law, the sole issue and representative of a deceased sister of Mr. White, \\ould inherit half of the estate, and that the four children and representatives of a deceased brother of Mr. White, of whom the Hon. Stephen White was one, would inherit the other half. Joseph had privately read the will, and knew that Mr. White had bequeathed to Mrs. Beckford much less than half. " It was strange that the murder should have been commit- ted on a mistake in fact also. Joseph furtively abstracted a will, and expected Mr. White would die intestate; but after the decease, the will, the last will, was found by his heirs in its proper place; and it could never have been known or conjec- tured, without the aid of Joseph's confession, that he had made either of those blunders. " Finally, it was a strange fact that Knapp should, on the night following the murder, have watched with the mangled corpse, and at the funeral followed the hearse as one of the chief mourners, without betraying on either occasion the slight- est emotion which could awaken a suspicion of his guilt." It so happened that the Hon. Rufus Choate, the first of New England lawyers since the decease of Webster, listened to all the proceedings of this trial, and heard the speech of the great advocate ; and his opinion of Mr. Webster's skill and tact, in the management of the trial, and of the overwhelming power and eloquence of his argument, he has given in a para- graph or sentence, which, after it has served its first and legiti- mate pui-pose, may be studied as a striking exemplification of the working of a vigorous and rapid mind struggling to give language to a conception almost too large and difficult for ut- terance. Speaking of the many great causes tried by Mr. Webster, in all of which a most remarkable combination of talents was conspicuous, the learned and able gentleman pro- ceeds to draw a picture of the case under examination : " One TRIAL OF KNAPP CONTINUED. 215 such," says he, "I stood in a relation to witness with a compar- atively easy curiosity, and yet with intimate and professional knowledge of all the embarrassments of the case. It was the trial of John Francis Knapp, charged with being present, aid- ing and abetting in the murder of Joseph White, in which Mr. Webster conducted the prosecution for the commonwealth ; in the same year with his reply to Mr. Hayne, in the senate ; and a few months later ; and when 1 bring to mind the incidents of that trial : the necessity of proving that the prisoner was near enough to the chamber in which the murder was being committed by another hand to aid in the act ; and was there with the intention to do so, and thus in point of law did aid in it because mere accessorial guilt was not enough to convict him ; the difficulty of proving this because the nearest point to which the evidence could trace him was still so distant us to warrant a pretty formidable doubt whether mere curisoity had not carried him thither ; and whether he could in any useful or even conceivable manner have cooperated with the actual murderer, if he had intended to do so ; and because the only mode of rendering it probable that he was there with a purpose of guilt was by showing that he was one of the parties to a conspiracy of murder, whose very existence, actors and ob- jects had to be made out by the collation of the widest possi- ble range of circumstances some of them pretty loose and even if he was a conspirator, it did not quite necessarily follow, that any active participation was assigned to him for his part, any more than to his brother, who, confessedly, took no such part the great number of witnesses to be examined and cross- examined, a duty devolving wholly on him ; the quick and sound judgment demanded and supplied to determine what to use and what to reject of a mass of rather unmanageable mate- rials ; the points in the law of evidence to be argued iu the coui'se of which he made an appeal to the bench on the com- plete impunity wb eh the rejection of the prisoner's confession 216 WEBSTER AND HIS M ASTEK-riECES. would give to the murder, in a style of dignity and energy, 1 should rather say, of grandeur, which I never heard him equal, before or after ; the high ability and fidelity with which every part of the defense was conducted ; and the great final sum- ming up to which he brought, and in which he needed, the ut- most exertion of every faculty he possessed to persuade the jury that the obligation of that duty, the sense of which, he said, 'pursued us ever : it is omnipresent like the Deity : if we take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, duty performed, or duty violated, is still with us for our happiness or misery ' to persuade them that this obliga- tion demanded that on his proofs they should convict the pris- oner: to which he brought first the profound belief of his guilt, without which he could not have prosecuted him ; then skill consummate in inspiring them with a desire or a willingness to be instrumental in detecting that guilt ; and to lean on him in the effort to detect it ; then every resource of professional abil- ity to break the force of the propositions of the" defense, and to establish the truth of his own : inferring a conspiracy to which the prisoner was a party, from circumstances acutely ridiculed by the able counsel opposing him as ' Stuff' but woven by him into strong and uniform tissue ; and then bridging over from the conspiracy to the not very necessary inference that the particular conspirator on trial was at his post, in execution of it, to aid and abet the picture of the murder with which he had begun not for rhetorical display, but to inspire solemnity, and horror, and a desire to detect and punish for justice and for security ; the sublime exhortation to duty with which he closed resting on the universality, and authoritative- ness and eternity of its obligation which left in every juror's mind the impression that it was the duty of convicting in this particular case, the sense of which would be with him in the hour of death, and in the judgment, and forever with these recollections of that trial I cannot help thinking it a more diffi- HIS PRE-EMINENCE ACKNOWLEDGED. 21? cult, and higher effort of mind than that more famous ' Oration for the Crown.'" Eminent as these cases were, and eminent as were the ex- hibitions of legal talent which they called forth, they are by no means the only cases, or the only exhibitions of the kind, to be referred to in proof of the unexampled forensic ability of Mr. Webster. They are only specimens. They are the specimens pertaining to this period of his history. His entire- professional life, however, was full of such exhibitions. The amount of la- bor performed by him as a lawyer, in all the departments of the profession, from the ordinary to the highest and most august tribunal of the country, can scarcely be appreciated except by lawyers, or by a person whose life has been particularly con- versant with the profession. " While Air. Webster, as a poli- tician and a statesman," says Mr. Everett, "has performed an amount of intellectual labor, sufficient to form the sole occupa- tion of an active life, there is no doubt that his arguments to the court, and his addresses to the jury, in important suits at law, would, if they had been reported like his political speeches, have filled a much greater space ;" and the able but brief biographer of his friend might as justly have added, that the labor bestowed in the examination and general treatment of his cases cost him more real toil, and required a more thor- ough employment of his transcendent talents, than the prepara- tion of all his arguments, addresses and speeches, legal and po- litical. The professional work actually performed by his mind, during the forty-five years of his public life, if given at the same length as his published efforts, could scarcely have been printed in less than several scores of volumes. And then, when it is con sidered how that work was performed, how every part of it was executed, what perfection and power were stamped upon all of it, the mind almost staggers at the contemplation. Or if the mind of any will go on with the contemplation of this almost inconceivable succession of intellectual labors of the high- 2 WEBSTER AND HIS MASTER-! 1ECES. est order, and of the grandeur and glory of re-mlt to which it all tended, and unto which it finally attained, it can hardly rlc so in better terms, or under a better guide, than are fur- nished in the language of one whom it is scarcely possible not to quote upon this subject: "There presents itself," says Mr. Choate, "on the first, and to any observation of Mr. Webster's life and character, a two-fold eminence ; eminence of the very highest rank in a two-fold field of intellectual and public dis- play, the profession of the law, and the profession of state -man- ship, of which it would not be easy to recall any parallel in the biography of illustrious men. " Without seeking for parallels, and without asserting that they do not exist, consider that he was by universal designation the leader of the general American bar ; and that he was also by an equally universal designation foremost of her statesmen living at his death ; inferior to not one who has lived and acted since the opening of his own public life. Look at these aspects of his greatness separately and from opposite sides of the sur- passing elevation. Consider that his single career at the bar may seem to have been enough to employ the largest faculties without repose, for a life time ; and that if then and thus the ' inftnitus forensium rerum labor, 1 should have conducted him to a mere professional reward a bench of chancery or law the crown of the first of advocates jitrisperitorum elo- quentissimus to the pure and mere honors of a great magis- trate ; that that would be as much as is allotted to the ablest in the distribution of fame. Even that half if I may say so of his illustrious reputation how long the labor to win it how worthy of all that labor ! He was bred first in the se- verest school of the common law, in which its doctrines wero expounded by Smith, and its administration shaped and di- rected by Mason, and its foundation principles, its historical sources and illustrations, its connection with the parallel series of statutory enactments, its modes of reasoning, aid the efi- PRE-EMINENCE UNIVERSALLY ACKNOWLEDGED. 210 dence of its truths, he grasped easily and completely ; and 1 have mj self heard him say, that for many years, while still at that bar, he tried more causes and argued more questions of fact to the jury, than perhaps any other member of the pro fession anywhere. I have heard from others how even then he exemplified the same direct, clear, and forcible exhibition of proofs, and the reasonings appropriate to proofs as well as the same marvelous power of discerning instantly what we call the decisive points of the cause in law and fact by which he was later more widely celebrated. This was the first epoch in his professional training. " With the commencement of his public life, or with his later removal to this state, began the second epoch of his professional training conducting him through the gradation of the national tribunals to the study and practice of the more flexible, elegant and scientific jurisprudence of commerce and of chancery and to the grander and less fettered investigations of international, prize, and constitutional law and giving him to breathe the air of a more famous forum ; in a more public presence ; with more variety of competition, although he never met abler men, as I have many times heard him say, than some of those who initiated him in the rugged discipline of the courts of New Hampshire ; and thus, at length, by these studies ; these la- bors ; this contention ; continued without repose, he came, now many years ago, to stand, omnium assensu, at the summit of the American bar." Such is not the judgment of one man only. It is the gen- eral judgment of the profession throughout the country. It i? a judgment to which free expression has been given by such gentlemen as Justice Sprague, of Massachusetts, Lewis Cass, of Michigan, Senator Butter, of South Carolina, Justice Wayne, of Georgia, and by every other distinguished lawyer, probably, in every portion of the Union. Not one dissent has ever found its way to the public eye. It must, therefore, go down VOL, I. J 220 WEBSTER AND HIS MASTER-PIECES. to future ages, as the common opinion of the legal profession of this age, that, of all the distinguished civilians, jurists, advocates lawyers, of the first half of the nineteenth century, there was not one found equal to Daniel Webster. " I shall submit it,'' says his friend and associate, Mr. Choate, " I shall submit it to the judgment of the universal American bar, if a carefully pre pared opinion of Mr. Webster, on any question of law whatever, in the whole range of our jurisprudence, would not be accepted everywhere as of the most commanding authority, and as the highest evidence of legal truth ? I submit it to that same judg- ment, if, for many years before his death, they would not have "ather chosen to intrust the maintenance and enforcement of any important proposition of law whatever, before any legal tribunal whatever, to his best exertion of his faculties, than to any other ability, which the whole wealth of the profession could supply ? " What a question is this, to be submitted with such confidence to such a tribunal, by a man, who, with the most apparent modesty, might well cherish the ambition of one day arriving at something like the same distinction ! This, certainly, is reaching the last beatitude of the Koman classic laudatus laudatis ; and it should be remembered, that no case is referred to, by any of the distinguished gentlemen whose opinion has been quoted, as a foundation for that opin- ion, which came under the professional management of Mr. Webster after the age of forty ! If Alexander is to be forever celebrated as great, because, while yet a young man, he sub- dued the brute force of a barbarous age, how much greater should his fame be, who, almost as early in life, made a more perfect conquest of the free mind of the m >st enlightened age of which there is any account in history ! CHAPTER VHL REPRESENTATIVE AND SENATOR FROM MASSACHUSETTS. IN the month of December, 1823, at the age of forty -one, Mr. Webster again took his seat in the house of representa- tives at Washington, as a representative for Boston. He had been elected, during the autumn of the previous year, by a very large majority, in preference to the claims of many very eminent native citizens of the district, though he had been him- self a citizen of the state for only about six years. His tal- ents, his general fame, gave him this precedence over all competition. The year of his second appearance in the halls of congress was the last year of the peaceful administration of Monroe. For seven years, there had been but few questions creating any differences of opinion among the leading statesmen of the coun- try. The second war with England had embarrassed the cur- rency, involved the country in a heavy public debt, and so wounded the commerce and business of the nation, that it had seemed to be the duty, and it certainly had been the chief em- ployment, of the first public men to soothe, and heal, and har- monize the general feeling, and retrieve the results of former errors. While engaged in these tranquil labors, the attention of the country had been called to the heroic struggles of the modern Greeks, who, on a soil made classic by the genius of their ancestors, had been contending for their faith and their freedom against the tyranny and intolerance of the Turks. The whole civilized world had felt a strong sympathy in those ASD HIS MASTER-PIECES. struggles. England had sent bar agents to watch the progress of the brave effort. France, Germany and Poland had kin- dled to enthusiasm in the cause of the young republic ; and, encouraged bj these signs of sympathy, the " Messenian Sen- ate of fMamata," the political organization which represented die reyohrtion, had sent appeals to several of the governments of Europe, and another of a peculiarly touching character to :.'-. - : intry. BuvV mpf ''- '' IH IPjd power ::' this rv-.->J, that ]Jlr. Monroe, in spite of his doctrine of non-interference, which he act up for his own country against all other countries, found it impossible to satisfy the expectations of the people, or the demands of his own conscience, without mentioning the cause of the Greeks in his last annual message. u A strong hope," says the peace-president, "has been long entertained, founded on die heroic straggle of the Greeks, that they would succeed in their contest, and resume their equal station among the nations of die earth. It is believed that the whole civilized world takes a deep interest in their welfare. Although no power has declared in their favor, yet none, according to our ::;:' -.v..--.:: ::. has taken part igainst them. T:>.-:r causi ..:'.r fourteen years. Fitch died without having CASE OF GIBBONS AND OGDEN. 231 used his privilege ; and, consequently, on the application of Mr. Livingston, who professed to have in his possession a mode of applying the steam engine to the propelling of a boat, on a better principle than was known to Fitch, the state of New York repealed the first grant, and conferred similar privileges on the new applicant. A third act was passed, on the 5th of April, 1803, associating Fulton with Livingston, and extending the grant to twenty years from its date. On the 1 1th of April, 1808, a fourth act was passed, extending the monopoly five years for every additional boat, the whole period, however, not to exceed thirty years ; and this enactment gave to Fulton and Livingston the additional right of selling patents, or grants, to other persons, who, without such patents, were forbidden the use of steam for the purposes of navigation within the state. So great, however, was the temptation to infringe upon this monopoly, that the legislature found it necessary to pass a fifth and final act, which is dated the 9th of April, 1811, and which forfeits any boat or vessel found navigating the waters of New York without this license, without the necessity of a trial or the judgment of any court. This exclusive privilege had descended to Aaron Ogden, who claimed all the benefits <>f all these acts against all persons whatsoever; and he had, therefore, brought suit, in the courts of New York, against Thomas Gibbons, who was charged with running a boat pro- pelled by steam between New York city and the New Jersey shore. These courts, without exception, from the lowest to the highest having jurisdiction of the case, had decided for the plaintiff; and the cause had been carried by appeal from the court of errors of the state of New York to the supreme court of the United States. Here Mr. Webster was given the man- agement of the case ; and it was here that he made that mas- terly argument, which not only reversed the decisions of all the New York courts, and pronounced all the acts of New York unconstitutional, null and void, but added materially to 232 WEBSTER AND HIS MASTER-PIECES. his professional reputation. It was regarded by some eminent lawyers as superior to his argument in the Dartmouth College ease ; and Judge Wayne, a quarter of a century after its de- livery, on the occasion of Mr. Webster's visiting Georgia, in the spring of 1847, fixed upon this argument as the great deed of Mr. Webster's life, deserving the gratitude and eulogy of the country. " From one of your constitutional suggestions," says the judge, in addressing the honored guest of the state, '' every man in the land has been more or less benefitted. We allude to it with the greater pleasure, because it was in a controversy begun by a Georgian in behalf of the constitutional rights of the citizen. When the late Mr. Thomas Gibbons de- termined to put to hazard a large part of his fortune in testing the constitutionality of the laws of New York, limiting the nav- igation of the waters of that state to steamers belonging to a company, his own interest was not so much concerned as the right of every citizen to use a coasting license upon the waters of the United States, in whatever way their vessels might be propelled. It was a sound view of the law, but not broad enough for the occasion. It is not unlikely that the case would have been decided upon it, if you had not insisted, that it should be put upon the broader constitutional ground of commerce and navigation. The court felt the application and force of your reasoning ; and it made a decision releasing every creek, and river, lake, bay, and harbor in our country from the inter- ference of monopolies, which had already provoked unfriendly legislation between some of the states, and which would have been as little favorable to the interest of Fulton, as they were i,,iworthy of his genius." Here it will seem, indeed, that an act of which many even of Mr. Webster's friends, it may be, have never heard, is taken by a learned jurist as a deed of inex pressible value; and the student of Mr. Webster's extant works, as well as the historiai: of h's life, often passes overacts, compar RK-KLECTION TO THE LOWER HOUSE. 233 ativciy obscure, which would have been brilliant, which would have .constituted ep-K-hs, in the life of many of our first men. During the second session of the. eighteenth congress. Mr. Webster, as chairman of the judiciary committee, reported the act- of the 3d of March, 1825, which entirely revolutionized the criminal jurisprudence of the United States. The old act of th 30th of April, 1790, though as wise as could have been expected from an a priori view of the then future wants of the Union, had been found by experience to be insufficient. Cases had been constantly coming up for which there had been made no provision ; and other cases, quite as numerous, had raised without determining the question of jurisdiction between the state courts and the courts provided by the national constitu- tion. The whole subject demanded a revision ; and that work happily fell, in great part, into_ the hands of Mr. Webster II is bill "more effectually to provide for the punishment of certain crimes against the United States, and for other pur- poses," has now been before the country for nearly thirty years, without complaint, without revision, a monument to Mr. Web- ster's legislative and legal wisdom. With this act, Mr. Webster would have closed, with the close of his first terra from Boston, his connection with con- gress, had it not been for the great urgency and unparalleled unanimity of his constituents. Though he had expressed his desire of being released from office, and had taken pains to in- form his most intimate friends at home of this wish, he was prevailed upon to stand an election for the lower house of the nineteenth congress; and the result proved, not only the wis- dom of his constituents, but his own unbounded popularity. Out of five thousand votes cast, he received four thousand nine hundred and ninety ; and the ten votes serve only to show that this remarkable unanimity was not because there was no candidate against him. It was during tl'e interim of his first and second appearance 234 WEBSTER AND HIS MASTER-PIECES. as a representative from Boston, that Mr. Webster pronounced his first oration at Bunker Hill, on the occasion <>f laying the corner stone of the monument to be there erected. Such a monument had long been contemplated ; not only the legisla ture of Massachusetts, but congress itself, had resolved, at dif ferent times, to commemorate the fall of Warren and the first great battle of the revolution, by some such testimonial; but it was no't till about this period, the year 1825, that the work was undertaken, and the great debt paid. For the perform- ance of the ceremony itself, of laying the first stone, there could scarcely have been a more propitious time. Congress, in the fulness of its gratitude, had invited General Lafayette" to visit the country he had helped to save, and be the guest of the whole nation ; the general was now here, passing from one sec- tion to another, and everywhere receiving the warmest bene- dictions of the people ; and, in the work now in hand, it was most opportune that he, the representative of the revolutionary struggle, in which the great Warren fell, could be present on the occasion, and take in it a conspicuous part. Everything conspired to make the day memorable. It was the fiftieth an- niversary of the battle ; and nature herself seemed to conspire to shed on it her seleetest charms. " The morning," says Mr. Frothingham, in his history of the siege of Boston, " proved propitious. The air was cool, the sky was clear, and timely showers the previous day had brightened the verdure into its loveliest hue. Delighted thousands flocked into Boston to bear a part in the proceedings, or to witness the spectacle. At about ten oclock, a procession moved from the State House toward Bunker Hill. The military, in their fine uniforms, formed the van. About two hundred veterans of the revolu- tion, of whom forty were survivors of the battle, rode in ba- rouches, next to the escort. These venerable men, the relics of a past generation, with emaciated frames, tottering limbs and trembling vo : ces, constituted a touching spectacle. Some RE-ENTERS CONGRESS. 235 wore, as honorable decorations, their old fighting equipments and some bore the scars of still more honorable wounds Glistening eyes constituted their answer to the enthusiastic cheers of the grateful multitudes who lined their pathway and cheered their progress. To this patriot band, succeeded the Bunker Hill Monument Association. Then the masonic fra- ternity, in their splendid regalia, thousands in number. Then Lafayette, continually welcomed by tokens of love and grati- tude, and the invited guests. Then a long array of societies, with their various badges and banners. It was a splendid pro- cession, and of such length that the front nearly reached Charles- town Bridge, ere the rear had left Boston Common. It pro- ceeded to Breed's HilL where the grand master of the Freema- sons, the president of the Monument Association, and General Lafayette, performed the ceremony of laying the corner-stone, in the presence of a vast concourse of people." " The proces- sion then moved," says Mr. Everett, " to a spacious amphithe- ater, on the northern declivity of the hill, where the address was delivered by Mr. Webster, in presence of as great a mul- titude as was ever, perhaps, assembled within the sound of a human voice." That address needs no eulogy ; nor w< mid any quotations do it justice ; as it has lone ' K ' en r ?&d and eu- logized, from beginning to end, as equal to any other similar production not from the hand of Mr. Webster. On entering congress the third time, and the second time from Massachusetts, Mr. Webster found several important, changes in the government, and in the state of parties. The ' era of good feeling," as Mr. Monroe's administration was de- nominated, had passed by ; and an era of very bitter feeling had been instaurated in the election of John Quincy Adams. In summing up the votes of the people, it had been discovered that Mr. Adams had received a popular majority ; but the votes in the electoral college had stood ninety-nine for Andrew Jackson, eighty-four for John Q. Adams, forty-one for W'Jliam 236 WEBSTER AND HIS MASTER-PIECES. H. Crawford, and thirty-seven for Henry Clay. There being no majority for either of the candidates, the election had de- volved on the house of representatives at its previous session ; and the votes cast for Mr. Clay, by the agency of Mr. Webster having been obtained for Mr. Adams, Mr. Adams had been successful. But it was one of those victories which are more disastrous than a defeat. The friends of Jackson raised the cry throughout the country, that the expressed will of the people had been defeated ; and as the votes originally thrown for Mr. Clay had been finally given to Mr. Adams, it was said that Mr. Clay had sold himself to Mr. Adams for the chance of being adopted by the new president as his successor. There probably was never invented a greater slander. The accusa- tion stands only on suspicion ; and the suspicion is based on no evidence. It is just as supposable that the friends of Mr. Clay voted for Mr. Adams at their own option, when freed from their original obligation by the impossibility of electing Mr. Clay, as that they were directed to vote as they did by Mr. Clay himself; and, even if so directed, it is quite as natu- ral that Mr. Clay, on giving up his own chance, should make the preference of Mr. Adams, a political friend, against Mr. Jackson and Mr. Crawford, who were not his political friends, without as with a bargain. Any other course would have been a very great inconsistency. The slander, nevertheless, gained ground by the mere force of repetition ; it was reiterated to the day of Mr. Clay's death ; and he carried to his grave, no doubt, the heavy grief of having been stigmatized with a crime of which he was wholly innocent. He carried with him, too, a knowl- edge of the fact, that it was this malicious charge, which had not only given the victory to one of his competitors at the next succeeding election, but had blasted his own prospects for the same honor through a long life v devoted, with no less zeal, tc he best good and highest glory of his country. CLAY AND ADAMS. 237 It would certainly not be in place to defend, at any length, the reputation of Mr. Clay in a memoir of Mr. Webster ; but the case above stated calls up reflections which must have been experienced by nearly every intelligent American. There is too much personality allowed to enter into our party strifes. There was too much, on both sides, in the presidential elections succeeding the first election of Mr. Adams ; and it grew out of what every careful and candid reader must know was a case of mere suspicion without proof. Mr. Adams gets the popular but not the constitutional vote. Mr. Clay had been, and then was, a political friend of Mr. Adams, and so the friends of Mr. Clay, seeing no chance of electing their own candidate, cast their votes for Mr. Adams. Upon this, without a show of farther testimony, forgetting charity and even common propri- ety, a whole party accuses Mr. Clay of an act, which no respect- able man, of even ordinary standing, or ordinary intelligence, or decent self-respect, could perform. As an offset, in the next election, Mr. Jackson is charged with the foulest of crimes, with insubordination to his superiors, with peculation in office, and in fact with cold-blooded murder. As a rejoinder, an ap- peal is made against Mr. Clay for having sold himself, his con- stituents, his former principles, his country, when the country well knows, if it knows anything of the Kentucky character, or of the character of the most illustiious son of Kentucky, that he would have despised the very suggestion of such a bargain, and scorned the man, high or low, who should have proposed it to him. Still the charge proceeds. It has its effect upon the people, Adams gets his place temporarily ; but Jackson, backed by an " outraged people," puts him out at the first op- portunity. So the work goes on, making the life of a states- man the life of a politician, and the life of a politician so sus- pected, as to revive and almost justify the satire of the English eulouferred on circuit judges appointed for the purpose. This act, which lasted but a single year, was superseded by the acts of the 8th of March and the 29th of April, 1802, the first of which repealed al< its predecessor-;, and the second, abolishing the itinerant characte? of the circuit courts, assigned particular judges of the supreme court to particular circuits. These acts had been regarded as great improvements in the judicial sys- tem, as they assigned to each judge no more labor than he could 340 WEBSTER AND HIS MASTER-PIECES. reasonably be expected to perform, and gave to each court the privilege of going through with every case brought before it, however long it might continue on its docket, without a change of the individuals constituting the tribunal. In 1807, however, it became necessary, on account of the rapid extension of the population westward, to make a new circuit for the western states, to which a new judge was appointed. This was the con- dition of the supreme court of the United States, and these were the duties of its judges, both at Washington and in the circuit courts, when the new system was brought forward by Mr. Webster. The proposition of Mr. Webster was, that the supreme court of the United States should consist of a chief justice and of nine associate justices ; that, as soon as it should become ne- cessary, three additional associate justices should be appointed; that so much of the previous acts as vested in the district courts, in certain of the western states, the powers and prerog- atives of circuit courts, snould be repealed ; and that there should henceforth be regular circuit courts in such districts, consisting, as the others, of a judge of the supreme court of the United States and the district judg of the district in whioh the circuit court should be held. In defense of this proposition Mr. Webster spoke twice, in both of which speeches he employed a style peculiarly adapted to the subject. Some of those who opposed his bill were pas- sionate, vociferous, and declamatory. He, on the contrary, was more cool, more deliberate, than was his custom. The topic he regarded as too grave for displays of rhetoric or of elo- cution. " This, sir, must be alloyed, and is on all harids al lowed," said he in reply to certain intemperate debaters, "to be a measure of great and general interest. It respects that important branch of government, the judiciary ; and something of a judicial trne of discussion is not unsuitable to the occasion. We cannot treat the subject too calmly, or too dispassionately. MISSION TO PANAMA. 241 For mjself, I feel that I have no pride of opinion to gratify, no eagerness of debate to be indulged, no competition to be pur- sued. I hope I may say, without impropriety, that I am not insensible to the responsibility of my own situation as a mem- ber of the house, and a member of the committee. I am aware of no prejudice which should draw my mind from the single and solicitous contemplation of what may be best ; and I have listened attentively, through the whole course of this de- bate, not with the feelings of one who is meditating the means of replying to objections, or escaping from their force, but with an unaffected anxiety to give every argument its just weight, and with a perfect readiness to abandon this measure, at any moment, in favor of any other, which should appear to have solid grounds of preference." Such candor, added to such ability, had its effect. The tone of debate was at once softened down ; the most perfect courtesy thereafter characterized the debate ; and, though all the amendments of the judicial system, proposed by Mr. Webster, were not adopted at that time, the main feature of it has been adopted, and is in practical opera- tion at the present day. The party opposed to the administration of Mr. Adams, composed of a very heterogeneous combination of materials, went into the nineteenth congress breathing vengeance upon the man who had bargained, as in common traffic, for his ex- alted place. The president, however, was not only a learned, a wise, but a very prudent man ; and it was not easy to find, in anything he had said or done, or was likely to say or do, a point giving a reasonable opportunity of attack. After dili- gent search, and by no little conspiracy of the leaders of the opposition, they agreed to fasten upon a single passage of his message, in which he had spoken of having determined to send commissioners to the celebrated congress of Panama. What was the object of that congress ? Was it not a meeting of del- egates from Mexico and the Spanish South American states, who '*M2 WEBSTER AND HIS MASTER-PIECES. proposed u general confederacy for their own protection against a combination of European sovereigns 1 What right, it was asked, had the president to send ministers to such a congress ? What powers were they to have, and what duties were they to perform, as members of that body ? Were they to go there to concoct a general alliance with the Spanish- American states of central and southern America, by which the Uni .ed States should be bound to defend those states in their revolu- tionary measures, and to go to war with Spain and other for- eign governments in a cause not at all our own ? Were we now to forget the true policy of our country, as laid down by the fathers of the great republic, and get into "tangling alli- ances" with other nations, and thus draw ourselves into all the miseries of the new and the wiles of the old world 1 No, never, was the general and patriotic response, when every man, on whose lips this reply was found, knew perfectly well, that Mr. Adams had entertained no such designs. They knew very well, that, as the states mentioned had recently declared and maintained their independence, new relations had arisen be- tween them and the United States, calling for a thorough dis- cussion, and a good degree of care on our part, lest those states should themselves, unobserved or unresisted by us, form such an alliance among themselves as would be injurious to our commerce, and perhaps endanger our peace. They knew as well as did* the president, that there were then rumors afloat in regard to the independence of Cuba ; that Cuba had been invited to join the general alliance of the central and southern states of America ; and that, if there were no other grounds, this fact was a sufficient reason for sending commissioners or agents to the congress of Panama, who should be empowered to discuss every question therein arising, to resist what would be hurtful to the interests of their country, and to acquiesce in whatever might promise, on the maturest deliberation, to do us good. Having been invited to send such commissioners SPEECH ON THE MISSION. 243 by the Spanish-American states themselves, it .vas certainly a wise proposition, and perfectly constitutional, to have the coun- try represented in that assembly ; and the president, with the consent of the senate, had made appointments in accordance with this view of his right, responsibility and duty. In his an- nual message he had requested the house, not to give him ad- vice respecting the propriety of his measure, or to share that responsibility with him, but simply to make the necessary ap- propriations to defray the expenses of the commission. This request brought the subject to the notice, and put the destiny of it at the mercy, of the house; and the opposition members, not scrupling to undertake the most novel aud extraordinary course, proposed either to withhold the appropriation altogether, or so to limit by instructions the powers of the commission as to render it totally inefficient, and thus make it a laughing- stock to our own people and to other nations. While the question was in this condition, embarrassed on all sides, and particularly embarrassed by a discussion which had become exceedingly intemperate and abusive, Air. Webster rose in the house, in his easy and conciliatory manner, and delivered what was universally acknowledged at the time, and what has ever since been acknowledged, as the most eloquent, powerful, and effective effort of the nineteenth congress : " The president and senate," said the orator, "have instituted a public mission, for the purpose of treating with foreign states. The constitution gives to the president the power of appointing, with the con sent of the senate, ambassadors and other public ministers Such appointment is, therefore, a clear and unquestionable e* ercise of executive power. It is, indted, less connected with the appropriate duties of the house, than almost any other ex ecutive act, because the office of a public minister is not crea ted by any statute or law of our own government. It exists under the lfw of nations, and is recognized as existing by om constitution. The acts of congress, indeed, limit the salaries VOL. i. K 10 244 WEBSTER AND HIS MASTER-PIECES. of public ministers; but they do no more. Everything else in regard tt the appointment of public ministers their numbers, the time of their appointment, and the negotiations contempla- ted in such appointments is matter for executive discretion. Every new appointment to supplv vacancies in existing mis- sions is under the same authority. There are, indeed, what we commonly term standing missions, so known in the prac- tice of the government, but they are not permanent by any law. All missions rest on the same ground. Now the ques- tion is, whether, the president and senate having created this mission, or, in other words, having appointed the ministers, in. the exercise of their undoubted constitutional power, this house will take upon itself the responsibility of defeating its objects, and rendering this exercise of executive power void." Mr. Web- ster then went into a particular examination of the arguments advanced by the opposition, in which he showed the utter fu- tility of all their reasoning, followed them through all their wind- ings, and drove them from their ground by arguments which they never knew how to answer. He clearly proved, that, as the president had the right of making the appointments, the house must either grant or refuse, without instructions, the needed appropriations ; and that, though the subject was too delicate for open and unrestricted debate, there were doubtless such objects of an important character, and of great interest to the country, to be secured, or at least watched, in the contem- plated congress, as to justify the appointments which had been made by the president and senate. Besides this constitutional and general argument, Mr. Web- ster presented a most conclusive reason for the mission, drawn from the celebrated declaration of President Monroe. It had come to the knowledge of that gentleman, about the time when the independence of the South American and Mexican states had been acknowledged by this country, that there was a plan on foot in Europe for a sort of Holy Alliance in reference to ADAMS AND JEFFERSON. 24-) American affairs; and the first undertaking of this combina- tion was to be the re-subjugation of the Spanish provinces of America, that no similar attempts might be made, without fear of the general wrath of the great kings of Europe,, in any other quarter of the globe. The fact of this royal conspiracy had been presented by Mr. Monroe to his cabinet, which con- sisted of 'Adams, Crawford, Calhoun, Southard, and Wirt ; and they, as it seems, had not only advised the declaration of Mon- roe, which forbids all foreign governments from interfering with the domestic arrangements of this continent, but had resolved to defend the continent against all such interference at every hazard. That president, therefore, by the consent and coop eration, not of Adams only, but of Crawford and Calhoun, now the opponents of Adams on this very ground, had resolved to take the continent under the special protection of this govern- ment ; but Mr. Adams, when his turn came as president, not to defend other nations, but to look after the interests of our own, proposed simply to send commissioners to discuss ques tions of great interest to the United States, and to form treaties of trade and business with the new states, when, lo ! his former associates, who had been deeper in the Monroe doctrine than he was now himself, followed by the whole opposition party, raised the clamor of " Quixotism," of "tangling alliances," of "going abroad for trouble," in a style more bitter and personal than had ever before been witnessed in this country ! The speech on the mission to Panama was made on the 14th of April, 1826 ; and in the November following, in the interim of the two sessions of the nineteenth congress, Mr. Webster was elected to the twentieth congress with scarcely a show of opposition. Having, at the close of the first session of the eighteenth or current congress, retired to the practice of his profession, which he still cherished abov.e all the honors of public life, he was called to serve on an occasion, which, as it can scarcely be supposed ever to occur again, would be as 246 WEBSTER AND HIS MASTER-PIECES. little likely ever to find a man <, granted ? It is now nearly fifteen years since, among the first things which I ever ventured to say here, I expressed a serious doubt whether this government was fitted, by its construction, to administer aid and protection to particular pursuits; whether, having called such pursuits into being by indications of its favor, it would not afterwards desert them, should troubles come upon them, and leave them to their fate. Whether this prediction, the result, certainly, of chance, and not of sagacity, is about to be fulfilled, remains to be seen." In the same speech Mr. Webster states the grounds on which New England had been compelled to change her policy ; and, as it is as clear a defense of his own course as can be given, or need to be given, a further extract is appropriate to the narra- tive of his life : " At the same time it is true," says he, in continuation of his remarks, " that, from the very first com- mencement of the government, those who have administered its concerns have held a tone of encouragement and invitation towards those who should embark in manufactures. A1J the PROTECTIVE POLICY. 257 presidents, I lst[ Mined till the 25th, and made the special order for that day. The day arrived. The senate chamber and the lobbies were well filled with spectators. Mr. Hayne proceeded w'th THE DEBATE CONTINUED. 26"? his speech, -which consisted of a defense of the doctrme of South Carolina, which claimed the right, as a resei ved state night, of nullifying the laws of the general government, when- ever, in her opinion, those laws were plainly and palpably un- constitutional. He endeavored to show that the doctrme was not a new one ; that it had been originally set up by Virginia ; and that, what was expected by him, doubtless, to be a partic- ular and triumphant overthrow of Mr. Webster, it had been maintained by numerous writers, orators, and even ministers in Massachusetts. He spoke, this day, about two hours and a half; and Mr. Webster rose, with the intention of making an immediate answer, the very moment when Mr. Hayne took his seat. The day, however, was nearly gone ; and, as every one now seemed desirous to give Mr. Webster time to reply at length, the nullifiers themselves now feeling, after Mr. Hayne's great effort, that they could afford to be magnani- mous, and thus make the victory and the defeat more signal, the senate immediately adjourned. The next day was the day of days in the senate of the United States. It was the day never to be forgotten, as long as argument, and eloquence, and triumph, are words possessed of any meaning in any language or dialect on earth. It was the day of the delivery of the greatest parliamentary speech ever listened to on this continent ; and it was a day, which, for any similar or equal effort, will scarcely find a parallel, it may be, for a hundred generations. Never, till that day came, had the illustrious orator of New England, of Amer- ica, of the nineteenth century, been fully roused. Never had he felt called upon, or been pushed to put forth all his powers. Until that day, and that occasion, no man, not even his best friend and his warmest admirer, had known the full strength, the vast sweep, the unrivaled and resistless might of his massive, majestic, and imperial mind. It is likely that he n:ul never been entirely conscious of his whole power "limself VOL. i. L 2(58 WEBSTER AND HIS MASTER-PIECEH. From the conclusion of that day, however, his friends, his en mies, the senate, the country, and the world, have been able to understand, with a nearer approach to truth, how much of every human faculty, how much of every possible endowment, how much of every manner and measure of attainment, how much of every element that can enter into the mental and moral constitution of a man, is comprehended in the name, often used but seldom fathomed, of Daniel Webster. It is remarkable, very remarkable, that, of the hundreds who listened to that speech, and of the many who were entirely capable of appreciating and describing its delivery and effect, so few should have taken the pains to portray what they saw, and felt, and heard. In fact, while the world has, ever since its delivery, resounded with its fame, but two or three persons have ever given such account of it, as could aid mate- rially the imagination of other persons, or satisfy the curiosity of mankind. One of those individuals is Mr. Justice Sprague, at the time a senator from Maine, and the mover of the amend- ment to Mr. Foote's resolution, but now of the bench of Mas- sachusetts. Immediately upon the death of Mr. Webster, the circuit court, sitting in Boston, met to commemorate the event ; and Mr. Sprague was requested, as one of the' speakers on the occasion, particularly to dwell for the satisfaction of the court, on the great effort now under consideration. In compliance with this request, after speaking generally of the unequaled tal- ents and attainments of Mr. Webster, he proceeded : " The present occasion does not permit me to verify these general remarks by specific and detailed references ; nor has the time arrived when his later efforts can be dispassionately considered. But there is one speech, made so long since as to be now mat- ter of history, and involving no topic of personal excitement, of which 1 have been especially requested to speak, recause it is the more celebrated ; and of the then senators from New England, I am, with one exception, the only surviv >r j and it is JUDGE SPRAGUE'S OPINION. 269 proper to speak of it here and now, because a great, vital question of constitutional law was, by that speech, settled as completely and irrevocably as it could have been by the great- est minds in the highest judicial tribunals. " Mr. Foote's resolution involved merely the question of limiting or extending the survey of the public lands. Upon this, Mr. Benton and Mr. Hayne addressed the senate, con- demning the policy of the eastern states, as illiberal toward the west. Mr. Webster replied, in vindication of New Eng- land and the policy of the government. It was then that Gen- eral Hayne made the assault which that speech repelled. "It has been asked if it be possible that that reply was made without previous preparation. There could have been no spe- cial preparation before the speech began to which it was an answer. When General Hayne closed, Mr. Webster followed, with the interval, only, of the usual adjournment of one night. His reply was made to repel an attack, sudden, unexpected, and almost unexampled, an attack on Mr. Webster personally, upon Massachusetts and New England, and upon the constitu- tion. "There can be little doubt that this attack was the re- sult of premeditation, concert and arrangement. His assailant selected his own time, and that, too, peculiarly inconvenient to Mr. Webster, for at that moment, the supreme court were proceeding in the hearing of a cause of great importance, in which he was leading counsel. For this reason, he requested, through a friend, a postponement of the debate. General Ilayne objected ; and the request was refused. The assailant, too, selected his own ground, and made his choice of topics, without reference to the resolution before the senate, or the le- gitimate subject of debate. The time, the matter, and the manner, indicate that the attack was made with a design to crush a formidable political opponent. To this end, personal history, the annals of New England and of the federal party 270 WEBSTER AND HIS MASTER-PIECES. were ransacked for materials. It was attempted to make him responsible, not only for what was his own, hut for the opinions and conduct of others. All the errors and delinquencies, real or supposed, of Massachusetts, and the eastern states, and of the federal party, during the war of 1812, and throughout their history, were to be accumulated on hi in. It was supposed, that, as a representative, he would be driven to defend what was indefensible, and to uphold what could not be sustained, and as a federalist, to oppose the popular resolutions of '98. " General Hayne heralded his speech with a declaration of war, with taunts and threats, vaunting anticipated triumph, as if to paralyze by intimidation ; saying that he had something rankling in his breast, and that he would carry the war into Africa, until he had obtained indemnity for the past and secu- rity for the future. " Mr. Webster evidently felt the magnitude of the occasion, and a consciousness that he was more than equal to it. On no other occasion, although I have heard him hundreds of times, have I seen him so thoroughly aroused. Yet, when he com- menced, and throughout the whole, he was perfectly self-pos- sessed and self-controlled. Nev-;r was his bearing more lofty, his person more majestic, his manner more appropriate and impressive. " At first, a few of his opponents made some show of indif- ference. But the power of the orator soon swept away all af- fectation ; and a solemn, deep, absorbing interest, was mani- fested by all, and continued even through his profound discus- sion of constitutional law. " When he closed, the impression upon all was too deep for utterance, and, to this day, no one who was present has spo- ken of that speech, but as a matchless achievement and a com- plete triumph. When he sat down, General Hayne arose, and endeavored to restate and reenforce his argument. This in Mn. MARCH'S DESCRIPTION. 271 stantly called forth from Mr. Webster that final, condensed reply, which has the foree of a moral demonstration." This statement, however, authentic and comprehensive as it is, does not meet the demand which exists everywhere, and always will exist, to have a more particular description of the scene. The great artist, George P. A. Ilealey, has put the scene on canvas ; but painting, graphic and striking in such portraitures, is too limited in its range. The universal mind of the age wants the word-picture, a picture that can be indefinitely multiplied, and universally exhibited ; and such a picture has been given, with what precise accuracy persons not present will never be able entirely to determine, but which, if accurate, is certainly brilliant, and satisfactory : " It was on Tuesday, January the 26th, 1830" says the writer, Mr. C. W. March, whom all subsequent historians and biographers will be compelled to quote* "a day to be hereafter forever memorable in senatorial annals, that the senate resumed the consideration of Foote's resolution. There never was before, in the city, an occasion of so much excite- ment. To witness this great intellectual contest, multitudes of strangers had for two or three days previous been rushing into the city, and the hotels overflowed. As early as nine o'clock of this morning, crowds poured into the capitol, in hot haste ; at twelve o'clock, the hour of meeting, the senate-chamber, its gal- leries, floor, and even lobbies, was filled to its utmost capa- city. The very stairways were dark with men, who hung on to one another, like bees in a swarm. " The house of representatives was early deserted. An ad- journment would have hardly made it emptier. The speaker, t is time, retained his chair, but no business of. moment was, or * Mr Everett's abridgment of Mr. March's pages is adopted. Those who wish tc ri-ad the account entire, can do so in Mr. March's work " Reminis-:cncfle f Con eress'' which will well repay a perusal. 272 WEBSTER AND HIS MASTER-PIECES. could be, attended to. Members all rushed in to hear Mr. Webster, and no call of the house or other parliamentary pro- ceedings could compel them back.* The floor of the senate was so densely crowded, that persons once in could not get out, nor change their position ; in the rear of the vice-presidential chair, the crowd was particularly intense. Dixon II. Lewis, then a representative from Alabama, became wedged in here. From his enormous size, it was impossible for him to move without dis- placing a vast portion of the multitude. Unfortunately, too, for him, he was jammed in directly behind the chair of the vice- president, where he could not see, and hardly hear, the speaker. By slow and laborious effort pausing occasionally to breathe he gained one of the windows, which, constructed of painted glass, flank the chair of the vice-president on either side. Here he paused, unable to make more headway. But determined to see Mr. Webster as he spoke, with his knife he made a large hole in one of the panes of the glass ; which is still visible as he made it. Many were so placed, as not to be able to see the speaker at all. " The courtesy of senators accorded to the fairer sex room on the floor the most gallant of them their own seats. The gay bonnets and brilliant dresses threw a varied and picturesque beauty over the scene, softening and embellishing it. " Seldom, if ever, has speaker in this or any other country had more powerful incentives to exertion ; a subject, the de- termination of which involved the most important interests, and even duration, of the republic ; competitors, unequaled in rep- utation, ability, or position ; a name to make still more glori- ous, or lose forever; and- an audience, comprising not only persons of this country most eminent in intellectual greatness, but representatives of other nations, where the art of eloquence had flourished for ages. All the soldier seeks in opportunity was here. "Mr. "Webster perceived, and felt equal to, the destinies of MARCH'S DESCRIPTION CONTINUED. 273 th. moment. The very greatness of the hazard exhilerated him. His spirits rose with the occasion. He awaited the time of onset with a stern and impatient joy. He felt like the war- horse of the Scriptures, who ' paweth in the valley, and re- joiceth in his strength : who goeth on to meet the armed men; who sayeth among the trumpets, Ha, ha ! and who smelleth the battle afar off, the thunder of the captains and the shouting.' " A confidence in his own resources, springing from no vain estimate of his power, but the legitimate offspring of previous severe mental discipline, sustained and excited him. He had guaged his opponents, his subject, and himself. " He was, too, at this period, in the very prime of manhood. He had reached middle age an era in the life of man, when the faculties, physical or intellectual, may be supposed to attain their fullest organization, and most perfect development. Whatever there was in him of intellectual energy and vitality, the occasion, his full life and high ambition, might well bring forth. " He never rose on an ordinary occasion to address an ordi- nary audience more self-possessed. There was no tremulous- ness in his voice or manner ; nothing hurried, nothing simula- ted. The calmness of superior strength was visible every- where ; in countenance, voice and bearing. A deep-seated conviction of the extraordinary character of the emergency, and of his ability to control it, seemed to possess him wholly. If jn observer, more than ordinarily keen-sighted, detected at times something like exultation in his eye, he presumed it sprang from the excitement of the moment, and the anticipation of victory. " The anxiety to hear the speech was so intense, irrepressi- ble, and universal, that no sooner had the vice-president as- sumed the chair, than a motion was made and unanimously carried, to postpone the ordinary preliminaries of senatorial ao tion, and to tnke up immediately the consideration of f be reso lution. 274 WEBSTER, AND HIS MASTEH-TIKCKS. " Mr. Webster rose and addressed the senate. His exor dium is known by heart, everywhere : ' Air. President, when the mariner has been tossed, for many days, in thick weather, and on an unknown sea, he naturally avails himself of the first pause in the storm, the earliest glance of the sun, to take his latitude, and ascertain how far the elements have driven him from, his true course. Let us imitate this prudence ; and be- fore we float further, on the waves of this debate, refer to the point from which we departed, that we may, at least, be able to form some conjecture where we now are. I ask for the reading of the resolution.' " There wanted no more to enchain the attention. There was a spontaneous, though silent, expression of eager approbation, as the orator concluded these opening remarks. And while the clerk read the resolution, many attempted the impossibility of getting nearer the speaker. Every head was inclined closer towards him, every ear turned in the direction of his voice and that deep, sudden, mysterious silence followed, which always at- tends fullness of emotion. From the sea of upturned faces be- fore him, the orator beheld his thoughts reflected as from a mirror. The varying countenance, the suffused eye, the earn- est smile, and ever-attentive look, assured him of his audience's entire sympathy. If among his hearers there were those who affected at first an indifference to his glowing thoughts and fer- pent periods, the difficult mask was soon laid aside, and pro- found, undisguised, devoted attention followed. In the earlier part of his speech, one of his principal opponents seemed deeply engrossed in the careful perusal of a newspaper he held before his face ; but this, on nearer approach, proved to be upside down. In truth, all, sooner or later, voluntarily, or in spite of themselves, were wholly carried away by the eloquence of the orator. " Those who had doubted Mr. Webster's ability to cope with and overcome his opponents, were fully satisfied of their rf^fwUd jSkiCRIPTION CONTINUED. 275 srror before he had proceeded far in his speech. Their fears soon took another direction. When they heard his sentences of powerful thought, towering in accumulative grandeur, one above the other, as if the orator si/ove, Titan-like, to reach the very heavens themselves, they were giddy with an apprehen- sion that he would break down in his flight. They dared not believe that genius, learning, any intellectual endowment how- ever uncommon, that was simply mortal, could sustain itself long in a career seemingly so perilous. They feared an Jcarian fall. " What New England heart was there bdt throbbed with vehement, tumultuous, irrepressible emotion, as he dwelt upon New England sufferings, New England struggles, and New England triumphs during the war of the revolution ? There was scarcely a dry eye in the senate ; all hearts were over- come ; grave judges and men grown old in dignified lifei turned aside their heads, to conceal the evidences of their emotion. " In one corner of the gallery was clustered a group of Mas- sachusetts men. They had hung from the first moment upon the words of the speaker, with feelings variously but always warmly excited, deepening in intensity as he proceeded. At first, while the orator was going through his exordium, they held their breath and hid their faces, mindful of the savage attack upon him and New England, and die fearful odds against him, her champion ; as he went deeper into his speech, they felt easier , when he turned Hayne's flank on Banquo's ghost, they breathed freer and deeper. But now, as he alluded to Massachusetts, their feelings were strained to their highest tension ; and when the orator, concluding his encomium upon the land of their birth, turned, intentionally, or otherwise, his burning eye full upon them they shed tears like girls ! " No one who was riot present can understand the excite- ment of the scene. No one who was, can give an adequate VOL. i. L* )w 276 WEBSTER AND HIS MASTER-PIECES. description of it. No word-painting can convey the deep, in tense enthusiasm, the reverential attention, of that vast assem bly nor limner transfer to canvas their earnest, eager, awe- struck countenances. Though language were as subtile and flexible as thought, it still would be impossible to represent the full idea of the scene. There is something intangible in an emotion, which cannot be transferred. The nicer shades of feeling elude pursuit. Every description, therefore, of the oc- casion, seems to the narrator himself most tame, spiritless, unjust. " Much of the instantaneous effect of the speech arose, of course, from the orator's delivery the tones of his voice, his countenance, and manner. These die mostly with the occasion that calls them forth the impression is lost in the attempt at transmission from one mind to another. They can only be de- scribed in general terms. ' Of the effectiveness of Mr. Web- ster's manner, in many parts,' says Mr. Everett, 'it would be in vain to attempt to give any one not present the faintest idea. It has been my fortune to hear some of the ablest speeches of the greatest living ora ors on both sides of the water, but I must confess, I never heard anything which so completely re- alized my conception of what Demosthenes was. when he de- livered the Oration for the Crown.' " The variety of incident during the speech, and the rapid fluctuation of passions, kept the audience in continual expecta- tion and ceaseless agitation. There was no chord of the heart the orator did not strike, as with a master-hand. The speech was a complete drama of comic and pathetic scenes ; one va- ried excitement ; laughter and tears gaining alternate victory. " A great portion of the speech is strictly argumentative ; an exposition of constitutional law. But grave as such portion necessarily is, severely logical, abounding in no fancy or epi- sode, it engrossed throughout the undivided attention of every intelligent hearer. Abstractions, under the glowing genius of MARCH 8 DESCRIPTION CONTINUED. 