DANIEL WEBSTER.
A
DISCOURSE
PRONOUNCED IN THE
FIRST PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH
IN AUGUSTA,
SUNDAY EVENING, NOVEMBER. 28 th, 1852,
HY REV. E. P. ROGERS.
PUBLISHED BY REQUEST.
PUBLISHED BY J. A. CARRIE & CO.
AUGUSTA, GEO.
1 853.
DISCOURSE.
2d SAMUEL 3 : 38.
■' Know ye not that there is a prince and a great man fallen this day in
Israel?"
I shall make no apology for a discourse commem¬
orative of that distinguished man, whose recent death
has wrung a nation's heart with bitter sorrow. The
sad message, which lately borne upon the wailing
eastern blast, swept over our country, proclaiming to
city and hamlet, to the dweller on the broad prairie and
in the far off wilderness, that the last of the three stars
in America's brilliant constellation had sunk in unclouded
radiance beneath the horizon, has fallen with saddening,
crushing power on every ear, and has caused a swelling
tide of sorrow to pour itself through the great heart of
the whole American people. When the tidings first
came, that all that was mortal of Daniel Webster was
no more, the nation reeled and staggered under the
mighty blow—a stunning sense of a fearful and over¬
whelming catastrophe paralyzed our hearts, and hushed
us in mute, but poignant sorrow, before the hand of
4
God. Never, since the death of him, who was " first
in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his
countrymen," has such a feeling of irreparable disaster
impressed itself upon the whole people; never, from
the North to the South, from the East to the West,
has there gone up, mingling with the melancholy music
of autumnal winds, such a deep-toned wailing from the
stricken bosom of a great people. Language cannot
express the nature of that profound impression which
the announcement of his death made upon the nation.
Ever since the fatal moment, when first America learned
that her prince and great man had fallen, she has cov¬
ered herself with sack-cloth and refused to be com¬
forted. A nation of mourners have celebrated his
funeral rites; a broken-hearted people have stood around
his bier. Not at Marshfield, in the home he loved so
well, beneath the lofty tree which his own hand had
planted, within the sound of the moaning of that ocean,
which was so fitting a type of the vastness and breadth
of his intellect and the sublimity of his character; not
there alone in that ancient burial place, where rest the
mortal remains of those who were dearest to his heart,
have his funeral rites been celebrated. That simple
granite tomb, which his own hands prepared, is not his
only sepulchre—he is buried in the heart of the nation.
The whole people have attended his obsequies; the
whole people have paid distinguished honors to his
remains ; and, while there is a heart left in the Ameri-
8
can people, he will have in this world an immortality,
second only to that to which Death has introduced him
in the world beyond the grave.
When the first shock of that blow, which has laid
low in death, America's distinguished son, had begun
to yield, and the prostrated energies of a stricken
people, were permitted to rally, it was striking to
witness the simultaneous pouring forth of the best trib¬
ute which could be paid to his illustrious memory.
The forum, the legislative hall, the court, the popular
assembly, the chamber of commerce, and the halls
of learning, re-echoed to the eloquent strains of those
who, amid their grief for his loss, delighted to do honor
to his transcendent abilities, his learning, his eloquence,
his statesmanship, and above all, his devotion to his
country. Contending parties have forgotten the ani¬
mosities of party strife, and united in honoring his
memory. Strains of eloquence, such as their lofty
theme only could inspire, have come from orators of
every political creed, presenting all that was massive,
grand and sublime in his character. The poet has
tuned his harp to loftier measures to sing of his great¬
ness ; while the pens of many ready writers have been
swift to transcribe the minutest events of his life, and
give every thing connected with his history to his eager
and craving countrymen.
Nor has the pulpit been silent. The clergy of the
nation, for whose sacred office our departed statesman
6
ever manifested the profoundest reverence; to whose
ministrations he ever listened with respectful attention,
and in whose behalf one of his most splendid forensic
efforts was made, the clergy have not been wanting in
respect to his memory, and in their effort to meet the
occasion of his decease in an appropriate manner.
