Daniel Webster

IN the year 1835 Richard Cobden traveled for a month in the United States, and some of his observations upon what he saw and heard there are recorded in his biography, lately published by Mr. Morley. Mr. Cobden sets down, among other things, as the best example he could give of the wild extravagance of American brag, the following anecdote : “ Judge Boardman, speaking of Daniel Webster, said, quite coolly, and without a smile, — for I looked for one very closely, thinking he joked, — ‘I do not know if the great Lord Chatham might not have been his equal, but certainly no British statesman has, since his day, deserved to be compared with him.’" Comment upon a statement so perfectly monstrous appeared to Mr. Cobden not merely superfluous, but preposterous. To one of the controlling minds, and one of the most liberal men of modern England, it seemed that only the maddest vanity would think of even mentioning Daniel Webster in the same breath with great English statesmen. Yet if we were now to somewhat modify Judge Boardman’s statement, and say that since the death of Charles Fox no English statesman, except Mr. Gladstone, has been the intellectual equal of Daniel Webster, few persons whose opinion is worth anything would be likely to dissent.

Nearly half a ceutury has elapsed since Mr. Cobden recorded this anecdote and sent it across the water to his brother, and thirty years have passed since the eager attention of this nation was concentrated upon the death chamber at Marshfield. Of late there has been a revival of interest in Webster, indicated by new editions of his speeches, by published reminiscences, by the statue in New York, and now by the observances which have just marked the centennial anniversary of his birth. It is therefore not unfitting, perhaps, to attempt at this time a historical estimate of Webster’s character and career. Under ordinary circumstances the period thus involved would be too near for history in any form, but the intervening war has riven a chasm so deep and wide between that time and this that the events of Webster’s life belong to a different era, almost as much as the downfall of the federalists in 1800, or the war with England in 1812. But this is not enough. In order to reach a purely historical judgment of Webster, — which is the only one worth seeking, for there has been an abundance of others, of every degree of merit, — we must approach him historically. We must come to him neither from the point of view of those whose feelings found their best expression in the noble lines of Ichabod, nor, on the other hand, from that of the men

We must seek the Webster of history with the open mind of the generations to which he is, for the most part, only a great name and a great tradition ; and seeking in this spirit we can find him, as he still lives, and as he will always live, in his speeches, arguments, letters, and state papers; in the biographies and anecdotes of friends ; in the eulogies of admirers, and in the attacks of his enemies.

There is no need to rehearse in detail the events of Webster’s early life. He sprang from a pure, hardy, and very typical Puritan stock, a family of borderers, possessing in the highest degree the stubborn tenacity of New England which enabled them in the struggle with earth, air, and man, savage and civilized, to wring a bare subsistence from their granite hills. Webster’s father was an Indian fighter, one of Rogers’s famous rangers in the old French war, and a captain in the Revolution. Education had been sacrificed by him to the trade of arms, and he determined that this loss should be spared to one at least of his sons. In accordance with this resolve he selected Daniel, his youngest boy, who was slender, delicate, and unfitted for the hard toil of the farm, and sent him to school and to college. Every one is familiar with the touching affection of the son thus favored, who, not content with his own good fortune, turned back to draw his elder brother after him into learning’s road, at the cost of much to himself and of fresh privations on the part of the devoted parents. Study of the law followed graduation, all accompanied by a dire struggle with the most pinching poverty, until at last the brothers managed to go to Boston, where the younger one was fortunate enough to obtain a clerk’s place in the office of Christopher Gore. Here Webster acquired much knowledge of his profession, and had the benefit also of the society of a cultivated man of the world, a ripe lawyer, an experienced public man, and a fine gentleman in the best and truest sense of the term, whose high-bred face looks benignly upon us from one of Stuart’s canvases. Webster’s mind was sure to expand beneath such influences, and thanks to Mr. Gore he put aside the temptation of a clerkship in the courts, which would have given him immediate independence, and very probably might have checked his career. Wiser, if not richer, Webster returned to New Hampshire, and began the conflict of life and the practice of the law in the little town of Boscawen. Thence he removed, not long after, to Portsmouth, the chief town of the State. There he married, and passed nine happy years in the pursuit of his profession; meeting in Jeremiah Mason an antagonist who taught him much, and forced the development of the powers of mind which speedily placed him at the head of the little bar of his native State.

In 1812 Mr. Webster was elected to Congress, and took his seat in May, 1813, at the extra session. Up to this time he had taken no more interest in politics than was natural to any intelligent and active man in a period of strong political excitement. When he entered public life Mr. Webster may be described as a firm but moderate federalist. He was strongly opposed to the embargo and to the war, but when war was once declared he was not prepared to go on with the extreme federalists in a bitter and unrelenting resistance to all measures of the administration. Young as he was, and new to public life, he came at once to the front with that masterful spirit which never left him, introducing at an early day a resolution designed to compel a disclosure of the origin of the war, and supporting his motion with a force which placed him at once among the leaders of the house, then numerous and distinguished. At the close of the war, when the democratic party, floundering in a chaos of unpaid debts and disordered finances, was clamoring for a bank as loudly as they had before clamored against the one devised by Hamilton, Mr. Webster again took a most conspicuous part in opposition to the scheme of Mr. Calhoun, which threatened a wild inflation of the currency and an increase of existing dilficulties. In a speech of singular clearness and merit be showed very plainly that in his years of political inactivity he had read and meditated deeply ; that he had classified and arranged his thoughts, and had accumulated stores of knowledge from which his retentive memory could at will draw forth weapons for the contest. In 1816, he led the opposition to Mr. Calhoun’s tariff in another forcible and able speech. Mr. Webster belonged in this respect not to the school of Hamilton, but to that of the New England federalists, who, while they had favored moderate protection in a few well - ascertained directions, were, in the light of their own commercial interests, very averse to anything like a general protective policy or an extensive tariff.