27-7 the orator, acquired a beauty, a vitality, a power to thrill the blood and enkindle the affections, awakening into earnest activ- ity many a dormant faculty. His ponderous syllables had an energy, a vehemence of meaning in them that fascinated, while they startled. His thoughts in their statuesque beauty merely would have gained all critical judgment ; but he realized tho antique fable, and warmed the marble into life. There was a sense of power in his language of power withheld and sug- gestive of still greater power that subdued, as by a spell of mystery, the hearts of all. For power, whether intellectual or physical, produces in its earnest development a feeling closely allied to awe. It was never more felt than on this occasion. It -had entire mastery. The sex, which is said to love it best arid abuse it most, seemed as much or more carried away than the sterner one. Many who had entered the hall with light, gay thoughts, anticipating at most a pleasurable excitement, sooii became deeply interested in the speaker and his subject surrendered him their entire heart ; and, when the speech was over, and they left the hall, it was with sadder perhaps, but, surely, with far more elevated and ennobling emotions. " The exulting rush of feeling with which he went through the peroration, threw a glow over his countenance, like inspira tion. Eye, brow, each feature, every line of the face, seemed touched, as with a celestial fire. All gazed as at something more than human. So Moses might have appeared to the awe-struck Israelites, as he emerged from the dark clouds and thick smoke of Sinai, his face all radiant v, ith the breath of divinity ! " The swell and roll of his voice struck upon the ears of the spell-bound audience, in deep and melodious cadence, as waves upon the shore of the 'far-resounding' sea. The Miltonic gran deur of his words was the fit expression of his thought, and raised his hearers up to his theme. His voice, exerted to ite utmost power, oenetrated every recess or corner of the senate 278 WEBSTER AND HIS MASTER-PIECES. penetrated even the ante-rooms and stairways, as he pronounced in deepest tones of pathos these words of solemn significance : ' When my eyes shall be turned to behold, for the last time, the sun hi heaven, may I not see him shining on the broken and dishonored fragments of a once glorious Union ; on states dis- severed, 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 hi their original luster, not a stripe erased nor polluted, not a single star obscured, bearing for its motto no such miserable interrog- atory as " What is all this worth 1 ?" Nor those other words of delusion and folly, Liberty first and Union afterwards; but everywhere, spread all over in characters of living light, bla- zing 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 American heart, LIBERTY and UNION, NOW AND FOREVER, ONE AND INSEPARABLE.' " The speech was over, but the tones of the orator still lin- gered upon the ear, and the audience, unconscious of the close, retained their positions. The agitated countenance, the heaving breast, the suffused eye, attested the continued influence of the spell upon them. Hands that in the excitement of the mo- ment had sought each other, still remained closed in an uncon- scious grasp. Eye still turned to eye, to receive and repay mutual sympathy ; and everywhere around seemed forgetful ness of all but the orator's presence and words." The speech, indeed, was over ; but the fame of it will re- main in the world, probably, as long as the English language. It will be read and admired by scores and hundreds of coming generations. It is now universally regarded, in this country and in Europe, as the master-piece of modern eloquence. Neither Pitt, nor Fox, nor Burke, ever surpassed it. It \viil POPULARITY OF THE SPEECH. 279 probably not be surpasssed, if it is ever equaled, on this conti- nent. Ages must pass, if the future is to be judged by what has been, before the man, the occasion, and the provocation will again come together, and make such an effort again possi- ble. It only remains for us, Americans, to remember that we owe the distinction of having produced the proudest and might- iest parliamentary effort since the days of the classic orators, tc a man, an orator, a statesman, an American citizen, who, born in obscurity and raised to this exalted point of power en- tirely under the influence of those republican institutions which he so gloriously defended, accomplished enough to make his country illustrious, and his own name immortal. The immediate popularity of the speech is without a parallel in this country. It called forth the loudest encomi- ums from all the presses, whig and democratic, of the nation, with the exception, of course, of those of South Carolina. It virtually closed the debate, though Mr. Foote's resolution continued be- fore the senate till the 21st of May, when it was indefinitely postponed ; but the controversy, and the doctrine on which it had been based in congress, was not given up by those mem- bers who had started it. It continued to occupy them for the next three years, during which period it was also Mr. Webster's chief care to watch and overturn their movements. In the first days of December, 1832, South Carolina passrd her celebrated ordinance of nullification, which forbade the collection of the revenues of the United States accruing under the tariff of 1828 ; and on the 1 1th of the same month, President Jackson, who had secretly gloried in Mr. Webster's victory over the vice-presi- dent, and that gentleman's faction of the democratic party, sent forth his famous proclamation. The counter proclamation of Mr. Hayne, now governor of his state, immediately succeeded, where- upon, as was calculated by MY. Calhoun, who had resigned the vice-presidency and taken a seat in the senate, President Jacksor. Inid the whole matter before congress in a special message, dated 80 WEBSTER AND HIS MASTER-PIECES. January 16th, 1833 ; and, in five days afterward?, the Force Bill, or a bill "to make further provision for the ccllection of the revenue," was introduced into the senate by Mr. Wilkins, of Pennsylvania. On the 22d, Mr. Calhoun read to the senate, a series of resolutions in opposition to this bill, and afterwards sustained them by a speech, which, continuing through two days (the 15th and 16i*h of February) is generally regarded as the ablest of his published efforts. To this speech, Mr. Webster made an immediate reply, which occupied more than five hours in its delivery, and is looked upon by the best judges as supe- rior, in pure argument, to his more celebrated speech on Foote's resolution, but not so graphic, powerful or popular in style. In his answer to Mr. Hayne, he had a popular orator to meet ; and he had met him, and overwhelmed him, on his own ground, and in his own method. In his answer to Mr. Calhoun, he had to encounter a subtle logician, an acute and metaphysical dialectician ; and him he met, and him he mas- tered and routed from his strong-holds, by a logic more deep, by dialectics equally acute, and by a general strain of argu- ment which his antagonist never answered, nor tried to answer. So far as argument could go, in fact, the controversy here closed. The presses of the country, of both parties, again teemed with their admiration of his patriotism and abilities. With the highest honors of his own party now upon him, h-3 received daily and hourly the eulogiums of the democratic party. The past and the present seemed to conspire to give him their ben- edictions; Ex-President Madison, the champion of the older democracy of the country, and as the representative of that democracy, sent him an autograph letter, thanking him in the warmest terms for his services in overthrowing the South Car- olina faction ; and, stranger still, on the day when he made his closing speech against that faction, the existing president of the United States, who embodied the principles, and sentiments, and will of the ruling democracy of that period, sent him to DISTINGUISHED MARKS OF ESTEEM. 281 the senate-chamber, as if to complete the form and reality of the ovation, in his own carriage. At that moment, in fact, there was no individual in the country, nor a man on this continent, who carried in himself the respect, the influence, the power then possessed and exercised by Daniel Webster. CHAPTER IX. SECOND TERM AS SENATOR FROM MASSACHUSETTS. WHILE following out the public career of a great man, the world is very apt to forget him almost altogether as a pri- vate individual. His household, his home, which to him, with all his labors and honors, constitutes the charmed center of his thoughts, and for the sake of which, as he sees things. are all his exertions, and all the fruits of his exertions, are scarcely recollected. What others look uj>ii with such admi- ration as to blind them to all else in the great man's history, he regards as very trivial, as mere out-door talk, as a shadow of something far more real and infinitely more dear to him, when, his public character laid entirely aside as not to be now cared for, he sits at his own fireside, where the joys of the fam- ily are now his only joys, where its cares are his solicitudes, and where he basks in the soft sunlight, shaded though it occa- sionally be, of domestic love, peace and quietude. This is par- ticularly true in looking into the life of so great a man as Web- ster ; and we are sometimes compelled to turn our eyes back- ward, for a short time, at least, as at this moment, to bring up events, serene or sorrowful, pertaining to the domestic circle. It will be rembered, that, in the year 1808, and in the twen- ty-sixth of his life, Mr. Webster married Grace Fletcher, daughter of the Rev. Mr. Fletcher of Hopkinton, New Hamp- shire; and if it be true, as has been remarked by Tacitus, th.it -i the praise of a valuable wife should alwavs rise in proportion CHARACTER OF HIS WIFE. 283 to the weight of censure that falls on such as dishonor the nup- tial union," the virtues of Grace Fletcher deserve a monument more durable than brass or marble. In addition to her personal beauty, and to the refinement of her well-developed and well- stored mind, she was renowned for the amiableness of her dis- position, the sweetness of her temper, and the overflowing be- nevolence of her heart, from childhood to womanhood, at home and everywhere, from the beginning to the end of her exist- ence. One ruling sentiment, if it were not a passion, was the characteristic of her being after marriage. That was her de- votion to her husband. In every sense of the word, in which it bears a consistent and proper meaning, Mr. Webster was h' r idol. She loved him with the deepest possible affection. She loved him as the husband of her youth, whom she received to her heart, when he himself had nothing better than his own great and good heart to give ; and from the day of their ac- quaintance, particularly from the day of their marriage, his happiness was her daily study, his success was her constant theme, his renown, as he began to have a renown, and to grow in it, was watched, and cherished, and enjoyed next to the favor of God and the smile of heaven. They lived a most peaceful, pure and happy life. Their affection was mutual. Mr. Web- ster, whose sensibilities were uncommonly strong, and whose tenderness was equally sensitive and delicate, as has been seen in his feelings towards his mother, his father and his brother, gave to her his whole being, and joyed in her as the better essence and expression of his own higher life. She was not destined, however, to go with him to the end of his great ca- reer. She did not live, indeed, to see him at the acme of his greatness. That favor, which would have been to her as a sec- ond life, was not given to her. In the year 1827, while ac- companying her husband to Washington, she was taken sud denly ill in the city of New York, and was cut down in the bloom and beauty of her ripe womanhood. She had lived wirh 284 WEBSTER AND UIS MASTER-PIECES. her illustrious partner for nearly twenty years ; she had seen the coming shadow of his great fame ; she had read some of his greatest efforts, his oration at Plymouth, at Bunker Hill, and in Fanueil Hall over the memories of Jefferson and Ad- ams ; she had gone with him till he had become, by universal consent, the first of her country's lawyers and orators ; but she did not see him, by an acknowledgment so entirely unanimous, the first of living statesmen. That highest and last satisfaction she never had ; and her husband never had his last and highest satisfaction of seeing her enjoy the full maturity of his reputa- tion ; nor did the world stop then, as it has never stopped since, to measure the mutual loss in this respect, or the far greater and deeper loss, of another character, suffered by the sorrowing survivor. His sufferings are described as being almost with- out a parallel. When he laid her in her low mansion, it is said that he clung to the spot, and would not, for a long time, be taken from it. While the tears ran down his face in streams, he was speechless, the only syllables he was heard to utter be- ing a word or two of pathetic eulogy on the character of the loved and lost: My true and honorable wife, As dear to me as are the ruddy drops That visit my sad heart ! " Never was a truer or more heart-felt eulogy spoken by the lips of spontaneous and unflattering grief. He felt every word of what he said ; and every syllable, with all that each could be made to mean, was seen to have a growing meaning in it, as the mourner passed away from the grave, and mixed again in the world's great strife. From that day, alas ! the faithful historian is compelled to say, he was never entirely the same man he had been before. The bright star of his life had set. The soul that had attracted, guided, governed him, as a secret and unseen influence will often SECOND MARRIAGE. 285 give direction tc bodies of the greatest, magnitude, governed, guided, attracted him no more. Though, to the last hour of his existence, he continued to look back to her, as the cynosure of all that was brightest in his recollection and experience, whom he ever mentioned, with a voice tremulous with affection, as the "mother of his children," it is quite certain, that the world never appeared wholly inviting to him from the hour of their separation ; and perhaps it is equally certain, though the fact is almost too mournful to be made historical, that everything in the great life of this remarkably great man, such as there is some- thing of in every mortal's life, which would not stand the scru- tiny of a death-bed, or pass the ordeal of heaven were God un- feeling and unforgiving, may be referred to this bereavement, and to the struggles of a broken heart to dispel or drown the memory of its grief. Remaining single for about three years, Mr. Webster was married, in 1830, to Miss Caroline Le Roy, daughter of Her- man Le Roy, of the city of New York, a lady of great personal attractions, of a superior mind and culture, who, in every way, was worthy of the greatest of Americans, and who now sur- vives him. She lived to appreciate, to comfort, and to bless him. Returning to the public life of the great statesman, it will be at once plain, that the favor bestowed upon him by President .l:u;kson, unless Mr. Webster should choose to change his whole character and nature, could not be of long continuance. The ruling trait of the president was his resolution. His power of will was exceedingly great ; but it was not greater, though less disciplined, than that of Mr. Webster. The president's will was always the work of impulse under the guidance of some- thing like intuition. The will of Mr. Webster, in all its move- ments, was directed by deep study, extensive research, and the most careful deliberation. When his mind was once made up, however, there was no 'power on earth strong enough to bend 286 WEBSTER AND HIS MASTER-PIECES. it. His principles, too, had been fixed for years ; and, thougp he now chanced to take a part, which his patriotism compelled him to take, but which happened to be the part taken also by the president under a patriotism equally sincere, he had by nc means given up the doctrines of his whole life, and adopted the political system of the administration. Nor was it possible, by any flattering attentions, or by any promises from any quarter, to cause him to swerve at all from the line of duty which he had marked out for himself as a statesman. Not only were his political opponents, with either threats or blandishments, always and entirely unable to move him from his purposes ; but even his friends, his own party, so far as he ever had a party, were ever too weak in their influence over him to wield his mighty will, or cause him to falter for a moment in his in- dependence. This trait of his character was particularly manifest soon after the remarkable political events which have been last recorded. President Jackson had shown himself very friendly to Mr. Webster ; but when, in consequence of the discord of the ad- ministration party, and the dissensions of the existing cabinet, Mr. Van Buren resigned the chair of secretary of state, and was nominated to the senate as minister to England, Mr. Web- ster had been foremost in that majority which rejected the nom- ination ; and in the same year, 1832, he had advocated the passage of the bill introduced by Mr. Dallas, for the establish- ment of a United States Bank. The views which governed him in respect to these two great measures are expressed with all plainness and clearness by him- self. Speaking of the nomination of Mr. Van Bureu, and defend- ing himself from the suspicion of acting on party grounds, he comprehends the whole subject in a very small compass : " I am now fully aware, sir," says he, "that it is a very serious matter to vote against the confirmation of a minister to a foreign court. who has already gone abroad, and has been received and ac REJECTION OF VAN BUREN. 287 credited by the government to which he is sent. I am aware that the rejection of this nomination, and the necessary recall of the minister, will be regarded by foreign states, at the first blush, as not in the highest degree favorable to the character of our government. 1 know, moreover, to what injurious re- flections one may subject himself, especially in times of party excitement, by giving a negative vote on such a nomination. But, after all, I am placed here to discharge a duty. I am not to go through a formality. I am to perform a substantial and responsible duly. I am to advise the president in matters of appointment. This is my constitutional obligation ; and I shall perform it conscientiously and fearlessly. I am bound to say, then, sir, that, for one, I do not advise nor consent to this nom- ination. I do not think it a fit or proper nomination ; and my reasons are found in the letter of instructions, written by Mr. Van Buren, on the 20th of July, 1829, to Mr. McLane, then going to the court of England as American minister. I think these instructions derogatory, in a high degree, to the character and honor of the country. I think they show a manifest dis- position in the writer of them to establish a distinction between his country and his party ; to place that party above his coun- try ; to make interest at a foreign court for that party rather than for the country ; to persuade the English ministry, and the English monarch, that they have an interest in maintaining in the United States the ascendency of the party to which the writer belongs. Thinking thus of the purpose and object of these instructions, I cannot be of opinion that their author is a proper representative of the United States at that court. There- fore it is, that I propose to vote against his nomination. It is the first time, I believe, in modern diplomacy, it is certainly the first time in our history, in which a minister to a foreign court has sought to make favor for one party at home against another, or has stooped from being the representative of the whole country to be the representative of a party. And as 288 WEBSTER AND HIS MASTER-PIECES. this is the first instance in our history of any such transacting so I intend to do all in my power to make it the last. For one. I set my mark of disapprobation upon it ; I contribute my voice and my vote to make it a negative example, to be shunned and avoided by all future ministers of the United States. If, in a deliberate and formal letter of instructions, admonitions and directions are given to a minister, and repeated, once and again, to urge these mere party considerations on the foreign government, to what extent is it probable the writer himself will be disposed to urge them, in his thousand opportunities of informal intercourse with the agents of that government ? " In his remarks on Mr. Dallas' bill for renewing the charter of the bank of the United States, delivered on the 25th of May, 1832, he took occasion not only to state his reasons for sup- porting the measure, but also to give a key to all his votes in relation to the general subject ; and his argumenta ad homi- nem, directed against Mr. Calhoun, which constitute at the same time his own defense, may be regarded as one of the most ingenious and conclusive passages that ever issued from his lips : " A considerable portion of the active part of life has elapsed," says the orator, " since you and I, Mr. President " Calhoun was president of the senate "and three or four other gentlemen, now in the senate, acted our respective parts in the passage of the bill creating the present bank of the United States. We have lived to little purpose, as public men, if the experi- ence of this period has not enlightened our judgments, and en- abled us to revise our opinions, and to correct any errors into which we may have fallen, if such errors there were, either in regard to the general utility of a national bank, or the details of it* constitution. I trust it will not be unbecoming the occa- sion, if I allude to your own important agency in the transac- tion. The bill incorporating the bank, and giving it a constitu- tion, proceeded from a committee in the house of representa- tives, of which you were chairman, and was conducted through UNITE!* STATES BAXK. 289 the house under your distinguished lead. Having recently looked back to the proceedings of that day, I must be permit ted to say, that I have perused the speech by which the sub- ject was introduced to the consideration of the house, with a revival of the feeling of approbation and pleasure with which I heard it ; and I will add, that it would not, perhaps, now be easy to find a better brief synopsis than that speech contains, of those principles of currency and of banking, which, since they spring from the nature of money and commerce, must be es- sentially the same at all times, in all commercial communities. The other gentlemen now with us in the senate, all of them, I believe, concurred with the chairman of the committee, and voted for the bill. My own vote was against it. This is a matter of little importance ; but it is connected with other cir cumstances, to which I will for a moment advert. The gentle men with whom I acted on that occasion had no doubts of the constitutional power of congress to establish a national bank ; nor had we any doubts of the general utility of an institution of that kind. We had, indeed, most of us, voted for a bank, at a preceding session. But the object of our regard was not whatever might be called a bank. We required that it should be established on certain principles, which alone we deemed safe and useful, made subject to certain fixed liabilities, and so guarded, that it could neither move voluntarily, nor be moved by others, out of its proper sphere of action. The bill, when first introduced, contained features to which we should never have assented, and we accordingly set ourselves to work, with a good deal of zeal, in order to effect sundry amendments. In some of these proposed amendments, the chairman, and those who acted with him, finally concurred. Others they opposed. The result was, that several most important amendments, as I thought, prevailed. But there still remained, in my opinion, objections to the bill, which justified a persevering oppositiot, till they should be removed." 200 WEBSTER AND HIS MASTER-PIECES. The defense was certainly complete. The very bank, which the Jackson and Calhoun party were now doing their utmost to destroy, was their own offspring, the child of their own impor- tunity. They now maintained that any national bank would be unconstitutional ; but Mr. Calhoun, in the speech here praised by Mr. Webster, had defended the constitutionality of national banks with all his eloquence and logic. Neither Mr. Calhoun, nor the Jackson party, was in a position to be very grateful for the reminiscences or the eulogiums of Mr. Webster. The truth is, however, that the president had really enter- tained the dream of making something like a convert of Mr. Webster. He had never failed to treat him with the highest consideration. His attentions to him personally had been marked as decidedly more than civil. His consciousness of great power in molding other minds to his; his great success in th<* work during all his life ; and his knowledge of the fact, that Mr. Webster had never been a violent partisan, had fur- nished him with some faint hopes. But he scarcely compre- hended his undertaking. He did not see, that Mr. Webster's feebleness of attachment to party organizations arose from a consciousness of personal power not -to be overmatched by that of General Jackson. He did not see, that the very weakness, socially considered, was only a phase of an unconquerable in- dependence, or self-dependence, of character, which not even the military president could bend. The discussion of the bank bill of Mr. Dallas, however, had not discouraged General Jack- son. It had passed both houses of congress by strong majori- ties only to meet the presidential veto ; and Mr. Webster had taken up that veto, item by item, showing its fallacies, its in- consistencies, its shallowness of argument, with a masterly and unsparing hand ; but the president did not see, in all this, that there was no possibility of winning over a man, who, though ne had differed from himself at different times, thereby gave 10 proof of levity, but only that he dared to differ frcni any VISIT TO THE WEST. 291 one, from his party, from his own past opinions, if need be, in support of"his most deliberate and mature judgment. The mistake, however, was not that of General Jackson only, but of many of his party, and of not a few of those, who had acted with Mr. Webster. Some of the less-informed newspa- pers of that day, on both sides, occasionally threw out signifi- cant hints upon the subject ; and there seemed to be a sort of doubt growing up, among men ignorant of his true character, as to his future position as a politician. Never was a doubt more shallow, or more ungenerous. All the time, in all his course, Mr. Webster had been as true as the star to his princi- ples and to himself; and, though he was observant of every pulsation of the people in relation to the matter, he was in no hurry to take notice of it. During the recess of congress, in the summer of 1833, he had occasion to go west as far as the state of Ohio ; and while stopping a few days at Pittsburg, on his return homeward, he made an address to a large gathering of his fellow-citizens, at their urgent solicitation, in the course of which he dropped a tew explanatory words not to be mistaken by those prepared to understand him : " It is but a few short months," he says, " since dark and portentous clouds did hang over our heavens, and did shut out, as it were, the sun in his glory. A new and perilous crisis was upon us. Dangers, novel in their character, and fearful in their aspect, menaced both the peace of the couu- try and the integrity of the constitution. For forty years our government had gone on, I need hardly say prosperously and gloriously, meeting, it is true, with occasional dissatiikction, and, in one or two instances, with ill-concerted resistance to law. Through all these trials it had successfully passed. But now a time had come when authority of law was opposed by author- ity of law, when the power of the general government was re- sisted by the arms of state government, and when organized military force, under all the sanctions of state conventions and VOA. i. M 19 292 WEBSTER AND HIS MASTER-PIECES. state laws, was ready to resist the collection of the public rev- enues, and hurl defiance at the statutes of congress. " Gentlemen, this was an alarming moment. In common with all good citizens, I felt it to be such. A general anxiety pervaded the breasts of all who were, at home, partaking in the prosperity, honor, and. happiness which the country had en joyed. And how was it abroad 1 Why, gentlemen, every intelligent friend of human liberty, throughout the world, looked with amazement at the spectacle which we exhibited. In a day of unparalleled prosperity, after a half century's most happy experience of the blessings of our Union ; when we had already become the wonder of all the liberal part of the world, and the envy of the illiberal ; when the constitution had so am- ply falsified the predictions of its enemies, and more than ful- filled all the hopes of its friends ; in a time of peace, with an overflowing treasury ; when both the population and the im- provement of the country had outrun the most sanguine antici- pations it was at this moment that we showed ourselves, to the whole civilized world, as being apparently on the eve of disunion and anarchy, at the very point of dissolving, once and forever, that union which had made us so prosperous and so great. It was at this moment that those appeared among us, who seemed ready to break up the national constitution, and to scatter the twenty-four states into twenty-four unconnected communities. " Gentlemen, the president of the United States was, as it seemed to me, at this eventful crisis, true to his duty. He comprehended and understood the case, and met it as it was proper to meet it. While I am as willing as others to admit that the president has, on other occasions, rendered important services to the country, and especially on that occasion which has given him so much military renown, I yet think the ability and decision with which he rejected the disorganizing doctrines of nullification, create a claim, than which he has none higher. SFEECH AT PITTSBURGH. '203 to the gratitude of the country and the respect of posterity. The appearance of the proclamation of the 10th of December inspired me, I confess, with new hopes for the duration of the republic. I regarded it as just, patriotic, able, and imperiously demanded by the condition of the country. I would not be understood to speak of particular clauses and phrases in the proclamation ; but I regard its great and leading doctrines as the true and only true doctrines of the constitution. They con stitute the sole ground on which dismemberment can be resisted. Nothing else, in my opinion, can hold us together. While these opinions are maintained, the Union will last ; when they shall be generally rejected and abandoned, that Union will be at the mercy of a temporary majority in any one of the states. " I speak, gentlemen, on this subject, without reserve. I have not intended heretofore, and elsewhere, and do not now intend, here, to stint my commendation of the conduct of the president in regard to the proclamation and the subsequent measures. I have differed with the president, as all know, who know anything of so humble an individual as myself, on many questions of great general interest and importance. I differ with him in respect to the constitutional power of internal im- provements ; I differ with him in respect to the rechartering of the bank ; and I dissent, especially, from the grounds and rea- sons on which he refused his assent to the bill passed by con- gress for that purpose. I differ with him also, probably, in the degree of protection which ought to be afforded to our agricul- ture and manufactures, and in the manner in which it may be proper to dispose of the public lands. But all these di(K TVII- ces afforded, in my judgment, not the slightest reason for oppo- sing him in a measure of paramount importance, and at a mo- ment of great public exigency. I sought to take counsel of nothing but patriotism, to feel no impulse but that of duty, and to yield not a lame and hesitating, but a vigorous and cordial, Bupport to measures, which, in my conscience, I believed essen- ^94 WEBSTER AND III& MASTER-PIECES. tial to the preservation of the constitution. It is true, doubt less, that if myself and others had surrendered ourselves to a spirit of opposition, we might have embarrassed, and probably defeated the measures of the administration. But in so doing, we should, in my opinion, have been false to our own charac- ters, false to our duty, and false to our country. It gives me the highest satisfaction to know, that, in regard to this subject, the general voice of the country does not disapprove my con- duct." It is true in history, as it is in common life, that a man of note is apt to receive his greatest measure of reproach in the midst of his greatest triumphs, as if Providence intended that the one should so counterbalance the other as to keep him from vanity, while the common individual, who does nothing to merit fame, does as little to provoke opposition, and so passes along through his existence easily and smoothly. This general truth was exemplified, in another respect, in the his- tory of Mr. Webster. Besides being accused, even by his friends, of having leaned too much to the support of General Jackson, he was also denounced, at this time, as a consolida- tionist, who wished that the general government should swal- low up the powers of the states. The shallowness and wick- edness of this charge he laid open in the address at Pittsburgh : " I am quite aware, gentlemen, that it is easy for those who oppose measures deemed necessary for the execution of the laws, to raise the cry of consolidation. It is easy to make charges and bring general accusations. It is easy to call names. For one, I repel all such imputations. I am no consolidation- ist. I disclaim the character altogether, and, instead of repeat- ing this general and vague charge, I will be obliged to any one to show how the proclamation, or the late law of congress, or, Indeed, any measure to which I ever gave my support, tends, in the slightestest degree, to consolidation. By consolidation is understood a grasping at power, on behalf of the general NOT A CON6OLIDATIONIST. 295 government, not constitutionally conferred. But the proclama- tion asserted no new power. It only asserted the right in the government, to carry into effect, in the form of law, power which it had exercised for forty years. I should oppose any grasping at new powers by congress, as zealously as the most zealous. I wish to preserve the constitution as it is, without addition, and without diminution, by one jot or tittle. For the same reason that I would not grasp at powers not given, I would not surrender, nor abandon, powers which are given. Those who have placed me in a public station, placed me there, not to alter the constitution, but to administer it. The power of change the people have retained to themselves. They can alter, they can modify, they can change the constitution entirely, if they see fit. They can tread it under foot, and make an- other, or make no other ; but while it remains unaltered by the authority of the people, it is our power of attorney, our letter of credit, our credentials ; and we are to follow it. and obey its injunctions, and maintain its just powers, to the best of our abilities. 1 repeat that, for one, I seek to preserve to the constitution those precise powers with which the people have clothed it. While no encroachment is to be made on the re- served rights of the people, or of the states, while nothing is to be usurped, it is equally clear that we are not at liberty to sur- render, either in fact or form, any power or principle which the constitution does actually contain. And what is the ground for this cry of consolidation 1 ? I maintain that the measures recommended by the president, and adopted by congress, were measures of self-defense. Is it consolidation to" execute laws ? Is it consolidation to resist the force that is threatening to upturn our government ? Is it consolidation to protect officers, in the discharge of their duty, from courts and juries previously sworn to decide against them ? Gentle- men, I take occasion to remark, that, after much reflection upon the subject, and after all that has been said about the encroach 296 WEBSTER AND HIS MASTER-PIECES. ment of the general government upon the rights of the states 1 know of no one power, exercised by the general govern merit, which was not, when that instrument was adopted, ad mitted by the immediate friends and foes of the constitution to have been conferred upon it by the people. I know of no one power, now claimed or exercised, which every body did not agree, in 1789, was conferred on the general government. On the contrary, there are several powers, and those, too, among the most important for the interests of the people, which were then universally allowed to be conferred on congress by the constitution of the United States, and which are now ingeni- ously doubted, or clamorously denied." It cannot be denied that the forcible suppression of nullifi- cation had chafed the people of more states south than those of South Carolina. Though no other state had proposed resist- ance, the tariff of 1828 was decidedly unpopular in most of the slave states. To save the honor of South Carolina, which, discouraged with the business of resistance, and yet far from yielding a voluntary obedience to the laws, wished for some pretext for a return to its fealty, Mr. Clay, a southern man by birth and education, but an American of the broadest sympa- thies at heart, proposed a reduction of the complicated tariff system of 1828, to a general level of twenty per cent, duties on all imports of every kind whatever. No one could com- plain of this proposal, that it was not simple enough ; but, by rejecting all discrimination, it warred upon many interests of the country, while it over-fostered others, which needed and demanded no help from government. It was a mere blind way of collecting the revenue, without encouraging any na- tional interest whatever, and without respect to the bearing of a tariff on the morals of the people. Spirituous liquors, cards, dice, and every evil thing, could come into the country as freely as books and bibles. The silks and satins of the rich were to pay no more duty than the best hemp in the JACKSON'S TOUK TO THE EAST. 297 world, without which our shipping would suffer damage, or the expensive and delicate implements of mechanism, which had not been produced among us, and without which some branches of industry would be compelled to close their operations. We should be left with no power to favor the productions of a country, which favored us, nor to punish a nation which might take every opportunity to injure our domestic and foreign business. Such a tariff was particularly offensive to New Eng- land, and to the middle states, which depended for the success of their manufactures on some sort of discrimination. A dead-level tariff, they believed, would be their ruin ; and so they looked to Mr. Webster, who did not care much to give South Carolina an opportunity of evading the embarrassment and dishonor of her position, before she had had time to real- ize and feel the force of it, to stand up in defense of the true manufacturing interests of his country. Mr. Webster did not disappoint this reliance. His efforts in opposition to Mr. Clay were among the most masterly speeches of the session. While Mr. Webster was on a second visit of business to some of the middle states of the west, the president of the United States was making a sort of triumphal progress through New England, where he was overwhelmed with eulogies and honors from a people who felt grateful for his efforts in sustaining the Union and the constitution. No sooner, however, had he re- turned to Washington, than he began to open a war upon the bank of the United States, an institution universally respected by the very people whose hospitalities he had just enjoyed ; and from the opening of congress to the close of his second term, now just begun, he carried on hostilities against the cur rency of the country, which terminated in the financial crash of the succeeding administration. His first step, the rashest he could have taken, was the, removal of all the moneys of the government from the vaults of the general bank, and the da positing of them ; n certain state banks for safe keeping. That 208 WEBSTER AND HIS MASTER-PIECES. is, merely because he had the power, without due notice, ho demanded immediate payment to the government of' the whole sum due it from the bank, that he might, if possible, bring about the failure of an institution, which, to that day, had not only always met its liabilities punctually, but frequently aided the government in its necessities. It was not only a rash but a most disastrous step. It was a step felt to the extremities of the country ; for the general bank, on so sudden a demand, had no resource but to collect, with equal suddenness, all its demands on the smaller banks, which, in turn, were compelled to be equally abrupt and stringent with their own customers. In this way, the shock given by the president traveled down, from bank to bank, and from the smaller banks to the people, who at once felt the pressure through every ramification of so- ciety. Its severity fell mostly, as in every similar crisis, upon the poorer classes. When this comprehensive and sudden de- mand, which created all these multiplied minor demands, had reached at last the thresholds of the common trader, mechanic and manufacturer, most of them found it difficult, many of them impossible, to meet the unexpected call on so short a no- tice. General compliance was a thing not to be expected ; while one failure, as in every business concatenation, when more money is demanded than had been provided for, multiplied itself continuously, till the whole country reached the brink of universal repudiation. So reckless, impolitic and portentous had this step appeared to many of the personal and political friends of General Jack- son, and to a portion of his cabinet, that, after the order had been given by the president for the removal of the deposits, two removals from the office of secretary of the treasury had to be effected, before the order could find a man sufficiently servile to give it execution : " The charter of the bank of the United Suites," says Mr. Webster, " provided that the public moneys should be deposited in the bank, subject to REMOVAL OF THE DEPOSITS. 299 removal by the secretary of the treasury, on grounds to be submitted to congress. In the session of 1832. congivss had passed a resolution, by a very large majority, that the public deposits were safe in the custody of the bank of the United States. General Jackson, having applied his veto to the bill for renewing the charter of the bank, was determined, not- withstanding this expression of confidence, that the public de- posits should be transferred to an association of selected state banks. The secretary of the treasury (Mr. M'Lane), having declined to order the transfer, was appointed secretary of state, in the expectation that his successor (Mr. Duane) would exe- cute the president's will in that respect. On the 10th of Sep- tember, 1833. an elaborate paper was read by GeneralJackson to the cabinet, announcing his reasons for the removal of the deposits, and appointing the 1st of October, as the day when it should take place. On the 21st of September, Mr. Duane made known to the president his intention not to order the re- moval. He was dismissed from office and Mr. Taney, the present chief justice, appointed in his place, by whom the re- quisite order for the removal of the public moneys to the state banks, was immediately given." The battle of the bank was now fairly opened ; and the president soon had sufficient occasion to learn whether Mr. Webster was a man to be bought up by the smiles of patron- izing power. From the first, Mr. Webster set his i'ace against this piece of political injustice, and was the acknowledged cham- pion of the established policy and practice of the government. At the beginning of the struggle, he bore decided testimony in relation to the extent of the disaster which the new policy had rven then produced : " I agree with those," he said, " who think that there is a severe pressure in die money market, and very- serious embarrassment felt in all branches of the national in- dustry. 1 think this is not local, but general; general, at least, over every oart of the country where the cause has yet VOL. i. M* WEBSTER AND HIS MASTER-PIECES. begun to operate, and sure to become, not only general, but universal, as the operation of the cause shall spread. If evi- dence be wanted, in addition to all that is told us by thosf who know, the high rate of interest, now at twelve per cent.. JY higher, where it was hardly six last September, the depres- sion Of all stocks, some ten, some twenty, some thirty per cent., and the low prices of commodities, are proofs abundantly sufficient to show the existence of the pressure. But, sir, labor, that most extensive of all interests, American manual labor, feels, or will feel, the shock more sensibly, far more sensibly, than capital, or property of any kind. Public works have stopped, or must stop ; great private undertakings, employing many hands, have ceased, and others must cease. A great lowering of the rates of wages, as well as a depreciation of property, is the inevitable consequence of causes now in full operation." Next, he went on to show, that, in this war waged by the executive against the fiscal agent of the government, there was no recourse but to congress, which was bound to in- terfere, and maintain the currency and credit of the country. As a foundation for his first speech on the removal of the deposits, Mr. Webster had read a series of resolutions passed by a meeting of Boston merchants and mechanics. On the 30th day of January, Mr. Wright, of New York, also read to the senate several resolutions passed by the legislature of New York, approving the removal of the deposits, and disapproving of any bank of the United States. In the course of the speech supporting these resolutions, Mr. Wright distinctly announced that he was opposed to the rechartering of the bank, and to the creation of any other ; that the bank had grossly violated its charter ; that, however, he had deeper and graver reasons tor his opposition ; that the distress of the community, in financial matters, was the fault of the bank, and not of the removal of the deposits ; that he would sustain the president, by every means in his pcwer. in his effort to substitute the agency of DEBATES ON THE SUBJECT. 301 the state banks ft r the bank of the United States, as the fiscal agent of the government. In reply to these resolutions, and to the remarks of Mr. Wright, Mr. Webster delivered his second speech, near the opening of which he presents a fine picture of the senate in its debates on the subject, and gives an account of public opinion upon it at that time : " But the gentleman has discovered, or he thinks he has discovered, motives for the complaints which arise on all sides. It is all but an attempt to bring the admin- istration into disfavor. This alone is the reason why the re- moval of the deposits is so strongly censured ! Sir, the gen- tleman is mistaken. He does not, at least I think he does not, rightly understand the signs of the times. The cause of the complaint is much deeper and stronger than any mere desire to produce political effect. The gentleman must be aware, that, notwithstanding the great vote by which the New York resolutions were carried, and the support given by other pro- ceedings to the removal of the deposits, there are many as ar- dent friends of the president as are to be found anywhere, who exceedingly regret and deplore the measure. Sir, on this floor there has been going on for many weeks as interesting a de- bate as has been witnessed for twenty years ; and yet I have not heard, among all who have supported the administration, a single senator say that he approved the removal of the depos- its, or was glad it had taken place, until the gentleman from New York spoke. I saw the gentleman from Georgia ap- proach that point ; but he shunned direct contact. He com- plained much of the bank ; he insisted, too, on the power of removal ; but I did not hear him say he thought it a wise act. The gentleman from Virginia, not now in his seat, also de fended the power, and has arraigned the bank ; but has he said that he approved the measure of removal ? I have not met with twenty individuals, in or out of congress, who have ex pressed an approval of it, among the many hundreds whosa 302 WEBSTER AND HIS MASTER -PIECES. opinions' I have heard not twenty, who have maintained that it was a wise proceeding ; but I have heard individuals of am- ple fortune, although they wholly disapproved the measure, de- clare, nevertheless, that, since it was adopted, they would sac- rifice all they possessed rather than not support it. Such is the warmth of party zeal ! " The object of this speech was to show the necessity of a national bank for the safe keeping of the public moneys ; the necessity of restoring the deposits to the national bank ; and the disasters which would follow a per- sistence in the course of opposition now set down as the estab- lished policy of the administration. Mr. Tallmadge, of New York, replied to Mr. Webster, de- nying, in the most emphatic manner, the constitutionality of the bank of the United States, but maintaining the right of the secretary of the treasury to use the state banks as the fiscal agent of the government; and Mr. Webster, at the opening of the session of the next day, spoke briefly in answer to both of the New York senators. He argued that the power to use a bank, granted by Mr. Tallmadge, implied the power to cre- ate one ; that, if one act was constitutional, the other must be also ; and that the constitutional power of congress was no longer a debatable question, as it had been debated and deter- mined too frequently to need any farther argument: "I do not intend now, Mr. President," he says, " to go into a regu- lar and formal argument to prove the constitutional power of congress to establish a national bank. That question has been argued a hundred times, and always settled the same way. The whole history of the country, for almost forty years, proves that such a power has been believed to exist. All previous congresses, or nearly all, have admitted or sanctioned it ; the judicial tribunals, federal and state, have sanctioned it. The supreme court of the United States has declared the constitu- tionality of the present bank, after the most solemn argument, without a dissenting voice on the bench. Every successiv* CONTINUATION OF THE DEBATE. 303 president has, tacitly or expressly, admitted the power. The present president has done this ; he has informed congress that he could furnish the plan of a bank, which should conform to the constitution. In objecting to the recharter of the present bank, he objected for particular reasons ; and he has said that a bank of the United States would be useful and convenient for the people." Though disclaiming all intention of arguing the subject, it would not be easy, so far as authority goes, to construct a more perfect argument ; and there are passages in this speech of such power of logic and force of expression as Mr. Webster himself seldom surpassed. The great struggle, however, was not closed. On the 21st d ty of February, Mr. Forsyth, of Georgia, read to the senate a memorial from Maine, and accompanied the reading with a speech, in which he declared that the plan of the administra- tion was, to return to an exclusive specie currency, first, by employing the state banks instead of the general bank, and sec- ondly, by dispensing at last with the state banks themselves. Mr. Webster replied to Mr. Forsyth in a strain of invective, sarcasm, ridicule and argument, sound and irresistible argu- ment, enough to overwhelm a much abler antagonist ; but Mr. Forsyth stood up and attempted a reply. This again called out Mr. Webster. On Friday, March the 7th, in presenting a memorial from the building mechanics of the city and county of Philadelphia ; on Tuesday, March 18th, on presenting an- other memorial from citizens of Boston ; on Friday, March 28th, on offering another from citizens of Albany ; and on Tuesday, April 25th, on reading a fourth from three thousand citizens of Ontario county, New York, he spoke briefly, in ex- planation of his own views and of the outraged feelings of the whole country. lie spoke again on the 20th of May, on pre- senting to the senate a memorial from the citizens of Columbia, Lancaster county, Pennsylvania, and again on the 3d of June, on the reading, by Mr. McKean, of the memorial of the Penn 304 WEBSTER AND HIS MASTER-PIECES. sylvania state convention ; but the longest and ablest of all his productions, at this time, on the subject of the currency, was his report from the committee on finance, of which he was chairman, read on the 5th of February of this year. It is a document worthy of the frequent perusal of every statesman ; and we have no statesman who would not enlighten himself by pondering deeply on the positions and arguments so care- fully drawn up and forcibly expressed. His next effort in relation to the currency, which, during the second term of General Jackson's administration, was the ab- sorbing topic in the senate, and in the house, was his speech, delivered on the 18th of March, on the presentation of his own bill for continuing the charter of the United States bank for six years after the expiration of its existing charter ; and this was followed, on the 7th of May, by a speech in reply to the presi- dent, who had sent to the senate, on the 15th of April, a vio- lent and somewhat angry protest against the proceedings of the senate in reference to the removal of the deposits. This latter speech was regarded, at the time of its delivery, by the best judges, as the ablest that Mr. Webster had ever made since his reply to Hayne. " You never," said Chancellor Kent, in a letter of approbation to the orator, "you never equaled this effort. It surpasses everything in logic, in simplicity, and beauty, and energy of diction, in clearness, in rebuke, in sar- casm, in patriotic and glowing feeling, in just and profound con- stitutional views, in critical severity, and matchless strength. It is worth millions to our liberties." And Governor Tazewell, in a letter to Mr. Tyler, employs equally emphatic language : "Tel! Webster from me," he says, "that I have read his speech in the National Intelligencer with more pleasure than any I have lately seen. If the approbation of one, who has not been used to coincide with him in opinion, can be grateful to him, he has mine in exlenso. I agree with him perfectly, and thank luro cordially for his many excellent illustrations of what I al SUCCESS OF HIS SPEKCHES. 305 ways thought If it is published in a pamphlet form, beg him to send rne oiie. I will have it bound in good Russia leather, and leave it as a special legacy to rny children." The first raptures of admiration may have done injustice to other speeches of Mr. Webster ; but it cannot be doubted that this is one of the master-pieces of that great statesman. As in his reply to liayne, he was thoroughly roused. The interference of the president with the clear prerogatives of the senate was so glar- ing a breach of privilege, that it stirred his indignation to the bottom ; and he spoke with an earnestness, a sincerity, a sin- gleness and power of purpose, whose meaning could not be mistaken. Not only was the whole speech remarkably able, but there are passages in it, which even he never equaled. Guarding himself, near the beginning of his speech, against the objection, that there was no occasion for so much feeling, that it was only the assertion of a principle, not any overt act, on the part of the president, which had given occasion to the de- bate, he strikes out into one of his boldest strains of rhetoric, and closes with a figure, which, probably, has no superior in the English language : "The senate regarded this interposition," said the orator, " as an encroachment by the executive on other branches of the government ; as an interference with the legis- lative disposition of the public treasure. It was strongly and forcibly urged, yesterday, by the honorable member from South Carolina, that the true and only mode of preserving any balance of power, in mixed governments, is to keep an exact balance. This is very true ; and to this end encroachment must be resisted at the first step. The question is, therefore, whether, upon the true principles of the constitution, this exer- cise of power by the president can be justified. Whether the consequences be prejudicial or not, if there be an illegal exer- cise of power, it is to be resisted in the proper manner. Even if no harm or inconvenience result from transgressing the bound- ary, the intrusion is not to be suffered to p;iss unnoticed. 300 WEBSTER AND HIS MASTER-PIECES. Every encroachment, great or small, is important enough to awaken the attention of those, who are intrusted with the pre- servation of a constitutional government. We are not to wait till great public mischiefs come, till the government is over- thrown, or liberty itself put into extreme jeopardy. We should not be worthy sons of our fathers were we so to regard great questions affecting the general freedom. Those fathers accomplished the revolution on a strict question of principle. The parliament of Great Britain asserted a right to tax the col- onies in all cases whatsoever ; and it was precisely on this ques- tion that they made the revolution turn. The amount of taxa- tion was trifling, but the claim itself was inconsistent with lib- erty ; and that was, in their eyes, enough. It was against the recital of an act of parliament, rather than against any suffering under its enactments, that they took up arms. They went to war against a preamble. They fought seven years against a declaration. They poured out their treasures and their blood like water, in a contest against an assertion, which those less sagacious and not so well schooled in the principles of civil lib- erty would have regarded as barren phraseology, or mere pa- rade of words. They saw in the claim of the British parlia- ment a seminal principle of mischief, the germ of unjust power ; they detected it, dragged it forth from underneath its plausible disguises, struck at it ; nor did it elude either their steady eye or their well-directed blow till they had extirpated and de- stroyed it, to the smallest fibre. On this question of principle, while actual suffering was yet afar off, they raised their flag against a power, to which, for purposes of foreign conquest and subjugation, Rome, in the height of her glory, is not to be com- pared ; a power which has dotted over the surface of the whole globe with her possessions and military posts, whose morning drum-beat, following the sun, and keeping company with the hours, circles the earth with one contiguous and unbroken strain of the martial airs of England." CLOSE OF JACKSON'S ADMINISTRATION. 307 The ad ministration of General Jackson was now rapidly coming to a close. The great battle of the currency was now fought. The results of the financial policy of the administra- tion were now universally felt and acknowledged to be evil and only evil. The country stood on the borders of universal bank- ruptcy. The general election was approaching, when Jackson's successor was to be chosen ; and, in the twenty -fourth congress, while the country was preparing for the presidential campaign, there was but little left for Mr. Webster. He had done his duty. Pie hud done it nobly and hi a most masterly manner. He now felt that he could leave the result of his own labors with the people ; though he undoubtedly believed that Jackson's suc- cessor would be the man whom the president had adopted for this high honor. Three facts, hi spite of all the gigantic efforts of Mr. Webster, and of those who acted with him, were enough to give the election to Mr. Van Buren. In the first place, he carried with him the marked arid special approbation of the reti- ring president, who, notwithstanding the disastrous nature and results of his experiments as a civilian, was all the more popu- lar with the vociferous and headlong, all over the country, of his party. In the second place, the people had been made to believe, to a remarkable extent, that the now general and ac- knowledged distress of the country was owing, not to the blun- ders and recklessness of the executive, but to the efforts of the expiring bank of the United States, which wished to throw dis- credit, by way of revenge, upon the president for his opposi- tion to the renewal of its charter. Lastly, the rejection of Mr. Van Buren, as minister to England, when he was already there, was regarded as political persecution of a most extraordinary character ; and not only the party, but thousands of moderate men who vote according to their current views at the time of an election, looked upon Mr. Van Buren as a sort of martyr. Mr. Van Buren, therefore, was chosen to succeeed General Jackson. VOL. i, 20 308 WEBSTER AND HIS MASTER-PIECES. During the remainder of General Jackson's term, howtvc-r, Mr. Webster continued to be the leader of the opposition in the senate, though Mr. Clay must be confessed as equally popular, and perhaps equally deserving, before the country. There was no longer any occasion for great efforts on the subject of the currency. Some other topics, not without their interest, claimed the attention of Mr. Webster. On the 12th of Janu- ary, 1835, he delivered an elaborate speech on the bill granting indemnity to citizens of the United States for French spolia- tions on American commerce prior to 1800 ; but his views on that subject had been long before the public, and, consequently, the speech now made did not particularly affect his reputation. On the 16th of February, of the same year, he delivered an- other speech of more general popularity. It was in regard to the appointing and removing power exercised jointly by the president and senate. The administration had set up some strange pretensions to prerogative unknown to the constitution, and unknown to the previous practice of the government. A bill was brought, into the senate, entitled " an act to repeal the first and second sections of the act to limit the term of service of certain officers therein named," the express object of which was to secure the reduction of executive patronage and influ- ence. This was a topic that touched Mr. Webster's heart. He had seen so many encroachments of late, on the powers of the senate, and on the powers of congress, that he felt like doing something to render the evil less possible in time to come. His speech on the subject was very able ; and it did not a little toward giving the last blow to a falling administration, and pre- paring the public for that remarkable revolution that succeeded. But the greatest and heaviest blow ever given to the admin- istration of General Jackson, by one of its opponents, was the speech of Mr. Webster to the merchants of New York, deliv- eied in Niblo's Saloon, on the 15th of" March, 1837, eleven days after the accession of Mr. Van Buren. The blow was OPENING OF VAN BUREN's ADMINISTRATION. 