Upon the Sabbath succeeding his funeral, many an
eloquent discourse, suggested by that event, was deliv¬
ered from the pulpits of all Christian denominations,
and many crowded audiences testified in their solemn
and rapt attention to their absorbing interest in the
theme. I rejoice to know, that in one of the pulpits in
this city, a just and beautiful tribute has been paid to
his memory. That this pulpit has been so long silent,
is to be attributed only to the fact, that its regular
occupant was far distant from the scene of his stated
ministrations, when the great event occurred, which
furnishes the theme for the present occasion. And we
have embraced this opportunity to gather up the lessons
of his life, his character, and his death, with no expec¬
tation of doing honor to him; but in simple justice to
ourselves. The feelings, which for the days that have
elapsed since the death of Webster, have been swelling
within our hearts, demand an utterance. We must
speak them out, we must sympathize with our country,
and with the world, in this mighty bereavement; we
must pay our humble tribute to one whom we revered
and admired ; and we must endeavor to gain some
7
instruction, admonition, and consolation from that great
event, which has made us one of a nation of mourners.
I do not appear this evening as the eulogist of our
departed statesman. To undertake that office, would
be as presumptuous as it is needless. Yet it is fitting
that I should attempt, at least, a brief sketch of that
extraordinary character, which has made his death a
national calamity of the first magnitude. And not only
a national calamity, but one in which the world partici¬
pates ; for it has well been said by one who knew him
well,* that " not from one land, not in one tongue alone
will his death be mourned. From the four corners of
the globe, tributes and testimonies will be gathered up.
The shepherd who tends his flock beneath the clear
skies of Greece—the cavalier that spurs over the plains
of South America—the Hungarian pining in exile or
languishing in prison, will all, when they hear of his
death feel a common grief at a common loss. Liberty
will mourn a champion—humanity a friend."
" Great men are among the best gifts which God
bestows upon a people." In this respect, how highly
favored has been our country. " He hath not dealt so
with any other nation." Washington, Hamilton, Adams,
Madison, Jay, Marshall, of the elder day—Clay, Cal¬
houn, Webster, of the later.—What a galaxy is here!
And now all are gone. Of the last great three, one,
Hon. Geo. S. Hilliard, of Boston.
$
the noble, pure Calhoun rests in the soil hallowed
by the memory of those exiles, who found there an
asylum from bigotry and persecution in the lovely val¬
leys and magnificent cities; of the old world. Another,
the beloved statesman of the West, sleeps in his own
beautiful Ashland, and the generous sons and fair
daughters of brave Kentucky will ever guard his resting
place with affectionate and reverent care. And now
the last sleeps with the Pilgrim Fathers in his own New
England. They are " at rest, with kings and counsel¬
lors of the earth;" and the places that knew them'will
know them no more forever ?
When such men die, the world is anxious to collect
every memorial of their history and character, to trace
back the mighty river of their greatness, to its source,,
to learn under what influences their powers were first
developed,, and their destiny shaped; and he who
gathers up even the fragments of their history, performs:
a grateful task for multitudes of curious and interested
survivors.
A brief inquiry into the parentage and early history
of our great departed statesman is appropriate to this
occasion. He was the son of a worthy sire.
Ebenezer Webster was a fair specimen of those -
true noblemen of nature, the early settlers of this coun¬
try. Born and reared upon the confines of civilization?
and favored with but scanty early advantages; he, by
his native talent and force of character became pos-
9
sessed of no mean distinction in the portion of our
country where his lot was cast. In the early French
wars, he served with honor, with such men as Stark
and Putnam, whose names are linked with the glorious
history of the American Revolution. In that memorable
struggle he bore a distinguished part, at the battle of
Bennington, and the defeat of Burgoyne. When the
war was ended, he served his country no less faithfully
in her councils. In the Assembly and the Senate, and
on the Judicial bench in his native State he ever main¬
tained a deserved reputation for wisdom, integrity and
pure patriotism. It is an interesting fact, that he was
a thorough student, and master of the principles of
the American Constitution, and his opinions generally,
commanded the respect of his fellow-citizens. Such
was the worthy father of the illustrious son. That
son was born amid the unrivalled scenery of New
Hampshire, whose lofty mountains were a fitting emblem
of the solidity and massive qualities of his mind and
character. His mother was the instructress of his early
years, and prophesied while he was yet a child that,
he would attain to extraordinary distinction. The
prophecy proved something more than the fond vision
of a partial mother's fancy.—She lived to see him an
honored member of the Congress of the United States.