These speeches and the position attained by Mr. Webster in Congress gave him necessarily a very great increase of reputation. The field open to him in New Hampshire was manifestly too small, and could not yield him an income sufficient to provide for the needs of a growing family. Soon after his tariff speech, therefore, Mr. Webster removed to Boston, left Congress, and devoted himself to the pursuit of his profession.

This temporary withdrawal to private life brought fresh successes, greater than anything achieved as yet by Mr. Webster as a public man. His career in Congress had opened to him a practice in the Supreme Court of the United States, and before that tribunal at Washington, in the year 1819, he appeared as counsel for Dartmouth College, in defense of their charter rights. The argument then delivered placed him at once at the head of the bar of the United States, and fixed his reputation as one of the greatest of our constitutional lawyers. This famous case was the source and forerunner of others of like character and importance, which came to Mr. Webster at intervals throughout his whole subsequent career, and which were presented by him with equal success and ability, although he never, perhaps, surpassed his first great effort.¹

To every one competent to judge, that argument, with its easy flow of what one of its hearers called “ pure reason,” is familiar. It exhibits grasp, breadth, and smoothness ; it is logical and strong; it has, in short, everything that a constitutional argument of the highest order should possess. The one quality, perhaps, for which it is preëminent is felicity of presentation. The various facts and groups of facts, with the many arguments and branches of argument flowing from them, are so arranged and conjoined that the chain of reasoning runs out without check or hindrance, and the listener passes from one subject to another, conscious only of the unbroken connection of thought, and of the close way in which one reason sustains and upholds another.

A year after the delivery of this argument, Mr. Webster, in another field, achieved an equal if not a greater success by his oration at Plymouth, in commemoration of the two hundredth anniversary of the landing of the Pilgrims. This address belongs to a branch of the art of oratory which is neither parliamentary, political, nor legal, but approaches most nearly, perhaps, to a lay sermon, with the incident of the day or the cause of the celebration as a text. To that text the orator may stick closely, or he may deal in a general way with any and every subject of human interest, social, moral, or political; or, if he chooses, he may start, like Sir Walter Raleigh’s history, at the beginning of the world, and come down, frequently plunging headlong, like Phaeton, to the earth of the present hour. Addresses of this sort offer a great temptation to survey mankind from China to Peru, and with most men, in attempts of this kind, the vision becomes indistinct, the outlines confused, and the historical and literary perspective very faulty. To Webster this wide scope was peculiarly attractive, and he was one of the rare men who could use it well. The oration which he delivered at Plymouth, in the first flush of his splendid powers, and with the consciousness of the resources of his strength still untouched and unexplored, was the first of a brief series of similar productions, which have established Webster’s position as a great master in what, for want of a better name, may be called occasional oratory. The address at Plymouth is not, perhaps, quite so fine, as a whole it is not so rounded and complete, as one or two of the later ones, but it possesses, nevertheless, all Webster’s characteristics in this field of eloquence, where his work is well worthy of study. The most striking quality of all these speeches is the grand sweep with which the orator passes over each and every subject. Yet with all this there is never the slightest pretense of universal knowledge. If he is dealing with history, of which Webster was very fond, it is with the ease and grace of a statesman, scholar, and man of the world, but with no affectation of abstruse learning. If the subject is science, as in the address before the Mechanics’ Institute, there is no yielding to the strong temptation to behave like Lord Brougham, and make a show of boundless knowledge by a glittering display of superficial and inaccurate information. It is the speech of a man of education and natural eloquence dealing with scientific topics in the general way which is becoming to one who is not a special student. In all these orations Webster moves easily on a high level of thought and feeling, and when he rises to a more impassioned strain it is with a pinion so strong that he carries us up with him, and brings us back without jar or shock. There is always the same clear presentation of ideas which is to be found in all Webster’s work, so that, while it seems as if the subject or the question must be very plain, the real secret of the lucidity and smoothness lies in the method in which the topics are handled. This clearness of arrangement is joined with a severe simplicity of style. The men of Webster’s day were versed in the rolling periods of the end of the eighteenth century, and were most familiar with the English of Johnson and Gibbon. In Webster’s writings there are no traces of these influences. Whether he was saved from them by a youthful fondness for Addison, or by the example of plain, direct speech afforded him at the bar by Mr. Mason, saved from them he surely was. His sentences are never gorgeous, never loaded or involved. They are simple, nervous, compact. In his occasional orations, and in his political speeches as well, there occur of course many rhetorical passages. Some of them, if detached from the context, seem even florid in thought if not in expression. But if they are read in connection with the whole speech, and with due attention to the subject, they will be found to comply with what is the rule of good oratory as of good architecture, in being ornaments to the construction and not constructed ornament. We are told that he was an unsparing censor of everything he published, and that he weeded out Latin derivatives with an unsparing hand. He certainly clung closely to Anglo-Saxon words, but we doubt if revision could have found much to alter. From this practice he made one constant and, under the circumstances, very singular deviation : he invariably uses “ commence ” instead of “begin,”—a vicious habit, and all the more noticeable from its recurrence in the midst of a style in every other respect simple and pure in a remarkable degree.