309 struck, not because that administration itself was any longer of any consequence to the public, but because it had been adopted, formally and in words, by Mr. Van Buren as the model of his own administration. It was, therefore, only an- other engagement in the memorable war between the govern- ment and the currency ; and it certainly, in any point of light in which it can be viewed, was a victory. It is one of th soundest, ablest, and most eloquent of all the great statesman's speeches. It was a review of the entire course of General Jackson as president of the republic. Though searching and caustic, it was temperate in style, moderate in spirit, even charitable to the infirmities of human nature, but inexpressibly severe in the matter and manner of its logic. It is the best history of General Jackson's administration now in print ; for, while the art of the orator is always to be suspected, it narrates and states facts with the precision and candor of a historian. The first official act of Mr. Van Buren was to call an extra session of congress to take into consideration the financial em- barrassments of the country. This was an open confession of what the administration of General Jackson had continually and strenuously denied. It was a confession that the country, the whole country, not any particular part or parts of it, was in a state of pecuniary suffering. It was a confession, too, of great political value to the party of the opposition, who did not fail to point the country to the state of prosperity almost unexampled in the history of the republic, which immediately preceded General Jackson's war upon the currency. It was a confession, however, which Mr. Van Buren, in the exercise of that peculiar sagacity which characterizes him, did not hesitate to make, because, should his term of office close unhappily, he could the more readily refer his failure to the disastrous cir- cumstances under which it commenced. Should his adminis- tration, on the other hand, prove successful, it would be easv 310 WEBSTER AND HIS MASTER-PIECES. for him, and for his partisans, to claim the more credit to his statesmanship, by as much as the end of his term sho ild ex ceed in prosperity its beginning. The extra session met in the month of September, 1837 ; and it was here that congress first grappled with the sub-treas- ury scheme, which was brought forward by Mr. Van Buren as a means of saving the country from the financial embarrass- ments brought upon it by the blunders and obstinacy of the preceding administration. Those embarrassments had now become insupportable. In the month of May previous, nearly all the banks in the country had simultaneously suspended spe- cie payments. The banks of deposit, in which were lodged the funds of the United States treasury, were among the very first to join in this act of suspension ; and this at once involved the government in the difficulty. It had been customary for the government to meet its daily wants by issuing drafts upon the banks of deposit, which, heretofore, had met these drafts, either by paying out their own bills, or in gold and silver. Now, however, the holder of a draft drawn by the secretary of the treasury of the government of the United States, which any one would suppose should be good for its own orders, could get nothing but the notes of certain state banks, which had re- fused to meet them on demand. That is, the government owed a debt to-day, and the only satisfaction it could give its creditor, was an order on a private corporation, which met the order only with a confession of inability of paying it to-day, but with a promise to pay it to-day (for bank notes are made payable on demand) when all parties understood the insincerity and comparative worthlessness of that promise. In other words, the government of the United States had become insol- vent ; and the question of course was, on the opening of the extra session of congress, how to restore the solvency and credit of the country. This question was met, on the part of the administration. SUB-TREASURY SYSTEM. 311 first, by withholding from the states the fourth installment of the surplus revenue, and secondly, by the proposition of the sub-treasury scheme, which was a system of keeping and dis- bursing the funds of the general government, without the inter- vention of any bank or banks. Both these measures were opposed by Mr. Webster. He thought that the withholding of the surplus revenue from the states, according to the prom- ise of the government, would rather increase than allay the panic now fallen upon the country ; and to the sub-treasury system, he opposed a series of objections, in a speech delivered on the 28th of September, 1837, which reexamined the entire subject of the currency from the beginning of the government. No better history of the currency is extant than that contained in the exordium of this great speech : " The government of the United States," says the orator, " completed the fbrth-eighth year of its existence, under its present constitution, on the third day of March last. During this whole period, it has felt itself bound to take proper care of the currency of the country ; and no administration has admitted this obligation more clearly or more frequently than the last. For the fulfillment of this acknowledged duty, as well as to accomplish other useful pur- poses, a national bank has been maintained for forty out of these forty-eight years. Two institutions of this kind have been created by law; one commencing in 1791, and being limited to twenty years, expiring in 1811; the other commencing in 1816, with a like term of duration, and ending, therefore, in 1836. Both these institutions, each in its time, accomplished their purposes, so far as the currency was concerned, to the general satisfaction of the country Before the last bank ex- pired, it had the misfortune to incur the enmity of the late ad- ministration. I need not, at present, speak of the causes of this hostility. My purpose only requires a statement of that fact, as an important one in the chain of occurrences. The late president's dissatisfaction with the bank was intimated in his 512 WEBSTER AND HIS MASTER-PIECES. first annual message, that is to say, in 1829. But the bans stood very well with the country, the president's known and growing hostility notwithstanding, and in 1832, four years be- fore its charter was to expire, both houses of congress passed a bill for its continuance, there being in its favor a large ma- jority of the senate, and a larger majority of the house of rep- resentatives. The bill, however, was negatived by the presi- dent. In 1833, by an order of the president, the public mo- neys were removed from the custody of the bank, and were deposited with certain select state banks. This removal was accompanied with the most confident declarations and assu- rances, put forth in every form, by the president and the secre tary of the treasury, that these state banks would not only prove safe depositories of the public money, but that they would also furnish the country with as good a currency as it ever had enjoyed, and probably a better ; and would also ac- complish all that could be wished in regard to domestic ex- changes. The substitution of state banks for a national insti- tution, for the discharge of these duties, was that operation which has become known, and is likely to be long remembered, as the 'Experiment.' " For some years, all was said to go on extremely well, al- though it seemed plain enough to a great part of community, that the system was radically vicious ; that its operations were all inconvenient, clumsy, and wholly inadequate to the pro- posed ends ; and that, sooner or later, there must be an explo- sion. The administration, however, adhered to its experiment. The more it was complained of by the people, the louder it was praised by the administration. Its commendation was one of the standing topics of all official communications; and in his last message, in December, 1836, the late president was more than usually emphatic upon the great success of his attempts to improve the currency, and the happy results of the experi- ment upon the important business of exchange. THE ADMINISTRATION IN TROUBLE. 313 " But a reverse was at hand. The ripening glories of the experiment were soon to meet a dreadful blighting. In the early part of May last, these banks all stopped payment. This event, of course, produced great distress in the country, and it produced also singular embarrassment to the administration. The present administration was then only two months old ; but it had already become formally pledged to maintain the policy of that which had gone before it. The president had avowed his purpose of treading in the footsteps of his prede- cessor. Here, then, was the difficulty. Here was a political knot, to be either untied or cut. The experiment had failed, and failed, as it was thought, so utterly and hopelessly, that it could not be tried again. "What, then, was to be done? Committed against a bank of the United States in the strongest manner, and the substi- tute, from which so much was expected, having disappointed all hopes, what was the administration-to do ? Two distinct classes of duties had been performed, in times past, by the bank of the United States ; one more immediately to the government, the other to the community. The first was the safe-keeping and the transfer, when required, of the public moneys ; the other, the supplying of a sound and convenient paper currency, of equal credit all over the country, and everywhere equivalent to specie, and the giving of most important facilities to the opera- tions of exchange. These objects were highly important, and their perfect accomplishment by the 'experiment' had been promised from the first The state banks, it was declared, could perform all these duties, and should perform them. But the 'experiment' came to a dishonored end in the early part of last May. The deposit banks, with the others, stopped pay ment. They could not render back the deposits ; and so far from being able to furnish a general currency, or to assist ex changes, (purposes, indeed, which they never had fulfilled with any success,) their paper became immediately depreciated, even 314 WEBSTER, AND HIS MASTER-PIECES in its local circulation. What course, then, was the admini* tration now to adopt ? Why, sir, it is plain that it had but one alternative. It must either return to the former practice of the government, take the currency into its own hands, and main- tain it, as well as provide for the safe keeping of the public money by some institution of its own ; or else, adopting some new mode of merely keeping the public money, it must aban- don all further care over currency and exchange. One of these courses became inevitable. The administration had no other choice. The state banks could be no longer tried, with the opinion which the administration now entertained of them ; and how else could anything be done to maintain the cur- rency ? In no way, but by the establishment of a national institution. " There was no escape from this dilemma. One course was, to go back to that which the party had so much condemned ; the other, to give up the whole duty, and leave the currency to its fate. Between these two, the administration found itself absolutely obliged to decide ; and it has decided, and decided boldly. It has decided to surrender the duty, and abandon the constitution. That decision is before us, in the message, and in the measures now under consideration. The choice has been made ; and that choice, in my opinion, raises a question of the utmost importance to the people of this country, both for the present and all future time. That question is, Whether con- gress has, or ought to have, any duty to perform, in relation to the currency of the country, beyond the mere regulation of the gold and silver" This speech of Mr. Webster was not only very able ; but it produced a profound impression on the senate, and on the country. He maintained, in opposition to the message of the president, that it was incumbent on congress, besides keeping and disbursing the public money, to provide for a sound and safe currencv for the people ; and such was the weight of his THE DOMESTIC SLAVE-TRADE. 3 If) several argun ents and illustrations, in support of his proposi- tion, that the recommendation of the president failed to be- come a law. The first step, therefore, of the new administra- tion was a failure. One of the first topics that engaged the attention of Mr. Webster, at the regular session of congress of 1837-8, was that of slavery in the District of Columbia. On the 27th of December, 1837, a number of resolutions were read to the senate by Mr. Calhoun on this subject, the fifth of which was expressed in the following language : " Resolved, That the intermeddling of any state, or states, or their citizens, to abol- ish slavery in this district, or any of the territories, on the ground, or under the pretext, that it is immoral or sinful, or the passage of any act or measure of congress with that view, would be a direct and dangerous attack on the institutions of all the slaveholding states." The resolutions had been quite generally discussed, when, on the 10th of January, 1838, Mr. Clay offered a substitute for Mr. Calhoun's fifth resolution, which was couched in the following terms : " Resolved, That the interference, by the citizens of any of the states, with the view to the abolition of slavery in this district, is endangering the rights and security of the people of this district ; and that any act or measure of congress, designed to abolish slavery in this district, would be a violation of the faith implied in the cessions by the states of Virginia and Maryland, a just cause of alarm to the people of the slaveholding states, and have a direct and inevitable tendency to disturb and endanger the Union." Mr. Clay supported his substitute by a speech, which was followed by a brief one from Mr. Webster. He had be- fore, on the 16th of March, 1836, on presenting several peti- tions praying for the abolition of the domestic slave-trade within the district, expressed his views in relation to the power of congress over slavery in the District of Columbia in a very plain and emphatic manner : " I have often," he then said, VOL. I. N 316 WEBSTER AND HIS MASTER-PIECES. " expressed the opinion, that over slavery, as it exists in the states, this government has no control whatever. It is entirely and exclusively a state concern. And while it is clear that con- gress has no direct power over the subject, it is our duty to take care that the authority of this government is not brought to bear upon it by any indirect interference whatever. It must be left to the states, to the course of things, and to those causes over which this government has no control. All this, in my opinion, is in the clear line of our duty. On the other hand, believing that congress has constitutional power over slavery, and the trade in slaves, within the district, I think petitions on those subjects, respectfully presented, ought to be respectfully re- ceived, and respectfully considered." These had always been Mr. Webster's opinions on the sub- ject. They had been the opinions of the country and of the government. So early as 1809, on the 9th of January, the house of representatives had resolved, " that the committee on the District of Columbia be instructed to take into considera- tion the laws within the district in respect to slavery ; that they inquire into the slave-trade as it exists in, and is carried on through, the district ; and that they report to the house such amendments to the existing laws as shall seem to them to be just." The same body, at the same time, resolved, " that the committee be further instructed to inquire into the expediency of providing by law for the gradual abolition of slavery within the district, in such manner that the interest of no individual shall be injured thereby." In the month of March, 1816, the sub- ject had been again introduced by Mr. Randolph, of Virginia, when, at his motion, it was resolved, " that a committee be ap- pointed to inquire into the existence of an inhuman and illegal traffic in slaves carried on in and through the District of Co- lumbia, and to report whether any, and what, measures are ne- cessary for putting a stop to the same." The steps thu? -;arly taken, which had so clearly recognized SLAVERY IN liiE DISTRICT. 311 the power of congress over slvavery in the district, were well known to Mr. Webster ; and on these, as well as on the grants of cession by which the territory was given to the United States, he based an argument in favor of the constitutional power of congress over this subject, and which has never been and never can be answered. In return for his efforts in the cause of free- dom, he was taunted by Mr. King, of Alabama, with having made himself the head of the abolition party ; but this did not daunt Mr. Webster, or turn him from his integrity, or his purpose. He went directly forward, defended the rights of the petitioners, maintained the exclusive power of congress to legis- late on all subjects touching the District of Columbia, slavery as well as others, and spurned the sneers of southern senators ; and he thus continued to maintain his ground, till the subject was again brought forward by Mr. Calhoun, and modified by Mr. Clay, at the time now under consideration. His opinion, as held at this time, is best conveyed in his own language. "I cannot concur," he says, speaking of Mr. Clay's substitute, " in this resolution. I do not know any matter of fact, or any ground of argument, on which this affirmation of plighted faith can be sustained. I see nothing by which congress has tied up its hands, either directly or indirectly, so as to put its clear con- stitutional power beyond the exercise of its own discretion. I have carefully examined the acts of cession by the states, the act of congress, the proceedings and history of the times, and I find nothing to lead me to doubt that it was the intention of all parties to leave this, like other subjects belonging to legis- lation for the ceded territory, entirely to the discretion and wisdom of congress." He goes on to establish this opinion by a most conclusive argument, and then brings the opposite view into disfavor by successfully applying to it the reductio ad ab- surdum : " If the assertion contained in this resolution be true," he says, " a very strange result, as it seems to rne, must follow. The resolution affirms that the faith of congress is 31S WEBSTER AND oIS MA&TER-PIECES. pledged, indefinitely. It makes no limitation of time ur cir- cumstancc. If this be so, then it is an obligation that binds us forever, as much as if it were one of the prohibitions of the con- stitution itself. And at all times hereafter, even -if, in the course of their history, availing themselves of events, or chang- ing their views of policy, the states themselves should make provision for the emancipation of their slaves, the existing state of things could not be changed, nevertheless, in this district. It does really seem to me, that, if this resolution, in its terms, be true, though slavery in every other part of the world be abolished, yet in the metropolis of this great republic it is established in perpetuity. This appears to me to be the result of the doctrine of plighted faith, as stated in the resolution." Mr. Buchanan replied to Mr. Webster ; and Mr. Webster rejoined, maintaining with still greater force of expression his original position ; but it was not till he rose to reply to Mr. Clay, who, after Mr. Buchanan, had commented with some se- verity upon Mr. Webster, that the great orator gave complete- ness to his argument. Thus called out. there that argument now stands, the ablest ever delivered on the subject ; and every man, who has since seen fit to misunderstand Mr. Webster, on the subject of slavery, is bound to read it, and ponder it well, before he allows himself to ascribe to Mr. Webster his position in relation to this question. It would be impossible to follow out in detail all that Mr. Webster said and did, during the remainder of Mr. Van Bu ren's administration, on this and other important subjects. Tie was still chiefly engaged, as were the senate and the country, on topics connected with the currency. The administration of Mr. Van Buren, indeed, may be regarded in history as an unsuccessful attempt to relieve itself, and the country, of the financial evils brought upon it by the preceding administration; and in every effort made to better the condition of the national finances, Mr. Webster took, on behalf of the opposition, the SPEECH ON THE SUB-TREASURY. 319 leading part. On the 17th of January, 1838, he spoke at some length en the affairs of the G)mmon wealth Bank of Mas- sachusetts, one of the deposit banks, whose bills had become greatly depreciated ; on the 28th of January, 1838, he ad- dressed the senate in favor of the right of preemption to actual settlers on the public lands ; and on the 31st of January, 1838, he delivered his speech on the sub-treasury system, as a sys- tem, putting it to the severest test it had ever met with in elo- quence or argument. But it was not till the 12th of March, 1838, that he made his most elaborate, celebrated, and able speech on this subject. It was undoubtedly the ablest ever made, upon the subject of the regulation of the currency, in or out of congress. It abounds with tacts, illustrations, arguments, repartees, figures of speech of the most striking character, and everything, in matter and manner, in form and ornament, that could possibly be pressed into the service of his main object. That object was the defeat of the sub-treasury scheme, and a thorough exposition of the entire policy, in all its magnitude and mischief, of the current and preceding administrations. No person can obtain an adequate idea of the speech without a pe- rusal of it ; but there are passages in it, which, whether read in connection or separately, will never cease to be admired. As a specimen of the orator's powers of ridicule, when he wished to indulge in it, his laughable reference to the over- vaunted independence of General Jackson, will never fail to furnish to the literary world both instruction and amusement : " The present chief magistrate of the country," he says, " was a member of this body in 1828. He and the honorable mem- ber from Carolina were, at that time, exerting their united forces to the utmost, in order to bring about General Jackson's election. Did they work thus zealously together for the same ultimate end and purpose? Or did they mean merely to change the government, and then each to look out for himself? Mr. Van Buren voted for the tariff bill of that year, commonly 320 WEBSTER AX-D HIS MASTER-PIECES. called the ' bill of abominations ' ; but. very luckily, and in ex tremely good season, instructions for that vote happened to- come from Albany ! The vote, therefore, could be given, and the member giving it could not possibly thereby give offense tc any gentleman of the state-rights party, who acknowledge the duty of obeying instructions. a Sir, I will not do gentlemen Injustice. Those who belonged to tariff states, as they are called, and who supported General Jackson for the presidency, did not intend thereby to overthn >w the protective policy. They only meant to make General Jackson president, and to come into power along with him. As to ultimate objects, each had his own. All could agree, however, in the first step. It was difficult, certainly, to give a plausible appearance to a political union among gentlemen who differed so widely on the great and leading question of the times, the question of the protective policy. But this difficulty was overcome by the oracular declaration that General Jackson was in favor of a 'judicious tariff! ' Here, sir, was ample room and verge enough. Who would object to a judicious tariff? Tariff men and anti-tariff men, state-rights men and consolidationists, those who had been called prodigals, and those who had been called radicals, all thronged and flocked together here, and, with all their difference in regard to ultimate objects, agreed to make common cause till they should get into power ! " The ghosts, sir, which are fabled to cross the Styx, what- ever different hopes or purposes they may have beyond it, still unite in the present wish to get over, and therefore all hurry and huddle into the leaky and shattered craft of Charon, the ferryman. And this motley throng of politicians, sir, with as much difference of final object, and as little care for each other, made a boat of ' Judicious Tariff; ' and all rushed and scram- bled into it, until they filled it, near to sinking. The authority of the master was able, however, to keep them peaceable and MR. WEBSTER'S HUMOR. 32; in order for the time, for they had the virtue of submission ; and, though with occasional dangers of upsetting, he succeeded in pushing Liem all over with his long setting-pole : Ipse ratem con to subigit ! ' " In all of Mr. Webster's works, there is scarcely a more forcible illustration of his power of throwing contempt upon his antag- onists ; and, when all the facts of the case are remembered, and the passage carefully collated with the facts, there is scarcely a better example, perhaps, in the" English language. The peroration of that speech, on the other hand, though it commences with a ludicrous allusion, closes in a bold, manly, sublime and impressive manner. Alluding to Mr. Calhoun, and to his doctrine of state-rights, he says : " Finally, the non- orable member declares that he shall now march off under the banner of state-rights ! March off from w horn 1 March off from what ? We have been contending for great principles. We have been struggling to maintain the liberty and to restore the prosperity of- the country ; we have made these struggles here, in the national councils, with the old flag, the true Amer icon flag, the eagle, and the stars and stripes, waving over the chamber in which we sit. He now tells us, however, that he marches off under the state-rights banner ! " Let him go. I remain. I am where I ever have been, and where I ever mean to be. Here, standing on the platform of the general constitution, a platform broad enough and firm enough to uphold every interest of the whole country. I shall still be found. Intrusted with some part in the administration of that constitution, I intend to act in its spirit, and in the spirit of those who framed it, YL-S. sir. 1 would act as if our fathers, who framed it for us, and who bequeathed it to us, were looking on me ; as if I could see their venerable forms bending dowr to behold us, from the abodes above, 1 would act, too, as if the eye of posterity was gazing on me. 322 WEBSTER AND HIS MASTER-PIECES. " Standing thus, as in the full gaze of our ancestors and oui posterity, having received this inheritance from the former, tc be transmitted to the latter, and feeling that, if I am born for any good, in my day and generation, it is for the good of the whole country, no local policy or local feeling, no temporary impulse, shall induce me to yield my foothold on the constitu- tion of the Union. I move off under no banner not known to the whole American people, and to their constitution and laws. No, sir ; these walls, these columns, 'shall fly From their firm base as soon ss 1 1 ' " I came into public life, sir, in the service of the United States. On that broad altar, my earliest, and all my public vow r s, have been made. I propose to serve no other master. So far as depends on any agency of mine, they shall continue united states ; united in interest and in affection ; united in everything in regard to which the constitution has decreed their union ; united in war, for the common defense, the common renown, and the common glory ; and united, compacted, knit firmly together, in peace, for the common prosperity and hap- piness of ourselves and our children." It is reported by Mr. Everett, that, " not long after the publication of this speech, the present Lord Overstone, then Mr. S. Jones Lloyd, one of the highest authorities upon finan- cial subjects in England, was examined upon the subject of banks and currency before a committee of the house of com- mons. He produced a copy of the speech of Mr. Webster before the committee, and pronounced it one of the ablest and most satisfactory discussions of these subjects which he had seen. In writing afterwards to Mr. Webster, he spoke of him as a master who had instructed him on these subjects." The truth is, that, though not a practical banker, and though he had never been in any pecuniary business for a day in his life, bt DEBATE WITH CALIIOUN. 823 was capable of instructing the most experienced fimancier in the elements and principles of his own profession. But his instruc- tions were not entirely popular at home. There was a large class of his fellow-citizens, who. though all combined could not match him in knowledge of these subjects, deemed themselves above the advice of him who instructed all other men. The American who came nearest to him, in knowledge, in experi- ence, in wisdom upon these topics, was Mr. Calhoun ; and yet that gentleman, in general so candid and so able, was trammeled upon this subject by his political relations, and by an unfortu- nate inconsistency which had occurred in his opinions between the earlier and later periods of h-is life. Mr. Calhoun, in fact, was the only gentleman in the senate capable of taking up the argument, with any prospect of tolerable success, against Mr. Webster. He did take it up ; and, after replying, as well as he could, to the facts and the logic introduced by Mr. Webster, he sought to cast odium upon his antagonist by accusing him, or hinting that he might accuse him, if time permitted, of hav ing maintained no great amount of consistency as a statesman. Had he time to do so, he said, he might say something about Mr. Webster's first and subsequent course in relation to the late war. This insinuation, made toward the close of Mr. Calhoun's reply, brought Mr. Webster immediately to his feet. After answering the arguments of his opponent, he met this in- sinuation in a manner peculiar to himself, in a way forevei fr silence the tongue of slander on that subject, and after a fiish- ion, one would think, to bring blushes of regret, if no other blushes, on Mr. Calhoun's cheek : " But, sir, before attempting that, he, [Mr. Calhoun] has something else to say. He had prepared, it seems, to draw comparisons himself. He had in- tended to say something if time had allowed, upon our respect- ive opinions and conduct in regard to the war. If time had allowed ! Sir, time does allow, time must allow. A general remark of that kind ought not to be, cannot be, left to pro VOL. i. N* 21 WEBSTER AND HIS MASTER-PIECES. duce its effect, when that effect is obviously intended to be un- favorable. Why did the gentleman allude to ray votes or my opinions respecting the war at all, unless he had something to say ? Does he wish to leave an undefined impression that something was done, or something said, by me, not now capa- ble of defense or justification ? something not reconcilable with true patriotism 1 He means that, or nothing. And now, sir, let him bring the matter forth ; let him take the responsibility of the accusation ; let him state his facts. I am here to an- swer ; I am here, this day, to answer. Now is the tune, and now the hour. I think we read, sir, that one of the good spirits would not bring against the arch-enemy of mankind a railing accusation ; and what is railing but general reproach, an impu- tation without fact, time, or circumstance ? Sir, I call for par- ticulars. The gentleman knows my whole conduct well ; in- deed, the journals show it all, from the moment I came into congress till the peace. If I have done, then, sir, anything un- patriotic, anything which, as far as love to country goes, will not bear comparison with his or any man's conduct, let it now be stated. Give me the fact, the time, the manner. He speaks of the war ; that which we call the late war, though it is now twenty-five years since it terminated. He would leave an im pression that I opposed it. How ? I was not in congress when war was declared, nor in public life anywhere. I was pursuing my profession, keeping company with judges and jurors, and plaintiffs and defendants. If I had been in con- gress, and had enjoyed the benefit of hearing the honorable gentleman's speeches, for aught I can say, I might have con- curred with him. But I was not in public life. I never had been, for a single hour ; and was in no situation, therefore, to oppose or to support the declaration of war. I am speak- ing to the fact, sir ; and if the gentleman has any fact, let tts know it. " Well, bir, I came into congress during the war. I found it DEBATE WITH CALHOUN CONTINUED. 325 waged, and raging. And what did I do here to oppose it 1 Look to the journals. Let the honorable gentleman tax his memory. Bring up anything, if there be anything to bring up, not showing error of opinion, but showing want of loyalty or fidelity to the country. 1 did not agree to all that was pro posed, nor did the honorable member. I did not approve of every measure, nor did he. The war had been preceded by the restrictive system and the embargo. As a private indi victual, I certainly did not think well of these measures. It ap- peared to me that the embargo annoyed ourselves as much as our enemies, while it destroyed the business and cramped the spirits of the people. In this opinion, I may have been right or wrong, but the gentleman was himself of the same opinion. He told us the other day, as a proof of his inde- pendence of party on great questions, that he differed with his friends on the subject of the embargo. He was decidedly and unalterably opposed to it. It furnishes, in his judgment, therefore, no imputation either on my patriotism, or on the soundness of my political opinions, that I was opposed to it also. I mean opposed in opinion ; for I was not in congress, and had nothing to do with the act creating the embargo. And as to opposition to measures for carrying on the war, after I came into congress, I again say, let the gentleman specify ; let him lay his finger on anything calling for an answer, and he shall have an snswer. " Mr. President, you were yourself in the house during a con siderable part of this time. The honorable gentleman may make a witness of you. He may make a -witness of any body else. He may be his own witness. Give us but some fact, some charge, something capable in itself either of being proved or disproved. Prove anything, state anything, not consistent with honorable and patriotic conduct, and 1 am ready to answer it. Sir, I am glad this subject has been alluded to in a xnanv>r which justifies me iu taking public notice of it : 32(5 WEBSTER AND HIS MASTER-PIECES. because I am well aware that, for ten years past, infinite pains has been taken to find something, in the range of these topics, which might create prejudice against me in the country. The journals have all been pored over, and the reports ransacked, and scraps of paragraphs and half-sentences have been collected, fraudulently put together, and then made to flare out as if there had been some discovery. But all this failed. The next re- sort was to supposed correspondence. My letters were sought for, to learn if, in the confidence of private friendship, I had ever said anything which an enemy could make use of. With this view, the vicinity of my former residence has been searched, as with a lighted candle. New Hampshire has been explored from the mouth of the Merrimack to the White Hills. In one instance, a gentleman had left the state, gone five hundred miles off, and died. His papers were examined ; a letter was found, and, I have understood, it was brought to Washington ; a con- clave was held to consider it, and the result was, that, if there was nothing else against Mr. Webster, the matter had better be let alone. Sir, I hope to make everybody of that opinion who brings against me a charge of want of patriotism. Errors of opinion can be found, doubtless, on many subjects ; but as conduct flows from the feelings which animate the heart, I know that no act of my life has had its origin in the want of ardent love of country." Notwithstanding the warmth of this rejoinder, and the warmth of the entire debate between the two great champions of the senate, of the north and of the south, at this time, as at all other times, there was never for a moment, probably, any \vant of mutual regard and sincere personal esteem between them. Each always spoke of t,he other as the most formidable of his opponents among all the politicians and statesmen of the coun- try ; Mr. Webster always admired Mr. Calhoun for his bold- ness and ability in avowing and maintaining his opinions ; and Mr. Calhoun, it is well known, declared on his death-bed, after PEUSONAL RELATIONS WITH CALHOUN. 327 giving utterance to other high compliments, that, " of all the public men of the day, there was no one, whose political course had been more strongly marked by a strict regard to truth and honor than Mr. Webster's." Indeed, uch had been the hon esty, the singleness of purpose, as well as the masterly ability of Mr. Webster's political career, from the first, that he had been constantly rising, up to the very time now under con- sideration, in the honorable esteem, not only of his political friends, but of his political opponents. Setting aside his opin- ions, in which there will always be more or less difference among men of the greatest eminence, he was now acknowl- edged, on all hands, as the first of American statesmen, and the pride of the American republic. On nearly every subject, which had not been incorporated into the creeds of the parties, his opinion was about of the same force as a law, to a great majority of-his countrymen. The whole country followed him with regard, admiration, and eulogiums. Not a line could fall from his pen, not a word could drop from his lips, that was not caught and received as worthy of repetition and record. When- ever he met his fellow-citizens, on any public occasion, he was thronged by a multitude far greater than could be called to- gether, or had ever been called together, by any man ever upon this continent. His audiences, when no one else was expected to speak, have been estimated, on several occasions, to range from one to two hundred thousand people. In fact, had he taken it into his head to see how a small, quiet, ordinary assembly would appear, out among the people, it would not have been possible for him, for the twenty years preceding this period of his life, to have succeeded in the undertaking. Wherever lie came, there the masses of the population would rush together ; and, so great was the desire to see him, that anywhere out of Boston and Washington, where he was most familiar, it was al- most as impossible for him to enjoy the ordinary rights and in) munitietj of a private citizen. When he wished to walk through 328 WEBSTER AND HIS MASTER-PIECES. the streets of any of our larger cities, he often found himself blockaded by the greeting multitudes that followed and op- posed him ; and he was compelled, when he wished to make any husbandry of his time, to go over the shortest distances in his carriage. His fame, too, was now fully established in other countries. He was known about as well in Europe as on this continent ; and, in a rapid and brief trip across the Atlantic, made in the spring and summer of 1839, he had occasion to witness, perhaps very much to his own surprise, the length and breadth of his foreign popularity. In England, Scotland, Ire- land and France, which were the countries visited, the common people seemed to know him ; they followed him, as he was fol- lowed at home, in vast multitudes ; and the highest of the nobility, forgetting their titles and their ancestral pride, thought it no dishonor to pay their court to so great a man as Mr. Webster. " No traveler from this country," says Mr. Everett, speaking of this visit, " has probably ever been received with equal attention in the highest quarters in England. Courtesies usually paid only to ambassadors and foreign ministers, were extended to him. His table was covered with invitations to the seats of the nobility and gentry ; and his company was eagerly sought at the entertainments which took place while he was in the country." He was present, by invitation, at the first triennial celebration of the Royal Agricultural Society of England, at Oxford, where he made an address to the farmers of England, in the shade of the great English university; and, in making reply to a toast offered him from the head of the tables, by Earl Spencer, the president of the society, surrounded by many of the nobility of the kingdom, he seemed to be as much self- possessed, as much at home, as if he had been speaking to his neigSibors and friends in Boston. Attempting, more than once, to take his seat, after he had occupied more time than had been employed by the other speakers, he was forced to go forward a speech, instead of a few remarks, b^ the cheers, plaudit* TRIP TO ENGLAND. 329 und vociferous demands from every part of the assemblage ; and when he sat down, at the conclusion of his extempore ad- dress of about thirty minutes, he had said enough to convince every man present, and that entire England, which, in less than three days, had read and admired the speech, that there was no illusion, no fiction, no exaggeration in the American and Euro- pean fame of the great lawver. statesman, and orator of his age and country. CHAFI'EK X FIRST TERM AS SECRETARY OF STATE. THE fate of Mr. Van Buren's administration was sealed i long time before its termination. It was doomed, in fact, be- fore it had commenced. Burdened by the consequences of the financial experiment of his predecessor, which Mr. Van Buren had in words and in fact assumed, and promising, in his first message, to follow in the footsteps of that predecessor, he found it impossible to carry on the government with any great success, because there was real suffering, and heart-felt com- plaining, in all parts of the republic. In directing the eyes of the people to the true cause of all their sufferings, and in ma- king them generally believe it to be the cause, Mr. Webster had been the leading agent ; he had gone into the canvass of 1840, the most enthusiastic one of our whole history, with great zeal ; and the consequence was, at least the result was, the tri- umphant election of General Harrison. No sooner was it certain that the election had thus resulted, than the president elect addressed Mr. Webster, and offered him his choice in the new cabinet, though the president de- sired him to take the treasury department. This preference was founded on the fact, now universally confessed, that Mr. Webster was by far the ablest financier in the country ; and, as the* currency was in a most deplorable condition, requiring the highest constructive abilities to restore it to its former state of soundness, it was natural enough to look to such a DIFFICULTIES WITH ENGLAND. 331 man for such a labor. But this was not, upon the wholt.. the preference of Mr. Webster. Though a gieat work was to be done in this department, a work of high moment to the inter- nal prosperity of the country, he saw veiy clearly, from the history of the preceding forty or fifty years, that a greater work was to be performed for the external relations of the govern- ment, which were in a very critical condition. Our relations with England, in particular, were exceedingly sensitive and unpromising. War with England had been foretold by many of the most sagacious statesmen of both countries. Some of our own statesmen, or politicians, had been for years looking with hope, if not with effort, toward the opening of a rupture. There were not wanting men of the highest position in Great Britain, who began to think it time to strike a- blow against us, and do something to humble the pretensions, and break the example, of the great republic. Many causes of irritation were existing, which had been growing more and more irrita- ting for a quarter of a century, between the two nations. The boundary line, in fact, always a question of great danger, if left to be a question, had not been settled between the United States and the Ginadas. The north-eastern, north-western, and much of the intervening portions of the boundary line, had never been determined. Along the entire border, from New Brunswick to the Pacific ocean, there was a great extent of dis- puted territory, on some portions of which, claimed sturdily by Great Britain, our general government had built public works ; and on large tracts, east and west, an American popu lation had settled down, supposing the soil to be American while it was in fact disputed between the two countries. In addition to this great question of boundary, there was the question of the African slave-trade, which, though formally de- nounced by both governments as pirasy, had created disturb- ances of a serious nature, in consequence of the peculiar laws of Great Britain in relation to slavery and fradom, which she 33? WEBSTER AND HIS MASTER-PIECES. Had put in force over slaves which had been, by stress of weather or other forcible causes, carried within her territorial limits. Slaves, even accompanied by their owners, had been thus landed by accident in some ports of the British West Indies; and the local authorities, applying their local law of freedom to such slaves, and setting them at liberty from theii masters, had given great offense to a large portion of our citi- zens, and had really committed an express indignity to the law of nations. At an evil time, also, there had occurred on the American border, in the destruction of the steamboat Caroline, by British troops, a case of the most exciting character, which had roused the jealousy and anger of both governments. One of the per petrators of this act, on coming, afterward, within the limits of the state of New York, had been arrested on a charge of mur- der, and bound over for trial ; and England, on hearing of the critical situation of that gentleman, Alexander McLeod, had demanded, not of New York, of course, but of the general gov- ernment, the immediate release of the prisoner, while it was impossible for the general government, according to our system of confederation, to interfere, in any way whatever, in tig matter Many other causes existed, of a very delicate character, to disturb the peaceful relations of the two countries ; and Mr. Webster, therefore, knowing fully that the internal prosperity of a commercial community depends at last on the nature and condition of its external relations, chose to accept the office of secretary of state, in place of that of secretary of the treasury as offered by General Harrison. General Harrison was not at all displeased with the selection ; and the country has now, as it ever will have, the best of reasons to congratulate itself on the choice made, and its men. jrablr results. J c Mr. Web- ster has ever done a work wortny of universal commendation, or likely to be remembered over the civilized world longer thai mother work, it is that performed by him, at this period ol COMMENCEMENT OF NEGOTIATIONS. 333 his life, while in this position ; for it was in this that he settled forever the most difficult and delicate questions that had ever existed between the two leading empires of modern history. Mr. Webster had scarcely taken his seat in the chair of state, when he received a note from Mr. Fox, British minister at Washington, dated March 12th, 1841, demanding the re- lease of McLeod by the authorities of New York. In his re- ply, Mr. Webster reminds Mr. Fox, that, according to the laws of the United States, as well as those of England, the execu- tive has no right to interfere with a judicial process before 'Hal, and that, if any interference were possible, it would not De possible to the president, but to the governor of New York, as every state, though a part of the general confederacy, is an independent sovereignty, over whose municipal officers the gen- eral government has no control. Mr. Fox, in making the de- mand, informed Mr. Webster that the act with which Mr. McLeod had been charged, was an act performed under au- thority of the British government, and the British government assumed the entire responsibility of the act; and, therefore, Mr. Webster addressed a letter to the attorney general of the United States, giving him official knowledge of this fact, and directing him to make it known to McLeod's counsel, that it might be plead before the court, and thus secure the release of the prisoner in a constitutional and lawful manner. The New York court, however, would not receive this plea in justi- fication, but held McLeod personally responsible. He was not released, on demand of the British government, but tried on the indictment, in spite of the demand, as any other criminal would have been. This gave great offence to the government of Great Britain ; and had not the trial terminated in the ac quittal of the prisoner, it is probable that war between the two countries would have been the sequel. The feeling, however, was not all on the side of England, fhe people of the United States, and particularly the people 334 WEBSTER AND HIS MASTER-PIECES. living along the Canadian border, were indignant at the des- truction of the Caroline, a vessel purporting to run between Buffalo and Schlosser, but really engaged in supplying men and ammunition to the Canadian rebels, who, joined by many Amer- ican citizens of a low character, had undertaken to subvert the government of Great Britain in the Canadas. The case was not properly understood by the citizens of the United States, generally. They supposed that the steamboat Caroline, en- gaged in a peaceful traffic, while lying at her own wharf at Schlosser, had been boarded by a detachment of Canadian sol- diers, set on fire, and then drawn out into the current to float over the Niagara. They were told, too, that American citizens had been murdered in the encounter ; that, when set on fire and hauled into the stream, the Caroline had not only dead bodies, but living persons, on her decks and in her cabins, all of whom were left to make that awful plunge from which humanity shrinks with horror ; and that the British government now as- sumed the whole proceeding as its own act, for which it held itself, however, as it was an act of justifiable self-defense, irre- sponsible. All these proceedings, the destruction of the Caroline, the murder of an American citizen, for it turned out that only one was killed, and the violation of our territory had taken place in the year 1837, the first year of Mr. Van Buren's administra- tion ; but, instead of being settled by that administration, they had been only aggravated by the arrest of McLeod, by a crooked diplomatic correspondence, and by that natural pro- cess of aggravation which grows out of letting difficulties re- main as matters of crimination and recrimination, instead of being promptly met at their first appearance. The first thing Mr. Webster had to do, therefore, was to explain to the Brit- ish government the actual condition of affairs, and, as that gov- e^nment had assumed the responsibility of the whole case, to procure Mr. McLeod's release, that he might hold Great Brit ACQUITTAL OF li'LEOD. . 335 ain to the responsibility it had avowed. His letter to Mr. Fox is as able a performance of the kind as had ever issued from i he department of state; and though the court of New York did not act upon the law as stated by Mr. Webster, nor fol- low his advice, its decision has been condemned, not only by such men as Chancellor Kent, Chief Justice Spencer, and J udge Tallmadge, of New York, but by nearly every lawyer and ju- rist of eminence in the country. This cause of irritation being removed, however, by the ac- quittal of the prisoner, Mr. Webster set himself to work to settle the other prominent difficulties that existed between the United States and England. He wished, if possible, to lay the foundations of a perpetual peace between the two great com- mercial countries of the world. The world, he thought, de- manded such a peace. Not only the trade and business and financial prosperity of the two countries demanded it ; but it was equally demanded by the cause of civilization, of religion, of liberty, of general intelligence, of universal philanthropy. Having obtained the consent of Mr. Tyler, now president of the United States in consequence of the lamented and untimely death of General Harrison, he addressed a note to Mr. Fox in the summer of 1841, in which he distinctly stated that thegov ernment of the United States was prepared to enter upon ne- gotiations for the settlement of all questions pending between the governments. In the September following, the ministry of Sir Robert Peel having come into power, the proposition was received with favor ; and in December, Lord Aberdeen, secretary of state for foreign affairs, informed Mr. Everett, minister of the United States at the court of London, that the government of England hud determined to send Lord Ashbur- ton, a particular friend of Mr. Webster, as a special njinistei to this country, with full powers to settle the boundary ques tion, and several other questions yet in controversy between the two governments. 336 WEBSTER AND HIS MASTER-PIECES. Lord Ashburton arrived in the United States on the 4th of April, 1842, when Mr. Webster commenced his great task. by addressing notes to the governors of Maine and. Massachu setts, asking a joint commission, on the part of the two states interested in the north-eastern boundary, to act definitively and in concert with himself and the British special minister. Both states immediately complied with the request of Mr. Webster; and their commissioners reached Washington in the early part of June, when the work of settlement was at once begun. That the commissioners might not be detained longer than ne- cessary, the first topic introduced was the north-eastern bound- ary question, the peculiar intricacies and difficulties of which have been clearly and succinctly stated by Mr. Webster. In his speech to the senate, delivered on the 6th and 7th of April, 1846, he says : " In the treaty of peace of September, 1783, the northern and eastern, or perhaps, more properly speaking, the north-eastern boundary of the United States, is described as follows : ' From the north-west angle of Nova Scotia, namely, that angle which is formed by a line drawn due north from the source of St. Croix river to the highlands ; along the said highlands, which divide those rivers that empty themselves into the river St. Lawrence from those which fall into the Atlantic ocean, to the north-westernmost head of Connecticut river ; thence, along the middle of that river, to the forty-fifth degree of north latitude ; from thence by a line due west on said lati- tude, until it strikes the river Iroquois, or Cateraquy. East, by a line to be drawn along the middle of the river St. Croix, from its mouth in the bay of Fundy, to its source, and from its source directly north to the aforesaid highlands. "Such is the description of the north-eastern boundary of the United States, according to the treaty of peace of 1783. And it is quite remarkable that so many embarrassing questions should have arisen from these few lines, and have been matters of controversy for more than half a century. NORTH-EASTERN BOUNDARY. 337 ' The first question disputed was, ' Which of the several riv- ers running into the buy of .Fundy, is the St. Croix, mentioned in the treaty ?' It is singular that this should be matter of dispute, but so it was. England insisted that the true St. Croix was one river. The United States insisted that it was another. " The second controverted question was, ' Where is the north- west angle of Nova Scotia to be found ? ' "The third, 'What and where are the highlands, along which the line is to run, from the north-west angle of Nova Scotia to the north-westernmost head of Connecticut river ?' "The fourth, 'Of the several streams, which, flowing to gether, make up the Connecticut river, which is that stream which ought to be regarded as its north-westernmost head ?' " The fifth was, 'Are the rivers which discharge their waters 'into the bay of Fundy, rivers " which fall into the Atlantic ocean," in the sense of the terms used in the treaty ] ' " The fifth article of the treaty between the United States and Great Britain, of the 19th of November, 1794, after reci- ting, that doubt had 'arisen what river was truly intended under the name of the river St. Croix,' proceeds to provide for the de- cision of that question, by creating three commissioners, one to be appointed by each government, and these two to choose a third ; or, if they could not agree, then each to make his nomi- nation, and decide the choice by lot. The two commissioners agreed on a third ; the three executed the duty assigned them, decided what river was the true St. Croix, traced it to its source, and there established a monument. So much, then, on the eastern line was settled ; and all the other questions remained wholly unsettled down to the year 1842." Mr. Webster then goes on to show what had been attempted, by the successive administrations of our government, during the present century. On the 12th of May, 1803, a convention was ratified by Lord Hawksbury and Rufus King, providing 3o8 WEBSTER AND HIS MASTER-PIECES. for the appointment of three commissioners, in the manner be fore mentioned, who should have power " to run and mark the line from the monument, at the source of the St. Croix, to that north-west angle of Nova Scotia ; and also to determine the north-westernmost head of Connecticut river ; and then to run and mark the boundary line between the north-west angle of Nova Scotia and the said north-westernmost head of Connec- ticut river ; and the decision and proceedings of the said com- missioners were to be final and conclusive. " No objection," continues Mr. Webster, " was made by either government to this agreement and stipulation ; but an incident arose to prevent the final ratification of the treaty ; and it arose in this way. Its fifth article contained an agree- ment between the parties, settling the line of boundary between them beyond the Lake of the Woods. In coining to this agree- ment, they proceeded, exclusively, on the grounds of their re- spective rights under the treaty of 1783 ; but it so happened, that, twelve days before the convention was signed in London, France, by a treaty signed in Paris, had ceded Louisiana to the United States. This cession was at once regarded as giving to the United States new rights, or new limits, in this part of the con- tinent. The senate, therefore, struck this fifth article out of the convention ; and, as England did not incline to agree to this alteration, the whole convention fell." The whole subject rested till revived, in 1814, by the fifth article of the treaty of Ghent, which provided for the appoint- ment of two commissioners, who should examine and run the line, from the source of the St. Croix to the St. Lawrence, ac- cording to the treaty of 1783 ; but the commissioners, if they could not agree, were to state their points of difference, which were afterwards to be submitted, by the two governments, to the arbitration of some friendly power. The commissioners did not agree ; and the matter was finally committed to the king of the Netherlands, who, in 1831, made a decision to FORMER NEGOTIATIONS. 339 which neither country would consent. General Jaokson was now president ; and the president took it upon him, as a spe- cial task, to bring this great question to a final settlement. Nothing, however, was accomplished during his entire adminis- tration of the government ; and in his last annual message he admitted, that, after toiling for five years upon the subject, he had not proceeded so far as to know what the views of England were in relation to the settlement: " I regret to say," says the president, " that many questions of an interesting nature, at issue with other powers, are yet unadjusted ; among the most prominent of these is that of the north-eastern boundary. With an undiminished confidence in the sincere desire of his Britanic majesty's government to adjust that question, I am not yet in possession of the precise grounds upon which it pro- poses a satisfactory adjustment." Such was the condition of the question on the elevation of Mr. Van Buren to the presidency ; and, in his first annual mes- sage, he expresses his deep regret, which, no doubt, bordered upon mortification, that, for a period of about half a century, nothing had been done by our government in the settlement of this difficulty : " Of pending questions," says the message, " the most important is that which exists with the government of Great Britain in respect to our north-eastern boundary. It is with unfeigned regret, that the people of the United States must look back upon the abortive efforts made by the execu- tive for a period of more than half a century, to determine what no nation should suffer long to remain in dispute, the true line which divides its possessions from those of other powers." When publishing this opinion, Mr. Van Buren no doubt felt confidence, that he should have the merit of settling this great question ; but his efforts, on this matter, were as abortive as the efforts of his predecessors. He left it, in fact, in a worse condition than that in which he found it : " And now, sir," Baid Mr. Webster, in the speech before mentioned, and in ref VOL. i. O 23 340 WEBSTER AND HIS MASTER-PIECES. srence to the tacit and premature assurance but ultimate fail ure of Mr. Van Buren, " what did he accomplish ] What pro- gress did he make? What step forward did he take, in the whole course of his administration ? Seeing the full impor tance of the subject, addressing himself to it, and not doubting the just disposition of England, I ask again, what did he do ? What advance did he make ? Sir, not one step in his whole four years. Or rather, if he made any advance at all, it was an advance backward ; for, undoubtedly, he left the question in a much worse condition than he found it, not only on ac- count of the disturbances and outbreaks which had taken place on the border, for the want of an adjustment, and which dis- turbances themselves had raised new and difficult questions, but on account of the intricacies and complexities, and perplex- ities, in which the correspondence had become involved. The subject was entangled in meshes, which rendered it far more difficult to proceed with the question, than if it had been fresh and unembarrassed." This closing allegation of Mr. Webster is entirely correct. Bor- der troubles of a very serious nature had sprung up between Maine and the authorities of New Brunswick. The American settle- ments on the Madawaska had been threatened with hostilities ; a general panic had thus spread among them ; and the gov- ernor of Maine, Mr. Fail-field, had ordered a large body of militia to the disputed territory for the defence of the soil and the protection of the inhabitants. The whole country was ex- cited upon the subject ; and when Mr. Webster, Lord Ashbur- ton and the joint commissioners began their negotiations, they had every reason to believe, indeed there could be no doubt, that a failure now would result in immediate war between the two countries. Happily for both, however, the wisdom and friendship of the two ministers, aided by the intelligence and patriotism of the commissioners, prevailed over every disturbing influence. The SETTLEMENT OF THE BOUNDARY. 