His first scholastic training was in one of those rude
iog school houses, where many men have been trained
for future greatness, in " the land which grows school-
2
10
masters." There, by an obscure village teacher, a
Mr. William Hoyt, was the first impulse given to that
giant mind, which ceased not to impel it round the
entire circle of knowledge until that soaring intellect-
entered on the loftier studies of the spiritual and
eternal world.
Thus, amid rude and obscure scenes, with none oi
the advantages of wealth or rank to help him, was
America's great modern statesman prepared for his life-
work. " Emerging to the light of day, on the outer
rim of civilization, engirt by a northern wilderness, with
primal nature all around him, on a sterile and reluctant
soil, and far removed from the appliances of an ad¬
vanced society, he had little else to rely on than the
inflexible principles of a New England farmer, and the
great resources which God had planted in his souL
But 011 the rugged hills and under the arms of that
original forest which sheltered his birth, with patriot
blood coursing his veins, thought and grew this child
of Genius. Trampling the snows, and conquering the
surly blasts, he made his way to the country school,
while yet a boy, a matchless Olympian—thence rising
by the intensity of his energy, the firmness of his char¬
acter, and the stupendous qualities of his intellect, step
by step, from school to college, from college to the
courts—to the halls of State legislation, to the councils
of the Union—to the helm of State—to the undying
affections of America, and to the admiration of the
11
world.—Self-reliant, and self-cultured, he hewed, with
sinewy strokes, his own eternal niche in the Temple
of Fame."
It was amid the scenes of his childhood, and by
assisting his father in the laborious yet honorable pur¬
suits of husbandry, that Mr. Webster acquired that
fondness for country life, and that knowledge and skill
in agriculture which never ceased to be one of his most
prominent characteristics. In one of his greatest speech¬
es,—that " On the Agriculture of England," delivered
in Boston in Jan., 1840—he stated that "he had
always regarded Agriculture as the leading interest of
society," and that " he had been familiar with its ope¬
rations in his youth, and had always looked upon the
subject with deep and lively interest."
Of his early home, rude and simple as it was, he
always entertained the fondest remembrance. He never
was ashamed of the comparatively humble circumstan¬
ces of his birth and his childhood, and I know of none
of the many exalted sentiments which fell from his lips
which contains more that is truly noble than that which
he uttered in the Presidential campaign of 1840, in
reference to the early history of one of the candidates
for the highest office in the gift of the American peo¬
ple.* "It is only shallow-minded people who make
either distinguished origin matter of personal merit, or
* General Harrison
12
obscure origin matter of personal reproach. Taunt
and scoffing at the humble condition of early life, affect
nobody in this country but those who are foolish enough
to indulge in them, and they are generally sufficiently
punished by public rebuke. A man who is not
ashamed of himself, need not be ashamed of his early
condition."
" Gentlemen," continued this great man, " 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 recollections, the
kindred ties, the early affections and the touching nar¬
ratives and incidents which mingle with all I know of
this primitive family abode. I weep to think that none
of them who once inhabited it are now among the
living, and if I am ashamed of it, or if I ever fail in
affectionate veneration for him who raised it and de¬
fended it against savage violence and destruction, cher¬
ished all the domestic virtues beneath its roof, and
through the fire and blood of a seven years' revolution-
13
ary war, shrunk from no danger, no toil, no sacrifice to
serve his country, and to raise his children to a condi¬
tion better than his own, may my name, and the name
of my posterity be blotted forever from the memory of
mankind."—(Speech at Saratoga, Aug. 1840.)