In a similar way he is very sparing of imagery and metaphor, using them but seldom, and always with great point and effect. This was due to the same austerity of taste which is apparent in his style, not to any lack of imagination, for Webster had both the dramatic and the poetic sense strongly developed. Tradition tells us that he was often highly dramatic in voice and manner, at times perhaps too much so, but there is no excess in the language or the thought. The supposed speech of John Adams and the address to the survivors of the Revolution at Bunker Hill, beginning, “ Venerable men,” to take two well-known instances, are very dramatic, but they are neither forced nor theatrical. It was the same on the poetical side; for, although Webster was a poor versifier, he had a genuine vein of poetry. Take, for example, that most familiar sentence at the laying of the cornerstone of Bunker Hill monument: “ Let it rise ! Let it rise, till it meet the sun in his coming; let the earliest light of the morning gild it, and parting day linger and play on its summit.” The thought and picture are alike poetical, and they are expressed in the simplest of English words, a rare combination, — so rare that we are wont to call it Shakespearean, and so easy in appearance that many persons think any one can effect it, and hold to that belief until they make the experiment themselves.

The Plymouth oration was widely read, and gave a national fame to its author, who, at the same time, by his services in the constitutional convention of Massachusetts, was again brought conspicuously forward as a statesman and legislator possessing a profound and ample knowledge of organic questions of government and a rooted conservatism of temperament. All this bore fruit in a general wish for Mr. Webster’s return to public life, and in 1823 he was elected to Congress by the Boston district. Again in Washington he vindicated his reputation as an orator by his speech on the Greek revolution, a subject which invited a display of rhetoric upon the struggle for freedom then maintained by the inheritors of the brilliant history and traditions of Greece. But Mr. Webster spoke simply as a statesman urgent to have the United States take strong ground, and such as became them, against the doctrines of the Holy Alliance and the Cougress of Laybach, which struck at the very foundations of the American system, and ought not therefore to be passed over in silence. The speech had the effect which was intended in defining the position of the United States, and it brought out for the first time Webster’s conception of the relations of his country to other nations, and of her importance and meaning in the affairs of civilized mankind.

In the years which immediately followed Mr. Webster stood at the head of the hard-pressed forces of the administration during the presidency of Mr. Adams, but a wider field and a position of more dignity were soon opened to him. In 1827 he was elected by the legislature to represent Massachusetts in the senate, where his first important speech was delivered in support of the tariff of 1828. In 1816 and in 1824 Mr. Webster had displayed great ability in opposing the tariff, and had in fact headed the resistance to a protective policy. The change of opinion which led him to defend the tariff of 1828 with the same talent and force of argument which he had displayed against its predecessors was used then and subsequently, by his enemies, to found a charge of inconsistency and time serving. Mr. Webster’s position in 1828 was the one which he afterwards maintained to the close of his life, and was perfectly defensible. He said substantially, “ New England has steadily and consistently resisted protective measures, but you of the South and West have insisted upon them. You have passed the embargo laws, and you brought on the war of 1812 ; and not content with this, you have enacted two tariff laws. The result has been to force the enterprise and the capital of New England into new channels, and to create a large number of industries. Tired of the experiment, you now propose to destroy the legislation to which New England has conformed, and force her to another change which would involve losses and disaster.” The argument was logical, and as a representative of New England Mr. Webster’s position was impregnable. The tariff of 1828, however, led to a struggle upon other issues which quite overshadowed the original cause. Out of the tariff came the resistance of South Carolina to the laws of the United States, and the doctrine of nullification formulated by Mr. Calhoun. This theory of disintegration and disunion for the first time found open expression and bold advocacy in a debate arising unexpectedly upon a harmless resolution concerning the public lands. Its exponent was Mr. Hayne, who has gained an enduring if unenviable fame from having been crushed on this occasion by Mr. Webster. Hayne was, nevertheless, a man of much ability, young, fluent, and filled with the ideas of the Atlas of the slave world, who sat by and watched the conflict from the chair of the vice-president. His first speech went beyond the limits of the resolution, touching severely on New England, and hinting strongly at state resistance. To this Mr. Webster replied, and Hayne then responded at length, denouncing New England with increased vehemence, and boldly advocating the nullification doctrine. The next day, before a crowded audience, Mr. Webster answered him in a speech which stands unequaled in the annals of American debate, and is one of the masterpieces of English oratory. This great speech offers no loop-hole for criticism. In elevation of tone, in fitness to the imperial theme, in range of thought, patriotism, imagination, and style, it is all that the most exacting taste could demand. It has all the qualities of Mr. Webster’s occasional speeches, together with those other attributes which are required by debate. Mr. Webster made many other great speeches in Congress, but no one can doubt that he would be content to have his standing as a parliamentary orator determined by the reply to Hayne. That speech was delivered when he was in the prime of manhood and in the full vigor of his strength. His personal appearance, his voice and manner, then as always greatly enhanced the effect of everything he said. The slender boy, unfit for the labor of the farm, had developed into a man of large and commanding presence. Mr. Webster was less than six feet in height, yet every artist has portrayed him as of almost heroic stature. The fact was that he impressed those who saw and heard him as of gigantic mould. A Liverpool navvy is said to have pointed at him in the street, and called out, “ There goes a king! ” and Carlyle is reported to have said that he looked like “a walking cathedral.” His head was very large, of fine shape and with a most noble brow, beneath which great eyes looked out full of dusky light when in repose, and glowing like fires when he was excited. His massive features, black hair, and swarthy complexion, together with a manner extremely grand and solemn, all contributed to render him impressive to an extraordinary degree. His voice was one of great richness and compass, in its highest pitch never shrill, but penetrating to the remotest corner of hall or senatechamber, and in the open air to the very outskirts of a vast crowd. When he rose to reply to Hayne he must have had, like Lord Thurlow when he answered the Duke of Grafton, and in a still greater degree, “ the look of Jove when he has grasped the thunder.”