341 negotiations were carried on chiefly by conversations betweei Lord Ashburton and Mr. Webster. Having agreed upon the boundary line, after an amount of investigation which no one not experienced in such troubles can at all appreciate, it was proposed in a letter from the American secretary to the joint commissioners, and thus, mainly by the industry, ability and perseverance of'Mr. Webster, the most fundamental and per- plexing difficulty that ever existed between the United States and a foreign government, which had baffled the skill of every successive cabinet since the foundation of the republic, which had threatened hostilities between the two countries for more than fifty years, and which was likely to bring us into an im mediate outbreak and war with the British empire, was finally and forever put to rest. A treaty was concluded upon, by Lord Ashburton and Mr. Webster, which definitely and defin- itively fixed the boundary between the United States and the British possessions in North America, along the whole line, from Nova Scotia to the St. Lawrence, thence up the channel of that river and through the great chain of lakes to the porta- ges above the head waters of Lake Superior, and thence through untrodden and pathless forests, and over and along vast moun- tain ranges, for a distance of about four thousand miles, a line long enough to divide the whole of Europe, to the base of the Rocky Mountains. Notwithstanding the partisan objections, which were at one time raised against this settlement of the boundary, all of which were thoroughly answered by Mr. Webster in his speech of the 6th and 7th of April, 1846, any American, who will take the pains, or rather give himself the pleasure, of reading the treaty of Washington, by which this settlement was made, and all the documents pertaining to the subject, will not fail to see, that England gave up, and intended to give up, almost every disputed interest connected with this question, as an offset to jthei interests, which she had more at heart, and which she 342 WEBSTER AND HIS MASTitt-PIECES. made a prominent part of the negotiations. Those high an 6 paramount interests were connected with the African slave- trade. She did not call upon us, however, to undertake or in- itiate any new policy in reference to this subject ; for she well knew that the United States had taken the lead of all other countries in declaring the slave-trade piracy, punishable as a crime of the greatest magnitude. What she desired was, that our government should accept of her cooperation in executing a common determination to suppress it ; that we should agree to unite with her in maintaining a sufficient force at sea, and particularly on the coast of Africa, to secure a speedy extinction of the traffic; and that our government should consent, in or- der to carry out this grand design, to the visitation of merchant vessels sailing under our flag, for the purpose of putting a stop to the practice, common to the unholy trade, of sailing under false colors while prosecuting their nefarious business. Nothing, certainly, could have been proposed more conso- nant to the repeated legislation and solemn declarations of our government ; but, strange to say, from the time when our le- gislation was had upon the subject, there had been a singular reluctance, on the part of our several and successive cabinets, to enter into any very special stipulations of this nature. The history of the negotiations, which have occurred between this country and Great Britain, is very briefly and correctly stated by Mr. Everett : " The British government." says that gen- tleman, " for the praiseworthy purpose of putting a stop to the traffic in slaves, has at different times entered into conventions with several of the states of Europe authorizing a mutual right of search of the trading vessels of each contracting party by the armed cruisers of the other party. These treaties give no right to search the vessels of nations not parties to them. But if an armed ship of either party should search a vessel of a third power under a reasonable suspicion that she belonged to the other contracting party, ar i was pursuing the slave-trade ir. THE AFRICAN SLAVE-TRADE. 343 contravention of the treaty, this act of power, performed by mistake, and with requisite moderation and circumspection in the manner, would not be just ground of offense. It would, however, authorize a reasonable expectation of indemnification on behalf of the private individuals who might suffer by the detention, as in other cases of injury inflicted on innocent per- sons by public functionaries acting with good intentions, but at their peril. " The government of the United States, both in its executive and legislative branches, has at almost all times manifested an extreme repugnance to enter into conventions for a mutual right of search. It has not yielded to any other power in its aver- sion to the slave-trade, which it was the first government to denounce as piracy. The reluctance in question grew princi- pally out of the injuries inflicted upon the American commerce, and still more out of the personal outrages in the impressment of American seamen, which took place during the wars of Napoleon, and incidentally to the belligerent right of search and the enforcement of the Orders in Council and the Berlin and Milan decrees. Besides a wholesale confiscation of Amer- ican property, hundreds of American seamen were impressed into the ships of war of Great Britain. So deeply had the pub- lic sensibility been wounded on both points, that any extension of the right of search by the consent of the United States was for a long time nearly hopeless. " But this feeling, strong and general as it was, yielded at last to the detestation of the slave-trade. Toward the close of the second administration of Mr. Monroe the executive had been induced, acting under the sanction of resolutions of the two houses of congress, to agree to a convention with Great Britain for a mutual right of search of vessels suspected of be- ing engaged in the traffic. This convention was negotiated ii London by Mr. Rush on the part of the United States, MJ 1--44 WEBSTER AND HIS MASTER-PIECE?. Canning being the British secretary of state for foreign affairs. " In defining the limits within which this right should be exer. cised, the coasts of America were included. The senate were of opinion that such a provision might be regarded as an ad- mission that the slave-trade was carried on between the coasts of Africa and the United States, contrary to the known fact, and to the reproach either of the will or power of the United States to enforce their laws, by which it was declared to be piracy. It also placed the whole coast of the Union under the surveillance of the cruisers of a foreign power. The senate accordingly ratified the treaty, with an amendment exempting the coasts of the United States from the operation of the article. They also introduced other amendments of less importance. " On the return of the treaty to London thus amended, Mr. Canning gave way to a feeling of dissatisfaction at the course pursued by the senate, not so much on account of any decided objection to the amendment in itself considered, as to the claim of the senate to introduce any change into a treaty negotiated according to instructions. Under the influence of this feeling, Mr'. Canning refused to ratify the treaty as amended, and no further attempt was at that time made to renew the negotiation. " It will probably be admitted on all hands, at the present day, that Mr. Canning's scruple was without foundation. The treaty had been negotiated by this accomplished statesman, under the full knowledge that the constitution of the United States reserves this power to the senate. That it should be exercised was, therefore, no more matter of complaint, than that the treaty should be referred at all to the ratification of the senate. The course pursued by Mr. Canning was greatly to be regretted, as it postponed the amicable adjustment of this matter for eighteen years, not without risk of serious misundar standing in (he interval. THE RIGHT OF SEARCH. 345 " Attempts were made on the part of England, during the ministry of Lord Melbourne, to renew the negotiation with the United States, but without success. Conventions between France and England, for a mutual right of search within cer- tain limits, were concluded in 1831 and 1833, under the min- istry of the Due de Broglie, without awakening the public sen- sibility in the former country. As these treaties multiplied, the activity of the English cruisers increased. After the treaty with Portugal, in 1838, the vessels of that country, which, with those of Spain, were most largely engaged in the traffic, began to assume the flag of the United States as a protection ; and hi many cases, also, although the property of vessels and cargo had, by collusive transfers on the African coast, become Span- ish or Portuguese, the vessels had been built and fitted out in the United States, and too often, it may be feared, with Amer- ican capital. Vessels of this description were provided with two sets of papers, to be used as occasion might require. " Had nothing further been done by British cruisers than to board and search these vessels, whether before or after a trans- fer of this kind, no complaint would probably have been made by the government of the United States. But, as many Amer- ican vessels were engaged in lawful commerce on the coast of Africa, it frequently happened that they were boarded by Brit- ish cruisers, not always under the command of discreet officers. Some voyages were broken up, officers and men occasionally ill-treated, and vessels sent to the United States or Sierra Leone for adjudication. "In 1840 an agreement was made between the officers in command of the British and American squadrons respectively, sanctioning a reciprocal right of search on the coast of Africa. It was a well-meant, but unauthorized step, and was promptly disavowed by the administration of Mr. Van Buren. Its op- eration, while it lasted, was but to increase the existing diffi- culty. Reports of the interruptions experienced by our com- 346 WEBSTER AND HIS MASTER-PIEOEfe. merce in the African waters began greatly to multiply ; anJ there was a strong interest on the part of those surreptitiously engaged in the traffic to give them currency. A deep feeling began to be manifested in the country ; and the correspondence between the American minister in London and Lord Palmers- ton, in the last days of the Melbourne ministry, was such as to show that the controversy had reached a critical point. Such was the state of the question when Mr. Webster entered the department of state." Mr. Everett was at this time in Europe, as minister to the court of London; and, notwithstanding the lengthy quotation al- ready made from him, his testimony respecting the state of the question on the other side of the Atlantic is the best on record, and can hardly be substituted by anything that can now be written : " The controversy was transmitted," he says, in continuation of his account, "to the new administrations on both sides of the water, but soon assumed a somewhat modified character. The quintuple treaty, as it was called, was concluded at London, on the 20th of December, 1841, by England, France, Austria, Prussia, and Russia ; and information of that fact, as we have seen above, was given by Lord Aberdeen to Mr. Everett the same day. A strong desire was intimated that the United States would join this association of the great powers, but no formal invitation for that purpose was addressed to them. But the recent occurrences on the coast of Africa, and the tone of the correspondence above alluded to, had increased the stand- ing repugnance of the United States to the recognition of a right of search hi time of peace. " In the mean time, the same complaints, sometimes just, sometimes exaggerated, sometimes groundless, had reached France from the coast of Africa, and a strong feeling against the right of search was produced in that country. The inci- dents connected with the adjustment of the Syrian question, in 1840. had greatly irritated the French ministry and people, and THE QUINTUPLE TREAT r. 84T the present was deemed a favorable moment for retaliation. On the assembling of the chambers, an amendment was moved by M. Lefebvre to the address in reply to the king's speech in the following terms : ' We have also the confidence, that, in granting its concurrence to the suppression of a criminal traffic, your government will know how to preserve from every attack the interests of our commerce and the independence of our flag.' This amendment was adopted by the unanimous vote of the chambers. "This was well understood to be a blow aimed at the quin- tuple treaty. It was the most formidable parliamentary check ever encountered by M. Guizot's administration. It excited profound sensation throughout Europe. It compelled the French ministry to make the painful sacrifice of a convention negotiated agreeably to instructions, and not differing in prin- ciple from those of 1831 and 1833, which were consequently liable to be involved in its fate. The ratification of the quin- tuple treaty was felt to be out of the question. Although it soon appeared that the king was determined to sustain M. Guizot, it was by no means apparent in what manner his administration was to be rescued from the present embar- rassment. " The public feeling in France was considerably heightened by various documents which appeared at this juncture, in con- nection with the controversy between the United States arid Great Britain. The president's message and its accompanying papers reached Europe about the period of the opening of the session. A very few days after the adoption of M. Lefebvre's amendment, a pamphlet, written by General Cass, was pub- lished in Paris, and, being soon after translated into French and widely circulated, contributed to strengthen the current of public feeling. A more elaborate essay was, in the course of the season, published by Mr. Wheaton, the minister of th VOL. i. O* olS WEBSTER AND HIS MASTER-PIECES. United States at Berlin, in which the theory of a right of search in time of peace was vigorously assailed." Difficult and tangled as this question had become, however, the eighth article of the treaty of Washington settled it so completely and so easily, that, as in every similar case where a great discovery is made, the universal feeling of the country and the world was a general sentiment of wonder that the discovery had never been made before : " The parties mutually stipulate," says the article mentioned, " that each shall prepare, equip and maintain in service, on the coast of Africa, a sufficient and ade- quate squadron, or naval force of vessels, of suitable numbers and descriptions, to carry in all not less than eight guns, to en- force, separately and respectively, the laws, rights, and obliga- tions of each of the two countries, for the suppression of the slave-trade ; the said squadrons to be independent of each other, but the two governments stipulating, nevertheless, to give such orders to the officers cormnanding their respective forces, as shall enable them most effectually to act in concert and coope- ration, upon mutual consultations, as exigencies may arise, for the attainment of the true object of this article ; copies of all such orders to be communicated by each government to the other, respectively." The two countries made an additional stipulation, in relation to other governments, with a desire still farther to act in con- cert in suppressing and forever rooting up this unrighteous traf- fic ; and it was a stipulation, which, while it promised to secure its object, entirely avoided the offensive claim, set up by Great Britain, of a right of search : " Whereas," says the ninth arti- cle of iie treaty, " notwithstanding all efforts which may be made on the coast of Africa for suppressing the slave-trade, he facilities for carrying on that traffic and avoiding the vigi- ance of cruisers by the fraudulent use of flags, and other means, are so great, and the temptations for pursuing it, while a mar ket can be found for slaves, so strong, as that the desired result EXTRADITION Of FUGITIVES. 348 may be long delayed, unless all markets be shut against the purchase of African negroes, the parties to this treaty agree, that they will unite in all becoming representations and remon- strances with any and all powers within whose dominions such markets are allowed to exist ; and that they will urge upon all such powers the propriety and duty of closing such markets effectually, at once and forever." Thus, in a very simple and amicable manner, England was permitted to obtain of us the quid pro quo for which she had yielded nearly everything in relation to the boundary ; and this very consideration, in lieu of which so much was gained by us, was of vastly less value to the party seeking, than to the party granting it. By this treaty of Washington, therefore, so far as now ex- plained, the United States had obtained her main points in relation to the boundary, and Great Britain had secured the end aimed at by her in reference to the African slave-trade ; but there was a third question, in which both countries were about equally interested, though, at the moment, it was of greater immediate consequence to Great Britain. This was the question of the extradition of fugitives from justice. Each country had been, since the foundation of the republic, an asy- lum for the criminals of the other ; and as both spoke the same language, enjoyed nearly the same laws, and furnished about the same general advantages to their citizens, a volun- tary change of residence from, one to the other, the only price the worst of malefactors had to pay for security against all pun ishment, was too easy to admit of the administration of thor- ough justice in either country. The Canadas were full of Amer- ^can citizens, who, flying from just punishment, or escaping from the jurisdiction of our laws, had found a refuge among a kin- dred population, with whom they could live as happily as at home ; and the United States, on the other hand, had received thousands of British subjects, who had committed crimes of the deepest dye, but who had found it more agreeable and more 350 WEBSTER AND II1 MASTER-PIECES. easy to live and thrive among a people of their own blood on this side, than on the other side of the Atlantic. Something, therefore, which should entirely relieve the two countries of this common evil, had been contemplated for half a century ; but the honor of achieving what had been so long desired, was left for Mr. Webster. The tenth artic e of his treaty for- ever settled this subject. " It is agreed," says that document, " that the United States, and her Britannic majesty shall, upon mutual requisitions by them, or their ministers, officers, or au- thorities, respectively made, deliver up to justice all persons who, being charged with the crime of murder, or assault with intent to commit murder, or piracy, or arson, or robbery, or forgery, or the utterance of forged papers, committed within the jurisdiction of either, shall seek an asylum, or shall be found, within the territories of the other: provided that this shall only be done upon such evidence of criminality, as, ac- cording to the laws of the place where the fugitive or person so charged shall be found, would justify his apprehension and commitment for trial, if the crime or offense had there been committed ; and the respective judges and other magistrates of the two governments shall have power, jurisdiction and au- thority, upon complaint made under oath, to issue a warrant for the apprehension of the fugitive or person so charged, that he may be brought before such judges or other magistrates, respectively, to the end that the evidence of criminality may be heard and considered ; and if, on such hearing, the evidence be deemed sufficient to sustain the charge, it shall be the duty of the examining judge or magistrate to certify the same to the proper executive authority, that a wan-ant may issue for the surrender of such fugitive. The expense of such appre- hension and delivery shall be borne by the party who makes the requisition, and receives the fugitive." In addition to the crimes here specified, England was anx tous \o ir^ert that of treason, in order the more effectually tr BURNING OF THE CAROLINE. 351 defend herself against the revolutionists of Ireland, and their co-laborers within her immediate limits ; but, had this been in- sisted on, it would have given a pretext to the southern sent! ment of this country, which was ready to break out into the form and force of a demand, of reclaiming fugitives from a tate of slavery, who might take shelter under the "banner of Great Britain. These two topics, therefore, were excluded from the treaty, as likely, if inserted, to produce less good than evil ; and it was well known, too, to Lord Ashbm-ton, that Mr. Web- ster would not have consented to any arrangements by which British subjects, any more than American citizens, should be returned to punishment for political opinions, or slaves, who had thus secured their independence, should be again remanded to a state of bondage. These three were the leading questions claiming the atten- tion of the two illustrious diplomatists ; but there were others, incidental to their great design of settling the prominent dif- ferences between their governments, which were of no less mo- ment than those included in their treaty. The treaty did not allude to the case of McLeod, nor make any provision against the recurrence of such cases ; but a law was passed by con- gress, evidently by agreement, and at the particular suggestion of Mr. Webster, by which all persons charged with an act similar to his were to be held under the jurisdiction, not of any single state, but of the United States. The burning of the Caroline, within the limits of the United Suites, was also presented by Mr. Webster to Lord Ashbur- ton as a flagrant wrong, which, though it had been passed over by the preceding administration, could no longer be overlooked ; Lord Ashburton was compelled to make an apology to our government, in the name of his own, which England is not ac- customed to make to the greatest powers on earth ; and Mr. Webster received the apology in a dignified and yet friendly manner, at once securing respect to our national character and 352 WEBSTER AND HIS MASTER-PIECES. rights, without needlessly wounding the pride of that govern ment, from which the apology had come : " Understanding these principles alike," says the American secretary to the Brit- ish minister, " the difference between the two governments is only whether the facts in the case of the Caroline make out a case of such necessity for the purpose of self-defence. See- ing that the transaction is not recent, having happened in the time of one of his predecessors ; seeing that your lordship, in the name of your government, solemnly declares that no slight or disrespect was intended to the sovereign authority of the United States ; seeing that it is acknowledged that, whether justifiable or not, there was yet a violation of the territory of the United States, and that you are instructed to say that your government considers that as a most serious occurrence ; see- ing, finally, that it is now admitted that an explanation and apology for this violation was due at the time ; the president is content to receive these acknowledgments and assurances in the conciliatory spirit which marks your lordship's letter, and will make this subject, as a complaint of violation of territory, the topic of no further discussion between the two govern- ments." The doctrine of impressment, as asserted by Great Britain, which had been the leading cause in producing the late war between that country and the United States, Mr. Webster earnestly desired to bring into the negotiations between him and the British minister ; but Lord Ashburton had received no instructions on that subject. Mr. Webster, however, would not let the occasion pass, without expressing to the represent- ative of England the American view of this practice of im- pressment ; and he accordingly addressed a letter to Lord Ash- burton, in which he discussed the whole matter with his char- acteristic ability. Indeed, it is doubtful whether there is a state paper of greater ability in the language. In the first place, he gives a h;story of the subject in that style of brevity DOCTRINE OF IMPRESSMENT. 353 and point so peculiar to all his narratives : " We have had several conversations," he says, " on the subject of impress- ment ; but I do not understand that your lordship has instruc- tions from your government to negotiate upon it ; nor does the government of the United States see any utility in opening such negotiation, unless the British government is prepared to renounce the practice in all future wars. "No cause has produced, to so great an extent, and for so long a period, disturbing and irritating influences in the politi- cal relations of the United States and England, as the impress- ment of seamen by British cruisers from American merchant vessels. " From the commencement of the French revolution to the breaking out of the war between the two countries, in 1812, hardly a year elapsed without loud complaint and earnest re- monstrance. A deep feeling of opposition to the right claimed, and to the practice exercised under it, and not unfrequently ex- ercised without the least regard to what justice and humanity would have dictated, even if the right itself had been admitted, took possession of the public mind of America ; and this feel- ing, it is well known, cooperated most powerfully with other causes, to produce the state of hostilities which ensued. " At different periods, both before and since the war, nego- tiations have taken place between the two governments, with the hope of finding some means of quieting these complaints. At some times, the effectual abolition of the practice has been re- quested and treated of; at other times, its temporary suspen- sion ; and at other times, again, the limitation of its exercise, and some swurity against its enormous abuses. " A common destiny has attended these efforts. They have all failed. The question stands at this moment where it stood fifty years ago. The nearest approach to a settlement was a convention proposed in 1803, and which had come to the point of signature, when it was broken off in consequence of tha G Washington, out to defend the treaty itself against that class of persons, before alluded to, who were not willing that any one man should " deserve too well of the republic." Several dis- tinct charges were brought against the treaty, in both houses of congress, when Mr. Webster was not there, not being a member, to answer them. He was charged with having alien- ated a portion of our territory to a foreign government ; with having proposed or accepted a line of boundary unfavorable in a military point of view, to the United States, while important advantages were secured by it to Great Britain ; with having failed to settle the great and annoying question of the right of search, as set up by Great Britain in regard to vessels sup- posed to be engaged in the African slave-trade ; and with hav ing demanded of England no redress for the destruction of the steamboat Caroline. It was not until four years after the ratification of the treaty, in the spring of 1846, that Mr. Webster had the opportunity of answering these charges, and of defending his reputation as a diplomatist. During the winter and spring of that year, in the discussion of the Oregon question, when Mr. Webster was again in the senate, the treaty was once more assailed in both houses of congress in a style of vituperation not at all credita- ble to the moderation of the assailants. Mr. Dickinson, one of the senators from New York, delivered a speech on the bound ary of Oregon, in which he quoted largely and approvingly from a speech made previously by Mr. C. J. Ingersoll, a mem- ber of the lower house from Pennsylvania, who had industri- ously gathered up objections to the treaty, and who had partic- ularly given currency to certain offensive and injurious rumors .n relation to the affair of the Caroline. This speech of Mr. Dickinson had at least the merit of calling Mr. Webster out to make one of the ablest and most triumphant defences ever ut- tered since the delivery of the oration for the crown. It must ever be regarded, in the sober judgment of history, as a perfect 370 WEIiSTER AND HIS M ASTER-PI Kl'KS. vindication of the treaty and of the man who acted the *irsl part in its negotiation. Nor can it he doubted, that the per petrators of the assault would have chosen, after all was over never to have made it, unless the notoriety of having held combat with a man, who, in general, was prudently let alone, was a sufficient satisfaction in a contest from which no living person could reasonably have expected fame. Besides giving a most conclusive answer to every charge brought against the treaty, and against himself, Mr. Webster turned upon his assailants, and upon the party whose champions they were, and proved, to a demonstration, that, if he had not accomplished all that could have been desired, they and their party, though admin- istering the government more than two-thirds of the time since its origin, had done literally nothing. Indeed, he showed that the two last democratic administrations had left our difficulties with Great Britain in a worse condition than they found them ; and, at the conclusion of his speech, which ran through the 6th and 7th of April, he submits his whole case to the decision of mankind in a strain of dignified but humble confidence, which always characterized him on such occasions : " Mr. President, I have reached the end of these remarks, and the completion of my purpose ; and I am now ready, sir, to put the question to the senate, and to the country, whether the north-eastern boundary has not been fairly and satisfactorily settled ; whether proper satisfaction and apology have not been obtained for an aggression on the soil and territory of the United States ; whether proper and safe stipulations have not been entered into for the fulfillment of the duty of government, and for meeting the earnest desire of the people, in the suppression of the slave- trade ; whether in pursuance of these stipulations, a degree of success in the attainment of that object has not been reached, wholly unknown before ; whether crimes disturbing the peace of nations have not been suppressed ; whether the safety of the southern coasting trade has not been secured ; whether im APPEAL TO PUBLIC OPINION. 371 pressment has not been struck out from the list of contested questions among nations; and finally, and more than all. whether anything has been done to tarnish the luster of the American name and character ? " Mr. President, my best services, like those of every other good citizen, are due to my country ; and I submit them, and their results, in all humility, to her judgment. But standing here, to-day, in the senate of the United States, and speaking in behalf of the administration of which I formed a part, and hi behalf of the two houses of congress, who sustained that ad- ministration, cordially and effectually, in everything relating to this day's discussion, 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 public law, for the freedom and security of commerce on the ocean, and for the peace of the world ?" To this appeal, the public men of the age, on both sides of the Atlantic, have given almost a unanimous response. They have responded, that the illustrious secretary was entirely jus- tified in remaining in the cabinent of Mr. Tyler, so long as that gentleman continued to aid him in achieving the great work for which, and for which alone, he had accepted the high post at the hands of General Harrison. They have responded, that the treaty of Washington, professedly a treaty of mutual con- cession, is upon the whole the wisest possible settlement of the long-standing and vexed difficulties between two great nations jealous of each other's power, and stubborn in the mainte- nance of their own rights. They have responded, that the man who negotiated that treaty, in the midst of obstacles which would have disheartened, and did dishearten and defeat, the ablest and most determined of our statesmen, performed a work for his country, and for his age, which no other American, then living, could have performed, or performed so well. They VOL. i. P* 24 372 WEBSTER AND HIS MASTER-PIECES. have responded, in spite of the vigorous ana repeated buc in significant attacks made upon it, by mere partisan politicians, that the treaty stands far above party, as it is far above assault. a, monument of American diplomacy, worthy to be made, as it has been made, a model for the oldest and most experienced nations. They have responded, in a word, that the American who negotiated that instrument, had this been his only work, would have stood, in the judgment of all enlightened men, by the side of the most distinguished and successful diplomatists of ancient and of modern times ; and it is probably not too much to say, that the treaty of Washington will hereafter, for generations yet to come, be looked back to as the ablest treaty ever made, in time of peace, between the United States and any other country, and as a particular star in that coronet of fame which is ever to circle the name of Daniel Webster. Immedi ately after its completion, at all events, it cannot be denied, that that coronet shone brighter than at any previous period of his history. The first public address that he made, after reti- ring from Mr. Tyler's cabinet and he retired as soon as he could after the treaty was secured was quoted in England, in France, and in nearly every part of Europe, as the most relia- ble statement of the condition and prospects of this country, in a financial point of view, to be met with ; and these quotations, which embodied but the opinion of a single individual, of only one citizen of this country, who now held no office, who had no longer a control over public affiairs, who never had had the charge of his country's finances, materially affected the value of American securities in London, in Paris, and in every great commercial city of the continent. At this time of his life, in- deed, not only was his word more powerful at home than thai of any other American, whether in office or out of office, but it had gone out to other countries, and become the basis of the heaviest pecuniary transactions among nations, and in regions, where the names of some of the presidents of the republic had ANSWER TO THE APPEAL. 373 not yet been made familiar. So true it is, that genius is loftiei than place, that talents are mightier than position ; for at the pe- riod now under view, the highest place, without doubt, for powei and influence held by any person in this country, when all the great interests of mankind are considered, was that occupied. wherever or whatever he might be, in public or in private life, by Daniel Webster. CHAPTER XI. AGAIN SENATOR FROM MASSACHUSETTS. THE two years which succeeded his retirement from j.e cab- inet of Mr. Tyler, Mr. Webster spent in the peaceful enjoy- ments of private life ; and they must have been the happiest two years he had seen since the halcyon days of his childhood. Revered as a sage in his own country, and possessed of a fame that had gone into every great nation of the globe, he was free from the cares and turmoil of office, and could walk over his lands at Marshfield, thinking his own great thoughts with a freshness and freedom which he had scarcely ever known before. Re- turning from his rambles on the farm, he could go into his magnificent library, which was stored with the standard works of the most enlightened ages and countries, and lose himself in other rambles, or engage in those more fixed investigations, which constitute the most agreeable recreation and employment of the mind. To diversify these pursuits, he could go, as he did often go, to the boat-house where he kept his skiffs, and wind his way along the crooked tide-channels, that intersect his posses- sions, to the beach of the great ocean, where he could enjoy hours of absolute solitude, alone with nature, and give loose rein to his memory, his reason, and his fancy. As expert at fishing as any of the disciples of the great angler, and capable of teaching where Sir Izaak himself was not informed, with Captain Hewitt for helmsman, he would be out upon the streams before the sun had risen, and devote all the cool hours of morning to this amusement ; and in these ways, as a needed and long-desired relaxation from the corroding anxieties of pub- TWO YEARS' VACATION. 375 lie station, many of the bright days of the two years of the sec- ond vacation of his life were made still brighter, till he was again called to the senate of the United States by a common- wealth, which, while he lived, could not long suffer itself to be otherwise represented. The two years, however, were not entirely devoted to recre- ation. As needy of rest as Mr. Webster knew himself to be, he could not satisfy himself to remain a silent spectator, when he saw a movement in inception, which he looked upon as dan- gerous to the peace, if not to the liberties, of the country. It was during the two years of his retirement that the project was revived of annexing Texas to the Union. Texas, having as- serted and maintained her independence of Mexico by a brief but bloody revolution, had offered herself to the United States during the kindred administrations of Jackson and of Van Bu ren ; and both of these presidents had rejected the overture on the ground, that, if accepted, it would involve us in a war with Mexico. Mr. Tyler, however, eager in some way to win back some portion of the country that had deserted him, thought he could secure the south by accepting what had been twice re- jected. But there was not southern strength enough in con- gress, during his day, to carry the proposed measure, and it therefore remained till the expiration of Mr. Tyler's term, to be made one of the two great issues of the succeeding presi- dential canvass. Mr. Webster, foreseeing that this would be the case, exerted himself, while at home at Murshfield, to rouse the country against the measure ; and his correspondence and conversation were the means of first waking the attention of the public to this new mode of extending the area of slavery. He met with no great success, however, in warning his fellow- citizens against the insidious undertaking. His most confiden- tial friends, his wannest admirers, could hardly believe that there was any real danger. His opponents accused him, rather plainly, of playing the demagogue, as he was now out of office. WEBSTER AND HIS MASTER-PIECES. 01 ok .Mittuty becoming an alarmist. He lived to remind both ms friends and his enemies of his exertions on this sub- ject, and of their own apathy and uncharitableness : " For a few years," says he, in his remarks on the Mexican war, de- livered on the 23d of March, 1848, "I held a position in the executive administration of the government. I left the depart- ment of state in 1843, in the month of May. Within a month after another (an intelligent gentleman, for whom I cherished a high respect, and who came to a sad and untimely end) had taken my place, I had occasion to know, not officially, but from circumstances, that the annexation of Texas .was taken up by Mr. Tyler's administration as an administration measure. It was pushed, pressed, insisted on ; and I believe the honorable gentleman to whom I have referred had something like a pas- sion for the accomplishment of this purpose. And I am afraid that the president of the United States at that time suffered his ardent feelings not a little to control his more prudent judg- ment. At any rate, I saw, in 1843, that annexation had be- come a purpose of the administration. I was not in congress nor in public life. But, seeing this state of things, I thought it my duty to admonish the country, so far as I could, of the ex- istence of that purpose. There are gentlemen at the north, many of them, there are gentlemen now in the capitol, who know, that in the summer of 1843, being fully persuaded that this purpose was embraced with zeal and determination by the executive department of the government of the United States, I thought it my duty, and asked them to concur with me in the attempt, to make that purpose known to the country. I conferred with gentlemen of distinction and influence. I pro- poned means for exciting public attention to the question of an- nexation, before it should bave become a party question ; for 1 had learned that, when any topic becomes a party question, 5i is in vain to argue upon it. ELECTION OF MR. POLK. 37" " But the optimists, and the quietists, and those who said Ail things are well, and let all things alone, discouraged, di* countenanced, and repressed any such effort. The north, they said, could take care of itself; the country could take care of itself, and would not sustain Mr. Tyler in his project of annex- ation. When the time should come, they said, the power of the north would be felt, and would be found sufficient to resist and prevent the consummation of the measure. And I could now refer to paragraphs and articles in the most respectable and leading journals of the north, in which it was attempted to produce the impression that there was no danger; there could be no addition of new states, and men need not alarm them- selves about that." Mr. Van Buren, who had been regarded as a martyr by his party, and who had been generally looked to as the democratic candidate for the presidency, if not hostile, was cautious in re- gard to the project of annexation ; and his caution, hitherto ap- plauded as his leading characteristic as a statesman, had ceased to be admired by southern politicians. They wanted a man sure to sustain the doctrine of the annexation of more slave ter- ritory to the republic; consequently, at the national democratic convention of 1844, Mr. Van Buren was rejected ; and the con- vention selected Mr. Polk as its candidate, a gentleman of great private worth and some abilities as a public man, but nearly unknown to the citizens of the country. The whigs set up Mr. Clay for the same high office ; and the canvass was carried through with unusual spirit by both parties. Mr. Clay was in favor of a United States bank, but opposed to annexation. Mr. Polk was a friend to annexation, but opposed to a general bank. Mr. Clay depended on the anti-slavery vote of the north ; but in this he met with utter and a disastrous disappointment. That vote, by being thrown away on a separate candidate, se- cured the election of Mr. Polk, secured the annexation f Texas, with her debts and slaves, and led directly forward to the wai 378 WEBSTER AND HIS MASTER-PIECES. with Mexico, to the acquisition of new and vast regions of te ritory, to the difficulties attending the organization of those tor ritories, even to the fugitive slave bill, which they afterwards so unanimously denounced. Mr. Webster, with his usual sa- gacity, foresaw all these consequences, and warned the country, and the anti-slavery part of it in particular, to avoid them; and had the latter heeded the warnings of the great statesman, and voted with him for Henry Clay against annnexation, Mr. Clay would have been elected, Texas would have been kept out of the Union, the war with Mexico would not have happened, the south-western territories would not have been acquired, no com- promise of 1850 would have been demanded, and no new fugi- tive slave law, as a part of that compromise, would have been asked for or granted. Mr. Polk and the extension of slavery were in this way sanc- tioned by a constitutional majority, though a minority in fact, of the American people ; and, as a matter of course, the first thing undertaken, and the first thing effected, was the annexa- tion of the new republic. Failing to find votes enough in con- gress to carry annexation according to the constitution, or ac- cording to usage under the constitution, it was secured by a simple joint resolution of the two houses, a mode not contem- plated by that instrument, if not in opposition to it. Mr. Web- ster, now once more a member of the senate, having been ap- pointed to succeed Mr. Choate, who had been himself appointed to supply the vacancy made by Mr. Webster's accepting office under General Harrison, raised his voice, and ihe voice of Mas- sachusetts, against the measure. He opposed it on the ground, that too great an expansion of our national territory, for what- ever reason or by whatever means effected, would be danger- ous to the perpetuity of the government ; that he wished to have the United States stand as an example of a country grow- ing greater, not by aggressions on the peaceful territories of uur neighbors, but by the development of it* own resources. ANNEXATION OF TEXAS. 379 and bj the establishment, as national characteristics, of inoder atiou and justice ; and that, by the admission of Texas, we snould be adding to the already existing inequality between the states north and south, arising from the existence of slavery and an unequal mode of popular representation founded on it : "In the next place, sir," said the senator, in giving a formal state- ment of this reason for his opposition, " I have to say, that while I hold, with as much integrity, I trust, and faithfulness, as any citizen of this country, to all the original arrangements and compromises under which the constitution under which we now live was adopted, I never could, and never can, persuade my- self to be in favor of the admission of other states into the Union as slave states, with the inequalities which were allowed and accorded by the constitution to the slave-holding states then in existence. I do not think that the free states ever expected, or could expect, that they would be called on to admit more slave states, having the unequal advantages arising to them from the mode of apportioning representation under the existing con- stitution. "Sir, I have never made an effort, and never propose to make an effort ; I have never countenanced an effort, and never mean to countenance an effort, to disturb the arrangements, as originally made, by which the various states came into the Union. But I cannot avoid considering it quite a different ques- tion, when a proposition is made to admit new states, and that they be allowed to come in with the same advantages and ine- qualities which were agreed to in regard to the old. It may be said, that, according to the provisions of the constitution, new states are to be admitted upon the same footing as the old states. It may be so ; but it does not follow at all from that provision, that every territory or portion of country may at pleasure establish slavery, and then say we will become a por- tion of the Union, and will bring with us the principles which \ve have thus adopted, and must be received on the same foot- 380 WEBSTER AND HIS MASTER-PJECEB. ing as the old states. It will always be a question whether the other states have not a right (and I think they have the clearest right) to require that the state coming into the Union should come in upon an equality ; and if the existence of slavery be an impediment to coming in on an equality, then the state pro- posing to come in should be required to remove that inequality by abolishing slavery, or take the alternative of 'being excluded. " Now, I suppose that I should be very safe in saying, that if a proposition were made to introduce from the north or the north-west territories into this Union, under circumstances which would give them an equivalent to that enjoyed by slave states, advantage and inequality, that is to say, over the south, such as this admission gives to the south over the north, I take it for granted that there is not a gentleman in this body from a slave-holding state that would listen for one moment to such a proposition. I therefore put my opposition, as well as on other grounds, on the political ground that it deranges the balance of the constitution, and creates inequality and unjust ad- vantage against the north, and in favor of the slave-holding coun- try of the south. I repeat, that if a proposition were now made for annexations from the north, and that proposition contained such a preference, auch a manifest inequality, as that now before us, no one could hope that any gentleman from the southern states would hearken to it for a moment. " It is not a subject that I mean to discuss at length. I am quite aware that there are in this chamber gentlemen represent- ing free states, gentlemen from the north and east, who have man- ifested a disposition to add Texas to the Union as a slave^state, with the common inequality belonging to slave states. This is a matter for their own discretion, and judgment, and responsi- bility. They are in no way responsible to me for the ex- ercise of the duties assigned them here ; but I must say that I cannot but think that the time will come when they will very much doubt both the propriety and justice of the present pro OPPOSES ANNEXATION. 381 ceeding. I cannot but think the time will come when all wiL J be convinced that there is no reason, political or moral, foi increasing the number of the states, and increasing, at the same time, the obvious inequality which exists in the representation of the people in congress by extending slavery and slave rep- resentation. " On looking at the proposition further, I find that it imposes restraints upon the legislature of the state as to the manner in which it shall proceed (in case of a desire to proceed at all) in order to the abolition of slavery. I have perused that part of the constitution of Texas, and, if I understand it, the legislature is restrained from abolishing slavery at any time, except on two conditions ; one, the consent of every master, and the other, the payment of compensation. Now I think that a con- stitution thus formed ties up the hands of the legislature effect- ually against any movement, under any state of circumstances, with a view to abolish slavery ; because, if anything is to be done, it must be done within the state by general law, and such a thing as the consent of every master cannot be obtained ; though I do not say that there may not be an inherent power in the people of Texas to alter the constitution, if they should be inclined to relieve themselves hereafter from the restraint under which they labor. But I speak of the constitution now presented to us. " Mr. President, I was not in congress at the last session, and of course had no opportunity to take part in the debates upon this question ; nor have I before been called upon to discharge a public trust in regard to it. I certainly did, as a private cit- izen, entertain a strong feeling that, if Texas were to be brought into the Union at all, she ought to be brought in by diplomatic arrangement, sanctioned by treaty. But it has been decided otherwise by both houses of congress ; and, whatever my own opinions may be, I know that many who coincided with me feel themselves, nevertheless, bound by the decision of all 382 WEBSTER AND HIS MASTER-PIECES. branches of the government. My own opinion and judgment have not been at all shaken by anything I have heard. And now, not having been a member of the government, and having, of course, taken no official part in the measure, and as it has now come to be completed, I have believed that I should best discharge my own duty, and fulfill the expectations of those who placed me here, by giving this expression of their most decided, unequivocal, and unanimous dissent and protest ; and stating, as I have now stated, the reasons which have impelled me to withhold my vote. " I agree with the unanimous opinion of the legislature of Massachusetts ; I agree with the great mass of her people ; I reaffirm what I have said and written during the last eight years, at various times, against this annexation. I here record my own dissent and opposition ; and I here express and place on record, also, the dissent and protest of the state of Massa- chusetts." The joint resolution, however, which had been originally re- ported to the house by Mr. Douglas, representative from the state of Illinois, passed ; and the very next event in the history of the country, as had been foreseen and foretold by Mr. Web- ster, was a war with Mexico. Having labored to bring the re- public of Texas into the confederacy, as well as for official rea- sons, Mr. Polk felt bound to defend the new state against the Mexican forces, which were hovering along its south-western border. General Taylor, with a small army, was at once sent to Texas for this purpose. He was ordered to take up his po- sition between the Rio del Norte and the Neuces. Here, in spite of his uncommon abilities as a commander, he was soon threatened with destruction ; and the president was compelled, in all haste, to send on reinforcements. This, therefore, with- out any declaration by congress, and in a manner rendering it impossible for congress to interfere, was the origin of the war. The war having been begun, and the lives of American soj THE OREGON DISPUTE. 383 diers and American citizens being in great hazard, Mi. Web ster could not do otherwise than vote for all the supplies de- manded to carry the war on, till peace could be honorably concluded. The same principle by which he had been actua- ted in 1812 again controlled his course in 1845; and he car- ried his patriotism, or moderation, to such a pitch, that he per- mitted his son Edward, a very promising young man, to enter the army as a volunteer, and sacrifice his life before the walls of Mexico. Mr. Webster never failed to submit with grace, and, if possible, to use with advantage, what he could not prevent While the war with Mexico was in progress, the president raised another question, which, almost at once, threatened to excite hostilities between us and England. Mr. Polk, whose supporters in the canvass had claimed the whole of Oregon, and made 54 degrees 40 minutes a watchword of the party, and a by-word with the people, in his inaugural address, and afterwards in his first and second annual messages to congress, had stated that our right to the whole of Oregon " was clear and unquestionable." This opinion, of course, was given in his official character as president of the United States ; and ac- cordingly, in the first of the above messages, he recommended that the United States should give notice to Great Britain of their intention " to terminate the convention between the two countries," concluded in 1827, for the joint occupation of the ter- ritory. A joint resolution was, therefore, introduced into the senate by Mr. Allen, of Ohio, and referred to the committee on foreign relations, who reported it back with amendments; and while the second time before the senate, it received several additional amendments and alterations. Fearing that an un- qualified notice of separation would needlessly alarm the pub- lic, and embarrass the settlement of the question, Mr. Critten den, of Kentucky, moved a new amendment, the purport of which was, that, in order to afford ample time for the amicable ?84 WEtfbTER AND HIS MASTEK-Plhit ES. adjustment of the question, said notice ought not to be given till after the termination of the current session of congress. On this amendment, Mr. Webster addressed the senate, and this speech, delivered on the 24th of February, 1846, was one of the very few which he was ever known to read in congress. He took the position, in opposition to the extreme language of the president, that if the Oregon dispute was ever settled, it would be settled on the forty -ninth degree of latitude. This idea was immediately scouted by the leading friends of the ad- ministration, in both houses ; but the result justified the predic- tion, and illustrated the sagacity of Mr. Webster. The forty- ninth parallel was accepted by that very president, who had asserted our right to the whole of Oregon, in such emphatic terms, " as clear and unquestionable ; " and after all was over, and over to the satisfaction of the country, Mr. Webster could 1 not fail to draw some amusement from the fact, that the very persons and the party who, in 1842 and afterwards, had threat- ened him with a political crucifixion for having alienated a worth- less strip of " disputed territory," which he and they had always looked upon not only as disputed, but as doubtful, should now surrender to the same government a section of country, to which our title was asserted by them as incontestable, which, in width, would cover the space lying between Lake Erie and North Carolina, and in length would extend nea:ly or quite all the way from Massachusetts to the Mississippi ! However inconsistenf for Mr. Polk to settle the Oregon con- troversy in this way, in the face of his extreme and uncompro- mising assertions, the same settlement would have been proper enough for Mr. Webster, who had never taken the untenable position. The truth is, indeed, this is the very settlement which he was prepared to offer to Lord Ashburton, and which, had the nable diplomatist been instructed by his government upon this subject, would undoubtedly have constituted a portion of the treaty of Washington. In the absence of such instructions SERVICES OF MR. WEBSTER. 385 nothing could be accomplished, and nothing was accomplished, at that time, by Mr. Webster, in the arrangement of this question ; but the merit of the settlement, nevertheless, when the settlement was in fact made, belonged, after all, not to Mr. Polk, nor to his cabinet, but to Mr. Webster, who, doubtless, would never have taken the pains to bring out the evidence of his services, in this particular, to the peace of nations and the best good of the human family. The evidence, however, came forth in an accidental manner. The London Examiner, in an article touching the relations of Great Britain and the United States, furnished the proof that it was Mr. Webster, and not the current administration, that was chiefly instrumental in bringing this vexed controversy to a peaceful and happy ter- mination : " In reply to a question put to him in reference to the present war establishments of this country, and the pro- priety of applying the principle of arbitration in the settlement of disputes arising among nations, Mr. McGregor, one of the candidates for the representation of Glasgow, took occasion to narrate the following very important and remarkable anecdote, in connection with our recent, but now happily terminated dif- ferences with the United States on the Oregon question. At the time our embassador at Washington, the Hon. Mr. Paken- ham, refused to negotiate on the forty-ninth parallel of north latitude as the basis of a treaty, and when, by that refusal, the danger of a rupture between Great Britain and America be- came really imminent, Mr. Daniel Webster, formerly secretary of state to the American government, wrote a letter to Mr. McGregor, in which he strongly deprecated Mr. Pakenham's conduct, which, if persisted in, and adopted at home, would, tc a certainty, embroil the two countries, and suggested an equi- table compromise, taking the forty-ninth parallel as the basis of an adjustment. Mr. McGregor agreeing entirely with Mr. Webster in the propriety of a mutual giving and taking tc avoid a rupture, and the more especially as the whole territory 386 WEBSTER AND HIS MASTER-PIECES. in dispute was not worth 20,000 to either power, while the preparations alone for a war would cost a great deal more be- fore the parties could come into actual conflict, communicated the contents of Mr. Webster's letter to Lord John Russell, who at the time was living in the neighborhood of Edinburgh, and, in reply, received a letter from Lord John, in which he stated his entire accordance with the proposal recommended by Mr. Webster, and approved of by Mr. McGregor, and re- quested the latter, as he (Lord John) was not in a position to do it himself, to intimate his opinion to Lord Aberdeen. Mr. McGregor, through Lord Canning, under-secretary for the for- eign department, did so, and the result was, that the first packet that left England carried out to America the proposal, in ac- cordance with the communication already referred to, on which the treaty of Oregon was happily concluded." While the war with Mexico was in progress, and while it was becoming more and more expensive, as well as more and more doubtful in regard to its termination, the administration proposed to amend the tariff of 1842, which had been proposed by congress, and accepted by the people, as a basis for the business of the country. Once more, indeed, every class of business, and every interest of every citizen of the republic, was to be unsettled for the sake of an experiment, for a long time the subject of party speculation, but never before tried in practice. Not only was the tariff, as a tariff, to be tampered with, but the principle of raising revenue, the principle on which all tariffs are based, was to undergo a sudden alteration. All former bills of tariff, since the beginning of the govern- ment, had been what political economists call specific, which lay certain duties on certain articles, according to their character and their relations, individually, to the business of the country. The new bill was to lay duties on all imports, with no view to the protection of any business or interest of the country, whether agricultural, commercial, or manufacturing, but with a RFVIVAL OF THE SUB-TREASURY. 387 sole regard to the market value of the article in.ported. All former bills had aimed at both revenue and protection ; and they had taken such shapes as would raise the most money for the treasury, while they extended the greatest amount of en- couragement to labor, thus making common cause between the government of the people and the people of the government. The new bill proposed simply to raise money for the govern- ment, without any respect to the interests of the people. This sudden and radical change of policy, it proposed to make at a time when the people were already taxed to the amount of about half a million of dollars per day to carry on a war not of their own undertaking, but forced upon them by the influence, some would say the intrigues, of government. The new bill was, therefore, looked upon, by every unprejudiced mind, as an untried and doubtful experiment, particularly unacceptable at a time when the government* and the people needed a certain reliance for the exigencies of the moment, and when the busi- ness of all classes could, with no safety, suffer a shock so sud- den and so fundamental. This was the light in which Mr. Webster held it ; and accordingly, in a speech of great length, delivered on the 26th and 27th of July, 1846, he met it with a steadfast and sturdy opposition. As his main positions, he ar- gued that the new bill was unjust and impolitic in itself; that it was exceedingly unfriendly to commerce ; and that it would prove deleterious to the labor, and to all the laboring and pro- ducing classes, of the country. His speech was learned, elo- quent, and able ; but, as an opposition to the new measure, which was supported entirely on party grounds, it was unsuc- cessful. The bill, which introduced into our financial system the ad valorem principle of indirect taxation, passed by a strong majority, and was at once received as the established policy of the democratic party. On the first day of August, 1846, Mr. Webster again ad- dressed the senate on the bill " to provide for the better organ- VOL. i. Q 25 WEBBTER AND HIS MASTER-PIECES. ization of the treasury, and for the collection, safe-keeping, transfer and disbursement of the public revenue," which was only the revival of the old sub-treasury system. That system, brought forward by Mr. Van Buren at the extra session of 1837, had been twice defeated in succession, but it had received a majority, and become a law, in 1840, to be repealed and abandoned in less than one year afterwards. Now, in 1846, it was reproduced in a new form ; and, as before, it encountered the opposition of Mr. Webster. His remarks, though brief, were powerful and pertinent; but the administration was more powerful ; and his voice, equal to many voices in debate, was only one when the question came to the determination of a vote. In the spring of 1847, accompanied by his family, Mr. Web- ster took occasion, in the recess of congress, to travel somewhat extensively through the southern 'states. It was his plan to proceed from Boston to Washington, from Washington south- ward along the Atlantic coast to New Orleans, from New Orleans up the Mississippi, and the Ohio, and over the rich prairies and rolling uplands of that interior section to the lakes, and thence homeward through New York. Before leaving home, he resolved to have as little to do with politics as possi- ble ; and he must have been sincere in this intention ; for, had this tour of sight-seeing, as is frequently the case with politi- cians, been a political journey in disguise, he certainly could not have selected a more unpropitious field for the gathering of laurels. He had never been a southern man, nor a northern man of southern principles, but an American, with the broad views and comprehensive feelings of an American, with too much self-respect, too much pride of character, to stoop after popular favor, whether from the north or south, from the east or west. His principles, however, had led him, through his entire political career, to take a position against the propa- gation and increase of slavery ; and this, in spite of his emi- VISIT TO THE SOUTH. 