The history of Mr. Webster's life after he entered
upon the practice of his profession in his native State in
1805, is known to the nation. It is a part of her histo¬
ry. His progress, so wonderfully rapid to the first rank
in the honorable profession of the Law, until he became
the acknowledged leader of the American Bar; his
entrance upon public life ; " his first term of four years'
service in Congress, when by one bound he sprang to
his place by the side of the foremost of the rising
American statesmen his steady, onward progress in
a path far above that trodden by ordinary minds, until
he stood before the nation and the world distinguished
by a double eminence—" eminence of the very high¬
est rank in a two-fold field of intellectual public display,
the profession of the Law, and the profession of States¬
manship;" you need not that I should speak to you
of this. You know, this stricken nation knows, how
his intense study and his transcendent abilities bore
him " in a double and parallel current" to the towering
summit of a fame, both in law and diplomacy, which,
however it might possibly be equalled by a few noble
names in one of these departments, has never been
equally enjoyed by another in them both. It would
14
seem as if the herculean labors of those three and
thirty years with which he has been identified with
public life and history, would have been well repaid by
the fame he had earned as the Prince of the American
Forum, as greatest advocate of the age. But when we
consider that this was but the half of his reputation;
that during all this time he not only most diligently
and successfully pursued the legitimate practice of the
Law, but was engaged constantly in the great public
affairs, adjusting the weightiest matters of public policy,
defending the most sacred rights of his country, ar¬
ranging the most delicate and important relations with
foreign powers, and guiding the ship of State on many
a troubled sea, until his country reposed on his arm
with confidence that her rights and her honor would
be safe under its protection, and that her noble Consti¬
tution would never be wrested from his giant grasp;
when you remember this, " know ye not that a Prince
and a great man has fallen in Israel ?" " Who," asks
the eloquent Choate, " who any where has seen, as he
had, the double fame, wore the double wreath, of
Murray and Chatham; or of Dunning and Fox; or of
Erskine and Pitt; or of William Pickney and Rufus
King ; in one transcendent superiority !"
But it is needless to dwell upon the history of his
public life, and his distinguished services to his country.
How can I do justice to the labors, the success, the
triumphs of nearly fifty years, in a few hasty words.
15
In the language of one of his best eulogists, " I dare
not come here and dismiss in a few summary para¬
graphs the character of one who has filled such a space
m the history, who holds such a place in the heart, of
his country. It would be a disrespectful familiarity to
a. man of his lofty spirit, his great soul, his rich endow¬
ments, his long and honorable life, to endeavor thus to
weigh and estimate them." " A half hour of words, a
handful of earth, for fifty years of great deeds in high
places!"
But there was one distinguishing trait in the charac¬
ter and history of our departed statesman which stands
out in bold relief on every page of the record of his
life, which we may and ought to dwell upon, with some
particularity. None of America's sons have been more
thoroughly American. The great idea which became
the complete and controlling vision of his soul was
America. While her history will gather lustre from
his connection with it, he gathered his inspiration from
that history. No man was more familiar with it from
its first records. No man had a more intelligent and
earnest appreciation of the principles and character oi
the fathers of this country; of their heroic sacrifices
and labors to Jay its broad foundations, and commence
the massive structure of its greatness. No mind was
more deeply penetrated with the wisdom and breadth
and comprehensiveness of the institutions which they
originated, or more accurately foresaw the influence
16
they must exert upon their country and the world#
His public life was one great offering to the Consti¬
tution of his native land, to the integrity of her institu¬
tions, to her national honor, and her national interests.
No mere questions of party, no local or sectional inter¬
est, so roused his great soul, and called his gigantic
energies into full play. When questions involving the
prosperity or the honor of his country were under con¬
sideration, then his best powers, his profoundest re¬
search, his most powerful logic, his masterly eloquence
were never invoked in vain. Then he knew no North,
no South, no East, no West. His capacious mind,
his deep heart, were tilled with his country, his whole
country, and his mightiest intellectual efforts owed their
being to the creative power of this great idea. He
loved his country—in her vast extent; her varied
wealth of natural resources—the sublimity and beauty
of her mountains and plains, her rocks and her streams;
her spreading prairies and her magnificent cataracts;
and in his breadth of frame, his massiveness of brow,
and general nobleness of presence, he was a fitting son
of such a land. He loved his country for her history—
for the great and good men whom God had given her
—for the wonderful progress she had made under his
own eye from infancy to maturity. He loved her for
the indomitable energy, industry, and enterprise of her
people, for her free institutions ; her system of Popular
Education; her pure spiritual religion. He loved her
17
for the mighty past, and for the far mightier future
which his prophetic soul discerned as within her grasp
in ages to come; for the sublime destiny which stretch¬
ed before her; and his vast soul was ever thrilled with
patriotic desires that she should achieve that destiny.