The effect of this speech at the moment was overwhelming, and its results were hardly less so. It crushed the nullification theory in Congress, and forced the Southern leaders back upon the more difficult and less acceptable ground of secession. So far as argument could go, circulated as it was in that speech by tens of thousands of copies, it fixed public opinion throughout the North at least in unalterable opposition to the South Carolina doctrines, and prepared the whole country for the support of the administration in the crisis which was close at hand.

In the speeches in Congress and before political bodies, among which the reply to Hayne stands first, Mr. Webster exhibited, as in his occasional orations, and in equal measure, the sweeping range of thought, the artistic presentation of facts and arguments, and the easy, powerful flight in the grander passages of passion or imagination for which he was always conspicuous, while at the same time he never abandoned his nervous, forcible sentences or his clear simplicity of style. In those other qualities which are peculiarly necessary in parliamentary oratory and in debate he also excelled. He had perfect readiness in reply and swiftness in attack or defense, great command of facts, and an obedient and retentive memory. He was never a maker of epigrams or a master of keen retort, and never indulged in parliamentary fencing. He did not come upon the field like the modern duelist, trusting only to skill in the use of a thin, flexible, pointed strip of steel, but, like the knight of olden time, he rode into the tournament in full panoply of glittering armor and with well-poised lance, bearing down his opponents by force, weight, and address, and never shrinking from the full shock of arms. In one respect Mr. Webster’s career as a debater and orator is peculiar. He never, save in one memorable instance, when Ingersoll of Pennsylvania and Dickinson of New York assailed his integrity, gave way to denunciation of his opponents. The temptation must have been great to a man of Webster’s powers to indulge in personal attacks, but he always refrained, and used the dangerous weapon of invective only against arguments and principles. With his opponents he employed a cold, dignified, rather argumentative and very effective sarcasm, which suggests flaying, as in the case of Mr. Hayne. Yet this sarcasm has not the bitterness which commends its victim to the listener’s pity, but has rather beneath its gravity a throb of laughter and a sense of the ridiculous which keep the hearers in sympathy with the orator. This grave sarcasm, with a subtle mingling of ridicule and amusement, appears very strongly in Cicero’s orations against Milo, and closely resembles the same trait in Webster. It would be difficult to say why he was so sparing in the way of humor pure and simple; certainly from no natural defect, for it abounds in his private letters, from the first exuberant epistles of youth down to the last utterances in the days of age and disappointment, while with those nearest to him the spirit of fun was always breaking out. Before the world, however, Webster was very grave and dignified, and this grave dignity waxed ever more lofty and solemn as he advanced in years and fame. Still, the natural humor crops out now and then in his speeches, veiled sometimes under stately irony, sometimes coming with more freedom and directness. One example, rather of the latter than of the former kind, occurs in a speech of the year 1838. Mr. Calhoun had been discussing the sub-treasury, had brought up slavery and the tariff, and attacked Mr. Webster, who hurried to the senate, being informed on the way that Mr. Calhoun was “ carrying the war into Africa.” Mr. Webster began his reply in a laughing way, and after a few sentences said, —

“ Sir, this carrying the war into Africa, which has become so common a phrase among us, is indeed imitating a great example; but it is an example which is not always followed with success. In the first place, every man, though he be a man of talent and genius, is not a Scipio ; and in the next place, as I recollect this part of Roman and Carthaginian history, — the gentleman may be more accurate, but as I recollect it, — when Scipio resolved upon carrying the war into Africa, Hannibal was not at home. Now, sir, I am very little like Hannibal, but I am at home; and when Scipio Africanus South-Caroliniensis brings the war into my territories, I shall not leave their defense to Asdrubal, nor Syphax, nor anybody else. I meet him on the shore at his landing, and propose but one contest.