389 nent abilities, had caused him to be looked upon, by southern politicians, with general disfavor, and sometimes with disrespect. The people, however, of every section of the country, will gen- erally follow tht-ir own instincts, their own intuitions, their own judgments, without too much deference to the dictation oi those whom their own favor has elevated to a superior rank. Mr. Webster found it so on his journey to the south. The citizens of every village, town and city, through which he passed, or in which he stopped, rushed together in vast crowds to pay their warmest admiration to a man, who, though not of their partic- ular family, belonged to the great American brotherhood, of which they everywhere acknowledged him to be the most dis- tinguished living ornament. Not only did Mr. Webster's visit give the southerners occasion to manifest their admiration of an American worthy of their regard, but it served to touch a chord, which, perhaps, is more delicate and more responsive than any other in the heart of a true southern gentleman. His visit touched upon their magnanimity. Wherever he went, the citizens of the south saw a man, who, though known to them as their strongest and sturdiest antagonist, had dared to trust himself, and his comfort, and his reputation for a season, with those of whom he had bought no favor. This mark of confidence is always enough for a genuine southerner. If his worst enemy comes to his door in this spirit, he springs to his feet with a most hearty welcome ; and he will shower him with attentions, heartfelt and heart-moving, so long as such an act of confidence may be continued. This generous trait of character greatly impressed the equally noble disposition of Mr. Webster. After his return, he frequently made it the subject of his eulogy ; and he has often said that, in this pecu- liar magnanimity, he never saw a people more remarkable than those he met with during his brief visit to tin south. With all his acknowledgment, however, it must still be remembered that the homage was paid, not to an individual having no per 390 WEBSTER AND HIS MASTER-PIECES. sonal claims for such distinction, but to an American renowned the world over for the originality and grandeur of his genius. Whatever the motives, nevertheless, there can be no doubt l.liiit Mr. Webster was everywhere received with as much ceremony, with as much eclat, with as much applause, in all the large places which he visited, as he ever had been in New York, or in Boston ; and had not sickness stopped him at Sa- vannah, and sent him homeward before his time, it can scarcely be conjectured with what swelling triumphs he would have been greeted, as he had wound his way up the great western rivers, through the midst of a mighty population capable of apprecia- ting real greatness, and able, as it is always willing, to give it au appropriate welcome. On his return to congress, after spending a short period in the quiet of his home, the first thing that met him in the senate was the war with Mexico, at that time the engrossing topic throughout the country. On former occasions, he had spoken of the war in the presence of the senate. His first speech on that subject had been delivered as early as the 24th of June, 1846, on a bill whose object was to organize the volunteer force which the war had invited into the service of the United States. In the month of March, 1847, he had also spoken briefly upon reading to the senate certain resolutions of the legislature of Massachusetts, in which the war had been unanimously con- demned. Now, during the session of 1847-8, while the same subject occupied every tongue and pen in the country usually devoted to public matters, he remained a silent observer, till the 17th of March, 1848, when he again addressed the senate on the so-called Ten Kegiment bill ; but it was not until the 23d of March, of this year, that he made an elaborate and full speech on this engrossing subject. That speech, clear, strong and conclusive in itself, was made under circumstances adapted to rouse the orator more profoundly than he was generally ac- customed to be roused. On the 2d of February preceding, a SINGULAR PEACE MEA8CRE8. 391 "treaty of peace friendship, limits and settlement, between tho United States of America and the Mexican Republic," had been signed at Guadalupe Hidalgo. On the 16th of March succeeding, this treaty, with the advice and consent of the sen- ate, had been ratified by the president of the United States, and sent back to Mexico in charge of two ministers empowered to explain it to the government and people of that republic. Nevertheless, after the final ratification of the treaty, when peace existed between the United States and Mexico, congress was called upon, by a special message from the president, to enact measures more formidable than had been found neces- sary during the progress of the war. It was called upon to raise and send into immediate service an additional force of thirty thousand men, and to make a loan of sixteen millions of dollars to defray the opening expenses of these troops. This, as a peace measure, called for in a time of peace, was quite too belligerent for Mr. Webster. It looked to him like the be- ginning of a standing army. The object of this great force, it was said, was to take and keep possession of those vast acqui- sitions of territory, which the war with Mexico bid put under our temporary dominion. It was not to keep them against the Mexican government ; for that government, if such a thing ex- isted, had consented, formally and legally in the treaty, to those immense acquisitions. It was to keep them against the people of Mexico, who were outraged more at the imbecility of their own government, than at the hungry and unscrupulous ambi- tion manifested by this country. It was to be, not in figure of speoch, but in fact, a standing army in time of peace, whose sole object was, as expressed by Mr. Cass, the champion of these measures in the senate, to frighten our fellow-citizens of the conquered territories into submission, and compel them to become peaceable, though unwilling, citizens of the grwit republic. To this entire system of measures, Mr. Webster stood up 392 WEBSTER AND HIS MASTER-PIECES. in determined opposition. He could see no necessity for them. If the people of the conquered provinces did not choose to become citizens of this country, he di< no< see the justice of compelling them, by an armed soldiery to be conveniently posted throughout their country. Such a course seemed to him inconsistent with the precepts and practice of our hith- erto free government. It looked to him like governing by military power, as in Russia and other despotic countries, rather than by public opinion, as this government is professedly administered. With the inauguration of such a system, he justly thought, began, or rather was perfected, the government of the bayonet, which, from Mexico, might be imported back into the older states of the confederation. He did not forget, probably, that it was Caesar's army of occcupation, sent into Spain to awe the inhabitants into a quiet submission to the mil- itary sway of Rome, which, in due course of events, returned to take command of the capital, and set up a martial govern- ment that began with the fall of Roman liberty, and ended with the dismemberment and prostration of the empire. There was another reason for his opposition, which he might have forcibly illustrated, also, from the example of ancient Rome. The treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, which this system of military measures was to enforce, was to confirm a vast and dangerous expansion of our territory, was to bring in immeas- urable tracts of land, on our southern and south-western border, into which slavery was to be admitted, greatly to the hazard of the integrity of the nation, or excluded by a congressional con- tost, which might shake the republic to its foundations. The dominant party, however, backed by the army, and by new levies of troops, and by the contemplated loan of a great sum of money, which, in a time of peace, they were to use among the unwilling citizens of Mexico, carried all their measures, brought in the conquered provinces, kept them quiet by the com- bined powe'- of gunpowder and of gold, and revived in congress WEBSTER'S OPPOSITION TO THEM. 393 ana in tho country, the old contest, in a more fearful shap-i than had ever before existed, respecting slavery. Mr. Web- ster expressed a readiness to vote for the treaty, provided that part of it should be stricken out, which ceded to us New Mex- ico and California ; but to the acquisition of any farther terri- tory, by whatever means, he set himself in an immovable po- sition of hostility : " I think I see that in progress," said the senator, " which will disfigure and deform the constitution. While these territories remain territories, they will be a trouble and an annoyance ; they will draw after them vast expenses ; they will probably require as many troops as we have main- tained for the last twenty years, to defend them against the Indian tribes. We must maintain an army at that immense distance. W^hen they shall become states, they will be still more likely to give us trouble. " I think I see a course adopted, which is likely to turn the constitution of the land into a deformed monster, into a curse, rather than a blessing ; in fact, a frame of an unequal govern- ment, not founded on popular representation, but on the grossest inequality ; and 1 think that this process will go on, or that there is danger that it will go on, until this Union shall fell to pieces. I resist it, to-day and always ! Whoever falters, or whoever flies, I continue the contest ! " I know, sir, that all the portents are discouraging. Would to God I could auspicate good influences ! Would to God that those who think with me, and myself, could hope for stronger support ! W T ould that we could stand where we desire to stand ! I see the signs are sinister. But with few, or alone, my position is fixed. If there were time, I would gladly awa- ken the country. I believe the country might be awakened, although it may be too late. For myself, supported or unsup- ported, by the blessing of God, I shall do my duty. I see well enough all the adverse indications. But I am sustained by a deep and conscientiors sense of duty ; and whil supported 394 WEBSTER AND HIS MASTER-PIECES. by that feeling, and while such great interests are at stake, 1 defy auguries, and ask no omens but my country's cause ! " There are some portions of this speech, which, though per- fectly logical at the moment, will cause a smile at the present time. An argument may be good to-day, but to-morrow, by the development of some previously unknown fact, or by the mysterious orderings of divine providence, may be simply lu- dicrous, for the first time, and for the last time, so far as is now apparent, this was about to be the case with a portion of the argument advanced by Mr. Webster. Among other rea- sons for opposing the singular measures of the administration, in relation to the conquest and acquisition of a part of Mexico, in all of which he exhibited his usual knowledge, tact and force of reasoning, he went on to show the absolute worthlessness of the newly-acquired provinces : " There are some things," says the orator, " one can argue against with temper, and submit to, if overruled, without mortification. There are other things that seem to affect one's consciousness of being a sensible man, and to imply a disposition to impose upon his common sense. And of this class of topics, or pretensions, 1 have never heard of anything, and I cannot conceive of anything, more ridiculous in itself, more absurd, and more affrontive to all sober judg- ment, than the cry that we are getting indemnity by the ac- quisition of New Mexico and California. 1 hold they are not worth a dollar ; and we pay for them vast sums of money ! " In another part of the speech, after proving by good author- ity all he desired to prove in relation to New Mexico, he broke out into one of his strains of sarcasm, which produced quite a scene of merriment in the senate, in which his opponents joined as heartily as his warmest friends : " New Mexico is secluded, isolated, a place by itself, in the midst and at the foot of vast mountains, five hundred miles from the settled part of Texas, and as far from anywhere else ! It does not belong anywhere ! (t has no bdonginqs about it! At this moment it is absolutely OPINION OF THE TWO PROVINCES. 395 more retired and shut out from communication with the civi- lized world than Hawaii or any of the other islands of the Pa- cific sea. In seclusion and remoteness, New Mexico IT ay press hard on the character and condition of Typee. And its people are infinitely less elevated, in morals and condition, than the people of the Sandwich Islands. We had much better have senators from Oahu. They are far less intelligent than the better class of our Indian neighbors. Commend me to the Cherokees, to the Choctaws, if you please, speak of the Paw- nees, of the Snakes, the Flatfeet, of anything but the digging Indians, and I will be satisfied not to take the people of New Mexico." For half an hour, the senator proceeded in his most facetious humor, describing the soil and population of that prov- ince, telling the senate that he was endeavoring to give them a suitable introduction to their " respected and beloved fellow-cit- izens " of New Mexico ! And he had but little better opinion of the sister province : " How is it," he asks, " with California? We propose to take California, from the forty-second degree of north latitude down to the thirty -second. We propose to take ten degrees along the coast of the Pacific. Scattered along the coast for that great distance are settlements, and villages, and posts ; and in the rear, all is wilderness, and barrenness, and Indian country. But if, just about San Francisco, and perhaps Monterey, emi- grants enough should settle to make up one state, then the peo- ple five hundred miles off would have another state." The existence of such a state, so far from the center of the republic, Mr. Webster thought would prove disastrous to th*> unity and harmony of the country : " In the little part which I have acted in public life, it has been my purpose to maintain the people of the United States, what the constitution designed to make them, one people, one in interest, one in character, and one in political feeling. If we depart from that, we break it all up. What sympathy can there be between the people of VOL. i. Q* MEBSTER AND HIS MASTER-PIECES. Mexico and California and the inhabitants of the valley of the Mississippi and the eastern states in the choice of a president ] Do they know the same man 1 Do they concur in any gen- eral constitutional principles 1 Not at all ! " All this reasoning, it is evident, is at this day as valid re- specting one of the two provinces, as it was when delivered, and it would be as valid of the other, had not the discovery of the mines, of which, in 1848, there was not the shadow of a dream, changed the current of nearly every pecuniary interest of the country. In ten years, in one year, it may not continue to be valid of New Mexico. Some discovery may be made there, some rich mine of gold, or silver, or coal, or iron, may come to light, which will cause thousands to rush to it, as to another El Dorado, in the pursuit of wealth. At the foot of some of its lofty mountains, or on the surface of some of its barren plains, healing springs may be found to issue, which, in reality or ui fame, shall surpass all the health-giving fountains of the world ; and the air of the climate, cooled by the mountain peaks, and dried by the immense plains of chap- para] and sand, may be found to be so balmy, that a region now utterly desolate shall at some future day become a com- mon watering-place for the wealthiest of the race, whose resi- dence and whose visits shall build up a hundred cities, and make gold and silver as plenty as the dust upon their streets. All this, however, would not destroy the logical force of Mr. Webster's reasoning. A similar fortune, on the part of Cali- fornia, has not marred the argument which no man could an- swer when it was delivered. Smile as we will, and smile as we may, on reading such passges as have been quoted, the smile will not change the moral character of the war with Mex- ico, or abate the propriety of Mr. Webster's opposition to it, until the sophism is established as a law in logic, that the end justifies the means. In spite of the opposition of Mr. Webster, and in spite of the SLAVERY QUESTION REVIVED. 397 opposition of other able and patriotic men, the territories of New Mexico and California were acquired in the manner here- tofore described ; and, as Mr. Webster forewarned the senate and the country, the first question that arose threatened a dis- solution of the Union. These vast tracts of unoccupied terri- tory being once upon our hands, congress could not agree as to the disposition that should be made of them ; and they became at once the subjects of a violent controversy between the north and the south. Three views prevailed in congress. The first, that the whole territory should be open to slavery, was advo- cated strenuously by the southern democrats, who were led in this opinion by Mr. Calhoun. The second, that the whole ter- ritory should be shut against slavery, was maintained by the northern whigs, and by several southern whigs, at the head of which anti-slavery party stood Mr. Webster. The third party, which was started as a sort of compromise between the two extremes, proposed to divide the territory between slavery and freedom by extending the line of the Missouri compromise to the Pacific; and this party was under the leadership of Mr.Douglas. The discussion of these several questions did not come up in congress directly on their own merits, but indirectly, as is apt to be the case in the settlement of vexed disputes, on the bill for the organization of a territorial government for Oregon. A bill for such an organization passed the house during the first session of the thirtieth congress ; and when it came to the senate, an amendment was offered by Mr. Douglas, apply- ing to it, and indirectly to the newly acquired territories, the doctrine of the Missouri compromise, which gave the whole of California and New Mexico, below the parallel of 36 degrees 30 minutes, to slavery. An animated debate arose upon this amend- ment, which, in spite of a steady opposition on the part of Mr. Webster, passed the senate by a strict party vote. On t'he 10th of August, 1848, the bill came back from the lower house, wth the non-concurrence of that body in the amendment of 398 tVEBSTER AND HIS MASTKR-PIECES. Mr. Douglas. The question was now, whether the senate would recede ; and on this question Mr. Webster delivered his speech of the 12th of August, on the. exclusion of slavery from the territories, the most elaborate of all his speeches upon this subject. Of course, he urged the senate to recede ; and he did so partly because he thought the amendment unparliamentary, having nothing to do with the bill to which it was attached. But his strongest objections to the amendment were based on its political and moral principle. He was opposed to giving any more ground to slavery. He maintained, that the slavery permitted by the constitution in some of the southern states is a peculiar slavery, the worst that ever existed in any age or country ; that the north, trusting to the supposed intention of the south, professed at the time of framing and adopting the constitution, of effecting the gradual abolition of slavery in the southern states, as opportunity might offer, had consented to the implied recognition of slavery in that instrument only in view of such profession ; that this new zeal of sustaining and extending slavery was not dreamed of either by the northern or southern members of the convention which framed the con- stitution ; that, contrary to all expectation, and to the spirit of the compromise then entered into, immense regions of 'territory had been added to the Union, on our southern border, under the lead of southern politicians, out of which five slave states had been created, while not one free state had been then permit- ted to come into the confederacy in the way of compensation ; and that for these, as well as for other reasons, not another foot of territory ought to be given up to this devouring ambition of the south : " I have said," remarked the senator in the con- clusion of his speech, "that I shall consent to no extension of die area of slavery upon this continent, nor to any increase of slave representation in the other house of congress. I have now stated my reasons for my conduct and my vote. We of the north have already gone, in this respect, far beyond all that OPPOSES EXTENSION OF SLAVERY. 399 any southern man could have expected, or did expect, at the time of the adoption of the constitution. I repeat the state- ment of the fact of the creation of five new slaveholding states out of newly-acquired territory. We have done that which, if those who framed the constitution had foreseen, they never would have agreed to slave represenation. We have yielded thus far ; and we have now in the house of representatives twenty persons voting upon this very question, and upon all other questions, who are there only in virtue of the represent- ation of slaves. " Let me conclude, therefore, by remarking, that, while I am willing to present this as showing my own judgment and position, in regard to this case, and I beg it to be understood that I am speaking for no other than myself and while I am willing to offer it to the world as my own justification, I rest jn these propositions : First, that when the constitution was adopted, nobody looked for any new acquisition of territory to be formed into slave holding states. Secondly, that the prin- ciples of the constitution prohibited, and were intended to pro- hibit, and should be construed to prohibit, all interference of the general government with slavery as it existed and as it still exists in ohe states. And then, looking to the operation of these new acquisitions, which have in this great degree had the effect of strengthening that interest in the south by the addition of these five states, I feel that there is nothing unjust, nothing of which any honest man can complain, if he is intelligent; and I feel that there is nothing with which the civilized world, if they take notice of so humble a person as myself, will reproach me, when I say, as I said the other day, that I have made up my mind, for one, that under no circumstances will I consent to the further extension of the area of slavery in the United States, or to the further increase of slave representation in the house of representatives." So" violent was the contest on this occasion, between the &d 400 WEBSTEK AXD HIS MASTER-PIECES. vocates of freedom and the propagandists of slavery, that the debate marked on the journals as occurring on the 12th of August, which was on Saturday, actually extended to ten o'clock on Sunday morning. Mr. Webster had spoken fre- quently on the subject, but never, perhaps, with so positive a determination. His exertions had their success. The senate receded from the amendment of Mr. Douglas ; no part of the new territory was given up to slavery ; but another bill, im- mediately upon the final action of the senate on this last ques- tion, came to it from the lower house, providing for the organ- ization of territorial governments for New Mexico and Califor- nia, with the anti-slavery or Wilmot proviso appended to it. This was rejected by the senate ; and, in consequence, these two territories were left without a proper government till the sec- ond session of this congress, when it was moved by Mr. Walker, of Wisconsin, to extend the revenue laws, and all other laws of the United States applicable to their case, to California and New Mexico. This motion was attached to the general appra priation bill ; and when it came to the lower house, it was there amended by the addition again of the anti-slavery pro- viso, which was again rejected in the senate. The controversy proceeded, with such intemperate zeal, that the senate came near to a dissolution ; and it is stated by Mr. Everett, on au- thority to him satisfactory, that nothing but the cool temper and commanding influence of Mr. Webster saved that body from this catastrophe and the country from dishonor. He was the only man, it seems, who, after warning congress of the haz- ard to which, by their war and their acquisitions, they were ex- posing the republic, could save the republic from the ruin when it was about to fall upon us. It was entirely natural, as actually happened, that the people of the United States, alarmed at this condition of things in con- gress, and knowing its origin and paternity, should begin to waver in their attachment to a party which had reduced the NOMINATION OF GENERAL TAYLOR. 40 J country to such a scene of discord. They began to be alarmed for the safety of our institutions and for the perpetuity of the government. They began to wish for a change in the admin- istration ; and, as Providence had ordered it, it so occurred, that just as this crisis was coming on, the man who had been sent to Mexico to carry forward the designs of Mr. Folk's cabinet, General Zachary Taylor, had been everywhere fol- lowed by such splendid fortunes, as a military chieftain, as to secure his nomination for the presidency by acclamation. The nomination was made, in the first instance, not by a regular convention of the people, according to established custom, but by the soldiers under his command after the victory of Palo Alto, and on the blood-stained battle-field of Buena Vista. It was confirmed, of course, in the convention afterwards held in Philadelphia, to the exclusion of several illustrious statesmen, who were regarded by every citizen, in his sober moments, as more worthy of the honor. Men of cool judgment, and of suf- ficient knowledge of the past to give them the probabilities of the future, demurred at this nomination ; and among this class of citizens, in spite of the delicacy of the case, was Mr. Web- ster. In a speech made at Marshfield, to his friends and neigh- bors, he was free to give his opinion plainly of the new candi- date. He regarded him as an honest, upright, good citizen. He acknowledged him to be in principle a sound whig. His only title to reputation, however, Mr. Webster set down as a mere military title ; and he did not think well of going to the army, and especially to the army of Mexico, for a candidate for the first office of the country. Washington and Harrison, he admitted, had been soldiers ; but they had also been equally acquainted with civil matters. This Mexican army was an army of invasion. It was such an army as military Rome, after her military despotism was established, used to acncl ^ul to surrounding countries ; and the successful commander had been nominated, just as the successful Roman generals usfd tc 402 WEBSTER AND HIS MASTER-PIECES. be nominated, away on the battle-field, and sent back ' take possession of the capital of their country. The military Mind, and the habits of a military mind, were such as to give n able general no popularity with Mr. Webster for the first j osition in the management of civil business. "The military mind," says the candid Tacitus, though speaking of his relative and hero, Agricola, " trained up in the school of war, is generally supposed to want the power of nice discrimination. The juris- diction of the camp is little solicitous about forms and subtle reasoning ; military law is blunt and summary ; and, where the sword resolves all difficulties, the refined discussions of tta forum are never practiced." That is, just so far as the military manner is introduced into the administration of a government, so far personal authority takes the place of counsel and delib- eration, and just so far the practice, and gradually the liberty, of speech is laid aside. Such was the opinion of the first minds of the country at the time of this nomination. Such had been the experience of the country under the presidency of General Jackson, who, like a true military man, " took the responsibil- ity," as his phrase was, of all the measures of his administra- tion. In other words, the measures were all his own, proceed- ing solely and authoritatively from his own volition. For this very reason, in part, plainly stated and everywhere repeated, the whig party had .twice opposed the election of General Jackson; and Mr. Webster, having honestly entertained his objections to a military chieftain at those times, and having often publicly expressed them, could not now turn round upor, himself, with the levity and facility of a third-rate politician, and receive as his first choice a man whose only distinction had been gained on the field of battle. To preserve his consistency, on this point, he expressed his dissent to the nomination ; but to maintain the same virtue, as the member of a party pledged to support regular nominations, he finally yielded to thf CONSTITUTION OF CALIFORNIA. 403 decision of the coin ention and advocated the election of General Taylor. In the summer and autumn of the year 1849. an event took place in California, which took the country, and especially the southern states, by as much surprise, as had the first discovery of the gold-fields in the valley of the Sacramento. That event was the erection of a state, and the adoption of a constitution, without the aid or even knowledge of the federal congress, by the people of California, now sufficiently numerous for the pur- pose, into which they had , incorporated the anti-slavery pro- viso, which had come so near causing a dissolution of congress and the Union ; and, before the people this side the mountains had fairly ascertained that any such thing was to be underta- ken, the representatives of California, with their constitution in their hands, stood at the doors of congress, seeking, if it would not be more proper to say demanding, entrance. To the south- ern democratic party, who had used their united influence to bring the country into the war with Mexico, for the purpose of adding more slave territory to the republic, this occurrence came as a sad and provoking disappointment ; and it was a matter of almost equal regret to that part of the northern de- mocracy, headed by Mr. Douglas, who had undertaken to sat- isfy the south, and thereby promote his own aspirations, by running the Missouri line of compromise westward to the Pa- cific. California had cut off the speculations and designs of both portions of that party by this unexpected act ; and the election of General Taylor, who was supposed to be in favor of the Californians, and opposed to the further extension of slavery, served to complete the mortification and stir up the passions of both sections, and of every individual, who had in- tended to propagate this species of oppression by this war wilh a tottering republic. The position of California, her bold de- mand to be admitted as a free state and with her own consti- tution, into the American confederacy, was at once the storting VOL. i. 26 404 WEBSTER AND HIS MASTER-PIECES. point of ar other congressional debate, and of renewed man* u vers outside of congress, which, for folly and extravagance, have not been paralleled since the inauguration of the federal gov- ernment. Conventions of the southern members had been called, during the first session of the thirtieth congress, and they were now called again, during the progress of the second session, to meet in sight of that capitol, from whose dome the stars and stripes daily floated, whose avowed object was to in- vite and induce the non-slaveholding states to unite in opposition to the general government, provided these anti-slavery views were adopted in respect to the newly-acquired territories. An address had been prepared, written by Mr. Calhoun, who still took the lead of this southern party, "of the southern delegates to their constituents," which, by a series of concealed sophisms, and by the employment of such language as could not fail to strike the southern heart, was well calculated to rouse the jeal- ousy and excite the hostility of the south. Mr. Berrien, of Georgia, not satisfied with so narrow a field as the slave-hold- ing states, or unwilling to make an appeal so clearly sectiona) in its character, proposed as a substitute an address " to the people of the United States," which, nevertheless, had the same object in view, the raising of a storm against the admission of free states out of the territory " earned by the blood and treas ure of the south." Southern blood and treasure had certainly been very freely spent, and spent with a design, which the sovereign people of California, a large portion of whom were southerners by birth, had ventured unanimously to disappoint ; and this disappointment, in addition to the measures already mentioned, led the southern members of congress to another step, which was still less in unison with the character of good patriots. They called a convention, to be held in Nashville, whose object was, according to the general understanding at the time, to concert measures for the formation of a southern confederacy, and, of course, for a dissolution of the Uniou THE UNION THREATENED. 405 The address proposed by Mr. Calhoun was adopted, in prefer ence to the broader and perhaps more catholic one offered by Mr. Berrien ; and it received the signatures of no less than forty-eight members of congress, all but two of whom were members of the democratic party. It cannot be denied that here were threatening and danger enough to the peace and stability of the Union ; and Mr. Ev- erett has alleged this condition of affairs as a prominent reason which operated on the mind of Mr. Webster in reconciling him to the nomination and election of General Taylor. The general was a southerner by birth, but opposed to the doc- trines of the conventionists ; and it may have been presumed by Mr. Webster, as it certainly was by many who otherwise would have been irresistible in their demands for the nomina- tion of a civilian, perhaps of Mr. Webster himself, that no northern man could be able to inspire sufficient confidence among southern unionists to hold them against the pressure of opinion which was rapidly taking possession of the south. Amidst the general gloom of the times, which began to settle upon all sober and reflecting minds, there was one bright spot. California had framed her own constitution, and put to rest the question of slavery, so far as her territory was concerned, for- ever. So much, then, was fixed. Upon looking a little more closely, another bright spot appeared. New Mexico, the other province about which the controversy had been raging, as it began now more clearly to appear, was a region entirely un- suited by its soil, and by the face of the country, for the profit- able or even possible employment of slave labor. That prov ince had been made free, perpetually and eternally, in spite of all legislation, by the hand of the Creator. To secure the interests of freedom, therefore, there was no need of irritating the south by the application to either province of the anti-slavery pro viso ; and in consequence of this fact, which every northern man of prominence began to see very clearly, it shortly b< 406 WEBSTER AND HIS MASTER- PIECES. came possible, during the early part of the winter session of 1849-50, in a friendly conference of several of the leading and ablest members of both houses, to think of a reconciliation. Several such conferences were held ; and on the 25th of Janu- ary, 1850, Mr. Clay, who was the representative of this select body, submitted a series of resolutions to the senate, on the subject of slavery, as it stood connected with our recent terri- torial acquisitions. The fate of these resolutions is well known. After a protracted debate, which engrossed the senate from January to March, the resolutions were found to be impracti- cable. In substance, however, individually or collectively, they still continued to be discussed ; but nothing as yet had fallen from the lips of Mr. Webster. Privately, he had been exert- ing his immense personal influence, wherever he could make it felt, to promote the peace and harmony of the country ; but for weeks, while the debate was raging, the members of con- gress, and the whole country, were anxiously looking to see him rise in the breach, not to part the combatants, but to hold them together. No one acquainted with his former course as a statesman could have expected that he, who, through his whole career, had made the constitution and the Union the great topic of his life, the fundamental maxim of his entire system ot political opinions, would rise to counsel a separation. When- ever he should come forth, it was morally certain, in the mind of every sagacious man, that he would stand up as the advo- cate of some peace measure, of some adjustment of the diffi- culty, that the constitution and the Union might be prolonged. He had always spoken of the constitution itself as a compro- mise. He had frequently declared, that the union of the states, on the basis of our present constitution, if not grounded on the best terms possible to be conceived, which he never pretended to maintain, was based on the best foundation on which Un- people of all sections of the republic, east and west, north and south, ever were or ever would be willing to stand together. BASIS OF THE UNION. 401 No union at all had been possible, at the first, but such as all parts of the country had been willing to enter into and maintain; and it was equally impossible, he clearly saw, to keep up the union which had been formed, except on terms equally capable of giving satisfaction, not to any one section, but to all sections ofahe country. If, in the beginning, it had been right, for the sake of a confederacy, to make certain mutual concessions of the various latitudes and longitudes of the country to the other latitudes and longitudes, it remained right, and would remain right, through every period of our history. If, in particular, it had been right for the north to make certain concessions to the south, in respect to the existence and protection of slavery in the southern states, it certainly continued to be right, in fur- therance of the same great object, for the sake of preserving what in the same way had been created, to maintain and con- tinue these concessions. If such concessions were wrong now, they always had been wrong, and the union of the states was wrong, because founded on immoral or unwarrantable conces- sions ; and if the confederacy had been thus always wrong, from its very inception and foundation, everything attempted or achieved by it, our whole fabric of government, all our laws, all our institutions, and the means employed to create and for- tify and defend them, from the war of the revolution to the present moment, had been but parts and portions of the wrong. If the union of the states were thus only a grand and whole- sale giving up of right to wrong, of truth to error, of righte- ousness to sin, then the doctrine to be maintained, in congress and out of congress, in the pulpit, by the press, by the living voice, by every agency under heaven, would be immediate, instantaneous, uncompromising dissolution. Such reasoning would make resistance to law a virtue, rebellion a religious duty, and transform the nullifiers and disunionists of every sec- tion of the country, who have thus far drawn down upon their heads the condemnation of the wise and good of every period 408 WEBSTER AND HIS MASTER-PIECES. of our history, into patriots, into philanthropists, into apostles of truth and righteousness. Such reasoning, however, could not stand in the mind of such a man as Webster. He had always been the eulogist and defender of the constitution and the Union. He had al- ways believed that the Union was Ihe only means to the estab- lishment of a country, a free country, a country of free and re- publican institutions ; that, though the end could never justify the means, the means themselves had been moral and justifia- ble in the circumstances of the case, and under the pledges of the occasion ; and that, even if the north had made a poor con- tract, or, as he used sometimes to call it, " a losing bargain,'' it was still a bargain, a contract, a covenant, which must now stand in spite of all sophistry, in spite of all fanaticism. Such, without any hesitation, were known to have been the life-long opinions of Mr. Webster ; and no one now expected to see him change his policy, and advocate new doctrines. Every American was certain that he would not let the occasion pass without putting forth an effort worthy of his power of mind, and of 'his exalted place in the confidence and affections of the people, for the peace and preservation of the republic. Every citizen was expecting to see him come forward with some plan of arrangement, or to advocate some mode of ad- justment, by whomsoever proposed, which should be most likely, in his mind, to settle the controversy of the sections, to calm the excitement of the combatants, and to insure the integ- rity and harmony of the country. Every individual might have foreseen, too, and many did foresee, that he would ad- vance nothing new, that he would advocate no untried schemes, but plant himself upon the constitution as it was, and as it ever had been ; and, in all these expectations, it is now well known, from the course he did pursue, the people, the country, the world suffered nothing of disappointment. On Wednesday, the 6th of March, Mr. Walker, of Wiscon MR. WALKER S EULOGT. 409 sin, commenced a speech on slavery in connection with the ter ritorial question ; but he was so frequently interrupted that he had not concluded his remarks when he had reached the houi of adjournment. During that day, while Mr. Walker was speaking, it somehow was rumored in the senate, and in the city, that a speech would be made the next morning by Mr Webster: and when the morning arrived, the senate-chambei was one dense mass of citizens and strangers, below and above, leaving scarcely a possibility for some of the members themselves to find their seats, or even eligible standing-places. The wealth and beauty of the town were there. Almost the entire body of foreign ministers were there. Distinguished persons, male and female, from ail parts of the country, and from other coun- tries, had collected tnere the moment it was understood that there was a probability of hearing Mr. Webster. Since the day of his reply to Hayne, he had not seen there so august an audience : arid yet, up to the moment of his entering the cham ber, no announcement nad been made, publicly or privately, of his intentions. Nov is it now entirely certain that he had de- finitely fixed upon tnat day to speak ; but, however that may be, he had scarcely crowded his way through the dense mass and taken his seat, belore he was laid under a sort of obligation to speak, whatever had been nis intentions before entering the house. Precisely at twelve o clock, the president of the senate, Mr. Fillmore, announced tne special order of the day, remarking tliat Mr. Walker, of Wisconsin, had the floor ; and immedi- ately that gentleman arose in his place and replied to the chaii hi a strain that must nave taken the audience, and especially Mr. Webster, by surprise : u Mr. President," said the senator, " this vast audience has not come together to hear me ; and there is but one man, in my opinion, who can assemble such an audience. They expect to hear him ; and I feel it to be my duty, therefore, as it is my pleasure, to give the floor to the 410 WEBSTER AND HIS MASTER-PIECES. senator from Massachusetts." Though surprised by this unex- pected eulogy, Mr. Webster was not embarrassed. Rising immediately, but with that slow and deliberate movement so peculiar to him, he returned his warmest acknowledgments to Mr. Walker for this unusual mark of courtesy, in yielding the floor before his own speech was finished, and to Mr. Seward, who, after Mr. Walker, would have had, by the law of custom, tiie next privilege of speaking, and then entered directly upon that great effort, which, for censure or for praise, will be re- membered as long as anything that was ever uttered from his lips. This speech of the 7th of March, 1850, opens with the gen- eral declaration, very beautifully drawn out, that the speaker proposes to lay aside all sectional prejudices, and take his posi- tion, for that time more emphatically than ever, on the broad platform of the general constitution. It then proceeds to give a, history of the manner, which he condemns, by which the ter- ritories recently acquired, and about which the great dispute was now in progress, came under the jurisdiction of this gov- ernment. The remarkable fact is next stated, with all its his- torical circumstances, of the erection of a state by the people of California, without the knowledge or consent of congress, and of the adoption by them of a constitution containing the anti- slavery restriction. The statement of this prohibition natu- rally leads him to a discussion of the existence of slavery, as a fik'.t in history, from the earliest periods in the annals of the oriental nations, through the Jewish, Grecian, and Roman epochs, down to its establishment, by the improper indulgence ;-t the mother country to her great navigators, in the colonies which now constitute the older states of the American confed- eration. The existence of such a fact, not only as a matter of oast history, but as a thing existing in our own day and on our own soil, the orator next states, had caused a division of public opinion and public sentiment, one part of our citizens posi BPEECH OF THE 7TH OF MARCH. 411 lively condemning, another part as positively upholding, the recognition of slavery in this republic ; but it is plain enough, in the very terms employed in giving a statement of this dHTer ence, that the speaker, in his own views and feelings, is entirely on the side of liberty. He is willing, however, as a candid man, to give those advocating the rectitude of slavery as much credit for honesty of opinion, as he claims for himself in giving it his disapproval, which candor, he thinks, has not been suffi- ciently exercised by his northern fellow-citizens, any more than it has been exercised by his southern brethren in their unquali- fied jealousy and condemnation of the north. Religious bodies, too, he thinks, of which he presents the Methodist Episcopal Church as an eminent example, in her needless and unfortunate separation, had often been too violent, too positive, too abso- lute and exclusive in their discussions in relation to the subject. The sentiments of the north and the south, now so extravagant for and against the institution, had nearly changed sides since the adoption of the constitution, the northern states at the first being rather cool, if not comparatively indifferent, while the southern states, both in congress at New York and in the con- stitutional convention at Philadelphia, which were sitting at the same time when the constitution was adopted, unanimously and even violently regretted and condemned it. The ordinance of 1787, which excluded slavery forever from every foot of ter- ritory then belonging to the United States, received the vote >f every southern member of congress, while Mr. Madison, sustained by all his southern colleagues in the convention, would nut consent, though the northern members had raised no dis- sent, that the word slave or slavery should appear in the in- strument they were then constructing. The declaration of this same congress, that the African slave-trade should be held aa piracy, the senator next shows to have been a southern meas- ure ; and when some northern gentleman proposed twenty years from that date as the period after which this declarator VOL. i. R 412 WEBSTER AND JUS MASTER-P1KCK8. should taKe effect, the leading southern members opposed tht suggestion as giving too long a license to the great political and public evil. It was in view of this evident state of feeling at the south, coming out thus authoritatively in every way in which it could appear, that induced the northern members of the convention, according to the next position of the speech, to agree to the recognition of a system of moral and political wrong, which, as all then believed, was soon to be abolished by the consent and cooperation, free and spontaneous, of the south itself. In this expectation, however, the north and the whole country had suffered a remarkable disappointment. It was discovered by the south, soon after the constitution went into operation, that cotton was to be the great staple, the great re- liance for prosperity and wealth, of the southern states, and that the cultivation of this product could not be carried on, at least profitably, without slaves. Southern sentiment was at once revolutionized; and, at the same time, or about the same time, the feeling of hostility to the enormity of slavery, as an institution now to be perpetuated in a republic based on the glorious revo- lutionary declaration of the absolute and perfect natural equal ity of all men, began to look toward the civil liberty of every human being breathing the air of a professedly free country. Still, the south having had the lead of the national politics for three-fourths of all the time since the adoption of the constitu- tion, the policy of the government began at once to be a slave- holding policy, large acquisitions of slave territory were succes- sively added to our domain, new slave states were rapidly brought into the confederacy, and the establishment of slave labor at length seemed likely, in process of time, to make free labor an exception and a reproach throughout the country. Alarmed at the unexpected progress of the evil, the north had been daily approaching the resolution not to allow it to advance any further ; it had begun to remind the south of the general understanding, on the subject of slavery, when the constitution SPEECH CONTINUED. 413 was formed and the northern states had" submitted to a recogni- tion of its existence, which they had supposed would be only tem- porary, in the southern states of the republic. In this way, as Mr. Webster next shows, the territorial strife began. The south at once raised the banner of acquisition, because whatever acqui- sitions should be made, since the republic is bounded on the north by the territory of a power able to defend it, must come to us on our southern border. For this purpose, the revolution of Texas had been encouraged, and the annexation of that republic had been effected, by the leading instrumentality of the south. For the same purpose, a war with Mexico, a republic patterned after our own, but weak and needy of our encouragement and support, had been injuriously and even clandestinely brought upon us, and in this way immense tracts of the earth had been added to our possessions on the south and west. California, however, had disappointed the plans of those who had been foremost in grasping after it, leaving only New Mexico and Utah, regions incapable of the curse of slavery, as subjects of congressional contention. The house of representatives, hap- pening to have a free-soil majority, threatened to fix the anti- slavery restriction, nevertheless, on those provinces, careless of the irritable condition of the south, while the senate would not pass the anti-slavery bills of the house, as careless of the deter- mination of the north. Having thus shown how, as here de- scribed, the crimination and recrimination of north and south nad been revived, the speaker, after explaining his own steady opposition to all the recent measures by which this state of things had been produced, goes into a careful examination of the prominent complaints of each section against the other, in which he finds only one valid and prominent cause, on either side, for complaint. The south had complained, that the north had falsified its constitutional pledges, by setting up an unexpected and unlawful opposition to the slavery of the south ; and Mr. Webster, while denying the charge in general, 414 WEBSTER AND HIS MASTER-PIECES. admits that the northern states had been too negligent in their engagement to return slaves escaping from their masters and taking shelter at the north. He maintained, on the other side, that the south, either wittingly or unwittingly, had disappointed if not deceived the north, in obtaining a constitutional recog- nition of slavery in the southern states, with an engagement never to meddle with its existence there, by exhibiting a hos- tility to it, real or unreal, which had given place to a most un- expected, remarkable and unanimous determination to support it where it is, and where it was, and to extend it as far as pos- sible by grasping at territory adjacent to those states. Other complaints are mentioned and discussed, but these two, both on the same subject and balancing each other, are regarded as the ones calling especially for moderation, and charity, and good faith. Whether sincere or insincere, though no insincerity is charged, the declarations of hostility to slavery by the. south, at the time and in the act of framing and adopting the federal constitution, and in the passage of the great anti-slavery ordi nance of 1787, ought now, if the south expected a similar fidel ity to former principles by the north, whatever change of inter- est may have happened in the slave-holding states, to be hon- estly and strictly carried out. In like manner, if the north had agreed to return slaves escaping from their masters, however their views and feelings may have altered from that day, they must not now parley, nor tamper with their plighted word. Neither party must expect the other to be faithful, unless it is willing and ready to be itself faithful. Both must consent to abide by the original compact which they had made. By this compact, by this mutual concession, the Union had been formed at first. By the same compact, by the same concessions, and by these only, could the Union be maintained. For one, as a northern man, he was willing to abide by that part of the com- T>act which bound him, and all his northern fellow-citizens, to return the fugitives ; and he was thus willing, not only because TEMPORARY LOSS OF REPUTATION. 415 the people in framing the constitution had laid him under an obligation to be willing, but because he expected the south to be equally ready to comply with its own stipulation, and re- linquish its claim of extending slavery beyond its present lim- its, and particularly of sending it into the unsettled territories of the United States. Such, in substance, is the speech of the 7th of March, 1850 ; and, if it is not a sound constitutional argument, if it is not conciliatory, patriotic, wise and good, then it is difficult to di- vine what may have become of the original meaning of these words. It was an argument to both parties, for the sake of the continuance of the republic, to keep good faith and do ex- actly as they had agreed. It was no surrender of the south */o the north, nor of the north to the south. It was a demand, that both south and north, for the sake of peace, for the sake of liberty, for the sake of free institutions, and a possible destiny common to them both, should maintain the Union in pursuance of the same measures by which it had been originally produced. It cannot be denied, however, tliat, for this speech, Mr. Webster came near losing his position at the north. The north, it need not be disguised, forgetting the many illustrious services of this great man for a space of more than forty years, by which he had laid the whole country under obligations of grat- itude which a score of generations will not be able to repay, and by which he had spread the honor and fame and glory of his native land over the face of the civilized and reading world, seemed at one time, to be on the point of committing the folly, to call it by no harsher name, of canceling a life-time of noble and patriotic deeds, by what, at the worst, could be regarded as only one mistake. Some, it is true, accused him of having given this healing counsel, of taking his position as an Ameri- can, on the broad platform of the constitution, not because, as was undeniably the fact, he had never stood a moment on any narrower foundation, but because he was aspiring to the highest 416 WEBSTER AND HIS MASTER-PIECES. office under the constitution. The shallowness is the only ele- ment that exceeds the uncharitableness of this change. Did not Mr. Webster know that, in taking even his old position at this particular time, he was running the risk of losing the whole north, while the south would never support the man who, in that very congress, had declared that he never could consent to the extension of American slavery one foot beyond the limits it then occupied ? Was that great man, whose sagacity and breadth of vision had been the boast and admi ration of his countrymen for nearly half a century, all at once so blind as not to see, a moment before the speech, what every scribbler, and paragraphist, and country newspaper critic saw, as with a sunbeam, the moment after it 1 There is no room for speculation upon this subject. Mr. Webster is for- tunate in having so expressed himself before the delivery of the speech, as to leave no doubt upon it. Without trying to seek supporters at the north, and conscious of the hazard he was about to make, he stated to a friend, some time before the 7th of March, " that he had made up his mind to embark alone on what he was aware would prove a stormy sea, be- cause, in that case, should final disaster ensue, there would be but one life lost." He saw his danger certainly ; but he saw what seemed to be his duty, also ; and that duty he resolved to do, for the sake of his cherished country, without respect to personal considerations. This one speech, however, has received more attention, com- paratively, than ought to have been given to it by those of his opponents, who wish to be looked upon as candid. There are several other speeches, made during the continuance of this great debate, which seem to have been uncharitably or care- lessly overlooked. The accusation against Mr. Webster was that, in a crisis of liberty, he yielded too much to slavery. Passing off from the speech of the 7th of March, in which it will be difficult for posterity, it is imagined, to find any un OTHER SPEECHES OVERLOOKED. 417 constitutional concessions to the slave interest, it may be asked whether, in his other addresses at this time, he did nothing for the cause of freedom. Was it nothing, that he opposed the plausible claim set up by Texas, to the best portions of New Mexico, because Texas wished to convert them to the purposes of slavery 1 Was it nothing that he advocated, more ably and feelingly than any other senator, the immediate reception of California, when the whole south was arrayed against it on account of her anti-slavery constitution ? Was it nothing that he rebuked the whole south, openly and plainly, in the midst of his supposed projects of ambition, for the treatment it was accustomed to extend to free colored persons going to the southern states on lawful business 1 ? Was it nothing that he repeated his determination, over and over, never to consent to the extension of slavery on this continent, and repeated it so often that the southern members accused him, as the first step to his new scheme of ambition, of having made this his hobby 1 The truth is, however, and it is more apparent as one reads more and more of Mr. Webster's speeches deliv- ered at this time, that he had no hobby, no scheme, no am- bition, but the single and unchanged and noble one of being the champion and defender of the Union and the constitution, and of the constitution for the sake of maintaining and perpet- uating the integrity of the Union. When all party feeling shall have subsided, and the excitement of that day shall be forgotten, the speech of the 7th of March, and his various speeches of that congress, on the boundaries of Texas, on the public lands and boundaries of California, and on the compro- mise measures generally, will be re-read and revised by the cooler judgment of posterity, when they will be thought to constitute his best title, the circumstances being all considered, to the respect and affection of his countrymen. His vote for the fugitive slave bill will not then be charged as a proof of political ambition. It will be believed that, though he finally 418 WEBSTER AND HIS MASTEK-PIBCES. lent that vote to a mode of reclaiming the runaway sla?e, which gives too little succor to the down-trodden fugitive, and too much to the greedy, and often unscrupulous and imperious master, he did so for no purposes of his own, but for the best good, as he understood it, of -his country. It will be remem bered, too. that the bill which became a law was not his own bill ; but that he offered a bill, in which there was distinct pro- vision that, on being claimed as a fugitive, the man of color might swear himself free, against the oath even of his claim- ant, and that this oath of his should entitle him to the right of having the claim tried by jury. It will be remembered that he gave up his own views only when he saw the impossibility of settling the difficulties, of preserving the harmony of the states, and, as he thought, of saving the republic, on that basis. Then, in that period of calm reading and calm reflection, when these things are all remembered, and are all candidly considered, the posterity that shall then occupy his adopted state, his cherished Massachusetts, whose name he has made so illustrious, will re- gret that the still surviving temple of their freedom, the Cra- dle of Liberty, where his voice so often rang with an order of eloquence to which they may never have the happiness to listen, and which gave to that temple, over the continent and over the world, the greater part of its celebrity, was, at this ungrateful period, barred and shut against him. Then, if history has any power to mount the watch-tower of philosophy, and foresee coming events, and unless all present signs are sinister, the time will come, the angry passions of the past having been all hushed in death, and only what is true having been presei ved in his- tory, when there will be no name more honored, even for the acts now condemned, than that of Daniel Webster ; and when his country will regret that some of the last days of one of the most illustrious of her sons were clouded by the miscon- ception or ingratitude of those, for whose sake, and for the sake of whose best earthly welfare, he staked all that he had l-OSIERITY WILL DO HIM JUSTICE. 