" How sincerely," says a recent writer, " how passion¬
ately was he devoted to the preservation of the Union.
How largely it moved, how extensively it describes the
substance of his highest eloquence. Nothing but the
majestic image of his whole undivided country could
satisfy the poetic and patriotic necessities of his capa¬
cious imagination."
At this sacred shrine—the altar of his undivided
country—he paid his loftiest and purest, and fondest
earthly homage. The Union was not an abstract idea
in his mind, but seemed almost transformed into a
living creature, not so much the subject of cold and
passionless argument, as the object of warm, devoted
affection. The language of the immortal Washington,
the father of his country, found an echo from the heart
and from the life of that country's distinguished son.
" It will be wise to habituate ourselves to reverence the
Union as the palladium of our National happiness; to
accommodate, constantly, our words and actions to that
idea, and discountenance whatever may suggest a sus¬
picion that it can in any event be abandoned."—(Orig¬
inal manuscript of Washington's Farewell Address.)
3
18
Such was ever the spirit of Daniel Webster; a spirit
of pure, unqualified, whole-hearted devotion to the
American Union,—of generous ardent love to his whole
country. As has well been said, " He was the beau-
ideal of an American citizen," and I take leave to add
that when we consider all that is implied in being a
true American citizen, this is the highest style of char¬
acter to which humanity can attain.
Yes, my countrymen! that great heart which now
lies cold and pulseless in the grave, throbbed to its last
beat, with vast and generous love for us and our native
land. Courts and Cabinets may mourn the loss of one
who was their glory and strength; the Forum may be
clad in sable for him who was its acknowledged master;
the Halls of legislation and the Popular Assembly may
mourn that they shall no longer re-echo to the strains
of his matchless eloquence; Letters and Art may bring
their tribute of sorrow at the quenching of the radiance
of that brilliant mind, but alas ! our country weeps, that
he who loved her with such a mighty affection; who
shrined her honor and her glory in his heart of hearts,
and daily bowed in fond and sacred reverence there,
and who only left her for his God, is gone from her
forever.—Weep, my stricken country, for the last of
your great ones is fallen! " The beauty of Israel is
slain upon her high places. How are the mighty
fallen!" That majestic form which so well represented
a great and glorious land, is stricken down, and lies
19
beneath the clods of the valley. That gigantic soul
which was absorbed and inspired by the sublime idea
of America, has passed away, and the great day of our
mourning has come. The granite hills of New Hamp¬
shire are left, but he who resembled them in the
strength and grandeur of his being, is gone. The
majestic ocean still thunders along her coast, but her
waves are sounding a fitting dirge for him whose mind
was as vast, whose soul was as deep as her mighty
waters.—-Plymouth Rock still remains, but he who
smote that rock with the rod of his eloquence, causing
streams of wisdom and patriotism to gush from its flinty
bosom, sleeps the sleep of death in Pilgrim soil. " De¬
parting day still lingers and plays on the summit" of
the monument 011 Bunker Hill, but he who laid its
foundations, and placed its top stone shall no more
recount the heroic deeds, and embody the sublime
principles which it commemorates.
Our country is left in her vastness, her strength, her
beauty and her grandeur, but he is gone who added
lustre to her glory, "and mountain and ocean cannot
adorn her, as his presence gilded her soil and her
name.1'
And now it remains to us to speak ot the last scenes
<of our departed Webster's life. In the long and dis¬
tinguished career which it was his privilege to run,
there were many scenes crowded with elements of
•sublimity,, beauty, pathos and power.—But none, nor
20
all of these ever equalled its close. The testimony
which that wonderful scene has borne to his religious
character, is worth more to his sorrowing country than
the rich record of his palmiest days of health, or of
triumph. Had that been wanting, how much had been
wanting! But those solemn hours as they brought
nearer and nearer to his clear, calm self-possessed per¬
ceptions the hour when he must meet his God, bore
witness to a composure, a resignation, a fitting prepara¬
tion for that solemn event, which assures us of the
undoubted presence of the faith and hopes of Religion,
by that bed of death. And indeed the evidence of his
religious feeling has accumulated upon us from many
sources. His early training was of a strictly religious
character. The Bible, the Catechism and Watt's ver¬
sion of the Psalms were the text books of his childhood.