In the summer of 1830, just after the great reply to Hayne, when he was probably the most conspicuous man in the country and at the very zenith of his reputation, Mr. Webster made the best known and best preserved, if not the ablest and most remarkable, of all his many addresses to a jury. He was called in to aid the government in the famous case of the White murder at Salem. It was freely charged then, and has been generally believed ever since, that this aid was due to a heavy fee from the relatives of the murdered man, and the explanations and defense of Webster’s biographer confirm the unpleasant impression that money tainted the transaction. But however that may be, Mr. Webster began his speech by defending himself against the insinuation that he had been brought there to “ hurry the jury beyond the evidence,” and then burst forth with that splendid exordium on murder general and murder particular which is in every school reader, and which as delivered by Webster was certainly calculated to terrify a jury, fill them with horror, and if necessary “hurry them beyond the evidence.” After this opening he proceeded with his argument. In the most masterly manner he drew forth and reviewed the evidence, and, marshaling his facts in solid column, moved them forward in a way which must have swept every doubt from before their onward march. That Webster had an extraordinary power of convincing a jury cannot be questioned, but he must have affected them chiefly with a feeling of awe ; instead of leading he must have impressed them. In those very peculiar qualities which make a man a great advocate with the twelve judges of fact; in variety and fertility, in the rapid mingling and alternation, of wit and pathos, of grave argument, solemn exhortation, and quick ridicule, Webster was surpassed, it must be admitted, by both Erskine and Choate, although the latter’s fame unfortunately rests almost wholly upon tradition. At the same time there have probably been few men who have achieved better results in the difficult task of “ getting a verdict.”

We have now glanced at Webster in every branch of the orator’s art. In the senate and in occasional speeches he was at his best, and above any other American of whom we have sufficient means of judging. Mr. Everett tells us that in England Webster was compared frequently to Demosthenes, and the severity of his style and expression justify the comparison. He was assuredly most like the great models of antiquity, and this fact takes him at once out of range of the fervors of Continental oratory. Among his kindred of England he finds more rivals and greater ones : in Chatham and Pitt, Burke, Sheridan, and Fox, Canning, Bright, and Gladstone. Fox and Webster most nearly resemble each other, for both possessed that which in the former was again and again described as a “ manly eloquence.” Burke was more profound, more metaphysical, richer, more various, than Webster, but no one ever said of Webster what Goldsmith did of Burke : —

Webster, again, was less splendid than Sheridan, but many of the glittering sentences of the “ Begums ” look very dim now, and the tinsel of the “ greatest speech of the age ” has tarnished sadly, while Webster’s classical simplicity is as pure, fresh, and glowing as when the words were uttered. There is, however, nothing to be gained in hunting comparisons. Webster has passed into history as one of the handful of men whom the world acknowledges as the great masters of eloquence.

Although before the tribunal of public opinion the reply to Hayne had given a death-blow to the doctrine of nullification, yet the heresy was still to be met as a practical question ; and when Jackson took it by the throat, Webster, with true patriotism and statesmanship, laid aside his opposition to the president, which was deep and abiding on every other subject, and stood by the side of the administration in advocacy of the force bill. In a similar fashion he resisted Clay’s compromise. It was not, as Webster firmly believed, a question of a tariff, but of the supremacy of law and the maintenance of the Union. Modify the tariff, and the victory lay with the rebellious State. When South Carolina was on her knees and the law enforced throughout her borders, then would be the time to talk of modifications. Compromise prevailed, but Webster had no cause to blame himself for any part in the perilous concession.

Jackson’s administration and that of his successor cover the most brilliant years of Mr. Webster’s life. He was then in the full maturity of his powers, fighting for the constitution and for sound finances, the leader of a new and growing party, wholly in the right on the public issues of the day, and acting up to his beliefs without fear or reservation. Jackson’s violent wrenching and twisting of the constitution afforded constant opportunities for Mr. Webster to make great efforts in behalf of that which lay nearest his heart, but the absorbing question of all that time was of course the bank and the finances. The bank was opposed to Jackson, and so Jackson undertook to stuff its offices with his adherents, as he had done in all other similar cases. The bank resisted, and then the president determined to destroy it. He began by vetoing the bill for its recharter ; but this mode of destruction was so slow that, to quicken the work, he withdrew the deposits, and determined to manage the finances himself. Jackson regulating the finances and the currency was like a monkey regulating a watch. He simply smashed everything, and then went out of office, leaving his successor to make the best of it. Hampered by Jackson’s principles, and coming, moreover, much too late to do any good, Mr. Van Buren was just in time to meet the financial crush of 1837, which spread ruin and disaster over the country. From the first Mr. Webster had led the opposition to Jackson’s mad financiering, and had struck hard and telling blows at him and at Mr. Van Buren. He had a perfect mastery of the questions at issue and of all the intricate financial details, so that while he showed what ought to be done he predicted with unerring sagacity the exact result of Jackson’s course. All that he said was read everywhere, and when the crash came, his statesmanship and foresight received a startling vindication. In the campaign, which soon ensued, against Mr. Van Buren as a candidate for reëlection, Mr. Webster stood at the head of the opposition forces, and in all parts of the country, with wonderful variety and freshness, enforced the doctrines which he had always defended, and pointing to the suffering of the country denounced the policy by which all this misery had been caused. It had been a long waiting, but Jackson’s outrageous course and ignorant blunders at last had their reward. His party, his political heir and successor, and his principles of government were all condemned, and buried by the great wave of popular disapproval which carried General Harrison to the presidency, and placed Webster beside him as secretary of state.