414 gained in the past, and all that he could have hoped for from the future. Then, too. it will be set down and considered as a sufficient and concluding fact, that, in behalf of his constituents and of the whole country, he made this great sacrifice of his personal feelings, bound to it, as he felt himself, by the pledges of the constitution, because he regarded the measures then in debate, and then about to be enacted into laws, as the final and perpetual settlement of the slavery agitation, not, indeed, as a moral or even political question for the states, as states, or for citizens as citizens, or for citizens as philanthropists and chris- tians, but as a topic of discussion and discord in congress ; that in this responsible step, he relied implicitly on the promises of every southern member of both houses, and of the leading members of the democratic party of the north, who pledged their faith that this should forever stand as the last and unal- terable adjustment of the subject of slavery as a matter of con- gressional interference, debate or action ; that, according to his understanding, the arrangement thus entered into, "fixed, pledged, fastened, decided," to use his own strong terms, the whole ques- tion, leaving not " a single foot of land, the character of which, in regard to its being free territory or slave territory, is not fixed by some law, and some irrepealable law, beyond the power of the action of the government ; " that it would thereafter for- ever be impossible, without such a breach of fkith as neither north nor south had ever committed, or would ever venture to commit, to raise in congress a question respecting the chani.-- ter, in this respect, of a single inch of territory belonging to the United States, every concession of the constitution and of the laws and arrangements under it, from the compromise of Mis- souri to that of New Mexico and California, being now set down and acknowledged to be as unchangeable as the coristitu tion itself; and that thus, with the result and remunerative ele- iiient of this final compromise in view, on which, for the peace VOL T. h* 27 420 WEBSTER AND HIS MASTER-PIECES, of the country, he staked and yielded every personal interest and consideration, he did his part toward the harmony and perpetuity of the republic. And now, if, in this act of con- fidence, in this trust in pledged honor and plighted faith, the country has been disappointed, at a time when his powerful voice could not be raised, as it certainly would have been raised, against the most recent and the most ignominious in- stance of modern perfidy, posterity certainly will award, and the present generation should award, not the dishonor of the breach, but the glory of the act of settlement, to the political consistency, the unbending integrity, the magnanimous spirit, and the unbounded influence of Daniel Webster CHAPTER XII. CLOSING PERIOD OF HIS LIFE. DURING the progress of the great debate, and almost to the very last of it, there appeared in the senate chamber, when ever the weather would permit, a member of that body, whom disease was gradually and silently preying upon and fitting for his final resting-place in an honored grave. That member was the honorable John Caldwell Calhoun, the long-tried and long- trusted representative of South Carolina, and the able and elo- quent champion of the entire south. On the 4th of March, 1850, he took his seat among his brethren of the senate, hoping to be able to address them, probably for the last time, on the important matters then under consideration ; but his strength failing him, his speech, which he had carefully written out, was read to the senate by his friend, Mr. Mason, senator from Vir- ginia. On the 7th of March following, he was again in his seat, but evidently more wasted and weak than ever, for the purpose of listening to the speech of the senator from Massachusetts, whom the South Carolina senator had just declared, in the con- fidence of private friendship, and while resting upon that bed on which he expected soon to close his eyes, to be as honest and honorable a statesman as he had ever known in all his ex- perience and observation among the most distinguished citizens of the country. It was on that day, and in that speech, that Mr. Webster pronounced that brief eulogy on his illustrious antagonist, which, in substance, was a voluntary tribute to Mr. Calhoun's openness and integrity of character, a tribute seen and felt at the time to be characteristically happy in a speech 422 WEBSTER AND HIS MASTER-PIECES. of compromise and conciliation. On the 31st of March, Mr Calhoun breathed his last, at his own lodgings in Washington, near to his post of duty, surrounded by his friends and near relatives ; and on the next day his decease was announced in the senate by his colleague, Mr. Butler, when, among other speakers, Mr. Webster again stood up to bear willing and beautiful testimony to the high merit of the departed. The place left vacant by this lamented death was supplied by the appointment of Franklin H. Elmore, who, for several years, had been a member of the house of representatives ; but on the 29th of May, in less than two months from the day of Mr. Calhoun's decease, the new senator was struck down by the hand of death, and Mr. Webster was again called upon to speak to the senate on the afflictive dispensation. Mr. Web ster had known Mr. Elmore from the time of his coming intc the lower house ; and, during his tour to the south, he had been indebted to him for personal attentions, which had made a last ing impression on his heart. He now repays the debt, so far as words can do it, by a short but exceedingly appropriate ad- dress over the memory of his friend. In this department of oratory, in fact, Mr. Webster has never had his equal on this continent. He always knew, not only exactly what to say, but exactly what not to say. He was most happy in seizing hold of the striking intellectual traits, and the most characteristic virtues, of those whom he was thus called to mourn. His quotations, on such occasions, as well as his references to historical personages of comparable traits and talents, have long been celebrated in this country, and in other countries. It was remarkable, too, that, while his funeral orations always gave the highest satisfaction to those most deeply interested, he never praised too much, nor in any way exceeded the severest demands and proprieties of an occa sion. All these excellencies of speech had been exemplified in his tributes to Joseph Story and Jeremiah Mason ; arid they DEATH OF PRESIDENT TAYLOR. 423 were now again exemplified in his eulogies of the two senators from South Carolina. Soon, however, afflictive as these deaths had been, another death occurred, which, from the exalted position as well as the personal merits of the subject, was to be felt, and was felt, to the extremities of the republic. On the 9th of July, 1850, at half-past ten o'clock, Zachary Taylor, president of the United States, died suddenly, after an illness of only a few days. Early in that day, while Mr. Butler was addressing the senate, Mr. Webster, by leave of Mr. Butler, rose and announced to the senate the extreme illness of the president, whereupon the senate immediately adjourned ; and on the morning of the next day, a communication addressed by Mr. Fillmore to both houses of congress was read, which brought to the senate the first official intelligence of the heavy bereavement of the nation. The first duty of congress, of course, was to attend to the swearing in of Mr. Fillmore as acting president of the United States ; and accordingly, immediately after the reading of the communication from the vice-president, Mr. Webster rose and read to the senate the following resolutions : " Resolved, That the two houses will assemble this day in the hall of the house of representatives, at twelve o'clock, to be present at the ad- ministration of the oath prescribed by the constitution to the late vice-president of the United States, to enable him to dis- charge the powers and duties of the office of president of the United States, devolved on him by the death of Zachary Tay- lor, late president of the United States. Resolved, That tli secretary of the senate present the above resolution to the house of representatives and ask its concurrence therein." This necessary dutv having been thus discharged, Mr. Downs, senator from Louisiana, addressed the senate in a very touching manner, respecting the mournful event of the day. :n:>l concluded by offering a series of appropriate resolutions tlu 424 WEBSTER AND HIS MASTER-PIECES. second of which constituted Mr. Webster, Mr. Cass, and Mr. King, a committee, on the part of the senate, to be associated with a similar committee on the part of the house, for the pur pose of making suitable arrangements for the funeral and burial of the departed president, whereupon Mr. Webster im mediately arose in his place and delivered a eulogy, which, con- sidering what he had felt bound to say, respecting the nomina- tion of General Taylor, was a task not to be happily performed by any person, under such circumstances, of less genius and tact than Daniel Webster. It is almost needless to say, how- ever, that, as usual under all circumstances, the orator entered as directly upon his subject, and passed as easily and eloquently through it, as if there were no difficulties in it. Without re- calling anything he had said before, and of course without sup- porting his former statements, he found enough in the life and character of the able commander, the good citizen, and the honest president to supply, and more than supply, all the re- quirements of the occasion ; and there are passages in that brief speech worthy to be remembered as giving a genuine likeness of him, who, till this day, has no better or more desi- rable memorial : "I suppose, sir," says the speaker, "that no case ever happened, in the very best days of the Roman re- public, when a man found himself clothed with the highest au- thority in the state, under circumstances more repelling all suspicion of personal application, of pursuing any crooked paths in politics, or of having been actuated by sinister views and purposes, than In the case of the worthy, and eminent, and good man whose death we now deplore. " His service through life was mostly on the frontier, and always a hard service, often in combat with the tribes of In- dians along the frontier for so many thousands of miles. It has been justly remarked, by one of the most eloquent men whose voice was ever heard in these houses, that it is not in Indian wars that heroes are celebrated, but that it is there that EULOGY ON GENERAL TAYLOR. 425 they are formed. The hard service, the stern discipline, de- volving upon all those who have a great extent of frontier to defend, often, with irregular troops, being called on suddenly to enter into contests with savages, to study the habits of sav- age life and savage war, in order to foresee and overcome their stratagems, all these things tend to make hardy military character. " For a very short time, sir, I had a connection with the ex- ecutive government of this country ; and at that time very per- ilous and embarrassing circumstances existed between the Uni- ted States and the Indians on the borders, and war was actu- ally carried on between the United States and the Florida tribes. I very well remember that those who took counsel together on that occasion officially, and who were desirous of placing the military command in the safest hands, came to the conclusion, that there was no man in the service more fully uniting the qualities of military ability and great personal pru- dence than Zachary Taylor ; and he was appointed to the command. " Unfortunately his career at the head of this government was short. For my part, in all that I have seen of him, I have found much to respect and nothing to condemn. The circum- stances under which he conducted the government, for the short time he was at the head of it, have been such as not to give him a very favorable opportunity of developing his principles and his policy, and carrying them out ; but I believe he has left on the minds of the country a strong impression, first, of his absolute honesty and integrity of character ; next, of his sound, practical good-sense ; and, lastly, of the mildness, kind- ness, and friendliness of his temper toward all his country- men. " But he is gone. He is ours no more, except in the force of his example. Sir, I heard with infinite delight the sentiments p,xpressed by my honorable friend from Louisiana, who has just WEBSTER AND HIS MASTER-PIECES. resumed his seat, when he earnestly prayed that this event might be used to soften the animosities, to allay party criini- nations and recriminations, and to restore fellowship and good feeling among the various sections of the Union. Mr. Secre- tary, great as is our loss to-day, if these inestimable and inap- preciable blessings shall have been secured to us even by the death of Zachary Taylor, they have not been purchased at too high a price ; and if his spirit, from the regions to which he has ascended, could see these results from his unexpected and untimely end, if he could see that he had entwined a soldier's laurel around a martyr's crown, he would say exultingly, 'Happy am I, that by my death I have done more for that country which I loved and served, than I did or could do by all the devotion and all the efforts that I could make in her be- half during the short span of my earthly existence!'" When the last solemn respects had been paid to the remains and memory of the departed president, the discussion of the compromise measures was again resumed ; and it was at this time, and on this subject, following Mr. Butler, of South Caro- lina, that Mr. Webster delivered his last speech, and uttered his last word, in the senate of the United States, where he had been so long the acknowledged head among its orators and statesmen, it was delivered on the 17th of July, 1850; and it was immediately issued in pamphlet, in which form it was extensively circulated and read in pvery section of the Union. It was a very able eftbrl, the title-page itself bearing sufficient proof, that the production was from no common man. His tact at making historical and poetical quotations has been, as before seen, greatly celebrated ; but there is perhaps no exam- ple in all his writings, of a perfectly apposite quotation, sur- passing that employed as the motto of this address. He had been misunderstood, misrepresented, slandered, abused, at home in Massachusetts, and in every northern state, for having yielded too much, and that for ambitious purposes, in the great contro- LAST SPEECH IN THE SENATE. 427 versy still raging ; and it was thought by many, and expressed by some, that the end of all these Union-saving measures would be, or might be, a dissolution of the Union. Prophesies of na- tional disaster, and threats of a personal character, had been freely lavished by the northern press upon Mr. Webster ; but he had stood erect, and firm, and immovable, conscious of no motive for his conduct but that of being useful to his coun- try ; and now, in sending to the world his concluding etfort for the peace and harmony of the states, he calls attention to an illustrious crisis in English history, where a similar spirit of conciliation had saved the kingdom, by quoting the memora- ble words of Burke: "Alas! alas! when will this speculating against fact and reason end ? What will quiet these passive fears which we entertain of the hostile effect of a conciliatory conduct ? Is all authority of course lost, when it is not pushed to the extreme ] All these objections being in fact no more than suspicions, conjectures, divinations, formed in defiance "of fact and experience, they did not discourage me from entertain- ing the idea of conciliatory concession, founded on the princi- ples which I have stated." What could have been mo-e to Mr. Webster's purpose ? It would almost seem, when the facts in both cases are closely compared, and when tlie lan- guage of the English statesman is compared with what the American statesman might have hoped that some such great authority had sometime said, that the event and the comment had both occurred expressly for the benefit and use. at this par- ticular crisis, of Mr. Webster. All history, and the entire range of literature, could scarcely have furnished so apt a pas- sage, which, probably, occurred to the mind of the grea f man the moment he had decided to fix a motto to his performance. Such was the compass of his reasoning, and such the prompt- ness of his intellectual faculties, till the very closing period and last days of his existence ! Having g ! ven, on a former page, the first vrords uttered by 428 WEBSTER AND HIS MASTERPIECES. Mr. Webster in the congress of the United States, the period has now come when his last words can be here recorded ; and it will be evident that they are words worthy, not only of pe- rusal, and of simple recollection, but of being written and en- graved on the most durable material, in characters to be read by all his countrymen, and especially by those who have inno- cently misunderstood him. After having finished the argu- ment in the case, in which he had shown that the compromises proposed to be made, between the north and the south, were legitimate subjects of compromise, and that, as matters of pub- lic interest, they were not all on either side, but were such as very fairly and equally balanced each other, he brings the sen- ate to a final decision by asking what is to be done, and then telling them plainly what he shall do, whatever course may be pursued by others : " And now, Mr. President, to return at last to the principal and important question before us, What are we to do 1 How are we to bring this emergent and press- ing question to an issue and an end ? Here have we been seven and a half months, disputing about points which, in my judgment, are of no practical importance to one or the other part of the country. Are we to dwell forever upon a single topic, a single idea? Are we to forget all the purposes for which governments are instituted, and continue everlastingly to dispute about that which is of no essential consequence 1 1 think, sir, the country calls upon us kuidly and imperatively to settle this question. I think that the whole world is looking to see whether this great popular government can get through such a crisis. We are the observed of all observers. It is not to be disputed or doubted, that the eyes of all Christendom are upon us. We have stood through many trials. Can we not stand through this, which takes so much the character of a sectional controversy ? Can we stand that 1 There is no inquiring man iii all Europe who does not ask himselt that question every day, when he reads the Intelligence of the morning. Can thia LAST SPEECH CONTINUED. 429 country, with one set of interests at the south, and another set of interests at the north, and these interests supposed, but falsely supposed, to be at variance ; can this people see what is so evident to the whole world beside, that this Union is their main hope and greatest benefit, and that their interests in every part are entirely compatible? Can they see, and will they feel, that their prosperity, their respectability among the na- tions of the earth, and their happiness at home, depend upon the maintenance of their Union and their constitution ? That is the question. I agree that local divisions are apt to warp the understandings of men, and to excite a belligerent feeling between section and section. It is natural, in times of irrita- tion, for one part of the country to say, If you do that, I will do this, and so get up a feeling of hostility and defiance. Then comes belligerent legislation, and then an appeal to arms. The question is, whether we have the true patriotism, the Ameri- canism, necessary to carry us through such a trial. The whole world is looking toward us with extreme anxiety. For my- self, I propose, sir, to abide by the principles and the purposes which I have avowed. I shall stand by the Union, and by all who stand by it. I shall do justice to the whole country, ac- cording to the best of my ability, in all I say, and act for the good of the whole country in all I do. I mean to stand upon the constitution. I need no other platform. I shall know but one country. The ends I aim at shall be my country's, my God's, and truth's. I was born an American; I will live an American ; I shall die an American ; and I intend to per- form the duties incumbent upon me in that character to the end of my career. I mean to do this, with absolute disregard of personal consequences. What are personal consequences ? What is the individual man, with all the good or evil that may betide him, in comparison with the good or evil which may befall a great country in a crisis like this, and in the midst of great transactions which concern that country's fate ? Let the 430 WEBSTER AND HIS MASTER-PIECES. consequences be what they will, I am careless. No man can suffer toe much, and no man can fell too soon, if he suffer or if he fall in defence of the liberties and constitution of his country." The death of General Taylor, and the unexpected as well as needless if not factious resignation of his cabinet, threw upon Mr. Fillraore, suddenly and at an evil time, the task always difficult, even under circumstances the most favorable for de- liberation, of nominating a new cabinet. It is not to be doubted, that Mr. Fillmore would have chosen to have the former mem- bers hold office, at least till he could find time, after being thus called upon to assume the reins of government, to look care- fully into a duty, which, from the nature of the case, could never have formed with him the subject of a moment's con- templation. It is understood, too, that he gave utterance of his desires to this effect ; but, even if that were so, no heed was given to his wishes. In a day, in an hour, he was compelled to appoint all his ministers, or leave the departments of gov ernment without their proper officers. Thus forced to act, and to act at a time when a mistake would have proved fatal to hi? administration, and perhaps fatal to the existence of the repub- lic, he laid his commands upon a statesman, for the first posi- tion in his cabinet, whose views corresponded very exactly with his own, and who, for nearly forty years, had shown himself to be, not only superior to the most distinguished of his country- men, but equal to any demand that had ever been made upon him. That man, it need not be said, was Daniel Webster. With his assistance, and guided by the conscious integrity of his own honest heart, Mr. Fillmore commenced an administra- tion, which, for the fundamental and serious difficulties sur- rounding it, bears no comparison with the most difficult of former administrations, and which would suffer nothing by a comparison, for honesty and uprightness, with the most illustrious. COMMENDATORY LETTERS. 43 Both before and immediately after going into Mr. Fillmore'tf cabinet, Mr. Webster received from all parts of the country, in the midst of all the opprobrium and opposition encountered by him, as many tokens of continued confidence, a ho Had ever received in any equal period of his life. Letters of approval, of commendation, of eulogy, came to him from all sections of the country, but mostly from the north. Men of tho first dis- tinction, and even members of the democratic party, who had never before felt compelled to do him justice, as well as hun- dreds of his fellow-citizens of New England, and among them his old friends and neighbors of New Hampshire and Massa- chusets, now wrote to him in terms of praise which caused him to shed tears of gratitude for the kindness and truthfulness man- ifested toward him. From the Hon. Thomas H. Perkins, the philanthropist of Boston, from the Hon. Isaac Hill, the well- known democratic governor of New Hampshire, from a large number of citizens of Newburyport, Massachusetts, from an equal or a larger number of the citizens of Medford, of the same state, from R. II. Gardiner, Esq., in behalf of the inhab- itants living along the banks of the Kennebec river, from the Rev. Ebenezer Price, who addressed him on the part of Mr. Webster's old neighbors in New Hampshire, from various persons of the first consideration living throughout the middle states, from George Griswold, Esq., who conveyed to him an invitation to visit the city of New York, signed by more than five thousand of the leading citizens of the great commercial metropolis, as well as from numerous other sources, letters came flying to him, with almost every post for months, bear- ing to him the most cordial approbation of his course. Never, perhaps, at any moment of his life, did he receive so many and so substantial proofs of the estimation in which he was held by the first men of the republic ; and never, it may be, consider- ing the abuse falling upon him from other quarters, did he ever rely so serenely on a quiet consciousness of having done his 432 WEBSTER AND HI8 MASTER-PIECES. duty, or with a firmer reliance on the final justice which he be- lieved would ultimately be done him, than at the moment when he completed his career as a member of the American congress, and entered upon his duties, which he must have sometimes felt might not be of long continuance, as the first cabinet officer of Mr. Fillmore's administration. The great crisis, indeed, in respect to his reputation, had now passed. The country had had time to judge him, not by his 7th of March speech alone, but by a candid and full perusal of all his speeches, those of 1850, as well as all others relating to the same general subject. The scale of judgment was now turn- ing in his favor ; and he found himself, after his first general misunderstanding with his constituents, rapidly rising to bis original position with them, with a fair prospect, not now to be disappointed, of reaching an eminence among them as much higher than he would have held, as his sacrifices for the har- mony and prosperity of the country had been more than com- monly misunderstood and misrepresented by them : "'Tis strange how many unimagined charges Can swarm upon a man, when once the lid Of the Pandora box of contumely Is opened o'er his head." But, as the immortal dramatist has elsewhere said, " Sweet are the uses of adversity, Which, like a toad, ugly and venomous, Wears yet a precious jewel in his head." And a poet of milder genius, but of deep experience, has added a concluding sentiment, which, in this case, may be re garded in the light of a prediction : "Heaven lut tries our virtue by afflictions; As oft the cloud that wraps the pres Jit hour, Serves but to lighten all our future lays." BOUNDARIES OF TEXAS. 433 On entering the second time the department of state, Mr. Webster had no great amount of labor to perform in looking up the condition of our relations to other countries. All these relations he understood as well as any other citizen of the country ; and his predecessor had left no chronic difficulties, such as the secretary had found in the department when in office under Mr. Tyler, to embarrass him in the discharge of his regular duties. The controversy between New Mexico and Texas, hi respect to boundary, which Mr. Webster had urged congress to settle by legislation, was still pending ; and he had scarcely taken possession of his department, when his attention was called to a letter from the Hon. P. H. Bell, governor of Texas, to President Taylor, asking information in relation to the nature and limits of the military authority, which, by the advice and direction of General Taylor, had been extended over that part of New Mexico claimed by Texas. Had Mr. Web- ster's advice as a senator been followed, such a question could not have existed ; but, it being now on hand, he addresses him- self to it with his customary candor and ability. He takes the ground that the authority set up over New Mexico was mili tary, because that province came into our possession by mili- tary conquest ; that it would continue, of course, only so long as New Mexico should continue to be without a form of gov- ernment authorized by congress ; and that, until such a gov- ernment should be established, the question of boundaries be- tween the province and the state would remain unchanged, so far as anything done or to be done either by Texas or New Mexico could be supposed to affect the subject. The author- ity now exercised in New Mexico would be maintained ; but in relation to the question of boundary, which was a question for congress to decide, the president had no duty and conse- quently no concern. On the 30th of September, 1850, the Chevalier J. G. Hiilse- mann, charge d'affaires of his majesty, the emperor of Austria, 134 WEBSTER AND HIS MASTER-PIECES. addressed an official note to the secretary of state of the United States, remonstrating, in the name of his government, against the mission of Mr. Dudley Mann, who, at the time of the Hun- garian revolution, had been despatched by the American presi- dent to proceed to Austria for the purpose of obtaining and re- mitting to Washington authentic and reliable information, from time to time, in relation to that interesting struggle. Mr. Mann had been so prudent in his movements, while residing and traveling in Austria, that the first intelligence of his hav- ing been there at all was received by the imperial government from a message of the American president to his congress. This fact alone should have been sufficient proof, even to Aus- tria, as it must have been to all other governments, that no- thing injurious had been done to the authority of the emperor in his dominions ; but the object of that mission, the seeking of information with a view to an early recognition of Hunga- rian independence, especially when honestly avowed by Mr. Fillmore, roused the ire of the imperial Francis Joseph, who, like a youthful Hotspur as he was, demanded an immediate acknowledgment, on our part, with something like a guaranty of better behavior for the future. Not only was the topic of the note of the charge ridiculous, but the style of it was almost silly ; and the whole demand, both as to matter and manner, only excited the risibilities of Mr. Webster. His answer has been ascribed, at least in the gossip of the day, to Mr. Everett ; the newspapers, in fact, have published a claim as set up by that gentleman to the authorship of this per- formance ; but, if there is not a plain mistake somewhere, there is certainly no sufficient proof of any such paternity, or of any just claim to it; while the fact of its having been for four years universally ascribed to Mr. Webster, and even lauded by Mr. Everett as one of Mr. Webster's most happy efforts, leaves no great reason to doubt upon this subject. Were it even true, that Mr. Webster was ill at the time the letter to Mr. Hulse. REPLY TO HULSEMANN. 435 mann .vas composed ; that Mr. Everett may have been em ployed by Mr. Webster to write out a draft of it ; and that that draft, in Mr. Everett's own hand, is still extant all this would do but little toward confirming the authorship to Mr Everett. Let it be granted, indeed, that the American seem tary, sick at home, availed himself of the help of his distin- guished friend ; that he talked over the subject, as he was cer- tainly able and would scarcely fail to do, item by item, with him ; and that those items, thus matured, were then actually written down by him, to be afterwards revised and corrected, as is known to be the fact, by Mr. Webster. If all this ser- vice, and a great deal more, would transfer authorslu'p from the original mind to an assistant, however distinguished that assistant might be himself for talents, the world w'ould at once have to make out a new list of authors, which would dispossess the greatest geniuses of all times of the titles by which they have held their fame. Shakspeare, by such a canon, would cease to be Shakspeare ; and, by the same rule, Paradise Lost would be set down as written, not by Milton, but by Milton's daughters. But there is no room even for such a supposition, nor for such an argument. " The correspondence with the Austrian charge d'affaires," says Mr. Everett, in his brief but summary biography of Mr. Webster, " is the worthy comple- ment, after an interval of a quarter of a century, to the pro- found discussion of international politics contained in the speech of January, 1824, on the revolution of Greece, and that of 1826, on the congress of Panama." This is Mr. Everett's eulogium on the letter ; and he certainly could have uttered no higher one, as he well knew, than to compare it with either of the two illustrious speeches, which, for everything constituting master- pieces, have been but seldom equaled even by Mr. Webster ; nor is it at all supposable, that such a citizen as Edward Eve- rett, hitherto so disingenuous in all his conduct, at least so praised for every noble trait of character, would stoop so low VOL. i. S 28 436 WEBSTER AND HIS MASTER-PIECES. as to claim another man's work, or load with eu.ogy an effort of his own. This reply to Hiilsemann, therefore, whatever may have been the circumstances of its composition, must now go down to fu- ture generations, as the work, the undoubted work, in every respect really affecting authorship, of Mr. Webster ; and it is undeniably, in every way, though not the ablest of his perform- ances, a production worthy of his genius. It was at once greatly celebrated. Not only by the newspapers of the day, but by several historical and authentic publications, the Amer- ican public had just been put in possession of very perfect in- formation in respect to the origin, progress, and results of the Hungarian revolution ; and, on the appearance of the secreta- ry's answer, they were well prepared to understand its argu- ments and its allusions, whose point would otherwise have been lost upon them. His main position, that the emperor of Austria had no right to complain of this government for being friendly to struggles similar to that by which we had established the liberty and happiness of this country, was as conclusive as it was patriotic ; and his retort, that the very complaint, founded on an avowal of the American president to his own congress, of an unjustifiable interference on our part with the internal aflairs of a foreign government, was itself just such an act of improper interference, though obvious enough, was of a charac- ter to give infinite delight to the masses of our people ; but when they read those passages, in which the secretary magni- fies his native land, " in comparison with which the possessions of the house of Hapsburg are but as a patch on the earth's sur- face," which, consequently, could not dream of deterring "either the government or the people of the United States from exer- cising, at their own discretion, the rights belonging to them as an independent nation, and of forming and expressing their own opinions, freely and at all times," their enthusiasm over- passed all ordinary buunds. The whole communication, in EXTENSION* OF THE CAPITOL. 43T .tact, though not to be compared with the secretary's letter to Lord Ashburton on impressment, and to several other of his productions, carried in it the elements of very great popular- ity, and rose immediately to an extraordinary celebrity, both in this country and in Europe. It was translated into the Ger- man language ; and thousands of copies of it are said to have been surreptitiously circulated even in the Austrian dominions. In this country, it is really humiliating to add, th : s simple com- munication, to which Mr. Webster could have attached no great importance, which was the production of a playful mo ment, and which cost him not half the labor of thought be- stowed on some individual pages of his acknowledged master- pieces, was seized upon by superficial people, prior to the suc- ceeding presidential nomination, as a chief reason for making him the next president of the republic ! An office which had not been gained by a long life of services the most illustrious, but which could be won or offered on terms so cheap and by merit so comparatively shallow, could scarcely be coveted by any high-minded man, and would certainly be beneath the dig nity of such a citizen as Daniel Webster ! A people, who could make the choice of their first magistrate rest on such a basis, on the writing of a letter, would be on a par with the nation that should suspend the same interest on Lie fortune of a battle, and, in either case, would not fail to meet the curse of be- ing ruled by the most unworthy and inferior of their number ! For several years preceding these events, in consequence of the great extension of our country, the capitol at Wu*h- ington had been felt by congress, and by nil visitors, to be too small for the purposes of so great a nation ; and, conse- quently, on the 30th of September, 1850, an act was passed by both houses, making provision for the enlargement of tho edifice according to such plan as might receive the approval of the president. The work was to be undertaken and carried on under his direction ; and, therefore, early in his administration, 438 WEBSTER AND HIS MASTER- PIECES. Mr. Fill more employed an architect, approved of a plA_j, and made every suitable preparation for commencing operations during the spring or summer of the following year. By the last of June, all things were ready for laying the corner-stone ; but this pleasing ceremony was deferred that it might take place on the anniversary day of American independence, a day which could hardly receive a more suitable commemoration. The corner-stone of the original building had been laid by Washington on the 18th of September, 1793. He had been assisted by some of the most eminent men of that period; and, when Mr. Fillmore was to perform a similar duty, to make the occasion most memorable, he relied on the presence, and aid, and eloquence of Daniel Webster. After the ceremony of depositing the stone had been completed, Mr. Webster stood up before the vast assemblage, which was probably as large a body of people as had ever been seen in one place at Wash- ington, and pronounced that oration, which, for appropriateness to the occasion, for sound political wisdom, for patriotic senti- ment, and for all his characteristic felicity of expression, may well stand and go down to posterity as the last great perform- ance of the first orator and statesman of his country. It will be read and admired while there is a country, a free country, an enlightened, patriotic, American republic, to admire any- thing worthy of admiration. It was during this first year of Mr. Fillmore's administra- tion, that the expedition of Lopez against Cuba came to so just and yet so sad a termination. Its ill success, however, did but little in suppressing the adventurous spirit that had inspired that movement. Cuba, if added to the Union, would not only soon constitute a southern and a slave-holding state, but it might be made, and doubtless would be made, the great slave- mart of all the other slave-holding states. The object of this expedition had been to revolutionize the island as the first step towards its annexation to this republic ; and Lopez, \ worthless MR. CALDERON'S LETTER TO MR. WEBSTER. 43S but bold adventurer, and a Spaniard, who held his life cheap, had been employed as the most fit person, considering his na- tionality and his fearlessness of character, to conduct it. He had been successful in alluring many thoughtless and equally worthless young men of this country, gathered from the cor- ruptest portions of our great Atlantic cities, and in thus draw- ing together quite an army. His head-quarters, before em- barking, had been made at New Orleans ; but, on landing on the island, after a few slight successes, he had been cut to pieces by the troops of the colonial government. He was himself garroted, or strangled, according to an old Spanish custom ; and he died with the firmness of a desperado. Fifty of his fol- lowers suffered a similar fate ; and the remainder of his delu- ded band, except a few who were pardoned, were carried in chains to Spain to await the orders of the imperial government. This termination of things so disappointed their friends and sympathizers at home, that excessive feelings began to mani- fest themselves in several of our great cities, among the lower population ; and, at New Orleans, the disappointment was so intense, that the rabble rushed upon the office of the Spanish consul, tore up or seriously insulted and mutilated the Spanish flag, and even fell upon the property and persons of peaceable Spanish citizens, committing outrages of a very unusual and heinous character. In this condition of affairs, the Spanish minister at Washing, ton, Don Calderon de la Barca, addressed a note to Mr. Web- ster, dated October 14th, 1851, complaining of these outrages, and demanding immediate reparation at the hands of the fede- ral government. His demand was entirely just; and Mr. Webster sent him a reply, dated the 13th of November, cor- dially condemning, in the name of the American government, this ill-starred and wicked expedition, and promising every possible and constitutional satisfaction for the excesses at New Orleans, which the president had power to make. This move 440 RKBSTER AND HIS MASTER-PIECES. raent against Cuba, which was sought after for the immoral purposes before stated, could not fail to meet with the most settled and determined opposition of the secretary ; and the president himself was equally resolved, shutting his eyes to all considerations of personal popularity, either at the south or north, to call into action the entire military force of the coun- try, if necessary, to put down an enterprise so unjust in itself, so injurious to our fair name abroad, and so destructive of all sound political morality at home. There can be no doubt, in fact, that the country owes it to that high-minded administra- tion, that the escutcheon of liberty was not at that time blotted with a crime, which would have dishonored and weakened us abroad, and covered the face of every worthy and well-mean- ing citizen with shame. It was a poor time, certainly, with Millard Fillmore as president, and with Daniel Webster in the chair of state, to undertake expeditions of attack and conquest upon the rightful possessions of our neighbors. Heaven grant that all future presidents, and all succeeding secretaries, may imitate the rectitude and justice of their example ! Immediately following this correspondence with the Spanish minister, Mr. Webster dispatched a letter to Mr. Barringer, our minister at the court of Madrid, soliciting in the most elo- quent terms the release of those American prisoners, who had been captured in Cuba, and who were now under sentence of being sent to the Spanish mines. This letter is wholly charac- teristic of Mr. Webster. It opens with a true history of all the facts of the case, honorably stated in their full force, and closes with an appeal to the magnanimity, and clemency, and better judgment of the Spanish government, which could not fail to convince and move either a philanthropic or a prudent mind. The court of Madrid felt the force of this appeal ; and, in a short time, Mr. Webster had the happiness to learn, that a hundred and sixty-two of his unfortunate but not blameless CASE OF THRASHER. 441 countrjmen had been restored to their families, if not to a proper life and conduct, entirely through his means. Among the individuals captured and seized by the authori- ties of Cuba, was John S. Thrasher, a native-born citizen of the United States, who, many years before, had gone to the island in pursuit of business, and who had finally settled down as a citizen of Cuba, and taken the oath of allegiance to the Spanish crown. This person, while the movement against Cuba was in a state of preparation, had some connection, it is said, with the publication of a newspaper ; and when the invaders were on the island, before and after their defeat and capture, he was accused of administering to their aid and comfort. It was pretty clear, in fact, at the time these events transpired, that Mr. Thrasher had chosen to leave his native country, for the purpose of making his residence within the limits and under the jurisdiction of another government ; that, in order to ob- tain the full protection of the Spanish laws, without which his business could not have been so well or so profitably conducted, he had sworn fealty to the Spanish crown, promising to abide by and observe all the regulations of the country where he had voluntarily taken up his residence ; but that, contrary to all good principle, he had broken his faith with the Spanish gov- ernment, from the beginning of this adventure, by secretly sympathizing with it, and aiding its plans of conquest, as he could not have done without his legal and acknowledged char- acter as a Spanish citizen. He had been caught in his mal- practices, however, tried, condemned, and sent to Spain to spend eight years at hard labor. His friends at home delayed not, of course, to make application to the American gov- ernment in his behalf; and, before there was time to search out the facts in the case, they very unjustly complained of the tardiness of Mr. Webster in not answering their demand more speedily. This complaint was permitted to find its way into the public prints ; and all the democratic journals, or a 442 WEBSTER AND HIS MASTER-PIECES. large numluer of them, immediately made battle on him a-- a slow if not dilatory officer. Mr. Webster was unmoved by all this uproar. He went directly forward, in his own way, in the faithful prosecution of what he supposed to be his duty. He dispatched two letters, one after the other, to the American consul at Havana ; but no answers came to him, none, at least, in time to give him the needed information for prompt action. Mr. Thrasher himself, though filling the opposition newspapers with his communications, or with communications purporting to be his, sent not a word to the department of state at Wash- ington. From other sources, however. Mr. Webster received proof enough, that Mr. Thrasher had been guilty of a breach of faith with the Cuban authorities ; that he was consequently an unreliable, unsafe, and unworthy man ; and that, should his release be obtained, he would Lo more than likely to run into the same or some similar trouble at the first opportunity. Under these circumstances, Mr. Webster could not be ex- pected to be very warm or very hearty i:i his application to the Spanish court ; and he chose to suffer some reproach for a time, rather than be found pleading with any excessive earnest- ness the cause of a man, who would be almost certain, as he thought, soon to need some one to plead in his behalf again. Here, as so frequently before, were the moderation and wis- dom of Mr. Webster again seen. He chose to suffer rather than do wrong, trusting that, whatever might be the passion of the hour, the day of deliberative justice would at some time come. That day has now come. It is now here. That very individual, who was then published as " a most amiable and peaceable young man," who " never dreamed of having any connection with the invaders of Cuba," and who was " as far from raising a disturbance with other countries as the honora- ble secretary himself," is now, at this moment, while these lines are being penned, according to the public prints of the day, under arrest in the city of New Orleans for an effort to COMMENCEMENT OF HIS LAST ILLNESS. 443 repeal the offence for which he was at that time condemned. Mr. Webster's sagacity was never shallow ; and his power of purpose was utterly resistless when he acted under a settled conviction that he was right. Happy for the memory of Mr. Webster that this last distinguished act, as an American states- man, was an act of mercy so performed as to be sanctioned and sustained by the strictest sense of justice. It was an act done under the blended influence of those cardinal attributes of every really great man, and of every really great nation, as they are of the character of the great God himself, into whose presence he who had thus acted was soon, too soon, alas ! to enter. Reader, as suddenly as is here indicated, it was announced in the public prints, about the 22d of September, 1852, that Daniel Webster was sick at Marshfield ; and, from the condi- tion of his general health since the first of'May previous, it was at once seen that this sickness might possibly be his last For about twenty years he had been subject to the attacks of an annual diarrhea, which began as an occasional looseness, but which finally became, three or four years before his death, per- sistent ; and for nearly twenty years, also, he had suffered an- nually from a severe kind of catarrh, which ordinarily showed itself near the middle of August, and continued till October. In the month of July, 1851, he spent some time on his farm in Franklin, probably with the hope, that, by breathing his native air, the air he had breathed when young and vigorous, he might possibly escape his annual sickness, as he had done in 1839, while breathing the similar air of England. By a slight exposure on the damp ground, however, he not only precipita- ted his chronic troubles, but brought on an attack of gout. On the 9th of September he went to Boston and placed himself iinder the care of his family physician. Dr. Jeffries, who, before VOL. I. S* 444 WEBSTER AND HIS MASTER-PIECES. the month was out, consented to his return to Washington, The following winter was the worst, in point of health, which Mr. Webster had ever known, though, as has just been seen, he performed his usual amount of labor. No one would ima- gine, while perusing his able and eloquent official letters on the Spanish question, that they were written by a man worn down with sickness, and confined to his house and room by a com- plication of several severe disorders, either one of which might prove him mortal. They are another proof, however, of the power of a great spirit over the feebleness of a tottering physi- cal organization. Such a spirit will sometimes hold the body up ; and this was the condition of Mr. Webster till the latter part of April, 1852, when he could hold out no longer. Leav- ing his vast business, as far as possible, in the hands of his clerks, he retired once more to Marshfield, either hopeless of recovery, or trusting to the skill of his physician, who had had a long and particular acquaintance with all the habits and ten- dencies of his system, both in disease and health. On the Oth of May, while making an excursion through the adjacent re- gion, he was thrown from his carriage very suddenly and vio- lently ; his head came down with great force upon the ground, rendering him utterly insensible for some minutes ; and it was found on examination, that he had injured the joints of both wrists, wounded his head outwardly near the right temple, and given a severe shock to his entire system. His arms, in par ticular, which had been instinctively thrown out to break his fall, were found to be greatly swollen and suffering from the worst form of ecchymosis, an alternation of red and livid spots ; and he complained of sharp pains, not only that day, but for several successive days, through all his joints. The accident, indeed, was very serious, and greatly aggravated his old com- plaints ; but by the 20th of May he had so far recovered, that he rode to Boston for the purpose of seeing his physician. It w.a during that visit, after consulting with Dr. Jeffries and Dr J'ARTIAL RECOVERT. 445 Maso i Warren, that he was urged and prevailed \ pon to meet his fellow-citizens of Boston in some public place ; and accord ingly, on the 24th of May, though still suffering greatly from a combination of all his difficulties, which had prostrated his strength and broken down his spirits, he appeared in Faneuil Hall before an immense gathering of the people, among whom, arrayed on seats left vacant for them, were the members of the general conference of the Methodist Episcopal church, who happened to be holding their quadrennial session in the city. Mr. Webster evidently intended to make no exertion in his address on this occasion; a due regard to the state of his health, which was plainly uppermost in his mind, would not suffer him to speak with anything like his usual animation ; his voice was so low and feeble, in the utterance of more than half his sentences, that it was nearly impossible for those not accus-. tomed to listen to him to hear enough to keep up the thread of his observations ; but, when read in the public prints that evening, the speech was found to be, though on no particular subject, a series of very beautiful remarks, congratulatory and conversational, tastefully adapted to the time and place, and expressed in that clear, correct, easy style so characteristic of all his minor efforts. It proved to be his last speech in that hall which his eloquence had made memorable over all civ- ilized countries. Having recovered so far as to admit of his return to Wash- ington, he remained at his post of duty, though in great and growing feebleness of body, till the time of his public reception at Boston in July, a day of great triumph to him and to his abiding friends politically, but a day to have been avoided by a man so evidently approaching, unless exceedingly careful of his health, that final illness from which there is no recovery. To sustain him through the day of this reception, he was com- pelled to take medicine very freely, under the advice of Dr. Jeffries ; and .when that day was over, it was plain enough to 440 WEBSTER AND HIS MASTER-PIECES. every practiced observer, that he would never be able to on dure the turmoil and labors of another like it. Still, determined as ever to do his work, while he could stand or sit, he was again in Washington till the beginning of September, when he once more made a trip of recreation and health to Massachu- setts. While passing through Baltimore, he took a cold, which greatly aggravated the disorder of his bowels, and deranged his general health materially and even fundamentally. On the 20th of September he drove from Marshfield to Boston again to consult Dr. Jeffries, who describes the appearance of his illustrious patient, at this time, in very decisive language : "It was then observed," says the physician, in an article published in the American Journal of the Medical Sciences. " that he had lost much flesh, which gave to his large eyes a somewhat un- natural appearance. His face was pale, with a peculiar sallow- ness ; but there was no jaundice at this or any other time. He rose from the recumbent posture slowly and with some apparent difficulty ; and he had the aspect of a very sick man. He stated that he had been more than usually unwell for a week or more; he complained of uneasiness on the left side of the abdomen, with consequent difficulty of lying on that side ; there was sometimes a sense of tightness across the lower part of the abdomen. The bowels were still loose, but not quite so irritable ; the appetite was wholly gone ; the skin was com- monly very dry ; and there was a constant dryness of the tongue and fauces, with much thirst. The tongue was covered with a light brown coat ; and the pulse was one hundred and six, quite full, but easily compressed, somewhat jerking, with four intermissions in a minute." On the next day, the 21st of September, he returned to Marshfield, where he was to abstain from all mental labor, to avoid all bodily fatigue, to make his morning and evening meal of toasted bread and tea, to dine on a light portion of animal food with one vegetable, and to give np all his time to PERIODS OF A MAN'S ILLNESS. 44"7 rest and recreation. He went home, indeed, with a very clear idea of his critical condition. At the time of his visit to Dr. Jeffries, in the month of September of the previous year, he had worn that peculiar aspect of uneasiness so indicative of the mind's first doubt respecting the probability of recovery ; and with that same restless cast of countenance, aggravated by the more serious and complicated troubles of the current season, he again entered his house hoping for the best, but fearful, plainly fearful, of the result that did actually follow. There are two periods in the life of a thinking man, when, in respect to life and death, he experiences no uneasiness. The first is when he is in such a state of sound and vigorous health as not to allow of his dwelling, with any degree of fixedness and painfulness, on the termination of his existence ; and the last is that brief period when life is given up, when the mind has settled down upon the certainty of the near approach of dissolution, and when hope is triumphant over the last enem) , or despair has given place to apathy. The middle period is the period of unrest, of anxiety, of real distress of mind. It is the period of uncertainty, of doubt, of suspense, when there is too much of illness to insure recovery, and too much of health to permit of yielding to death without a struggle. The arrow has touched the heart ; but it is impossible to tell him how far it penetrates. To-day, it sticks deep, it touches upon the springs of life, and the soul (not without hope, indeed) shud- ders as it looks into the very face of death. To-morrow, the shaft is loose, it nearly jostles from its place, a slight touch will almost (but not quite, alas !) extract it and throw it off! Now, the arrow is deep again, not quite so deep, it may be deeper; it is very fast ; but, if even so, it has been so before, and yet death did not follow. Now, another day, though sleep has in- tervened, though unconsciousness has intervened, though beau tiful and pleasant dreams have intervened dreams of youth, and health, and joyous friends, and many of the charming 448 WEBSTER AND HIS MASTER-PIECES. scenes stored in the chambers of the mind the mind now wakes to consciousness only to find that it was all a dream, that the arrow is there, that the shaft still trembles at the side, deeper it may be, perhaps not so deep, but the barb, the very barb, of the arrow is felt (possibly it is) in the very depths within. Such things may have been felt before by those who afterwards revived and lived. Possibly this may not have been the case. Who that lives can decide ? Time must tell. Only time can tell. The days, the weary days, go on, bringing nothing but uncertainty, leaving nothing behind but doubt. Wkh the pos- sibility of death so near, however, how the mind does grapple at times with the great questions, which, until now, it has ha- bitually sent forward to a future day ; and then, the next mo- ment, it does brush them all away again as the idle fancies of a sick man's brain : "Uncertainly ! Fell demon of ar fears ! the human soul, That can suppjrt despair, supports not theel " During this period of conflict, that restless, wandering and longing cast of countenance, before detected in the expression of Mr. Webster, still remained with him, after his return to Marshfield. Who will divulge his thoughts, while he lies upon that bed, or walks down into this library, where he is not al- lowed to study, or wanders about the halls or into the adjacent rooms, looking upon the pictured faces of the living and the dead, or gazes through the windows upon his fields, or ranges his eye along his familiar haunts down to the very shore of the great ocean, where he used to wander and to walk and muse when he was well 1 At evening, when the moon came pouring through the shutters, when all was still and quiet ir his house, who will declare what were his reveries of the past, how he dwelt upon or forgot the present, with what sentiments, what certainty, what uncertainty, what thankfulness or regrets, what hopes or fers, what calm trust or faithful preparation, he HIS VIEWS OF LIFK AND DK \TH. 449 looked out upon that approaching future, that other future, where what is fixed is fixed forever 1 Afterwards, when the stars were out, the silent stars, that seem almost to think as they keep up the vigils of the night, who will publish and make it plain, whether he gave the precious hours to sleep, or spent them in thinking of the magnificence and perfection of the Cre- ator's works, in contemplation of the wisdom and goodness of his providence, in drawing hope and comfort from the innu- merable tokens of his love, and in looking through the thin vail of the material to the light and glory of the immaterial and eternal ? No one can now inform the world in relation to these things. One thing only is certain. Mr. Webster had always been a thoughtful, prudent, far-seeing man, who never neglected the future for the present, but who ever inclined to make the present yield to the demands and necessities of the future ; and he has left no room to doubt whether, long before this period of his life had come, he had not pondered often, and pondered deeply, on the eternal interests of man after he passes this mortal state. " One may live," he had said, in speaking of the decease of a dear and valued friend, Mr. Justice Story, "one may live as a conqueror, a king, or a magistrate ; but he must die as a man. The bed of death brings every man to his pure individuality; to the intense contemplation of that deepest and most solemn of all relations, the relation between the creature and his Creator. Here it is that fame and re- nown cannot assist us ; that all external things must fail to aid us ; that even friends, affection, and human love and devoted- ness, cannot succor us." A superficial i ian may write such things without feeling them. A man like Daniel Webster could scarcely do it ; and we may properly apply them now to his own case, and listen to him, as he continues to speak, in the language he had used on the death of another valued friend, of the experience of one like himself in the decline and near the termination of his 450 WEBSTER AND HIS MASTER-PIECES. life : " Political eminence and professional fame fade away and die with all things earthly. Nothing of character is really permanent but virtue and personal worth. These remain. Whatever of excellence is wrought into the soul itself belongs to both worlds. Real goodness does not attach itself merely to this life ; it points to another world. Political or profes- sional reputation cannot last forever ; but a conscience void of offence before God and man is an inheritance for eternity. Religion, therefore, is a necessary and indispensable element in any great human character. There is no living without it. Religion is the tie which connects man with his Creator, and holds him to his throne. If that tie be all sundered, all bro- ken, he floats away, a worthless atom in the universe; its proper attractions all gone, its destiny thwarted, and its whole future nothing but darkness, desolation and death. A man with no sense of religious duty is he whom the Scriptures de- scribe, in such terse but terrific language, as living 'without God in the world.' Such a man is out of his proper being, out of the circle of all his duties, out of the circle of all his happi- ness, and away, far, far away, from the purposes of his creation. "A mind like Mr. Mason's" Jeremiah Mason, of whom he was speaking " active, thoughtful, penetrating, sedate, could not but meditate on the condition of man below, and feel its responsibilities. He could not look on this mighty system, 'This universal frame thus wondrous fair,' without feeling that it was created and upheld by an Intel- ligence to which all other intelligences must be responsible. I am bound to say, that, in the course of my life, I never met with an individual, in any profession or condition in life, who always spoke, and always thought, with such awful reverence of the power and presence of God. No irreverence, no light- uess, even no too familiar allusion to God and his attributes, ever escaped his lips. The very notion of a Supreme Being REMARKS OF MR. HILLARD. 