Daniel Webster

“ One of the towering names in American statesmanship is that of Daniel Webster, “the great defender of the Constitution.” Mr. Webster was not more remarkable for intellectual power than he was for masterly eloquence. His triumphs in Senatorial debate and on great public occasions are historic. In person he was large and brawny, with a swarthy complexion, massive head, and always conveyed the impression of strength, and, at times, even of majesty. His orations are masterpieces of patriotic fervor and scholarly culture.
Venerable men: you have come down to us from a former generation. ”

“ From early boyhood I have been a student of the life, character, and works of Daniel Webster. I never saw the great man’s face; I never heard his voice; he never knew even of my being in the world. My interest in Webster is entirely removed from the influence of considerations merely personal of whatever sort; but I have learned to reverence, nay, to love the man. ”

“ Daniel Webster must have been nearly a great man. He was always passed over for the Presidency. That was not so much because of the private failings which marked his robust and generous character, as because in days of artificial party issues, when vital questions are dealt with by mere compromise, high office seems to belong of right to men of less originality. If he was never quite so great as all America took him to be, it was not for want of brains or of honesty, but because his consuming passion for the Union at all costs led him into the path of least apparent risk to it. ”

“ Most naturally we dwell upon the name of Daniel Webster, towering in strength and grandeur, like the mountain beside which he was born, amid the surrounding granite, who left the impress of his genius upon the jurisprudence of his native State, upon the Constitution of his adopted State, and upon nearly every conspicuous page of America's civil or political history for half a century ”

“ In the midst of the hush of expectation, in that dead silence which is so peculiarly oppressive because it is possible only when many human beings are gathered together, Mr. Webster rose. He had sat impassive and immovable during all the preceding days, while the storm of argument and invective had beaten about his head. At last his time had come; and as he rose and stood forth, drawing himself up to his full height, his personal grandeur and his majestic calm thrilled all who looked upon him. ”

“ The sun of life, which had shone so splendidly at its meridian, was setting amid clouds. The darkness which overspread him came from the action of the 7th of March, and the conflict which it had caused. If there were failure and mistake they were there. The presidency could add nothing, its loss could take away nothing from the fame of Daniel Webster. He longed for it eagerly; he had sacrificed much to his desire for it; his disappointment was keen and bitter at not receiving what seemed to him the fit crown of his great public career. ”

“ If ever a man was intended for a shepherd of the people, Daniel Webster is. The people are fast awakening to great principles: what they want is a great man to concentrate and intensify their diffuse enthusiasm. And it is not every sort of greatness that will serve for the occasion. Webster, if he would only let himself go, has every qualification for a popular leader. ”

“ There is nothing about Daniel Webster to be hidden. Not moral blindness but moral insight and sound political principles reveal themselves to the reader of Webster's own words in public speech and unguarded private letter. One of those great men who disdained to vindicate himself, he does not need us but we need him and his vision that Liberty comes through Union, and healing through cooperation, not through hate. ”

“ Daniel Webster undertook to defend the college. The speech which he made before the Supreme Court of the United States was a masterly effort.
"Sir," he said, "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 greater lights of science which, for more than a century, have thrown their light over our land!" ”

“ I believe no one political act in America, since the treachery of Benedict Arnold, has excited so much moral indignation, as the conduct of Daniel Webster.
But I pass by his speech, to speak of other things connected with that famous man. One of the most influential pro-slavery newspapers of Boston, calls the gentlemen who signed the letter to him, the "Retainers" of Mr Webster. The word is well chosen and quite descriptive. This word is used in a common, a feudal, and a legal sense. In the common sense, it means one who has complete possession of the thing retained ”

“ Of the generation of American statesmen that followed those of the Revolutionary period few will live as long in the memory of the people, and none as long in the literature of the country, as Daniel Webster. His figure rises above the level of his time like a monument of colossal proportions. He was a child of the war of Independence, born in 1782. His father, a Puritan of stern and sterling character, had, as a backwoods farmer in New Hampshire, been an Indian fighter while New England had an Indian frontier, a soldier in the French war and a captain in the Revolutionary army. ”

“ Henry Clay resembles this eagle. Daniel Webster is the eagle which wheels round in the clouds, resting upon his pinions, but flying merely in circles around an imaginary sun—the Constitution. Neither of them possess that greatness which I admire in the greatest statesman of the Old World—Moses. The greatest statesman of the New world has not yet come. ”

“ Such, as it seems to our very imperfect judgment, was Daniel Webster, one of the largest and one of the weakest of men, of admirable genius and deplorable character; who began life well and served his-country well and often, but held not out faithful to the end. American statesmen are called to a higher vocation than those of other countries, and there is nothing in the politics of America which can reward a man of eminent ability for public service. ”

“ The mature style of Webster is perfect of its kind, being in words the express image of his mind and character,—plain, terse, clear, forcible; and rising from the level of lucid statement and argument into passages of superlative eloquence only when his whole nature is stirred by some grand sentiment of freedom, patriotism, justice, humanity, or religion, which absolutely lifts him, by its own inherent force and inspiration, to a region above that in which his mind habitually lives and moves. ”

“ The life of Daniel Webster is familiar to all intelligent people. His early days were spent amid the toils and blessedness of a New England farm-house, favored by the teachings of intelligent, God-fearing parents, who had the means to send him to Phillips Academy in Exeter, then recently founded, where he fitted for college, and shortly after entered Dartmouth, at the age of fifteen. In connection with Webster, I do not read of any remarkable precocity, at school or college, such as marked Cicero, Macaulay, and Gladstone ”