To enter into a discussion of Mr. Webster’s course in this new field would be impossible within the limits of a necessarily brief essay. His state papers are fully worthy of him. They are able, dignified, clear and acute in argument, and show the breadth and grasp of mind so characteristic of their author. They cover a wide range of topics, and deal with many nations, Spain, Portugal, Mexico, and the opening of diplomatic relations with China. The great event was of course the treaty with England, concluded by Lord Ashburton at Washington. That this was the work of a statesman, that it was boldly approached and as a whole wisely settled, no one now would be likely to question. At the time it was made the subject of attack, and very recently the injury it indicted upon Maine has been ably discussed by Mr. Washburn before the historical society of that State. In the senate Mr. Benton, in his usual loud-mouthed fashion, stormed against it as a complete “ surrender,” while on the other side of the water it was fiercely assailed, and was stigmatized by Lord Palmerston as the " Ashburton capitulation.” But it must be judged as a whole, and if so judged it seems a fair treaty and a removal of differences which continually threatened war. Its only defect was the failure to provide for the northwestern boundary, which soon became troublesome and required fresh negotiations. On the settlement effected by the treaty, which set at rest questions that had endangered the peace of the country for forty years, Mr. Webster had fixed his heart. He therefore continued in office after Harrison’s death and after Mr. Tyler’s rupture with the whig party. This course was made the subject of many fierce attacks, but no one now will question that Mr. Webster was right in refusing to sacrifice to the strife of party a statesmanlike policy which he had undertaken to carry through. In his grandest way, with the lofty pride which at times so became him, he gave the whig party to understand that he could do without them, but that they could not dispense with him; and before long the whigs came over to his views.

After leaving the cabinet in 1843, Mr. Webster had two years of private and professional life before he was again chosen to the senate. He came back then in season for the miserable years of the Mexican war, with its schemes of conquest, all of which he opposed steadfastly and vigorously, until at last he was brought face to face with the slavery issues, growing out of the Mexican and Texan acquisitions. It was the great political crisis of 1850. Webster met it in the 7th of March speech, and failed.

From the senate, where he was devoting himself to the support of Clay’s compromise measures, he was again called to the department of state, by Mr. Fillmore. The only event of his second term of office in the cabinet was the famous Hülsemann letter. The Chevalier Hülsemann wrote in a very offensive manner to Mr. Webster, remonstrating against the official inquiry directed by the United States government in regard to the Hungarian revolution. The letter merited rebuke, and Mr. Webster administered it in a way which he himself calls “ boastful and rough.” Severe, and justly so, it certainly was ; but the boastful passage, which at the moment so caught the popular fancy, was hardly justifiable, in point of taste, in a state paper, and was unworthy of Mr. Webster.

In the spring of 1852 the whig convention assembled in Baltimore to nominate a candidate for the presidency. There was in New England, as there had been before on similar occasions, a movement in favor of Mr. Webster. Mr. Choate, who was at the head of Mr. Webster’s friends in the convention, went on to Washington the day before it met. He found Mr. Webster fully possessed with the idea that he should be nominated, and that the great office was at last within his grasp. So filled was he with this faith that Mr. Choate had not the heart to tell him that there was no chance, but held his peace, and went back to lead the forlorn hope and to watch the prolonged contest which ended in the nomination of General Scott. Even if he had been successful, it is nearly certain that Mr. Webster could not have lived much longer. As it was, the disappointment fell upon him with crashing effect. He withdrew to Marshfield, hid his face from the world, and died. He died proudly, as he had lived, but not without a touch of that affectation which Dr. Johnson said came to every man at the last hour, and which Webster had himself condemned. To the public he was silent, but he advised his intimate friends to vote for Pierce, and told them that the whigs as a national party were ended. Melancholy words of farewell from a great party chief to his trusted friends and followers!

The whig party was indeed at an end, but it was wrecked by the compromise measures and the 7th of March speech, and not by the nomination of Scott. That speech was the supreme trial of Webster’s whole career, and he failed. Had he but died an hour before that chance, it had been for him a blessed time. His friends and admirers say that there was nothing new, nothing inconsistent with his past utterances, in that speech. In a certain sense, so far as opinions went, it was consistent. The trouble with the 7th of March speech was in the changed tone and attitude of the man. In 1832, when Jackson faced South Carolina, Webster stood close beside him. Then the question turned on a tariff, and Webster said, Let us have no compromises until the supremacy of the law is vindicated beyond doubt or cavil. In 1850 California stood with a free constitution in her hand, waiting for admission, and Taylor, like Jackson, no statesman, but merely a plain American soldier, said, Do your duty; admit California. I hear the threats of Texas ; I see the boundary troubles : but admit California, and I will settle the boundaries, if need be. Taylor was right, as Jackson had been. But this time Webster did not stand by the president He bowed before the menaces of the South, and urged a compromise. His argument against Taylor’s policy proceeded on a futile distinction, and upon a dread that display of force by the general government meant disunion ; whereas a bold, firm attitude on the part of the administration would, in fact, have done more for peace and for union than any compromise. Compromise meant concession to the South, and to that there was no end. In a few years the South tore up all compromises ; in a few years more they plunged the country into civil war, because they lost an election. Vigor and decision would have checked the rising mischief in 1850; weakness and concession simply hastened disunion. The Northern whigs ridiculed Webster’s dread of secession, but the dread was well founded. His fault lay in meeting the danger, not like a brave man, as in 1832, but with timidity and compromise.