In his youth he was the subject of deep religious im¬
pressions, and at no period of his life was he ever
known to manifest any thing but the profoundest rev¬
erence for the Religion of Christ. His famous plea in
the case of Girard's will, which is said to have been an
effort on which he himself placed a high estimate, is
one of the most just and noble defenses of Christianity
and her ministers which the world has ever saw. His
most intimate and valued friends bear a most decided
testimony to the depth and fervor of his religious emo¬
tions, to his intense admiration for the Holy Scriptures,
his constant habit of studying its sacred pages, his reli-
21
ance upon its consolations in seasons of deep affliction,
to his most respectful attendance upon the ministrations
of the sanctuary, and his desire to be instructed and
edified by them. Said he to a friend, on one occasion,
" I have read through the entire Bible many times. I
now make it a practice to go through it once a year.
It is the book of all others for Lawyers as well as
Divines. And I pity the man who cannot find in it a
rich supply of thought, and of rules for his conduct. It
fits man for life. It prepares him for death." Said he
to the minister of the Parish in which he resided, " I
want my pastor to come to me in the spirit of the
Gospel, saying, 'You are mortal! your probation is
brief, your work must be done speedily; your are im¬
mortal too. You are hastening to the bar of God ; the
Judge standeth before the door.' When I am thus
admonished, I have no disposition to muse or sleep."
When the period of his probation did arrive, it found
him ready. He met the Great Destroyer with an un¬
shrinking front, with dignity, but not stoicism. In that
solemn hour his soul reposed only on the truths, the
hopes, the promises of the Gospel. " What," said he
to those who gathered round him, " What would he the
condition of any of us without the hope of immortality ?
What is there to rest that hope on but the Gospelr*
Resting on this foundation he could say, as he did say,
" My general wish on earth has been to do my Makers
Will. I thank him, I thank him for the means of doing
22
some little good ; for these dear objects; for the bless¬
ings that surround me ; for my nature and associations.
I thank him that I am to die under so many circum¬
stances of love and affection."
Yet there was nothing of pride or self-reliance in his
dying hours. His humble fervent prayer was for the
forgiveness of his sins, and that his Heavenly Father
would receive him to Himself " through Jesus Christ."
His physician says :
"On leaving Mr. Webster for the night at half-past
eleven, on Saturday, October 16, 1852, I asked him if
I should repeat to him a hymn at parting, to which he
gave a ready assent; when I repeated the hymn which
begins:
" There is a fountain filled with blood.
Drawn from Immanuel's veins.'"
" He gave very serious attention to the recital and
at the close he said, Amen, amen, even so come Lord
Jesus." This was uttered with great solemnity. He
afterwards asked me if I remembered the verse in one
of Watt's hymns on the thought of dying at the foot of
the Cross, and repeated these lines with remarkable
energy and feeling:
"' Should worlds conspire to drive me hence.
Moveless and firm this heart should lie,
Resolved, (for that's my last defence,)
If I must, perish—here to die."'
After this he said that " he owed it to his fellow-
countrymen to express his deep conviction of the divine
23
inspiration of the Gospel of Jesus Christ and had
embodied some thoughts which he gave to Mr. Edward
Curtis.