451 was, with him, made up of awe and sublimity. It filled the whole of his great mind with the strongest emotions. A man like him, with all his proper sentiments and sensibilities alive in him, must, in this state of existence, have something to be- lieve and something to hope for ; or else, as life is advancing to its close and parting, all is heart-sinking and oppression. Depend upon it, whatever may be the mind of an old man, old age is only really happy, when, on feeling the enjoyments of this world pass away, it begins to lay a stronger hold on those of another." While lying upon this bed of sickness, doubtful of the result before him, though giving his great thoughts mainly, without doubt, to the eternal and incomprehensible interests of the soul, Mr. Webster was by no means neglectful of the present, or of those high duties devolving upon him as the first cabinet officer of the republic. "Here, but a few weeks since," wrote Mr. Hillard, referring to this painful period, " Mr. Webster was accustomed to drive the transient guest over his estate, vis- iting his fields, his ocean shore, his flocks, and his herds ; point- ing out the prospect, and speaking with tender emotion of the sad and happy memories the varied views recalled ; conversing with the rustic neighbors whom he chanced to meet, in kind and genial tones, and on subjects which he and they understood alike ; uttering, from time to time, glorious thoughts, suggested by the scene, in language of massive beauty and grandeur, which made the moment memorable in the listener's life. But this has been in some measure interrupted. That- noble form, that surpassing strength of constitution, has drooped under the protracted illness which has held him from the turmoil raging outside of that secluded spot ; the drives over the hills, and along the loud-resounding sea, which he loved so much, have ceased. Solemn thoughts exclude from his mind the inferior topics of the fleeting hour ; and the great and awful themes of the future, now seemingly open before him themes to which VOL. i. 29 452 WEBSTER AND HIS MASTER-PIECES. his mind has always and instinctively turned its profoundest med- itations now fill the hours won from the weary lassitude of illness, or from the public duties, which sickness and retirement cannot make him forget or neglect. The eloquent speculations of Cicero on the immortality of the soul, and the admirablt arguments against the Epicurean philosophy, put into the mouth of one of the colloquists, in the book on the nature of the gods, share his thoughts with the sure testimony of 'the word of God. But no day passes that the affairs of the country do not oc- cupy his attention. His great mind never applied itself with a calmer or more comprehensive grasp to the duties of his de- partment. The intellectual power asserts its supremacy over physical weakness and tedious disease, with an unfaltering en- ergy of soul, that, in itself, is a stronger argument of its immor- tality, than Cicero ever uttered in the majestic accents of the Latin tongue. These are the dignified pursuits that grace the days of suffering passed by the illustrious statesman of Marsh field. The respectful sympathies of the country surround him in his hours of illness ; and the prayers of good men go up to heaven for his speedy restoration." There is no doubt, indeed, that the nation felt a concern seldom experienced by a whole people for any citizen ; there is no doubt that prayers, ardent prayers, went up daily and hourly to a merciful God, that the nation's favorite son might be spared to the nation a little longer ; but, in the midst of all this solici- tude, he continued gradually to decline, growing paler, thinner, weaker, with each day '.s revolution. " He was aware of his decline," says Mr. Ticknor, who has given the best account of his last sickness, " and watched it with careful observation ; frequently giving intimations to those nearest to him, of the failure of his strength, which he noticed, and of the result whick he apprehended must be approaching. Toward the end of September, he seemed, indeed, to rally a little ; but it was soon apparent to others, no less than to himself, that, as the days HE WRITES HIS EPITAPH. 453 passed on, each brought with it some slight proof of a gradual decay in his bodily powers and resources. ; '- On Sunday evening, October 10th, he desired a friend who was sitting with him," continues Mr. Ticknor, " to read to hin: the passage in the ninth chapter of St. Mark's gospel, where the man brings his child to Jesus to be cured, and the Sav ior tells him, ' If thou canst believe ; all things are possible to him that believeth ; and straightway the father of the chilo cried out, with tears, Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbe- lief.' ' Now,' he continued, ' turn to the tenth chapter of St. John, and read from the verse where it is said, " Many of tne Jews believed on him." ' After this, he dictated a few line* and directed them to be signed with his name, and dated Sunday evening, October 10th, 1852. 'This,' he then added ' is the inscription to be placed on my monument.' A few days later on the loth he recurred to the same subject, ana revised and corrected with his own hand, what he had earlier dictated, so as to make the whole read as follows : ''LORD, I BELIEVE; HELP THOU MINE UNBELIEF." Philosophical argument, especially that drawn from the vastness of the Universe, in comparison with the apparent insignificance of this globe, has some- times shaken my reason for the faith which is in me ; but my heart has always assured and reassured me that til* Gospel of Jesus Christ must be a Divine Reality. The Sermon on the Mount cannot be a merely hu- man production. This belief enters into the very depths of my con- science. The whole history of man proves it. 'DANIEL WEBSTEB. 1 n Such a scene as this, such a record as this, will not foil \f have its weight in behalf*of the Christian religion, not only with 454 WEBSTER AND HIS MASTER-PIECES. all thinking men, but even with the comparatively thoughiless, as long as the scene is preserved in history, as long as the rec- ord shall stand uneffaced on his tomb-stone of granite, or on his monument of marble. Daniel Webster, the most intellectual man of recent history, the profoundest reason er of modern times, near the end of his days, but while all his faculties were in their full vigor, and at a season of the utmost solemnity, gives his deliberate testimony to the truth and reality of reli- gion ; and yet, there are hundreds of superficial men, as shal- low as he was deep, who, with not sense enough to have as- certained their want of mind, are ready, anywhere, to say that they look upon the Bible as a book of fables, and Christianity as a long-plotted and well-fabricated lie. Had this been true, would not such a man as Daniel Webster have been likely, if any one, to detect it 1 Through his whole life, on the con- trary, he never failed to give his whole testimony on the side of practical religion ; and now, in the verv lace of death, he declares a belief in it, which, when the circumstances are all considered, renders it equal in weight to any testimony ever given by a man not inspired. " If I eet we'l " said he to his friend, on the occasion of his first dictates rnis epitaph, " if I get well, and write a book on christianjry aoout which we have talked, we can attend more fullv to this matter. But, if I should be taken away suddenly, I do not wish to leave any duty of this kind unperformed. I want to leave, somewhere, a declaration of my belief in christianitv." Knowing, even in the humble hour of his last illness, tnat nis nnai opinions upon this subject would not fail to have great autnority among men, he hastens to give a formal utterance of that opinion, and or- ders this solemn declaration of his faith instead of the events and now worthless honors of his life, to be inscribed where it would be read and respected as long as any regard should be paid to his memory, or any weight of authority should ba carried in his name. LAST WILL AND TESTAMENT. 455 " Warned by his increasing debility," continues Mr. Ticknor, " he had already given some directions concerning a final dis- position of- his worldly affairs ; but he now desired tha* his will might be immediately drawn up in legal form, and the next day, he dictated a considerable portion of it with great precision and a beautiful appropriateness of phraseology." Mr. Ticknor is undoubtedly correct in regard to the time, as well as the manner, in which the instrument was drawn up ; but all the published copies of the will bear the date of the 21st of September, which, in this volume, has been changed to that of the 21st of October, which is indisputably the true date. Whenever made, however, that last will and testament of Daniel Webster is entirely characteristic of his great mind. lie scarcely ever did anything like other men ; and yet he affected novelty in nothing he performed. There was always in his position, or in the circumstances of the case where he was called to act, something new, something original, something that had never occurred before; and therefore, as in this instance, he was almost always called upon to do some- thing in a way for which he had no precedent. This will is without a precedent : it is so perfectly original, and yet so beautifully adapted to his case, that it must ever be admired, as a model of its kind ; nor could any life, however cursory, of the great statesman, be at all complete, unless it put into the possession of the reader, word for word, a document which, more than anything he ever produced in so small a compass, is the best exhibit of his worldly condition, and the most con- summate image and emblem of his life, his intellect, and his heart : 44 IN TUB NAME OF ALMIGHTY GOD ! ; ' L, DANIEL WEBSTER, of Marshfield, in the county of Plym- outh, and commonwealth of Massachusetts, Esquire, being now confined to my house with a serious illness, which, considering 456 WKBSTER AND HIS MASTER-PIECES. my time of life, is undoubtedly critical, but being nevertJielew in the full possession of my mental faculties, do make and pub- lish this, my last will and testament : " 1 commit my soul into the hands of my Heavenly Father, trusting in his infinite goodness and mercy. " I direct that my mortal remains be buried in the family vault at Marshfield, where monuments are already erected to my deceased children and their mother. Two places are marked for other monuments, of exactly the same size and form. One of these, in proper time, is for me, and perhaps I may leave an epitaph. The other is for Mrs. Webster. Her ancestors, and all her kindred, lie in a far distant city. My hope is, that after many years, she may come to my side, and join me and others whom God hath given me. " I wish to be buried without the least show or ostentation, but in a manner respectful to my neighbors, whose kindness has contributed so much to the happiness of me and mine and for whose prosperity I offer sincere prayers to God. "Concerning my worldly estate, my will must be anoma- lous and out of the common form, on occount of the state of my affiiirs. 1 have two large real estates. By marriage set- tlement, Mrs. Webster is entitled to a life estate in each, and after her death, they belong to my heirs. On the Franklin estate, so far as I know, there is no incumbrance except Mrs. Webster's life estate. On Marshfield, Mr. Samuel Frothing, ham has an unpaid balance of a mortgage, now amounting to twenty -five hundred dollars. My great and leading wish is, to preserve Marshfield, if I can, in the blood and name of my own family. To this end, it must go in the first place to my son, Fletcher Webster, who is hereafter to be the immediate prop of my house, and the general representative of my name and character. I have the fullest confidence in his affection and good sense, and that he will heartily' concur in anything that appears to be for the best. CONTINUATION OF THE WILL. 457 " I do not see, under present circumstances of him and his family, how I can now make a definite provision for the future beyond his life ; I propose, therefore, to put the property into the hands of trustees, to be disposed of by them, as exigencies may require. " My affectionate wife, who has been to me a source of so much happiness, must be tenderly provided for. Care must be taken that she has some reasonable income. I make this will upon the faith of what has been said to me by friends, of means which will be found to carry out my reasonable wishes. It is best that Mrs. Webster's life interest in the two estates be purchased out. It must be seen what can be done with friends at Boston, and especially with the con- tributors to my life annuity. My son-in-law, Mr. Appleton, has generously requested me to pay little regard to his inter- ests, or to those of his children, but I must do something, and enough to manifest my warm love and attachment to him and them. The property best to be spared for the purpose of buy- ing out Mrs Webster's life interest under the marriage settle- ment, is Franklin, which is very valuable property, and which may be sold under prudent management, or mortgaged for a considerable sum. "I have also a quantity of valuable land in Illinois, at Peru which ought to be immediately seen after. Mr. Edward Curtis and Mr. Blatchford and Mr. Franklin Haven know all about my large debts, and they have undertaken to see at once whether those can be provided for, so that these purposes may probably be carried into effect. " With these explanations, I now make the following pro- visions, namely : " ITEM. I appoint my wife Caroline Le Roy Webster, my son Fletcher Webster, and R. M. Blatchford, Esquire, of New York, to be the executors of this will. I wish my said executors, and also the trustees hereinafter named, in all things 458 WEBSTER AND HIS MASTER-PIECES. relating to finance and pecuniary matters, to consult with my valued friend, Franklin Haven ; and in all things respecting Marshfield, with Charles Henry Thomas, always an intimate friend, and one whom I love for his own sake and that of his fam- ily ; and in all things respecting Franklin, with that true man, John Taylor ; and 1 wish them to consult in all matters of law, with my brethren and highly esteemed friends, Charles P. Curtis, and George T. Curtis. " ITEM. I give and devise to James W. Paige and Franklin Haven, of Boston, and Edward Curtis, of New York, all my real estate in the towns of Marshfield, in the state of Massa- chusetts, and Franklin, in the state of New Hampshire, being the two estates above mentioned, to have and to hold the same to them and their heirs and assigns forever, upon the following trusts, namely : " first. To mortgage, sell, or lease so much thereof as may be necessary to pay to my wife, Caroline Le Roy Webster, the estimated value of her life interest, heretofore secured to her thereon by marriage settlement, as is above recited, if she shall elect to receive that valuation in place of the security with which those estates now stand charged. " Secondly. To pay to my said wife from the rents and profits and income of the said two estates, the further sum of five hundred dollars per annum during her natural life. " Thirdly. To hold, manage, and carry on the said two estates, or so much thereof as may not be sold for the pur poses aforesaid, for the use of my son, Fletcher Webster, du- ring his natural life, and after his decease, to convey the same in fee to such of his male descendants as a majority of the said trustees may elect, they acting therein with my son's concur- rence, if circumstances admit of his expressing his wishes, other, wise acting upon their own discretion : it being my desire that his son Ashburton Webster take one, and his son Daniel Web- ster, Jr., the other of the said estates. CONTINUATDN OF THE WILL. 459 "!TEM. I direct that my wife, Caroline Le Roy Webster nave, and I hereby give to her, the right during her life, to re- side in my mansion house, at Marshfield, when she wishes to do so, with my son, in case he may reside there, or in his ab- sence ; and this I do, not doubting my son's affection for her or for me, but because it is due to her that she should receive this right from her husband. "!TEM. I give and bequeath to the said James W. Paige, Franklin Haven, and Edward Curtis, all the books, plate, pic- tures, statuary, and furniture, and other personal property now in my mansion-house at Marshfield, except such articles as are hereinafter otherwise disposed of, in trust to preserve the same in the mansion-house for the use of my son, Fletcher Webster, during his life, and after his decease to make over and deliver the same to the person who will then become 'the owner of the estate of Marshfield,' it being my desire and intention that they remain attached to the house while it is occupied by any of my name and blood. " ITEM. I give and bequeath to my said wife all my furniture which she brought with her on her marriage, and the silver plate purchased of Mr. Rush, for her own use. " ITEM. I give, devise, and bequeath to my said executors all my other real and personal estate, except such as is hereafter described and otherwise disposed of, to be applied to the exe- cution of the general purposes of this will, and to be sold and disposed of, or held and used at Marshfield, as they and the said trustees may find to be expedient. " ITEM. I give and bequeath to my son, Fletcher Webster, all my law books, wherever situated, for his own use. " ITEM. I give and bequeath to my son-in-law, Samuel A. Appleton, my California watch and chain, for his own use. " ITEM. I give and bequeath to my granddaughter, Caroline Le Roy Appleton, the portrait of myself, by Healy, which VOL. i. T 460 WEBSTER AND HIS MASTER-PIECES. now hangs in the south-east parlor, at Marshfield, for ner own uao. " ITKM. I give and bequeath to my grandson, Samuel A. Appleton, my gold snuff-box, with the head of General Wash- ton, all my fishing tackle, and my Selden and Wilinot guns, for his own use. " ITEM. I give and bequeath to my grandson, Daniel Web- ster Appleton, my Washigton medals, for his own use. " ITEM. I give and bequeath to my granddaughter, Julia Webster Appleton, the clock presented to her grand mother by the late Hon. George Blake. " ITEM. I appoint Edward Everett, George Ticknor, Corne- lius Conway Felton, and George Ticknor Curtis, to be my lit- erary executors ; and I direct my son, Fletcher Webster, to seal up all my letters, manuscripts, and papers, and at a proper time to select those relating to my personal history, and my professional and public life, which in his judgment should be placed at their disposal, and to transfer the same to them, to be used by them in such manner as they may think fit. They may receive valuable aid from my friend, George J. Abbott, Esq., now of the state department. " My servant, William Johnson, is a free man. I bought his freedom not long ago for six hundred dollars. No demand is to be made upon him for any portion of this sum, but so long as is agreeable, I hope he will remain with the family. " ITEM. Morricha McCarty, Sarah Smith, and Ann Bean, colored persons, now also, and for a long time in- my service, are all free. They are very well deserving, and whoever comes after me must be kind to them. " ITEM. I request that my said executors and trustees be not required to give bonds for the performance of their respect- ive duties under this will. " hi testimony whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and seal, at Marshfield, and have published and declared this to be A FATAL SYMPTOM. 461 my last' will and testament, on the twenty-first day of Octo- ber in the year of our Lord, eighteen hundred and fifty-two. "[Signed.]" DANIEL WEBSTER." After the will had been prepared, it was laid aide to be ex- ecu .ed the next day ; but, in the afternoon of the same day, Mr. Webster suffered from a new and alarming symptom, warning him to do quickly whatever was yet not done. A large quantity of blood issued suddenly from his stomach. Fixing an "intensely scrutinizing look" upon his attending physician, he asked, " What is that ? " Being told that it came from the diseased part, " with the same piercing look," and with a change of accent, he repeated, " What is that 1 " That piercing look, however, had penetrated the mystery be- fore the attending physician had time to answer. " That is the enemy," said Mr. Webster, "if you can conquer that" but a recurrence of the symptom hindered him from saying what then might be his encouragement. As soon as he was again easy, he had his will brought before him. He would not exe- cute it, however, till he had satisfied himself that its provisions were perfectly satisfactory to all who were interested in it, a prudent forethought scarcely ever exercised, but entirely char- acteristic of Mr. Webster. With all his knowledge of the troubles frequently entailed on families by wills, he was deter- mined to entail no troubles on those he should leave behind him. Having thus disposed of his worldly estate, he folded his hands together and said, " I thank God for strength to per- form a sensible act." He then gave himself up to prayer. " In a full voice," says Mr. Ticknor, " and with a most rev- erential manner, he went on and prayed aloud for some min- utes, ending with the Lord's prayer and the ascription, ' And now unto God, the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, be praise forever more. Peace on earth and good will towards men' after which, clasping his hands together, as at first, he added 462 WEBSTER AND HIS MASTER-PIECES. with great emphasis, ' That is the happiness the essence good will towards men." He now requested all in the room to leave it, excepting Dr. Jeffries and a colored nurse, that he might obtain a little sleep. When alone with these two, he said to his physician, " Doctor, you look sober. You think I shall not be here in the morn- ing, but I shall. / shall greet the morning light." The next day, thinking that the doctor looked sad, he again said, "Cheer up, doctor cheer up I shall not die to-day. You will get me along to-day" He continued through Friday very much in the same way, giving consolation to others, instead of mani- festing any signs of his needing consolation or sympathy him- self. There is no doubt, that, in his own mind, he had that consolation which no man can give or take away. " On the morning of the 23d," which was Saturday, " he announced him- self" says Dr. Jeffries, " conscious of his situation, and said, '/ shall die to-night.'" The concluding scene was now rapidly approaching. Dr. J. M. Warren was sent for from Boston, as a relief to Dr. Jeffries, who had been constantly with Mr. Webster for more than a whole week ; and Mr. Webster gave all the directions to the messenger, with every minute particular of the duty to be per- formed, as he would have done in perfect health. After enjoying another short season of repose, he had his wife, and son, and the other members of his family called in, with whom he conversed most tenderly and yet plainly on the great subjects of religion, assuring them, without a change of countenance, and without expressing any unusual emotion, that his end was near. Late in the day, having probably noticed some decided mark of progress in his disease, he again called in his friends to give them his final blessing. " After nightfall," says Mr. Ticknor, " he received at his bedside each member of his family and household, the friends gathered under his roof, and the servants, most of whom having been long in his service had become tc WISHES TO COMPREHEND DEATH. him as faithful and affectionate friends. It was a solemn and religious parting, in which, while all around hnn were over- whelmed with sorrow, he preserved his accustomed equanim- ity, speaking to each words of appropriate kindness and conso- lation which they will treasure hereafter among their most pre- cious and life-long possessions." Having performed all these duties to the living, and hnving without any doubt settled and fixed his relations satisfactorily with God, he now seemed to enter into the work of death, if these words can express the thought, as no other man has done of whom history gives any clear account. Socrates, when dy- ing, conversed with his friends about immortality and the fu- ture life. Triumphant Christians usually die with exclamations of joy over their consciousness of deliverance from an evil world and their immediate entrance into a felicity ineffable and eternal. Mr. Webster, as original in death as ne had always been in life, after having closed up the past and provided for the future, appeared now to give himself exclusively to the ex- perience of the present. He seemed to wAteh, with all his great powers of mind, each passing moment, r.nd note each re- mo^e he made toward the final goal. A celebrated philoso- pher once held himself immersed in water, that he might learn the first sensations of a drowning man ; and another, equally celebrated and equally curious, stood in a receiver while the air was gradually taken from it by an air-pump, because, for some philosophical reason, he wished to know the experience of one dying, or rather beginning to die, by a want of breath. These persons, however, expected not to die, but to be rescued at the proper time. They could, therefore, go coolly to their experiments. Here is a man, on the contrary, who desired to learn all the feelings of a person, not in a few of the first mo- ments of a stoppage of vitality, but in the very act of dying, and through the whole gloomy process and progress of that act to the very last. He is making no experiment, no feint, soon 464 WEBSTER AND HIS MASTER-PIECES. to be relinquished. Nor, like the classic poets, who, in imagi nation, had described the passage of the soul to the other world, was he throwing himself into any unreal state of fancy. All was real, actual, solemn fact. He was actually dying ; and, as no one but a dying man can know how one dies, and as his first and last opportunity of obtaining this knowledge was then with him, he resolved to embrace that opportunity to the ut- most. This remarkable resolution could have been taken with no view of communicating the results of it to his fellow-crea, tures. All he could expect from what he might thus learn of the soul's leave-taking of the body was, that the mind would carry its knowledge with it into the world he was about to en- ter. Of the millions of the human family who had died, per- haps no one had ever carried any perfect recognition of this final act into the future state; and it is possible that Mr. Web- ster may have conceived the original and sublime thought of being the bearer of this new knowledge into that pure, intel- lectual world of which he was so soon to become an inhabi- tant. It is more probable, however, even if such a conception may have flashed upon his mind, that the great motive of the act was simply his original, irrepressible, undecaying, and un- dying thirst for knowledge. It was his love of truth ; and, cer- tainly, as no man had ever given greater evidences of the strength of this ruling propensity in life, so no man ever gave to it so glorious an exhibition in the hour and article of death. " From the morning of Saturday," says Mr. Ticknor, " when he had announced to his attendant physician what nobody, until that time, had intimated that 'he should die that night,' the whole strength of his great faculties seemed to be directed to obtain for him a plain and clear perception of his onward passage to another world, and of his feelings and condition at the precise moment, when he should be entering its confines. Once ; being faint, he asked if he were not then dying ; and, oc being answered that he was not, but that he was near to death, HIS LAST WORDS. 405 he repliel simply, 'well' as if the frank and exact reply were what he desired to receive. A little later, when his kind phy- sician repeated to him that striking text of Scripture 'Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for thou art with me, thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me,' he seemed less satisfied, and said, 'Yes but the fact the fact I want,' desiring to know if he were to regard these words as an intimation that he was already within that dark valley. On another occasion, he inquired whether it were likely that he should again eject blood from his stomach before death, and, being told that it was improbable, he asked, 'Then what shall you do ? ' Being answered that he would be sup- ported by stimulants, and rendered as easy as possible by the opiates that had suited him so well, he inquired at once if the stimulants should not be given immediately, anxious again to know if the hand of death were not already upon him. And, on being told that it would not be then given, he replied, ' When you give it to me, I shall know that I may drop off at once.' Being satisfied on this point, and that he should, there- fore, have a final warning, he said, a moment afterwards, 'I will, then, put myself in a position to obtain a little repose.' In this he was successful. He had intervals of rest to the last ; but on rousing from them, he showed that he was still intensely anxious to preserve his consciousness, and to watch for the mo- ment and act of his departure, so as to comprehend it. Awa- king from one of these slumbers, late in the night, he asked distinctly if he were alive, and, on being assured that he was, and that his family was collected around his bed, he said, in a perfectly natural tone, as if assenting to what had been told him, because he himself perceived that it was true, '/ still live' These were his last coherent and intelligible words. At twenty-three minutes before three o'clock, without a struggle 01 a groan, all signs of life ceased to be visible, his vital organs giving way at last so slowly and gradually as to indicate 466 WEBSTER AND HIS MASTER-PIECES. what everything during his illness had already shown that his mtelloctual and moral faculties still maintained an extraor- mnary mastery amidst the failing resources of his physica. constitution." Reader, thus lived and thus passed away from earth a man, who, for all time to come, is to hold his rank, not with those of his countrymen with whom he happened to be associated in life, but with the most illustrious men that have had an exist- ence in the world. Centuries from this day, when not only the few that misunderstood but the many who appreciated and loved him shall be forgotten, his name is to stand in the list where such names as Moses and Lycurgns, Solon and Cicero, Burke and Bacon, Wilberforce and Washington, are recorded. Ages from this date, when the youth of this republic, if, hap- pily, the republic he twice saved shall, find other saviors to preserve it, shall read the history of the first century of their country, next to that of George Washington, no name will be so well known, or hold so high a place, as the name of Daniel Webster. Ages and centuries hence, when future senates, again vexed by internal discords, shall seek to know how to maintain with national integrity the integrity of the nation, they will at once recur, as to a store-house of political wisdom, to the still surviving works of the first and ablest of this century's statesmen ; and in that far-off period, and through every sue ceeding period of our existence as a country, the students of a thousand liberal institutions, devoted to science, the arts, and the professions, will be as familiar with his master-pieces as the students of this generation are with those of the Greek, Ro- man, and British orators. Nay, more, as republics, like other governments, have their life and their decay, so when the union of these states shall have come to its natural dissolution when REVIEW OF ' HIS LIFE. 467 its history shall have receded so far back as to be reckoned with the present antiquities of the earth, then the American? who shall stand upon this soil, as the modern Greeks now stand upon the soil of their great ancestors, shall look backward upon the few names which history or tradition shall have saved from the general wreck ; and then, whatever names shall have gone to oblivion, never to be recovered, never to be recalled, never to be pronounced again, of whom there will be many now known to fame, among the few that do not die, and as im- mortal as any of the number, will the name of Daniel Webster stand, still recorded, still read, still revered, becoming more memorable and more imperishable with the lapse of time : " All of Agricola that gained our love, and raised our admira- tion, still subsists, and will ever subsist, preserved in the minds of men, the register of ages, and the lists of fame ! " Such having been the life of Daniel Webster, and such being the position he holds and is to hold in coming time, it is not expedient to close this record without looking back upon him, without casting some reflections on the singular character and import of his life, and without drawing such instructions from it as it is so capable of furnishing, and will not fail to furnish, to the more penetrating and thoughtful of mankind. In entering upon such a review, it will be at once evident, that a single quality of mind, or a single trait of character, if developed largely and made very prominent, is generally suf Sclent to give to ordinary great men a title to their reputation, but that many qualities, and many traits, with every attribute of his being, in fact, have to be examined and accounted for, in ma king up the character of such an extraordinary man as Daniel Webster. It will be remembered that Dr. Franklin, as the representa- tive of his class of men, was considered great, and received great applause from his cotemporaries, for having the energy and the genius to overcome and rise above the obscurity and poverty VOL. i. T* 30 468 WEBSTER AND HIS MASTER-PIECES. of his origin. In this respect, Daniel Webster was equally great, as is seen by a brief recapitulation of the successive pe- riods of his life from youth to manhood. In the year 1782, he is born at Salisbury, on the banks of the Merrimac, and on the northern frontier of New Hampshire. His father, Ebene- zer Webster, is the owner of a farm large enough, it might be imagined, to have made him and his family independent. But a thousand acres of wild, woody, rocky, and nearly barren ter- ritory, as is that portion of New Hampshire, is not enough to raise them above hard labor, and the want of what are since the most ordinary comforts. The household is very large and ex- pensive. The father, the mother, and all the children, are work- ing people, and toil hard in the heat and in the cold, to procure from their sterile acres their daily bread. The country is new, the republic is just beginning ; and there are no such chances as have since existed to take advantage of changing circumstan- ces and make sudden fortunes. From the day of his birth till he leaves his father's residence, the youthful Web.ster sees no- thing around him, nor before him, but a partially reclaimed wil- derness and constant labor. When he arrives at an age that fits him to begin to learn the rudiments of an education, the sum- mer has to be spent in work, and the school is too distant, and the snows of winter too deep, to admit of his walking or going to it. His mother, a noble woman, is his only teacher. Stand- ing by her knee, he acquires those first lessons, that ripen after- ward into such various and deep knowledge. When older, and large enough to brave the horrors of a northern winter, a few weeks annually, during this inhospitable season, are all the time allowed him to cultivate his faculties. These are all the advanta- ges he has for the acquisition of knowledge till about his four- teenth year, when his father, in consideration of the general fee- bleness of his son's health, and the promise of his mind, gives him a larger portion of his time for study. The moment he is released from manual labor, it is seen at once what is the spirit SUMMARY OF HIS LIFE. 469 of the youth, and what he is capable of performing. In a few short months from the time of his release, he is prepared foi college. At the age of fifteen, he enters the Freshman class at Dartmouth ; and from that hour till the day of his graduation, he is noted as the hardest student of the institution. By adhe- ring exclusively to his books, and by refusing to spend his time in outward displays and public performances, he makes himself the deepest, though not the most showy, scholar of his class. The foundation being thus laid, when he goes out to take his part in active life, he is ready for anything that offers, and takes pros- perity by the forelock, and success by storm. Being considera- bly in debt, and not too proud to work, he tramps on foot to the state of Maine, takes the academy of Fryeburg for a very small salary, but saves the whole of it by writing in the clerk's office to pay his board. Having thus paid off his debts, he commences the study of the law, getting his instruction where he can, some- times studying by his father's fireside, sometimes in the office of Mr. Thompson, of his native place, and for a short time under the oversight of Christopher Gore, of Massachusetts. Soon after his admission to the bar, he removes to the city of Ports- mouth, then the chief city of his state, and commences practice by the side of such men as Jeremiah Mason, whose fame is al- most universal, but with a resolution to conquer a place and master his position, whatever or whoever may surround him. The work is soon done. For nine years, which are the years of his stay at Portsmouth, though a young man, he stands first at the bar of New Hampshire, and commands a willing or an un- willing deference from the oldest and ablest lawyers to the extent and depth of his legal learning, and to the matchless strength and compass of his mind. So entirely does he conquer his po- sition, that, at the close of these nine years, when he becomes a candidate for a seat in congress, out of a constituency of sev eral thousani, he easily obtains a very clear majority. In 1816 he removes to Boston, and, in the following year, makes ^13 470 WEBSTER AND HIS MASTER-PIECES. celebrated plea on the Dartmouth College case, which is never to be forgotten in New England, and which carries hi;n high above every other lawyer in that Athens of America, where there is to be found some of the best legal abilities in the world. In 1820, he is a member of the convention that revises the constitution of his adopted state ; and his statesmanship is so conspicuous in this assembly, that the leading citizens of Bos- ton at once make him their candidate for the senate of the United States. Replying that " he has had enough of public life," he declines the honor, and makes every exertion to pro- cure it for another man. But the admiration and confidence of the people will not let him rest. In 1822, without his con- sent, and contrary to his wishes, they elect him to the house of representatives, where, in 1824, he makes his speech on the Greek revolution, which is pronounced in England to be the ablest and most eloquent since the days of Pitt. In the suc- ceeding autumn, he is again put in nomination, and in a district of jive thousand freemen, he receives four thousand nine hun- dred and ninety voles. Two years afterwards, the compli- ment of a renomination is again paid him, which is followed by similar results. Forced as he thus sees himself from the charms of private life, which no man ever desired or delighted in more than he, he finally yields to what seems to be his des- tiny, and gives himself up, on his election to the United States senate, in 1827, to the great work which his admiring country- men have crowded upon his hands. As a senator, he serves his country for twelve consecutive years, leaving the senate- chamber at last, in 1840, at the call of President Harrison, who is unwilling to undertake the duties of his exalted and dif- ficult office, without having the experience, the wisdom, the masterly abilities of Webster for his support. In 1845, he re- turns to his seat in the senate, which he holds till 18? 0, when, on the death of General Taylor, he is again summoned by President Fillmore to become the head of the cabinet, in which THEORY OF GREATNESS. 471 high position Le remains till death. During all these years^ in every office which he holds, he is always and everywhere acknowledged as the first man. As a lawyer in New Hamp- shire, he is first ; as a lawyer in Massachusetts, he is first ; as a member of the Massachusetts constitutional convention, he is first ; as a representative for seven years at Washington, he is first ; as a senator, for seventeen years, at home and abroad, he is constantly recognized as first ; as secretary of state, at two critical periods in the nation's history, he is emphatically first, not more than two of his predecessors having brought to the post anything like his abilities as a statesman, or as a man of mind. For twenty-five years of his public life, his judgment deliberately uttered on a point of litigation, or of legislation, is almost as good as law. The country more than once waits, and waits anxiously, for his opinion ; and a single epistle, which falls extemporaneously from his pen, is known to pacify belli- gerent nations, and a speech to elevate in foreign lands the price of our public stocks. Whether in office, or out of office, he is always, during this quarter of a century in particular, the mo- mentous, mighty spirit of his country, who, by the motion of his single intellect, frequently sways the nation, and always commands the notice of the world. If there is any greatness, therefore, to be attributed to Franklin, and to men of his class, because they have the energy to rise from humble circumstan- ces, against many obstacles, to a high point of power and honor among their fellow men, then that greatness, whatever it is, and all that it is, is to be ascribed to Daniel Webster, who began in obscurity, but closed his career as the most power ful single individual, as an individual, of modern times. In the earliest ages, the world resounded with the fame of Theseus, of Hercules, and of Samson ; and in every period since, as well as in the present period, there has been, as there yet is, a sect of thinkers, whose fundamental maxim is, that the body is the basis of every stvle of greatness. They differ, it 472 WEBSTER AND HIS MASTER-PIECES. is true, in the manner of their judgments. Some of them saj that the power of a man's mind is always commensurate with the volume of his brain. Others, in addition to the size cf this organ, make more or less allowance for the quality of its tex- ture. Others, not so exclusive in their attention to the brain, attribute a great deal of consequence to the temperaments, to the form of the features, and to the general aspect of the per- son. With some, the eye is everything. To others, the mouth is the chief indicator of intellectual and moral qualities. A third class, attributing to the heart and lungs a great influence upon the action of the whole system, the nerves and brain in- cluded, assert that a capacious head on a narrow trunk is less likely to be distinguished by mental greatness, than a smaller head on a trunk well developed, and roomy enough to admit of the free play of large vital organs. All these, and others that might be mentioned, are but variations of the same gene- ral theory of man, which sets a very high value, if not the high- est value, on the size, powers and possibilities of the body ; and it is a pertinent fact, and worthy of record and recollection, that, for the last quarter of a century, every division and sub-divis- ion of this class of men, whatever have been their contradic- tions on other subjects, and whatever changes have taken place in their respective standards of judging of human characters, have unanimously and invariably settled upon Daniel Webster, as their common model. And certainly, whatever may be thought of their several theories, in this respect they have not mistaken. Seen where he might be, whether in the senate, or on the street, or in the largest gathering of the people, he was always the most magnificent specimen of a man, present. Others might be larger, higher, more muscular, but none in every way so striking and so perfect. Though not monstrous in size, he was of more than medium height, round and full in habit, perfectly erect, firm and strong in step, and entirely satisfactory to tho most fastidious eye for the regularity, proportion and harmony PERSONAL APPEARANNCE. 473 of his featui es. His movement was that of a superior being, unconscious, or thoughtless, of his superiority. When sitting in the presence of an assembly, where others of notoriety cculd be found disposing of themselves as if thoughtful of their ap- pearance, and perhaps a little troubled about the impression that that appearance might be making for them, he sat with the most absolute unconcern, without a motion or a look to invite respect, or to draw attention. Well might he sit thus natu- rally and easily, for nature had so endowed him, that no effort of his own could have added anything to the grandeur of his presence. In such situations, as the people saw him but sel- dom, all eyes were always riveted upon him, whoever else might be present; and every one made him, as long as the oc- casion would admit, a study. All around, in every part of the most thronged audiences and he never was permitted to see a small one half-suppressed ejaculations could be heard " what an eye ! " " what a head ! " " what a mouth ! " " what a countenance ! " " what a presence ! " " what a man ! " A philosopher would have much to study and to mark about him. He would see that the great man was most compactly built, as if his powerful mind had drawn and knit his frame together for the difficult purposes of a mighty life. There was no waste distance, by any needless length of person, between his head and heart, between his heart and hand, between the source and center of his life and the instruments that that life was to in vigorate and employ. His head was not only one of the three largest, but the most regularly developed head of modern times. According to the measurements of Dr. Jeffries, made on the plan adopted or proposed by Dr. Morton, the circum- ference of the head was twenty -three inches and three-quarters, and the distance frun the meatus of one ear, over the top of the head, to the meatus of the other, was fifteen inches. The longitudinal diameter of the head was seven and a half inches ; the transverse diameter, five inches and three quarters ; the 174 WEBSTER AND HIS MASTER-FIECEB. vertical diameter, five and a half inches, giving to its whole capacity, one hundred and twenty-two cubic inches, the average capacity of the Teutonic race being, according to Dr. Morton, ninety-two cubic inches. His was the largest head, rating by the cranial capacity, of which there has been made any record. His temperament, a mixture of the nervous and bilious, was just the one, which the most strenuous materialist would have selected, to give him the highest activity of his faculties, and the greatest power of endurance, to sustain him against the frame- shaking enginery and energy of his mind. Added to all his other traits, and as a final accomplishment of his person, Mr. Webster must be said to have been truly beautiful. It was not feminine beauty that every one beheld and noted in him. It was a manly beauty, the beauty of his sex. It was the beauty of a large, powerful, mighty being, whose proportions were magnificent, but still charming and attractive to the eye. It was that beauty that lies embodied in sublimity. It was the beauty of the ocean, when lying motionless, and clear, and deep, beneath the spectator's glance. It was the beauty of the overhanging sky, broad and boundless, which, serene and quiet as it may be to-day, carries within itself a vastness of power, that, to-morrow, may shake heaven and cause the earth to trem- ble to its poles. In every way, in every feature, in all his bear- ing, Daniel Webster was certainly a pattern, as if nature had designedly brought together into one, the perfections of many persons, that, after numerous disappointments, the world might at last have a model of a man. In advancing higher, to take some account of Mr. Webster's mind, it is not enough to say, that the mind is the true stand- ard of the man, or that his mind was without a parallel among living men. This has been said so often, and so long, that some more definite statement of the universally acknowledged fact is wanted. That he was, intellectually, far above and beyond any modern man, and perhaps equal to any that ever lived OB INTELLECTUAL GREATNESS. 475 earth, has leen constantly confessed, at home and abroad, for thirty years. But intellectual greatness is of several kinds. It is now a fit occasion to inquire what kind was possessed by him. If, in answering this question, we follow the division of the intellect made by Bacon, into memory, imagination and reason, we shall be compelled, without doubt, after this protracted in- vestigation of Mr. Webster's life and labors, to ascribe to him the three orders of greatness founded respectively upon the several departments of the understanding. He undoubtedly possessed that greatness based on memory, which, though the lowest order of intellectual greatness, has been alone sufficient to give to many a name a world-wide reputation. Not that he had a Mezzofantian memory, that devoured everything, good and bad, or the memory of the friend of Frederick the Great, who, on hearing a long poem read once, could repeat it in- stantly, without the variation of a syllable. Nor had he any of the tricks of memory after any system of mnemonics, by which he could recount a long and disconnected catalogue of names, by having it a single time read over to him. No mem- ory of that sort had Mr. Webster. His memory was natural, and sound, and healthy. It was strong, retentive, ready and universal. It need not be said, for it would be no eulogy, that he remembered everything. What can be said of him is all that characterizes a really great memory. He always retained, and could use at any moment, and with the most perfect ac- curacy, whatever he had intended to lay up at any time of reading or of observation. His memory for words, for facts, and for ideas, was about equal. Thoughts that he had once had, seldom if ever escaped him ; for, in all his speeches, which must be counted by the hundred, and which extended through a spare of over forty years, he was remarkable for recollecting and pointing out even when speaking without previous no tice what he had said on the same subject on all former oo- 476 WEBSTER AND HIS MASTER-PIECES. casions. Events, whether those of history^ or those coming within the- range of his own experience, were always stated by him exactly as they occurred, and generally accompanied by all their attending circumstances; and more than once, when en- gaged in debate, and when a variance arose between him and his opponent in relation to a fact, his statement of it not only carried his hearers with him, but convinced his antagonist without farther examination or evidence, that his own recollec- tion was at fault. It is a singular circumstance in the history of Mr. Webster, that an appeal is not known to have ever been taken from anything deliberately stated by him as a fact. His word, his memory, was always the end of controvei'sy in a mat- ter which he professed to know. In regard to language, or what is called verbal memory, he was yet more remarkable. His citations, as has been before said in the narrative of his life, have long been celebrated as being always the best that could have been made ; and his quotations from the great masters, in the course of an argument, were invariably so fit, so perti- nent, that the reader or hearer doubted, whether the passage or phrase in question had ever been before, or could ever be again, so aptly quoted. There was something so remarkable ; n him, in this respect, that it is difficult to state it with suffi- cient force. In every instance, it seemed as if his passages and phrases, ages before he wanted them, had been made to his order, and that he had laid them up in his early years, as if pre- scient of the precise use he would wish ever afterward to make of them. For thirty years, so noted was this trait, the world of critics have been watching him to see if they could not find him, at some careless moment, tripping. Two or three times, in the course of this long period, they have imagined that they had at last found a fault ; but in every case, after mature exam- ination, the critics have been forced to acknowledge that he was right. Near the close of life, indeed, when some professed to discover a decline of his great faculties, an instance of this HIS IMAGINATION. 4T3 kind occurred. In the course of the brief and unambitious speech in Fanueil Hall, before mentioned, made on the 24th of May, 1852, he quoted two lines of poetry, which he ascribed to Dr. Johnson. Next day, the literary newspaper writers of Boston, opposed to him in politics, came out with flaming par- agraphs, heralded by a sound of trumpets, that the great orator had certainly made one blunder ; and, in proof of their asser- tion, they published large extracts from one of Dr. Goldsmith's pieces, in which the two lines evidently occur. The great cul- prit made no correction. Perhaps he did not read the stric- tures. In a few days, however, some deeper scholar had found the fact, which Mr. Webster had perhaps known from boyhood, that though Dr. Goldsmith did write the body of the poem, Dr. Johnson wrote the twelve last lines of it, and that it was this addi- tion from which the orator had made, extemporaneously, but knowingly, his quotation. In literature itself, which had never been to him more than a recreation, he proved himself, not only once, but often, more accurate than those men, who made it their profession. In all matters of memory, indeed, he real- ized the strong language of the poet : " His words were bonds, his oaths were oracles." Of Mr. Webster's imagination, or his power to recall and combine past perceptions, and frame them together in new ways and according to new relations, nothing less can be said than that he had no living superior. Philosophy assures us that clearness and vividness of conception is at the same time the chief element, both of recollection and of imagination. The man who can look upon the past with so steady and bright and broad a vision as did Mr. Webster, must see plainly the natural and the possible resemblances and contradictions, as well as all other intelligible relations between objects. That Mr. Webster did see them, and profit by what he saw, every thing he ever did bears witness. No man ever beheld the 478 WEBSTER AND HIS MASTER-PIECES. ccngruities, or the incongruities, of events, facts and idea.; more accurately, or more happily. It is for this reason that he was about equally capable of both grave and ludicrous creations. In public, he was noted for his serious pictures, which were al- ways the pictures of a master. In private, he is said to have indulged in the ludicrous, his wit being ready and exhaustless, and his descriptions rich, racy, and dramatic. He was the best story-teller of the whole country, and his performances in this way have been compared to the dialogues of Shakspeare. He could make a story, as well as tell one; and his ideal pic- tures of life, and particularly of the future life, were wonder- folly striking and original. It was seldom that he publicly indulged in pure satire ; but when he did, the man or the idea satirized was an object of sport or of contempt ever afterwards. When South Carolina, unsupported by a single other state, pro- posed to nullify the acts and authority of congress, Daniel Webster, in one of his inspired moments, advised her to go on and take the contemplated step. He told her, with a wither- ing smile, to take from our flag her one star and one slrijw, and set up a republic and be a country by herself! The step was never taken ; for every one saw, from that moment, even South Carolina herself, how ridiculously the one star and one stripe would look ? His figures were always thus pertinent and strong. They were arguments; and the arguments were conclusive. They were not such as Irving, or Addison, or even Shakspeare would have made, simply humorous, laughable and capable of a competition by other tongues. They were such as no other tongue, no other pen but his, has ever framed, or may ever frame again. The man nearest to him, and most like him in this respect, was Burke. Had he not been, indeed, so many things else, and particularly a statesman of such weighty cares, Mr. Webster might have been a poet ; and his poetry would have been, not the eloquent volubility of Homer, nor the placid stateliness of Virgil, nor th<> minute philosophism of HIS REASONING FACULTY. 479 Lucreti as, nor the refined sentimentalism of Petraivh, nor the cold magniloquence of Corneille, nor the finical polish of Racine nor the careful scholasticism of Gcethe, nor the sensuous warmth of Schiller, nor the feminine delicacy of Addison, nor the verbal opulence of Thomson, nor the shorn and shaven evenness and bal- anced accuracy of Pope, but something entirely his own, and still a poetry of the first grade. Judging from the imagery of his prose writings, and from what are known to have been the leading characteristics of his mind, it seems most probable that he would have combined the dramatic power of Shakspeare with the high sublimity of Dante, or of Milton. To their class, cer- tainly, Mr. Webster, as a poet, would have belonged ; and he was the only man of this century, or of the preceding centuries, that could have composed Hamlet, the Inferno, or Paradise Lost. He might, it is probable, have written either, had he given his days to literature, rather than to the state ; for the breadth and power of his imagination, as well as the liveliness of his fancy, have been seldom equaled, and perhaps not once surpassed. Ascending still higher in this investigation, to examine Mr. Webster's claims to greatness on the ground of reason, the third division of the intellect, according to Lord Bacon, less need be said, as all men have given him, in this respect, the preeminence above the greatest personages of modern times. Here, he stood entirely alone, unapproached and unapproacha- ble. Whatever may have been said of* him, in relation to other qualities, he never had an enemy, or a rival, possessed of any character as a critic, that ventured to deny him this su- periority over other men. In pure argument, in clear, com- pact, solid reasoning, it is undeniable that he never looked upon his equal. Such was his penetration, that he saw the bottom of everything upon which he turned his eye. No arts could mystify, no sophistry could deceive him. A subject of debate ncight be covered up by an age of opposing precedents, or ob 480 WEBSTER AND HIS MASTER-PIECES scured by the contrivances of his antagonists, 01 clouded by its own depth or distance, so that common minds, however honest, knew not what to think of it. When he cast his eye upon it, these precedents were nothing ; his antagonists were nothing , the depth and distance of the idea, were nothing. He brushed them all away ; he went directly to the thought, whatever or wherever it might be ; and he brought it up, entire and alone, exhibiting it clearly to every person's comprehension, exactly in its own proportions. Not only was he thus profound and strong, but he was broad and comprehensive. He not only saw his idea, and that distinctly separated from every other idea, similar and dissimilar, but he beheld all its relations to other ideas, near and remote, and seemed to realize, while em- ploying or presenting it, every possible bearing it might have upon every possible idea, or interest, past, present, and future. If it may be said deferentially, and only with its own meaning, there was a sort of omnipresence in his genius, in his reason- ing, of which every reader and every hearer was always strangely conscious. He had scarcely taken his seat for the first time in congress, before it became evident, that, if any one wished to oppose him, it must be by other means than argument. With whatever eloquence, either of diction or of delivery, he was at any time beset, it was but a playful effort for him to take up the speeches, paragraph by paragraph, take out of them all their rhetoric, and reduce them to their sim- ple essence, and then perhaps annihilate that essence by a sin- gle stroke of his powerful and resistless logic. In the early part of his congressional career, a well known senator used to try his arts of metaphysical dialectics on him ; but he soon found that finely-spun theories and delicately-drawn distinctions could not chain a giant. At the same period, another distin guished senator would occasionally attempt to mislead or neu tralize him, by the employment of rich description, captivating imagery, a charming voice, and a passionate and very confiden< POWER IK ARGUMENT. 481 style of oratory ; but all these attempts were fir. ally abandoned as thrown away upon a man, who, rising with the most perfect coolness, could always give the exact weight and worth of everything thus beautifully uttered, and then present his own views so cogently, and so clearly, as to make them stand out like living mathematical demonstrations. In all these efforts, however, he was always cautious not to do more than the case demanded, and never to inflict needless chagrin upon an oppo- nent, as a weak man often does, by pressing too far a logical advantage. He seemed ever to be conscious, that, in these mental battles, he always had the advantage of mankind gen- erally, and that deriving it as a gift of heaven, he was bound to treat his opponents with mercy. Only twice in his life-time did he appear at all to vary from this rule of action ; and in both cases, the personal assaults made upon his private char- acter, as well as the vital import to the country of a thorough victory, have always been looked upon as a sound apology. These were probably the only instances, also, where his whole mind was roused to do its utmost ; and it is scarcely too much to say, that the chief existence which the two men have since had is the immortality arising to them from the sublime effort by which everything but a bare existence was taken from them. One of them fell at once into utter oblivion, so far as the na- tion is concerned ; and the other, not only a man of talents, but supported by a combination of great power, on being plainly told, by one of his friends, that he and his party had been ut- terly annihilated by the great New-Englander, thought it a sufficient glory, as he said, that no living man could have dealt annihilation to him but Daniel Webster. Daniel Webster, however, could deal defeat to any opponent, in a conflict of pure argument, whom he was ever called to meet in public or in private life. His reasoning power, indeed, was almost as sub- tle as Aristotle's, quite as brilliant as Plato's, and as practical 482 WEBSTER AND HIS MASTER-PIECES. as Lord Bacon's ; and he might have been, perhaps, either one of those philosophers had he not been Daniel Webster. Such, without doubt, is the universal opinion entertained of the mental capacities of the immortal statesman ; but there is a higher order of greatness, which has been seldom mentioned, but which should be equally ascribed to him. It is that order of greatness founded upon the sensibilities. Mr. Webster was not simply a person of great physical perfection endowed with a .powerful intellect. lie was a man of feeling. His emotions alone, had they been alone, would have distinguished him as much as his memory, his imagination, or his reason. He was a man of keen, delicate, and lively sentiment. Like the pillars about a temple, his mind was a combination of strength with beauty. He was passionately fond of nature. He fixed his residence in a rural spot, surrounded by fields and forests, rocks and running water. His favorite room, which he used as a library and study, looked out upon the ocean, which he is said to have been accustomed to gaze upon by the hour together. He delighted in the successive changes of the seasons. The storms of winter and the flowers of spring gave him equal pleasure. In the heat of summer, as has been seen, he was wont to go out and sit upon the streamlet banks, or ramble through the shady woods, or wander upon the ocean beach, sometimes with his gun, but more generally with his fishing rod, all the time deeply musing, as if it were his only business in life to visit and enjoy the works of his Creator. He enjoyed himself much with children, and allowed them to take liberties with him, as a lion might enter into the sports of lambkins. He has been heard to say that a little child asleep was to him the most touching of all earthly objects. He loved beauty, serenity, and inno- cence; and he has been frequently observed returning to his man- sion, after a morning's ramble, with his hands filled with flow- ers. One of the most beautiful of his compositions is a letter he wrote to a friend, in praise of the quiet and freshness of the DEPTH OF HIS SENSIBILITIES. 