In 1832 the question was a tariff, in 1850 human slavery. Webster had denounced the slave trade at Plymouth ; he had opposed early and late the extension of slave territory ; he had raised a voice of warning and denunciation against the annexation of Texas ; he had resisted the acquisition of territory from Mexico ; he was opposed to slavery as a system ; he had foreseen the magnitude of the abolition agitation when others had scoffed at it; he had felt that it was the duty of Southern statesmen to deal with the question ; and now he turned about and derided the Wilmot proviso as an abstraction, sneered at the freesoilers as fanatics, urged compromise, and supported a new fugitive slave law with might and main. The Wilmot proviso was a declaration of principle, and, on the same grounds as Taylor’s policy, it should have been supported. How could the South ever be brought to reason if they always got what they wanted by a sufficiency of angry threats ? Webster’s place was at the head of the free-soil movement, of the constitutional opposition to slavery. He saw, perhaps more plainly than any one, the magnitude and the inevitable character of that question, and he should have led the North in the determined purpose to deal with it and settle it in a statesmanlike way. When, instead of doing this, he cried out for compromise and concession, he seemed to the rising spirit of the North, what in fact he was, false to his race, to his past, to his principles, to himself. He became in a moment a

His failure when he came to the crucial point was complete, and was deplorable and terrible for the very reason that he was so great in intellect, so marvelous in faculty, so highly gifted, and with a past crowded with words and deeds which had become part of the history of his country. The greater the height, the worse the fall and the deeper the censure.

Webster’s course in 1850 was due to two motives : his love for the Union, and his wish to gain the favor of the South, and thereby the presidency. The first was noble, even if misguided; the second, and much the weaker, was pitiable in such a case and in such a man. Webster’s love for the Union was in reality the key to his whole public career. It appears in his boyish letters, warm with youthful fervor; it burns strongly in his latest words. Webster lived during a period when the United States were in their first youth. The American people had begun to feel, in a dim way, but none the less surely, the greatness that was in them. They felt it, but others could not see or understand it. They were, as a nation, young, raw, inexperienced, and the consciousness of their future and of their unappreciated strength made them boastful, sensitive to the opinion of others, and full of a rough self-assertion. All this has gone. We know now, instead of feeling dimly, and self-assertion has become utterly idle, worse than vanity, to an assured greatness. Many persons, however, either silent, or capable only of crude expression, felt in this way in the first half of the present century, and among them was Daniel Webster, who saw clearly, instead of dimly, and could give fit utterance to all he saw and felt. To him the future opened with a dazzling radiance. From the height of his own intellect he beheld the land which he would never enter, but which we who have come after him are beginning to realize in actual possession. He saw the millions who would come here, the wealth which would be won, and in the train of wealth literature, science, learning, and the arts. He saw the help to humanity, the opportunities for education and comfort, the elevation of man’s condition, which would be possible here. He saw the vast influence which this country would exert, and the great place to which she was destined among the nations of the earth. All this rested on the Union, and union and nationality rested on the constitution. This vision of futurity was the dream, the love, the adoration, of Webster’s life. To this conception, as embodied in the Union and the constitution, he poured out his soul, as the poet to his mistress. It governed his opinion on every question, foreign or domestic, as to our position toward foreign nations, as to internal improvements, and as to all the responsibilities which a destiny so lofty should impose. In every speech, almost, he brings it in, and gives to it all the poetry and imagination of his being. It always inspired him to the highest point, and it made even the fatal utterances of the 7th of March great in eloquence. At that supreme moment his courage failed him ; but he believed even then that he was taking the surest way to preserve the Union and all that was dearest to his heart.

As to the second motive, the desire to obtain the presidency, that ambition had been long with him. He was pushed forward as a candidate in 1832, and the great prize was kept always before his eyes for twenty years. In 1852 he believed the time had come. It was certainly the last chance, and we can hardly wonder at his faith. He was surrounded by devoted and admiring friends, who were drawn from the ablest, most learned, richest, and most successful men in the most highly civilized portions of the country. The quality of the admiration blinded him, increased his pride, and made him impatient of counsel or opposition. Yet even in his own party the masses were all with Clay. Webster really never had a chance for the presidency. The politicians were afraid of him, and while he awed and impressed the people he did not appeal to their sympathy. That he did not understand this was most natural; that he was led to lower himself by the belief that he might succeed was deplorable. Much charity must be extended to a man who thinks he can reach the presidency. As Lincoln said, in homely phrase, “ No one knows how that worm gnaws until he has it; ” and the worm gnawed at Webster’s heart for twenty years. The North alone could have made him president, and he came down from his high place and bowed to the South, who received him only to throw him aside. In wrath of spirit he advised his friends to support the party he had always resisted, the party of slavery and secession. The waters of bitterness went over him, and the sun of his greatness set in clouds.