He repeated the text, " Believe 011 the Lord Jesus
Christ and thou shalt be saved," and then what he had
given to be inscribed on his tomb-stone, which was as
follows:
" ' Lord, I believe, help Thou mine unbelief/ "
And when at last the shadows of the Valley of Death
began to thicken around his soul, then he turned to the
Gentle Shepherd of Israel, and sought to lean on his
rod and staff, as he went through the passage to the
Tomb. Oh ! if this was not the spirit of the Christian,
in what scene of death shall we find that spirit ? If
the unbroken serenity, the calm submission, the quiet
waiting for his appointed time to depart, the confession
of sin, and the prayer for pardon through a sin-atoning
Saviour, the intelligent elevated state of religious feeling
which he was assisted to maintain to the last, the
triumphant assurance of Immortality embodied in his
last words, if all this does not assure us that this great
man went to his grave a believer in Jesus, in the tri¬
umph of Faith, and putting his trust in the hopes of
the Gospel, then I know not how such an assurance
can be given us from the bed of death. What though
his character was like that of all his race, imperfect and
sinful; what though there were great blemishes and
frailties in that character, what was well said of David,
24
the son of Jesse, may be said of him. " Such oceans
of feeling lay within his breast, as could not always
slumber in their calmness. . For the hearts of a hun¬
dred men strove and struggled together within the
narrow continent of his single heart, and will scornful
men have no sympathy for one so conditioned, but
scorn him, because he ruled not with constant quietness
the unruly host of divers natures which dwelt within
his single soul?" We extenuate not his errors, we
claim for him no exemption from that sinful nature,
which is our common inheritance; we allow no admira¬
tion for his powers, no gratitude for his services, no love
for his personal virtues to blind us to the fact that he,
like all of us, was a sinner of a sinful race; but we say,
and we say it confidently, that the influence of his life
and of his death, as a whole, will always be in favor of
justice, virtue and piety—that the cause of truth, of
morality, and of religion, will always have the sanction
of his expressed and recorded opinions, and be asso¬
ciated with every mention of his name. But in the
words of the sweet poet, whose strains lingered in his
memory on his dying bed—I would
" No further seek his merits to disclose,
Nor draw his frailties from their dread abode,
(There they alike in trembling hope repose ;)
The bosom of his Father and his God !''
All that was mortal of Daniel Webster, sleeps in the
quiet grave at Marshfield, surrounded by the precious
25
dust of those he loved so well. He sleeps in the
beautiful home, which will hereafter be honored as a
second Mt. Vernon by his sorrowing and surviving
countrymen. Around him are those scenes of rural
beauty in which he took such delight when returning
for a time from the councils of the nation and the cares
of state, he sought refreshment and repose in the bosom
of his family, and in the labors and recreations of coun¬
try life. Near him the ocean, with which his great soul
often held communion, sings his majestic requiem, and
mourns the mighty dead. How sacred that spot in
years to come! What reverent pilgrimages will be
made to that simple granite sepulchre! How many
tearful eyes will trace, with deep emotion, the inscription
on its portals—"Daniel Webster!" his only epitaph,
and all the epitaph he needs. While Plymouth Rock
and Bunker Hill remain, the objects of historical inter¬
est, and patriotic reverence, and grateful affection, in
the hearts of the American people, with them will be
linked forever in affecting remembrance the tomb of
Webster!
Let the love, the gratitude, the patriotism of America,
hallow that spot till the end of time. Let the turf
above it, be watered by the grateful tears of a bereaved
people, that it may be ever fresh and green as the
immortal chaplet of his fame. And let it be a source
of inspiration to the American people, prompting them,
to honorable industry, sublime integrity, exalted action,
4
devoted patriotism, and humble piety, through the long
line of generations yet to come, so that our children
and our children's children to the remotest, ages, may
rise up and bless God and their country for the revered
and beloved memory of
DANIEL WEBSTER!
A few closing reflections may be permitted on this
occasion.
While we mourn the loss of the great and gifted
men, whom God has given us, we are admonished of
the duty of gratitude to Almighty God, that such men
have been ours, and that their memory and their sep¬
ulchres are with us at this day.