483 morning ; and his Franklin letter, written while looking out of a window of the old Salisbury homestead upon the graves of his buried kindred, is as affecting as anything in the English lan- guage. His domestic affections were wonderfully strong. Nor is it to be forgotten, that always, in all his writings, wherever his father's name is mentioned, it is followed by a point of ad- miration ; and he could never speak of his eldest brother, who died so suddenly, without being moved to tears. When he lost his children, his grief, though submissive, was sublime. Il was like that of David. His neighbors, and his neighborhood, lived in his affections ; and his love for New England, second only to his love for the whole country, has long been a passion. His love of his native land was always stronger in him than the love of life ; and yet, such was the breadth of his feelings, as well as his breadth of view, that he was ever able to make the most ardent patriotism a part of that general benevolence which embraced the whole human family. A memorable instance of his kindness of heart was mentioned after his death, by Mr. Everett. Tbat gentleman, when about to prepare the last edi- tion of Mr. Webster's works, was permitted to follow his own taste without much restraint. Only one injunction was laid upon him. " My friend," said Mr. Webster, " I wish to per- petuate no feuds. I have lived a life of strenuous political war- fare. I have sometimes, though rarely, and that in self-defense, been led to speak of others with severity. I beg you, where you can do it without wholly changing the character of the speech, and thus doing essential injustice to me, to obliterate every trace of personality of this kind. I should prefer not to leave a word that would give unnecessary pain to any honest man, however opposed to me." It was for this reason that his politioal enemies generally esteemed him. It was for this reason, so clearly seen in all his speeches and in all his acts, that he was our most successful diplomatist, because, while maintaining his regard for his own government, he had made himself the idol VOL. i. U 31 484 WEBSTER AND HIS MASTER-PIECES. of other nations. All men have celebrated Mr. Webster's intellectual greatness; but the world has yet to learn, what it will learn, when his whole character shall have been re- vealed, that his heart was even greater than his head. When we look upon his calling, upon the nature of his employ ments, upon the places he occupied, and upon the general be- havior of our public characters, it must be acknowledged that that heart of his, always young, sensitive, tender, and full of be- nevolence to all the world, made him emphatically our most glorious man ! But there is still another order of greatness, which is to be ranked higher than all others, because it is that which gives life and character to them all. It is that order of greatness founded upon a powerful will. The will is the internal force that moves and controls the man. It is the man himself. It is that interior essence that calls everything else its own. A weak, hesitating, unresolving will, always leaves a man weak, hesitating, and unresolved. A strong will makes a man strong. It was his will that made Alexander the conqueror of the world. It was his will that made Hannibal great, both in victory and defeat. It was his will that gave to Caesar, in spite of ten thou- sand discouragements, the command of his enemies and the em- pire of Rome. It was his will, his imperial will, that made Na- poleon what he was. It was his will that put England into the power of Cromwell, when nothing but a strong will could stand. The laborer of Marseilles told Kossuth, that everything is pos- sible to him that wills ; but the loss of Hungary is to be attrit> uted to the very fact, that the lesson had not been learned be- fore. Had the great Magyar, the moment he had seen the first symptoms of treachery in Gorgey, hurled him from his path, and rushed to the last conflict with the spirit of an u- oonquered and unconquerable man, the land he has so honored and so loved might now be free; but in this one pcint, with all the nobleness and grandeur of his soul, he failed. This is POWER OF HIS WILL. 48A not the first time, perhaps, that the imagination has been in- dulged, in supposing how Webster would have acted, in such a crisis, with such a traitor at his back. It will take no time to tell. He would have raised himself up to the highest and dreadest demand of the moment. An army of Gorgeys would have been but a feather in his way. The first word of treason to his country would have been the death-warrant to any and every man. Storms might have arisen, but Webster, fully roused, would have beaten them back, or grasped them and held them motionless in his fist. Such has ever been his character. His will never saw a crisis greater than itself. When resolved, no- thing on earth could ever move him, or shake him from his course. Acting, as it is believed he always did, from a sense of right and duty, after the most careful examination of a ques- tion, neither enemies nor friends could swerve him from his purpose. The west might threaten him and the east give signs of the withdrawal of its confidence and esteem ; but he always went directly forward, turning neither to the right nor left. The south might burn against him, and the north might gather on him a coldness greater than its own ; but, nothing daunted, he slackened not in the execution of his resolves. When the pro- slavery feeling of the southern states concentrates to nullify the authority of congress, and overthrow the federal government, he rises up in the majesty of his soul, stakes his reputation and his political fortunes on a single act, routs the enemies of his country forever from the field, and gives to us all a country, a government, at a cost which the services of a long life have not been able, as he knew they would not be able, to make good. When the anti-slavery spirit of the northern states, just in itself, but overlooking the authority of the constitution assumes a hostile character, he rises again, turning his face agamst his own New England, against the dearest friends he ever had on earth, against what falsely and yet plausibly seems to have been the tenor c f his whole life, and proves himself once more above all 486 WEBSTER AND HIS MASTER-PIECES. flattery, above all threats, resolved to do his own duty, as he himself sees it, and to be supported only by the approval of nis own conscience and the invincible might of his own great will. This, beyond all contradiction, after all that has been said of Webster, was his master trait ; and, in this respect, the world has never seen a truer, a stronger, or a sublimer man. These, according to the facts previously narrated, were the leading characteristics of the late and illustrious Dan- iel Webster ; and it cannot be supposed that such a man, liv- ing in such an age as this, could have passed so long a life with- out doing something remarkable for his country. Without at- tempting to give a detailed account of his great services, not only to his native land, but to other lands, and to man in gen- eral, there are three important lessons, contained in his ex- ample, which cannot be omitted without doing his memory injustice. In the first place, Webster has given us and given the world a great and useful lesson in the art of public speaking. lie was our first orator. He was a genuine orator. He was the first American to discover, and to prove in his own person, that true oratory needs no tricks of rheforic, no arts of declamation, no extravagance of voice and gesture, no rant, no bombast. He said what he felt, in simple, honest language, every word of which had its meaning ; and this he demonstrated to be true eloquence. It was with this plain, straight-forward eloquence, that he swayed at his pleasure the masses of the people, when- ever and wherever they went out to hear him. It was with this that he stood up before the most learned and fastidious audi- ences, teaching them that simplicity is the great element of power, even in literary discourses. It was with this that he appeared before the assembled talent of the nation, where every individual was an interested critic, and made an envious senate iisten to him with admiration ; and, in the course of his public OUR FIRST ORATOR. 487 life, he made an impression on the senate, as an orator, as a teacher of true oratory, such as no other man ever made. Randolph might be more humorous, Preston moi'e particular in gesture, Clay more flowery and passionate, and other sena tors more captivating to a superficial populace ; but, while these orators seemed to be regarded as paragons by the people, they themselves looked upon Webster as their own model. Everything about his oratory was so easy, so natural, so sim- ple, so direct, and yet so beautiful and powerful, that he may well be acknowledged as the orator of his country. The crowning excellence of his oratory was, that he always met the occasion that called him out met it exactly, perfectly but never tried to go beyond it. Truly beautiful and majestic in his person, his attitude was always dignified ; his changes of position natural and easy ; his gesticulation simple but ex- tremely happy ; his intonations clear, distinct, forcible, and sometimes remarkably deep and weighty, but never boister- ous ; his eye steady, piercing, and occasionally burning and flashing ; his face varying in expression with every variation of thought and feeling, sonu'limes frowning as no other man could frown, then beaming with a smile that seemed like a gentle flash of lightning playing harmlessly over the uneven surface of a cloud, or like what the sacred writer describes as " the opening-up of the eye-lids of morning ; " and, with all his dignity of manner, his mind was constantly pouring out a cur- rent of pure thought thought now and then set on fire by genu- ine feeling that went straight-forward to his great purpose, and as directly to the intelligence and heart of his rapt and admi- ring auditors. Such was his oratory ; and the lesson he has taught us will hereafter be the species of eloquence sought after by our best public speakers, on every occasion, and handed down to future generations as that style which they srill be proud to call American. 488 WEBSTER AND HIS MASTER-PIECES. In the next place, Mr. Webster has given us a great lesson as a writer, famishing us with a specimen of the best style of English composition. He was the ablest living writer in the language. He was as able, perhaps, as any man that ever wrote it. His writings will ever remain, not only as treas- ures of political wisdom, but as the highest standard of style on either side of the Atlantic. Addison, it is true, wrote more elaborately, and with a finer polish, but not so strongly, clearly, and effectively. Johnson attained a better flow of sentences, and a more perfect rising and tailing of his periods ; but his style is verbose and affected when compared with that of Web- ster. Robert Hall moved with a more steady impulse, and rolled more evenly along in the sustained grandeur of his com- position ; but he never went home to the ordinary apprehen- sions of his readers, nor bound them as firmly to his thought, as did Daniel Webster. On this side of the ocean, Irving writes as correctly and as beautifully, but not so powerfully ; Prescott writes more picturesquely, but not so purely. Chan- ning was equally pure, equally picturesque, equally dignified and simple, but not so thorough a master of the language. In most other American prose writers, whose reputations have be come historical, with all their varied excellencies, are to be found, more or less frequently, positive blemishes of style. There were no blemishes of style in the elaborated and finished pro- ductions of Daniel Webster. The most subtle and determined critic might be safely challenged to point out a decided error of composition in all his published writings. His excellencies are such, on the contrary, as constitute the best style, for his class of subjects, of which the language is susceptible. Like his oratorv, his composition is plain, natural, easy, straight-forward strong, dignified, and sometimes very lofty. His diction is en tirely English. He tricks out his sentences with no French flippancies, no borrowed phrases, no high-sounding epithets. As the classic Greeks would never write or know any other Ian, AN AMERICAN STATESMAN. 489 guage than the Greek, so he would write only English. His words are the commonest in the language. They are those that men use at home by their own firesides, when conversing with their children, and with their uneducated friends and neighbors. Shakspeare was the first of our bards to prove that the words of the household are the best words, when properly employed, for the highest styles of poetry. Mr. Webster has taught us the same truth in relation to prose composition. lie uses but little ornament ; but when he does draw a picture, it is one that, put on canvas, would do honor to a Raphael, or an Angelo. Everything about his composition is plain, strong, massive, and yet beautiful. Some of our other writers are more nice, more refined, more showy. He is simply correct, grand, powerful, ornamenting only when he cannot help it. They are like beau- tiful cottages, or villas, in a beautiful situation, where flowers and embellishments are among the most conspicuous objects. He, on the other hand, is a solitary temple, built up entirely of granite, according to the strictest laws of the simplest ar- chitectural order, so vast, so well proportioned, so perfect, that the eye never seeks for inferior decorations, but loses itself among those higher wonders, which satisfy all eyes, and which the mi rid sees are to be eternal. The highest lesson, however, which Mr. Webster has given to his country, is that given in his capacity as a statesman. Mr. Webster was a statesman, and not a politician. This should ever be remembered. It was often said, during his life-time, that he was not so good a leader of a party as many others of inferior talent. He had too much talent, he was too broad a man, to be a party leader. He was conscious of his abilities, and of the demands which the whole country, instead of any party, had upon him. In every one of his measures, in every one of his votes, he acted for the country, not for any section of it, or for any one class of its citizens, and much less for any political organization. It is true, he always nominally belonged 490 WEBSTER AND HIS MASTER-PIECES. to a cenain party, but he was never governed by it, and he never tried to govern it. More than once, as has been seen, he has gone directly in opposition to his party, and it was well-known that he was always liable to do so, and would da so, if the party were not with him in its measures. As a party man, therefore, he was never entirely popular, while he was almost universally looked upon as our deepest, soundest, truest statesman. He was an American statesman. This also should be remembered. He has told us, and he often told the coun- try, that, as a servant of the republic, he knew no east, no west, no north, no south, but was seeking the common good of a com- mon people. He originated no new measures, or but very few, and was consequently regarded, by superficial men, as defi- cient in political abilities. He was not, in this sense, original, because he was original and alone in a much deeper and more important sense. In what sense, can be very briefly stated. Having settled it as a conviction, or a series of convictions, that the union of the states had been our sole reliance against Eu- ropean aggression and domination ; that it was to be our sole reliance for the preservation of our liberties; that that union had been possible, and would be possible, only on the basis of our present constitution ; that that constitution is a fortunate compromise of numerous contending inter- ests, and of various sections, by which separate and en tirely independent states were harmonized, and are held to- gether for national purposes ; that a breach of this federal con- tract, of this constitutional compromise, by the enactments of congress, or by the laws of the several states, or by failing to carry out, in good faith, its plain and positive provisions, would be the destruction of the contract, and a dissolution of that union, in which are embodied our harmony, our strength, and our very existence as a nation ; having settled all these propositions, he could not do otherwise, as a good patriot, or as a wise statesman, than uphold and defend the constitution as he found KEY TO HIS POLITICAL CAREER. 491 it. To do this, in the beginning of his career, he took upon himself as his peculiar mission. This is the key of ail his measures, of all his votes, of all his speeches. This was his originality. He resolved to keep, and to carry out, the con- stitution. He asked not what party or what section of the country it was, that rose up against it. In any event, and in every case, he was its defender ; and he was several times, in this capacity, its preserver. In looking on it as a whole, he knew it only as a social contract, made by competent parties, by the people of the whole country, never to be broken. In regarding it more minutely, and as a citizen of a particular part of the country, he saw as clearly as any other man ever did, that one section might complain, and with some plausibility, that another section had gained more by the partnership than it had ; for this is the almost universal experience and habit of partners to an important and complicated connection ; but all these complaints were nothing to Mr. Webster. He used to say, and say most truly, that no man, nor set of men, nor any party to a fair agreement, has the right to repudiate, or nullity, or disregard such agreement, merely because his neigh- bor, or neighbors, or the other parties, had made, as might af- terwards be supposed, the better bargain. When a bargain is once made, he maintained, all that any party has to do, is to keep it ; and this he supposed to be the duty of every state in the Union, and of every citizen of every state. This, at all hazards, he fixed upon as his own duty ; and in the perform- ance of it, he often risked all he had, and all he was, and all he may have ever hoped to be. He saw, and saw clearly, that, if the constitution were not kept equally by all parties, a revolution would be the conse- quence, the states would be dissevered, and the flag of a once glorious Union would be torn to tatters. As a statesman, he was our flag-holder, and our flag-defender. Through his whole life, lately as well as formerly, whoever or whatever VOL. I. U* 492 WEBSTER AND HIS MASTER-PIECES. opposed, or seemei to endanger, he held firmly to it with a giant's grasp ; and, with a giant's hand, he smote down everj man, and all men, friends or enemies, who rose up against it. In the darkest hours of our history, sometimes as unhurt as a granite pillar, at other times bleeding from the wounds given him by those for whom he had ventured everything, he stood firmly to it. That we have a flag to-day, a national flag, an American flag, furled as it was the day he died, or floating in peace and safety over a united and happy land, we owe, more than to any man since Washington, to Daniel Webster. In the midst of the almost unbroken eulogy, however, which was poured upon him while living, there were always some, it cannot be denied, who, incapable of setting the true value upon such a man, were continually seeking out his faults, rather than profiting by his virtues. Mr. Webster had his faults. Would it be history, or eulogy, or flattery, to say of any mortal, that he had no faults 1 It has been said that Mr. \Vebster was am- bitious. " He aspired to place and preferment," says Mr. !Si'\vard, " but not for the mere exercise of political power, and still less for pleasurable indulgences, and only for occasions to save and serve'"his country, and for the tame which such noble actions might bring." No generous man will censure such am- bition. It has been said that Mr. Webster was cold and arrogant He was so only to his enemies. To his friends, he was as open and as bland as summer. To these, he was ever frank, cor- dial, and communicative. In his moments of relaxation, he was cheerful, and even joyous ; and at the festive board, when surrounded by those he trusted and loved, he was frequently talkative and sometimes merry. It was on these festive occa- sions, indeed, and on these alone, that Mr. Webster sometimes, through carelessness, without doubt, transgressed the limits of moderation by which he governed, and intended at all times to govern, his dignified and generally well-ordered and noble FAULTS AND ACCUSATIONS. 493 life. Born and bred at a period when the use of alcohol, in its various forms, was as common and as allowable as that of water, and possessed of a certain respect for the customs of his ancestors, and of the early days of the republic, he never laid aside the using of it ; but that he was habitually, in ordi- nary life, accustomed so to use it as to disturb his faculties, or to have it manifest itself in his deportment, is a partisan, news- paper, shallow slander, which the American public, in justice to their greatest and best statesman, ought never to listen to with- out expressions of rebuke. History has nothing better for it than contempt. If Mr. Webster had any graver faults, no proof of them has yet transpired, other than the mercenary reproaches of politi- cal partisans, or the irresponsible slanders of persons too low for punishment, or for notice, while he lived. That he was a good neighbor, a kind father, and a faithful husband, there is not the shadow of a doubt. A hireling press could accuse him of habits of very great immorality. So it might have ac- cused him of theft, of burglary, of highway robbery, as well. It was forgotten by those superficial writers, that a life such as they pretend requires a great expenditure of time ; and no sa- gacious man needs any better evidence of the utter recklessness and wickedness of such suppositions, than the monuments of his labor which Mr. Webster has left behind him. He had no time for anything but his work. Let any one consider that, either his literary performances, his legal arguments, his con- gressional speeches, or his popular addresses, would have, sep urately, required as great an amount of mental toil, as any or dinary man, in a whole life-time, can do ; but, when all these to- gether, compared with his studies, and with the public business transacted by him, in the midst of private business that inclu- ded the management o f two large estates, are seen to be only a portion of that incessant, life-long, and laborious occupation of his mind, it is plain enough that he had time only to be, as he 494 WEBSTER AND HIS M ^STER-PIECES. most truly was, a good, a correct, a straight-forward and virtu cms man. There is another great fact, equally certain, and equally de- cisive, in the final summing up of Mr. Webster's life and char- acter. Whatever opinions may havs obtained of him in other countries, or in distant parts of his own country, his reputa- tion stood higher as one approached his home, and fairest among his neighbors, who saw him the most frequently and knew him best The parish minister of Maishfield, who had known him well, spoke of him, on the day of his burial, in the warmest terms of eulogy, not only as a moral, but even as a religious man. Religion is a thing, however, that pertains not to a man's outward or public life, but to the inward and unobserved expe- rience of the soul. While a man's faults are open, his virtues, his faith, his religious life, are that part of him which are entirely unseen. A man's transgressions, or omissions, may be, and gen- erally are, noted and remembered ; the worst portion of him is thus put on record ; but that interior existence, which con- sists of regrets, of repentance, of struggles against ill influen- ces, of noble efforts after duty, of high and holy aspirations toward a spotless purity of life, is a reality which cannot be set up for exhibition, nor obtruded on the attention of the world. It was this better part, this interior life of Mr. Web- ster, that was comparatively concealed till it found a revelation over his last remains. Then it came to light. Then a wid- owed and heart-stricken wife could utter it ; the family connec- tions could speak it ; the neighbors and friends and associates could declare it ; then the pulpit and the press could unite to give it voice. It now seems, indeed, when party and personal prejudices have generally been abandoned, except by those who would have joined with the Jews in pronouncing /ohn a madman, and Jesus a wine-bibber and a glutton, that W jbster had many of the traits of a Christian character ; that he was an ardent ad HIS CHRISTIAN CHARACTER. 495 rnirer of the bible ; that he read it regularly every day ; that he maintained devotional exercises in his family ; that he himself, on such occasions, read the scriptures and led in prayer ; that his doctrinal views, though broad and liberal, were according to the best standards of religious faith ; that his views of the Almighty, and of his own relations to him, were exceedingly elevated and consistent ; that, for some time before his death, he had been meditating and preparing for a work on the in- ternal evidences of religion ; that he had made all his plans to close up with the termination of the existing administration, his political career, and spend the remainder of his days at Marshfield, in the quiet of his home, in religious meditations and literary studies ; that, on the bed of death, when the applause of the world had become nothing to him, and he saw himself in the very presence of his Judge, he could say, and did say, that in all his life, he had generally endeavored to do his Maker's will ; that, in a word, in religious opinion and character, he was what was to have been expected of a mind so sound, so deep, so clear, so comprehensive, so sublimely great, and yet, so oc- cupied with the welfare of a nation, which he had always made the first and the last great burden of his heart. The only re- gret is, that a man so full of light did not let it shine in every place and in every thing he did ; and yet, this regret must be tempered by the grateful acknowledgement that, in all his life, Mr. Webster showed himself to be a friend to Christianity, his speeches being characterized by an unvarying respect for the Christian faith. Not once was he known to utter a word dis- respectful to practical religion ; and more than once he has stood up in its defense, before the country, and before a gain- saying world, which, "however it might mock inferior advocates, dared not to sneer at him. In these ways, through a long and glorious career, though simply a statesman, his light did shine HI d some of his defenses of Christianity will be read and ad 496 WEBSTER AND HIS MASTER-PIECES. mired and quoted, in the pulpits of all Christendom, as long &s Christianity itself has an admirer, or a friend. But it is customary, even among Christian people, to with- hold final judgment of a man's Christian character, till it is seen how he makes his death. The manner of a man's death often works a change, sometimes a revolution, in public opinion, re- specting the nature of his life ; and, judging Mr. Webster ac- cording to this standard, it must be confessed that the majesty of his departure disappointed all but his nearest and most fa- miliar friends. The way in which he died was morally sub- lime. The death-scene, surpassing in moral grandeur all the scenes in his great and eventful history, and corroborating all the encomiums upon his private character, excites our wonder, as if it were the close of a divine's, a martyr's, rather than a statesman's life. He died as if it had been his chief occupa- tion to prepare for death. He receives the announcement of his near decease without a regret, without a change of counte- nance. He calls his family about him, and gives to each such words as dying Christians give to the dear ones they leave be- hind them. He calls his friends, talks with them better than the dying Socrates talked with his, speaking of his deaU with the utmost tranquillity. He calls his particular friend and shows, in such language as will be immortal, that his grcij, T ieart was still rich in friendly feeling, as it had ever been full A 'jvery noble sentiment. Having thus finished his earthly bus-.inr <*o, he turns his thoughts to higher and holier things. He devo! 33 his last hours to prayer ; and when those hours are over, he closes his eyes to take that sleep, which, as might justly be supjosed by the sorrowful spectators, is to be unbroken till the morru'ng of the resiurection ! But he is not dead ! Opening his eye-lids once more, a'd recovering his consciousness again, he utters those last and ia< st memorable words, which, it would seem, are given him to mi r as if God, not willing that he should depart without a eulo. y PLACE OF BURIAL. 497 and knowing but one man able to pronounce a fitting one, has called that one man back, after he has reached the borders of the eternal world, to return and pronounce it upon himself. Ilis great spirit, obedient to the summons, and turning to the scenes of time once more, exclaims, " / still live ! " and then takes its final departure to a higher and a better sphere. This is Webster's eulogy ; and it shall be his epitaph. It shall be cut into the granite rock that is to stand up, at the bidding of his country, to perpetuate his memory ; and it shall be as true of him after the lapse of ages, when the rock itself shall have disintegrated and gone no ashes, as it is to-day. That noble form, that glorious man, whose presence in the world had come to be almost a part of it, has gone forever trom us, as if we had fallen upon a night from which the most bril- liant constellation of the heavens had forever withdrawn its beams. He has gone ; he is dead ; he who was the foremost man among us, the first American of his generation, whose mind has so long been the guide and guardian of a great coun- try, now sleeps beneath the sod. While living, but thoughtful of his latter end, he selected and prepared his own resting-place ; and his friends and weeping neighbors have laid him in it. How fitting is that place ! Great in life, great in death, he is greatly fortunate in having found a spot so entirely in harmony with his greatness. On his native soil, in his own New England, which his lips had immortalized, near the home and the scenes he loved so well, and not far from the shore of the ever-re- sounding sea, they have laid him down to rest, where his coun- trymen, can visit him amid the scenes where he used to dwell. Nowhere else in the wide world could he have found a more suitable place of burial. Buried within the limits of a city, the city might have crumbled away, as all cities must, and left him lost amidst the heaps of deserted rubbish. Buried near the capitol, where his greatness had been most conspicu- ous, in the revolving fortunes of such a country as this *he cap- 498 WEBSTER AND HIS MASTER-PIECES. Itol itself might be taken down and removed, leaving his glori ous dust in neglect and solitude. Laid upon the bank of his native river, where his forefathers sleep rivers themselves, in the progress of civilization, have changed their courses, or have been dried up within their rocky bed. 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Cloth, extra, Hack and gold, $3.00; sheep, marbled edges, $3.50. HARTINEAU'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. From tbe beginning of the, 19th Century to the Crimean War. By HAKRIET MA.R- TINKAU. Complete in 4 vols., with full Index. Cloth, extra, black and gold, per set, $4.00; sheep, marbled edges, $6.00; half calf, gilt, marbled edges, $12.00. PORTER & COATES' PUBLICATIONS. HUME'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. From the invasion of Julius Csesar to the abdication of James II, 1(588. By DAVID tLuME. Standard Edition. With the author's last corrections and improvements ; to which is prefixed a short account of his life, written by himself. With a portrait on steel. A new edition from entirely new stereotype plates. 5 vols., 12mo. Cloth, extra, black and gold, per set, $5.00; sheep, marbled edges, par set, $7.50; half imitation Russia, $7.50; half calf, gilt, marbled edges, per set, $15.00. Popular Edition. 5 vols. Cloth, plain, $5.00. GIBBON'S DECLINE AND FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. By EDWARD GIBBON. With Notes, by Rev. H. II. MILMAN. Standard Edition. To which is added a complete Index of the work. A new edition from entirely new stereotype plates. With portrait on steel. 5 vols., 12mo. Cloth, extra, black and gold, per set, $5.00; sheep, marbled edges, per set, $7.50; half imitation Russia, $7.50; half calf, gilt, marbled edges, per set, $15.00. Popular Edition. 5 vols. Cloth, plain, $5.00. ENGLAND, PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE. By JOKT, COOK, author of " A Holiday Tour in Europe," etc. With 487 finely engraved illustrations, descriptive of the most famous and attractive places, as well as of the historic scenes and rural life of England and Wales. With Mr. Cook's admirable descriptions of the places and the country, and the splendid il- lustrations, this is the most valuable and attractive book of the season, and the sale will doubtless be very large. 4to. Cloth, extra, gilt side and edges, $7.50; half calf, gilt, marbled edges, $10.00; half morocco, full gilt edges, $10.00; full Turkey mo- rocco, gilt edges, $15.00 ; tree calf, gilt edges, $13.00. This work, which is prepared in elegant style, and profusely illustrated, is a comprehensive description of England and Wales, arranged in conve- nient form for the tourist, and at the same time providing an illustrated guide-book to a country which Americans always view with interest. There *re few satisfactory works about this land Which is so generously gifted by Sature and so full of memorials of the past. Such books as there are, either cover a few counties or are devoted to special Idealities, or are merely guide- books. The present work is believed to be the first attempt to give in attrac- tive form a description of the stately homes, renowned castles, ivy-clad ruins of abbeys, churches, and ancient fortresses, delicious scenery, rock-bound coasts, and celebrated places of England and Wales. It is written by an author fully competent from travel and roadine, and in position to properly describe his very interesting subject; and the artist's pencil has beeu calm into requisition to graphically illustrate its well-written pages. There are 487 illustrations, prepared iu the highest style of the engraver's art, while the book itself 13 one of the most attractive ever presenti-d to the American public. Its method of construction is systematic, following the most convenient routes taken by tourists, and the letter-press includes enough of the history and legend of rach of the places described to make the story highly inter- esting. Its pages fairly overflow with picture and description, telling of everything attractive that is presented by England and Wales. Executed in the highest style of the printer's and engraver's art, " England, Pictur esque atid .Descriptive," is one of the best American books of the year. PORTER & COATES' PUBLICATIONS. HISTORY OF THE CIVIL WAR IN AMERICA. By the COMTE DE PAKIS. With Maps faithfully Eugravud from the Origin- als, and Printed in Three Colors. 8vo. Cloth, per volume, $3.50; red cloth, extra, Roxburgh style, uncut edges, $3.50; sheep, library style, $4.50; half Turkey morocco, $6.00. Vols. I, II, and III now ready. The third volume embraces, without abridgment, the fifth and sixth folumes of the French edition, and covers one of the most interesting as well as the most anxious periods of the war, de.scribing the operations of the Army of the Potomac iu the East, aud the Army of the Cumberland and Tennessee in the West. It contains full accounts of the battle of ChanceHonville, the attack of the monitors on Fort Siuuter, the sieges arid fall of Vicksbiag and Port Hudson; the battles of Port Gibson and Champion's Hill, and the fullest and most authentic account of the battle of Gettysburg ever written. "The head of the Orleans family has put pen to paper with excellent result Our present impression is that it will lurm by far the best history of the American war." Athenaeum, London. "We advise all Americans to read it carefully, and judge for themselves if 'the future historian of our war,' of whom we have heard so much, be uot already arrived iu the Comte de Paris." Nation, Kew York. '"Miis is incomparably the best account of our great second revolution thai has yet been even attempted. It is so calm, so dispassionate, so accurate iu r\ttail, and at the same time so philosophical in general, that its reader connts confidently on finding the complete work thoroughly satisfactory." Evening Bulletin, Philadelphia. "The work expresses the calm, deliberate judgment of an experienced military observer and a highly intelligent man. Many of its statements will excite discussion, but we much mistake if it does not take high and permanent ranK among the standard histories of the civil war. Jndccd that place lias been assigned it by the most competent critics both of this country aud abroad." 2'tmes, Cincinnati. " Messrs. Porter & Coates, of Philadelphia, will publish in a few days the Authorized translation of the new volume of the Comte de Paris' History of Our Civil War. The two volumes in French the fifth and sixth are bound together iu the translation in one volume. Our readers already know, through a table of contents of these volumes, published in the cable columns of the Herald, the period covered by ibis new installment of a work remark- able in several ways. It includes the most important and decisive period of the war, and the two great campaigns of Gettysburg and Vieksburg. "The great civil war has had no better, no abler historian than the French prince who, emulating the example of Lafayette, took part in this new struggle for freedom, and who now writes of events, in many of which he participated, as an accomplished officer, and one who, by his independi*ut position, liis hi,'h character and eminent talents, was placed in eircum- tancos and relations which gave him almost unequalled opportunities to gain correct information and form impartial judgments. 'The new installment of a work which has already become a classic will IK- read with increased interest by Americans because of the importance of the period it covers and the stirring events it describes. In advance of a careful review we present to-day some extracts from the advance sheets sent us by Messrs. Porter & Coates, which will give our readers a foretaste of chapters which bring back to memory so many half-forgotten and not a few hitherto unvalued details of a time which Americana of this generation at least cauuot read of without a fresh thrill of excitement." PORTER & COATES' PUBLICATIONS. HALF-HOURS WITH THE BEST AUTHORS. With short Ri- ographical and Critical Notes. By CHABLKS KNIOHT. Ni-w Household Editiou. With six portraits on steel. 3 vols., thick 12mo. Cloth, extra, black and gold, per set, $4.50; half imt. Russia, marbled edges, $6.00; half calf, gilt, marbled edges, $12.00. Library Edition. Printed on fine laid and tinted paper. With twemty-four portraits on steel. 6 vols., 12ino. Cloth, extra, per set, $750; half calf, gilt, marbled edges, per set, $18.00; half Rus- sia, gilt top, $21.00; full French morocco, limp, per set, $12.00 ; full smooth Russia, limp, round cornel's, in Russia case, per set, $25.00; full seal grained Russia, limp, round corners, in Russia case to match, $25.00. The excellent idea of the editor of these choice volumes has been most admirably carried out, as will be seen by the list of authors upon all sub- jects. S'l'Ct ing some choice passages of t ho best standard authors, each of suffi- cient length to occupy half an hour iu its perusal, there is here food for thought for every day in the year: so that if the purchaser will devote but one-half hour each day to its appropriate selection he will read through tin's- six volum s in one year, and in such a leisurely manner that the noblest thoughts of many of the greatest minds will be firmly in his miinl forever. For every Sunday there is a suitable selection from some of the most eminent writers in sacred literature. We venture to say if the editor's idea is carried out the reader will possess more and better knowledge of the Knglish classics at the end of the year than he would by five years of desul- tory reading. They can be commenced at any dny in the year. The variety of reading is so great that no one will ever lire of these volumes. It is a library in itself. THE POETRY OF OTHER LANDS. A Collection of Transla- tions into English Vor.se of the Poetry of Other Languages, Ancient st, collections we have seen, containing many cxqiiisito poems and fragments of verse which have not before been put into book form in Kngliih words. \Ve find many of the old favorites, which appear in every well-selected collection :f sonnets and songs, and we miss others, which seem a necessity to complete the bouquet of grasses and flowers, some of which, from time to time, we hope to republish in the 'Courier. '" A book of rare excellence, because it gives a collection of choice gems in PORTER & COATES 1 PUBLICATIONS. THE FIBESIDE ENCYCLOPAEDIA OF POETRY. Edited by HENRY T. COATES. This is the latest, and beyond doubt the host collection of poetry published. Printed on fine paper and illustrated with thirteen steel engravings and fifteen titla pages, containing portraits of prominent American poets and fac-similes of their handwriting, made expressly for this book. 8vo. Cloth, extra, black and gold, gilt edges, $5.00; half calf, gilt, marbled edges, $7.50; half morocco, full gilt edges, $7.50; full Turkey morocco, gilt edges, $10.00; tree calf, gilt edges, $1-2.00; plush, padded side, nickel lettering, $14.00. "The editor shows a wide acquaintance -with the most precious treasures of English verse, and has gathered the most admirable specimens of their ample wealth. Many pieces which have been passed by in previous collec- tions hold a place of honor in the present volume, and will be heartily wel- comed by the lovers of poetry as a delightful addition to their sources of enjoyment. It is a volume rich in solace, In entertainment, in ii.spiration, of which the possession may well b;.- coveted by every lover of poetry. The pictorial illustrations of the work are in keeping with its poetical contents, and the beauty of the typographic: 1 1 execution entitles it to a place among the choicest ornaments of the library." New York Tribunf. "Lovers of good poetry will find tbis one of the richest collections ever made. All tho best singers in our language are, r. presented, and the selec- tions are generally those which reveal their highest qualities The lights and shades, the finer play of thought and imagination belonging to Individual authors, are brought out. in this way (Uy the arrangement of poems under subject-headings) as they would not be under any other sys- tem W T e are deeply impressed witli the keen appreciation of poetical worth, and also with the good taste manifested by the compiler." Chvrth- mnn, "Cyclopaedias of poetry are numerous, but for sterling value of its contents for tho library, or as a book of reference, no work of the kind will compare wi'h this admirable volume of Mr. Coatos It takes the gems from many volumes, culling with rare skill and judgmeut." Chicagn Irder-Oc&in. THE CHILDREN'S BOOK OF POETRY. Compiled by HEXRY T. COATES. Containing over 500 poems carefully selected from the works of the best and most popular writers for chil- dren; with nearly 200 illustrations. The most complete col' lection of poetry for children ever published. 4to. Cloth, extra, black and gold, gilt side and edges, $3.00; full Turkey morocco, gilt edges, $7.50. "This seems to us the best book of poetry for children in existence. We hav examined many other collections, but we cannot name another that deserves to be compared with this admirable compilation." Woreuttr Spy. "The special value of thft book lies in the fact that it nearly or quite covers the entire field. There is not a great deal of good poetry which hag been written for children that cannot be found in this book. The collection < particularly strong in ballads and tales, which are apt, to interest children more than po-ms of other kinds; and Mr. Coates has shown good judgment in supplementing this department with some of the best poems of that elass ttiat have been written for grown people. A surer method of forming the taste of chiHren for good and pure literature than by reading to them from anv portion of this hook can hardly b imagined. The volume is richly illustrated and beautifully bound." Pkiladetpkta Evening Bulletin. "A more excellent volume cannot be found. We have found within the covers of this handsome volume, and upon its fair pages, many of thr most exquisite poems which our language contains. It must become a standard volume and can never grow old or obsolete." Episcopal Recorder. PORTER & COATES' PUBLICATIONS. THE COMPLETE WORKS OF THOS. HOOD. With engravings on steel. 4 vols., 12mo., tinted paper. Poetical Works; Up the Rhine; Miscellanies and Hood's Own; Whimsicalities, Whims, and Oddities. Cloth, extra, black and gojd, $6.00; red cloth, paper label, gilt top, uncut edges, $6.00 ; half calf, gilt, marbled edges, $14.00 ; half Russia, gilt top, $18.00. Hood's verse, whether serious or eomic whether serene like a cloudiest autumn evening or sparkling with puns like a frosty January midnight with stars was ever pregnant with materials for the thought. Like every author distinguished for true comic humor, there was a deep vein of melan- choly pathos running through his mirth, and even when his sun shone brightly its light seemed often reflected as if only over the rim of a cloud. Well may we say, in the words of Tenuysou, "Would he could have stayed with us." for never could it be more truly recorded of any one in the' words of Hamlet characterizing Yorick that "he was a ft-llow of in- finite jest, of most excellent fancy." D. M. MOIB. THE ILIAD OF HOMER RENDERED INTO ENGLISH BLANK VERSE. By EDWARD, EARL OF DERBY. From the latest London edition, with all the author's last revisions and corrections, and with a Biographical Sketch of Lord Derby, by R. SHELTON MACKENZIE, D.C.L. With twelve steel engravings from Flaxman's celebrated designs. 2 vols., 12mo. Cloth, extra, bev. boards, gilt top, $3.50; half calf, gilt, marbled edges, $7.00 ; half Turkey morocco, gilt top, $7.00. The same. Popular edition. Two vols. in one. 12mo. Cloth, extra, $1 50. "It must equally be considered a splendid performance; and for the pres- ent we have no hesitation in saying that it is by far the best representation of Homer's Iliad in th English language." London Times. "The merits of Lord Derby's translation may be summed up in one word, it is eminently attractive; it is instinct, with life ; it may be read with fervent interest; it is immeasurably nearer than Pope to the text of the original. . . . . Lord Derby has given a version far more closely allied to the original, and superior to any that has yet been attempted in the blank verse of our language." Edinburg Review. THE WORKS OF FLAVIUS JOSEPHUS. Comprising the Anti- quities of the Jews; a History of the Jewish Wars, and a Life of Flavius Joseplms, written by himself. Translated from the original Greek, by WILLIAM WHISTOX, A.M. Together with numerous explanatory Notes and seven Dissertations concern- ing Jesus Christ, John the Baptist, James the Just, God's com- mand to Abraham, etc., with an Introductory Essay by Rev. H. STEBBING, D.D. 8vo. Cloth, extra, black' and gold, plain edges, $'5 00; cloth, nnl. black and gold, gilt edges, $4.50; sheep, marbled edges, $'5. 50; Turkey morocco, gilt edges, $8.00. This is the largest type one volume edition published. THE ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE EGYPTIANS, CARTHA- GINIANS, ASSYRIANS, BABYLONIANS, MEDES AND PERSIANS. GRECIANS AND MACEDONIANS Including a History of the Arts and Sciences of the Ancients. By CHARLES ROLLIN. With a Life of the Author, by JAMES BELL. 2 vols., roval 8vo. Sheep, marbled edges, per set, $6.00. 8 PORTED & COATES' PUBLICATIONS. COOKERY FROM EXPERIENCE. A Practical Guide for House- keepers in the Preparation of Every-day Meals, containing more than One Thousand Domestic Recipes, ruostly tested by Personal Experience, with Suggestions for Meals, lists of Meats and Vegetables in Season, etc. By Mrs. SARA T. PAUI. 12mo. Cloth, extra, black and gold, $1.50. Interleaved Edition. Cloth, extra, black and gold, $1.75. THE COMPARATIVE EDITION OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. Both Versions in One Book. The proof readings of our Comparative Edition have been gone over by so many competent proof readers, that we believe the text is absolutely correct. Large 12rno., 700 pp. Cloth, extra, plain edges, $1.50; cloth, extra, bevelled boards and carmine edges, $1.75; imitation panelled calf, yellow edges, $2.00; arabesque, gilt edges, $2.50; French mo- rocco, limp, gilt edges, $4.00; Turkey morocco, limp, gilt edges, $6.00. The Comparative New Testament has been published by Porter & Coates. In parallel columns on each page are given the old and new versions of the Testament, divided also as far as practicable into comparative versos, so that it is almost impossible for the slightest new word to escape the notice of either the ordinary reader or the analytical student. It is decidedly the best edition yet published of the most interest-exciting literary production of the day. No more convenient form for comparison could be devised either for economizing time or labor. Another feature Is the foot-notes, and there is also given in an appendix the various words and expressions preferred by the American members of the .Revising Commission. The work is handsomely printed on excellent paper with clear, legible type. It contains nearly 700 pages. THE COUNT OF MONTE CRISTO. By ALEXANDRE DUMAS. Complete in one volume, with two illustrations by George G. White. 12mo. Cloth, extra, black and gold, $1.25. THE THREE GUARDSMEN. By ALEXANDRE DUMAS. Com- plete in one volume, with two illustrations by George G. White. 12mo. Cloth, extra, black and gold, $1.25. There is a magic influence in his pen, n magnetic attraction in his descrip- tions, a fertility in his literary resources which are characteristic of Pumas alone, and the seal of the master of light literature is set upon all his works. Kven when not strictly historical, his romances give an insight into the habits and modes of thought and action of the people of the lime described, which are not offered in any other author's productions. THE LAST D.AYS OF POMPEII. By Sir EDWARD BULWEB LYTTON, Bart. Illustrated. 12nio. Cloth, extra, black and gold, $1.00. Alta edition, one illustration, 75 ets. JANE EYRE. By CHARLOTTE BRONTE (Currer Bell). New Li- brary Edition. With five illustrations by E. M. WIMPERIS. 12mo. Cloth, extra, black and gold, $1.00. SHIRLEY. By CHARLOTTE BRONTE (CurrerB !! ). New Library Edition. With five illustrations by E. M. WIMPERIS. 12ma Cloth, extra, black and gold, Sl.OO. PORTER A COATES' PUBLICATIONS. VILLETTE. By CHABLOTTE BRONTE (Cnrrer Bell). New Library Edition. With five illustrations by E. M. WIMPERIS. 12mo. Cloth, extra, black and gold, $1.00. THE PROFESSOR, EMMA and POEMS. By CHARLOTTE BRONT* (Currer Bell). New Library Edition. With five illustration* by E. M. WIMPERIS. 12iuo. Cloth, extra, black and gold, $1.00. Cloth, extra, black and gold, per set, $4.00; red cloth, paper 'abel, gilt top, uncut edges, per set, $5.00; half calf, gilt, per set, $12.00. The four volumes forming the complete works of Char- lotte Bront (Currer Bellj. The wondrous power of Currer Bell's stories consists in their fiery insight into the human heart, their merciless dissection of passion, aud their stern analysis of character aud motive. The style of these productions possesses incredible force, sometimes almost grim in its bare severity, then relapsing into passages of melting pathos always direct, natural, and effective in its unpretending strength. They exhibit the identity which always belongs to works of genius by the same author, though without the slightest approach to monotony. The characters portrayed by Currer Bell all have a strongly marked individuality. Once brought before the imagination, they haunt the memory like a strange dream. The sinewy, muscular strength of her writings guarantees their permanent duration, and thus far they have lost nothing of their intensity of interest since the period of their composition. CAPTAIN JACK THE SCOUT; or, The Indian Wars about Old Fort Duqui'sae. An Historical Novel, with copious notes. By CHARLES MCKNIGHT. Illustrated with eight engravings. 12mo. Cloth, extra, black and gold, $1.50. A work of such rare merit and thrilling interest as to have been repnb- lislied both in England and Germany. This genuine American historical work has been received with extraordinary popular favor, and has " won golden opinions from all sorts of people" for its freshness, its forest life and its fidelity to truth. In many instances it even corrects History and uses the drapery of fiction simply to enliven and illustrate the fact. It is a universal favorite with boih sexes, and with all ages and condi- tions, and is not only proving a marked and notable success in this country, but has been eagerly taken up abroad aud republished in London, England, and issued iutwo volumes iu the far-famed "Tauehuetz Edition" of Leipsic, Germany. ORANGE BLOSSOMS, FRESH AND FADED. By T. S. ARTHUR. Illustrated. 12ino. Cloth, extra, black and gold, $1.50. "Orange Blossoms" contains a number of short stories of society. Like all of Mr. Arthur's works, it has a special moral purpose, and is especially addressed to the young who have just entered the marital experience, whom it pleasantly warns against those social and moral pitfalls into which they may almost innocently plunge. THE BAR ROOMS AT BRANTLEY; or, The Great Hotel Spec- ulation. By T. S. ARTHUR. Illustrated. 12mo. Cloth, extra, black and gold, $1.50. "One of the best temperance stories recently issued." .V. 1'. Commercial Advertiser. "Although it Is in the form of a novel, its truthful delineation of charac- ters is such that in every village in the land you meet the broken manhood it pictures upon thp street <, and look upon sad. tcar-di mined eyes of women and children. The characters are not overdrawn, but are as truthful as an artist's pencil could make them." Inter-Ocean, Chicago. JO PORTER & COATES' PUBLICATIONS. EMMA. By JANE AUSTEN. Illustrated. 12mo. Cloth, extra. $1.25. MANSFIELD PARK. By JANE AUSTEN. Illustrated. 12mo. Cloth, extra, $1.23. PEIDE AND PREJUDICE; and Northanger Abbey. By JANB AUSTEN. Illustrated. 12mo. Cloth, extra, $1.25. SENSE AND SENSIBILITY; and Persuasion. By JANE AUSTEN. Illustrated. 12mo. Cloth, extra, $1.25. The four volumes, forming the complete works of Jane Austen, In a neat box: Cloth, extra, per set, $5.00 ; red cloth, paper label, gilt top, uucut edges, $5.00 ; half calf, gilt, per set, $12.00 ART AT HOME. Containing in one volume House Decoration, by RHODA and AGNES GAKRETT; Plea for Art in the House, by W. J. LOFTIE; Music, by JOHN HULLAII ; and Dress, by Mrs. OLIPHANT. 12mo. Cloth, extra, black and gold, $1.50. TOM BROWN'S SCHOOL DAYS AT RUGBY. By THOMAS HUGHES. New Edition, large clear type. With 36 illustra- tions after Caldecott and others. 12mo., 400 pp. Cloth, extra, black and gold, $1.25; half calf, gilt, $2.75. Alta Edition. One illustration, 75 cents. "It is difficult to estimate the amount of good which may be done by 'Tom Brown's School Days.' It gives, in the main, a most faithful and interesting picture of our public schools, the most English institutions of Knglancl, and which educate the best and most powerful elements in otir upper classes. But it is more than this; it is an attempt, a very noble and successful attempt, to Christianize the society of our youth, through the only practicable channel hearty and brotherly sympathy with their feel- ings; a book, in short, which a father might well wish to see in the baud* of his son." London Times. TOM BROWN AT OXFORD. By THOMAS HUGHES. Illustrated. 12mo. Cloth, extra, black and gold, $1.50; half calf, gilt, $3.00. "Fairly entitled to the rank and dignity of an English classic. Plot, style and truthfulness are of the soundest, British character. Racy, idiomatic, mirror-like, always interesting, suggesting thought on the knottiest social ant. religions questions, now deeply moving by its unconscious pathos, and anon inspiring uproarious laughter, it is a work the world will not willingly let die." N. Y. Cfirittian Advocate. PORTER & COATES' PUBLICATIONS. 11 SENSIBLE ETIQUETTE OF THE BEST SOCIETY. By Mrs. H. O. WARD. Customs, manners, morals, and home culture, with suggestions how to word notes and letters of invitations, acceptances, and regrets, and general instructions as to calls, rules for watering places, lunches, kettle drums, dinners, re- ceptions, weddings, parties, dress, toilet and manners, saluta- tions, introductions, social reforms, etc., etc. Bound in cloth, with gilt edge, and sent by mail, postage paid, on receipt of $2.00. LADIES' AND GENTLEMEN'S ETIQUETTE: A Complete Manual of the Manners and Dress of American Society. Con- taining forms of Letters, Invitations, Acceptances, and Beprets. With a copious index. By E. B. DUFFEY. 12ino. Cloth, extra, black and gold, $1.50. "It is peculiarly an American book, especially adapted to onr people, and Its greatest beauty is found in the fact that in every line and precept it in- culcates the principles of true politeness, instead of tboe formal rules that serve only to gild the surface without affecting the substance. It is admir- ably written, the style being char, terse, and loreible." St. Louis Times. THE UNDEEGEOUND CITY; or, The Child of the Cavern. By JULES VERNE. Translated from the French by W. H. KINGSTON. With 43 illustrations. Standard Edition. 12rno. Cloth, extra, black and gold, $1.50. ABOUND THE WOELD IN EIGHTY DAYS. By JULES VERNE. Translated by GEO. M. TOWLE. With 12 full-page illustrations. 12mo. Cloth, extra, black and gold, $1.25. AT THE NOETH POLE ; or, The Voyages and Adventures of Captain Hatteras. By JULES VERNE. With 130 illustrations by Eiou. Standard Edition. 12rno. Cloth, extra, black and gold, $1.25. THE DESEET OF ICE ; or, The Further Adventures of Captain Hatteras. By JULES VERNE. With 126 illustrations by Eiou. Standard Edition. 12mo. Cloth, extra, black and gold, $1.25. TWENTY THOUSAND LEAGUES UNDEE THE SEAS; or, The Marvellous and Exciting Adventures of Pierre Aronnax, Conseil his servant, and Ned Land, a Canadian Harpooner. By JULES VERNE. Standard Edition. Illustrated. 12mo. Cloth, extra, black and gold, $1.25. THE WEECK OF THE CHANCELLOE, Diary of J. E. Kazallon, Passenger, and Martin Psiz. By JULKS VKKME. Translated from the French by ELLEN FREWER. With 10 illustrations. Standard Edition. 12mo. Cloth, extra, black and gold, $1.25. Jules Verne is so well known that the mere announcement of anythicg from his pen is >nfficient to create a demand for it. One of his chief merits ts the wonderful art with which he lays under contribution every branch of science and natural history, while he vividly describes with minuto exact- ness all parts of the world an4 its inhabitants. 12 PORTER & CO AXES' PUBLICATIONS. THE INGOLDSBY LEGENDS; or, >firth and Marvels. By RICHARD HARRIS BAKHAM (Thomas Ingoldsby, Esq.). New edition, printed from entirely new stereotype plates. Illus- trated. 12mo. Cloth, extra, black and gold, $1.50; half calf, gilt, marbled edges, $3.00. "Of his poetical powers it is not too ranch to say that, for originality of design and diction, for grand illustration and mifsical verse, tht-y are not aurpassed in the English language. The Witches' Frolic is . second only to Tarn O'Shanter. But why recapitulate the titles of either prose or verse since they have been confessed hy every judgment to be singularly rich in classic allusion and modern illustration. From the days of Hudibras to our time the drollery invested in rhymes has never bet-u su amply or lelicitously exemplified." jBentley's Miscellany. TEN THOUSAND A YEAR. By SAMUEL C. WARREN, author of "The Diary of a London Physician." A new edition, care- fully revised, with three illustrations by GEORGE G. WHITE. 12mo. Cloth, extra, black and gold, $1 50. "Mr. Warren has taken a lasting place amon^ the imaginative writers of this period of English history. He possesses, in a remarkable manner, the tenderness of heart and vividness of feeling, as well as powers of description, which are essential to the delineation of the pathetic, and which, when existing in the degree in which he enjoys them, fill his pages with scenes which can never be forgotten." Sir Archibald Alisun. THOMPSON'S POLITICAL ECONOMY; With Especial Refer- ence to the Industrial History of Nations. By Prof. R. E. THOMPSON, of the University of Pennsylvania. 12nio. Cloth, extra, $1.50. This book possesses an especial interest at the present moment. The questions of Free Trade and Protection are before the country more directly than at any earlier period of our history. As a rule the works and text- books used in our American colleges are either of English origin or teach Doctrines of a political economy which, as Walter Bagehot says, was made for England. Prof. Thompson belongs to the Nationalist School ot Econo- mists, to which Alexander Hamilton, Tench Coxe, Henry Clay, Matthew Carey, and his greater son, Henry C. Carey, Stephen Colwell, and James Abram (iarfield were adherents. He believes in that policy of Protection to American industry which has had the sanction of every great American statesman, not excepting Thomas Jefferson and John C. Calhoun. 'He makes his appeal to history in defence of that policy, showing that wherever a weaker or less advanced country has practiced Free Trade with one more powerful or richer, the former has lost its industries as well as its money, and has become economically dependent on tiie latter. Those who wish to learn what is the real source of Irish poverty and discontent will find it here stated fully. The method of the book is historical. It is therefore no series of dry and abstract reasonings, such as repel readers from books of this cla s. The writer does not ride the a priori nag, and say "this must be so," and " that must be conceded." He shows what has been true, and seeks to elicit th laws of the science from the experience of the world. The book overtlows with facts told in an iutero.sting manuer. THE ENGLISH PEOPLE IN ITS THREE HOMES, and the Practical Bearings of general European History. By EDWARD A. FREEMAN, LL.D., Author of the "Norman Conquest of England." 12mo. 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"This text-book on Mythology presents the subject in a more practical and more attractive style than any other work on the subject with winch we are familiar, and we feel assured that it will at once take a leading posi- tion among books of its class." The Teacher, Philadelphia. 14 PORTER & COATES' PUBLICATIONS. THE IMITATION OF CHRIST. By THOMAS a KEMPIS. New and best edition, from entirely new electrotype plates, single column, large, clear type. 18mo. Plain Edition, rouud corners. Cloth, extra, red edges, 50 cents ; French morocco, gilt cross, 75 cents; limp Russia, inlaid cross, red under gold edges, $-2.00. Red Line Edition, round corners. Cloth, black and gold, red edges, 75 cents; cloth, black aiid gold, gilt edges, $1.00; French morocco, red under gold edges, $1.50; limp Russia, inlaid cross, red under gold edges, $2.50; limp Russia, solid gilt edges, box circuit, $3.00; limp calf, red under gold edges, $2.50; limp calf, solid gilt edges, box circuit, $3.00. 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During the last quarter of a century so many important events have beon enacted, such as the Civil War in America and the Franco-Prussian War of 1870, and such great advances have been made in the line of invention and scientific investigation, that within that period many persons have risen by superior merit to conspicuous positions; and as the plan of this work em- braces accounts of the living as well as of the dead, many names are In- cluded that are not to be found in other dictionaries of biography. PORTER & COATE9' PUBLICATIONS. 15 THE HORSE IN THE STABLE AND THE FIELD. His Man- agement in Health and Disease. By J. H. WALSH, F.E.C.S. (Stonehenge.) From the last London edition. Illustrated with over 80 engravings, and full-page engravings from photo- graphs. 12mo. 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