In private life Webster had all the qualities which make such a man peculiarly attractive. Cold, dignified, in his later days solemn even, in public and before the world, in the midst of his family, or with his intimate friends, he unbent completely, pushed politics and cares of state aside, and gave rein to talents for conversation which corresponded with the richness and strength of his mind. Wit, wisdom, anecdote, learning, humor, and a boyish fun all mingled in his talk. In the field with his farmers, on the shore or on the sea, fishing or shooting, with his boatman or with some congenial companion, he had a large, unstudied ease of manner ; and with the simple country people who lived about his home, with his servants or dependents, in his letters and in his talk, there is a constant flow of humor and a pleasant grace which pervades even the dry instructions as to the management of the farm. In the close intimacy of the family circle these qualities were displayed in even greater measure, and upon all connected with him by ties of blood or friendship he poured out the wealth of his affection. He was called upon to bear much sorrow. Grief for the death of his first wife, the wife of his love and youth, and for the loss of his children, stirred to their depths his strong emotions, and shook him in a way which we are told was terrible to witness.

It would be pleasanter to every one to stop here, with his generosity, his fascination of talk and manner, and his warm affections, but his admirers and biographers, by denial or silence, compel us to glance at darker shades of character. It has been considered fitting and wise to deal in this way with the notorious fact of Webster’s occasional excessive indulgence in wine, and with his reputation in respect to the other sex, which popular report, at least, stamped as far from pure and honest. No one wishes to rake among the failings of a great man in these directions, and there is very rarely any reason to do so, but it is even less fitting to seek to cloak them with silence or vain denials. The proper and manly way is to mention them, admit them if they should be admitted, regret them, and have done.

Webster had, however, one grievous failing, which cannot he passed over in this way, and which his principal biographer felt called upon to discuss at length, as it had been openly assailed in Congress. This was his constant acceptance from personal or political friends of large gifts of money. At one time it was an annuity, at another a few thousands for the expenses of his table ; private subscriptions to pay his debts were at all times painfully common, and, unless he is fearfully belied, he would not unfrequently draw upon his friends for large sums, which soon after appeared among the debts to be paid again by subscription. But putting aside everything which is not susceptible of immediate and absolute proof, when we read in the pages of a foreign historian of the acceptance of a check for ten thousand dollars from a Washington banker, as a token of admiration for the 7th of March speech, and then think who and what Mr. Webster was, it makes us shudder. It was not only neither delicate nor high-minded, but it was utterly wrong. Mr. Webster made enough money as a lawyer to live as became him. If he could not continue in public life except as the pensioner of State Street, then he had no business to be in public life ; and the decision of the question was with Mr. Webster alone, and cannot be foisted off on State Street. It is said that he was not influenced by these gifts, and this we believe to be perfectly true. Mr. Webster’s attitude, with the modifications of civilization, was that of a feudal baron. He protected his supporters’ interests as the baron did his peasantry, and then levied tribute from them. The baron took what he wanted with the armed hand. Webster took what he wanted by his services, his overshadowing personality, and his great intellect, and at a fitting moment acknowledged the aid by a magnificent compliment to the donors, individually or collectively. The principle in the two cases was about the same. It was rather predatory and very wrong and unbecoming, but it was not a question of improper influence; it was simply a stain upon the character of a great man.

When Webster failed, it was a moral failure. Moral weakness was the cause of the acceptance of money and of the fall of the 7th of March. Intellectually, he ranks among the greatest men of his race or country. His mind was not profoundly original, nor did he have that unknown subtle quality, rarely met with among statesmen or lawyers, but to be found in poets and artists, which men have agreed to call genius. We watch the feats of some superb athlete, and all that he does is impossible to us, far beyond our reach ; but we understand how everything is done, and what muscles are needed. We observe the performances of an Eastern juggler; we see the results, we appreciate the skill, but the secret of the trick escapes us. This is true also of mental operations; it is the difference between the mind of Shakespeare and that of Pitt, a difference, not of degree, but of kind. Webster belongs to the athletes. We can do nothing but admire achievements so far beyond our grasp, and gaze with wonder upon a development so powerful, so trained, so splendid. But we can understand it all, both the mind and its operations. It is intellect raised to any power you please, but it is still an intellect, a form and process with which we are familiar. There is none of the baffling sleight of hand, the inexplicable intuitions of genius. Webster has been accused of appropriating the fruits of other men’s labors to his own uses and glory. This is perfectly idle criticism. Webster had the common quality of greatness, a quick perception of the value of suggestions and thoughts put forth by other men, and the capacity to detect their value and use them ; making them bear fruit instead of remaining sterile in the hands of the discoverer. But after all is said, we come back to the simple statement that he was a very great man ; intellectually, one of the greatest men of his age. He is one of the chief figures of our history, and his fame as a lawyer, an orator, and a statesman is part of that history. There he stands before us, grandly, vividly, with all his glories and all his failings. The uppermost thought, as we look at him, is of his devotion to the Union, and of the great work which he did in strengthening and building up the national sentiment. That sentiment, the love of Webster’s life, proved powerful enough to save the Union in the hour of supreme trial. There is no need, and it would not be right, to overlook or to forget his errors and failings, all the more grievous because he was so gifted. All men, even those who censure him most severely, acknowledge his greatness. But it is not his fame which will plead most strongly for him when his faults are brought to the bar of history to receive judgment. It will be the thought of a united country the ideal of his hopes, the inspiration of the noblest efforts of his intellect, which will lead men to say, even while they condemn, “ Forgive him, for he loved much.”

Henry Cabot Lodge.