“ Of the statesmen of the present century, the most eminent are Webster, Clay, and Calhoun. Daniel Webster (1782- 1852) is acknowledged to be one of the greatest men America has produced. His speeches and forensic arguments constitute a characteristic as well as an intrinsically valuable and interesting portion of our native literature, and some of his orations on particular occasions are everywhere recognized as among the greatest instances of genius in this branch of letters to be met with in modern times. ”

“ A Marshfield elm may be for half a century in decay without exhibiting much outward change; and when, in some tempestuous night, half its bulk is torn away, the neighborhood notes with surprise that what seemed solid wood is dry and crumbling pith. During the last fifteen years of Daniel Webster's life, his wonderfully imposing form and his immense reputation concealed from the public the decay of his powers and the degeneration of his morals. ”

“ Webster did not have a deeply religious temperament. He did not have the ardent proselyting spirit which is the surest indication of a profoundly religious nature; the spirit of the Saracen Emir crying, "Forward! Paradise is under the shadow of our swords." When, therefore, he turned his noble powers to a defence of religion, he did not speak with that impassioned fervor which, coming from the depths of a man's heart, savors of inspiration and seems essential to the highest religious eloquence. ”

“ THE BUNKER HILL ORATION.
The oration at Plymouth first revealed the power of Mr. Webster. There are some men who exhaust themselves in one speech, one poem, or one story, and never attain again the high level which they have once reached.
It was not so with Daniel Webster. He had a fund of reserved power which great occasions never drew upon in vain. It might be that in an ordinary case in court, where his feelings were not aroused, and no fitting demand made upon his great abilities, he would disappoint the expectations of those who supposed that he must always be eloquent. ”

“ Believing that our national literature is to be found in the records of our greatest minds, and is not confined to the poems, novels, and essays which may be produced by Americans, we have been surprised that the name of Daniel Webster is not placed high among American authors. Men in every way inferior to him in mental power have obtained a wide reputation for writing works in every way inferior to those spoken by him. ”

“ William Fessenden, of Fryeburg, both of whom were good scholars, and the former, Rev. Dr. Porter, a very great man, say that Daniel Webster was a very good scholar for his years. He did, while at Fryeburg, exhibit traits of talent and genius which drew from these two divines, and from other professional gentlemen, unqualified praise of his powers of mind. I remember very distinctly hearing my father remark that if Mr. Webster should live, and have health, and pursue a straightforward course of industry and virtue, he would become one of the greatest men this country had produced. ”

“ Webster, as it exhibits him as a "Strict-Constructionist," and as a master of that peculiar kind of deductive reasoning which is commonly considered the special distinction of his great antagonist, Mr. Calhoun. In subtilty and refinement of argument it is fully the match of most of Mr. Calhoun's elaborate disquisitions. At the time of its delivery it excited the almost savage ire of John Quincy Adams, as will be seen by reference to the latter's "Diary." It was in connection with this speech that Mr. Adams speaks of "the rotten heart of Daniel Webster." ”

“ The great statesman who set forth the northern view was Daniel Webster.
He was born among the hills of New Hampshire, in Salisbury (now Franklin) , in 1782, the son of a poor farmer and the ninth of ten children.
As Daniel was a frail child, not able to work much on the farm, his parents permitted him to spend much [Pg 265] time in fishing, hunting, and roaming at will over the hills. Thus he came into close touch with nature, and gained much knowledge which was useful to him in later years. ”

“ THE STORY OF DANIEL WEBSTER. * * * * *
I.—CAPTAIN WEBSTER. Many years ago there lived in New Hampshire a poor farmer, whose name was Ebenezer Webster.
His little farm was among the hills, not far from the Merrimac River. It was a beautiful place to live in; but the ground was poor, and there were so many rocks that you would wonder how anything could grow among them.
Ebenezer Webster was known far and wide as a brave, wise man. When any of his neighbors were in trouble or in doubt about anything, they always said, "We will ask Captain Webster about it." ”

“ On the contrary, I am desirous of standing as one who is bound to his own consistency by the frankest avowal of his sentiments, on all important and interesting subjects. I am not partly for the Constitution, and partly against it; I am wholly for it, for it altogether, for it as it is, and for the exercise, when occasion requires, of all its just powers, as they have heretofore been exercised 336 by Washington, and the great men who have followed him in its administration.
I disdain, altogether, the character of an uncommitted man. I am committed, fully committed ”

“ I can assure my young readers that no great lawyer, no great writer, no great member of any profession, lounges into greatness. Daniel Webster worked, and worked hard. He rose early, not only because it gave him an opportunity of doing considerable while he was fresh and elastic, but because he had a country boy’s love of nature. ”

“ Webster had the same intellectual dexterity, the mingled result of nature and art. As the tiger is said to have a sure instinct for the throat of his victim, so Mr. Webster always seized on the vital point of a question. Other men would debate and argue for days, perhaps, and then Mr. Webster would take up the matter, and grasp at once the central and essential element which had been there all along, pushed hither and thither, but which had escaped all eyes but his own. ”

“ There is no man in all history who came into the world so equipped physically for speech. In this direction nature could do no more. The mere look of the man and the sound of his voice made all who saw and heard him feel that he must be the embodiment of wisdom, dignity, and strength, divinely eloquent, even if he sat in dreamy silence or uttered nothing but heavy commonplaces.
It is commonly said that no one of the many pictures of Mr. Webster gives a true idea of what he was. ”