It has been one indubitable evidence of the grandeur
of God's designs, in respect to this country, that he
gave us such men to lay its foundations, and to rear the
solid structure of its greatness.—The long line of patri¬
otic statesmen, of which Washington was the illus*
trious head, and which bears such names as Jefferson,
Adams, Hamilton, Jay, Madison and Marshall, Calhoun*
Clay and Webster, has left the imprint of their wisdom,
their patriotism, their devotion to the cause of Freedom*
not only on the history, but on the institutions, the
laws, and the national sentiment of their country. For
what we are to-day as a people, for what we may be,
we are indebted under God to them. Genius of the
highest order, talents whose solidity was only eqiytalled
by their brilliancy, patriotism of the purest stamp, wis¬
dom of the profoundest cast, and eloquence of the
sublimest character, all have characterized the great
men of America. Take them all in all, the world "will
not look upon the like again." Under their fostering
care, we have in one sense realized the ancient predic¬
tion, that " a nation shall be born in a day," for our last,
our lamented countryman, saw with his own eye, the
thirteen original States with their three millions of peo¬
ple scattered along the Atlantic shores, cross with their
myriads the Alleghanies, Mississippi, the Rocky Moun¬
tains, until they invaded the shores.of the Great Pacific,
bearing the Eagle of their country from the rising to
the setting sun. That the names of such men are
inscribed on the scroll of our country's history; that
the deeds of such are recorded in her annals and
celebrated in her songs; that the wisdom and patriotism
of such men have pervaded her institutions and her
laws, and that the glorious memory of such men is left
us as a precious heritage to her unborn generations,
this is indeed occasion for devout and fervent thanks¬
giving to our country's God.
Let us also be admonished of our duty to put our
trust as a people more entirely and confidently in the
God of our fathers.
The mighty arm on which we have leaned, has at
last proved to be an arm of flesh, and lies palsied in
fhe grave. And only when it broke, did we begin to
28
realize how heavily we had leaned upon it. How fully
and confidently we trusted to him to guard our honor,
to protect our rights, to preserve our Constitution from
the unholy grasp of lawless fanaticism, and to bind us
together in a permanent and glorious Union—we knew
not, until Death, inexorable Death, forced him to resign
the mighty trust. And now we stand trembling under
the sense of hopeless bereavement, with the responsi¬
bilities of the great future crowding upon us, and know
not how we are to sustain worthily the burden of our
very greatness. One by one, those on whom we lean¬
ed have been taken from us. Clay is gone, and
Calhoun is gone, and now Death has taken Webster
away! Oh! never were such responsibilities heaped
upon a people at such a crisis in their history. " Amid
the passionate haste of our prosperity, the headlong
recklessness of our popular feeling, what a fearful thing
it is to remember that the powerful brake which the
wisdom, moderation and weight of our great statesman
afforded, is suddenly wrenched from the train." The
pilot whose sturdy arm and far-reaching vision guided
our ship of State over the stormy billows, has sunk
beneath the waves, and who shall seize the helm and
keep the noble vessel on her way 1 All seems dark,
and threatening, and men's hearts fail them for fear.
We now begin to understand what it involves to main¬
tain and make permanent a great national character.
The nation trembles under a sense of awful responsi-
20
bilities, just beginning to be appreciated, and fears and
dreads the future. I confess that the spirit of despon¬
dency and foreboding seems appropriate to this solemn
crisis. But my countrymen, amid the darkness that
now surrounds us, there is one truth which is radiant
with light—" The Lord reigneth." The God of our
fathers lives. The God of our country lives, and we
may hope that He will not forsake the land which He
has loved and blessed. If the removal of one in whom
we trusted, and on whom we leaned, shall rebuke our
forgetfulness of the Great Being whom our fathers
delighted to honor, and shall lead us as a people to put
our trust in Him, and acknowledge Him in all our
ways, then this last and mighty stroke will prove a
lasting blessing to this nation.
And finally, what a striking and impressive testimony
to the value of Religion, is furnished by the event
which our nation deplores.
When that noble mind which had traversed almost
the entire circle of human learning, power and fame,
drew near to the stern realities of the grave and the
lofty realm of spiritual existence which lies beyond ;
oh, then its confidence was not in the triumphs of the
Forum or the Senate, or the Cabinet. When that most
illustrious man of his age, was called to meet his God,
there was nothing in the attainments and successes,
and glories of his earthly career, on which he rested
his confidence and his hope. No light could be
30
thrown from these into the valley of the shadow oi
death, which the loftiest and the lowliest alike must
tread. Reposing only in the merits of Christ, humbh
confessing his sins; praying that God would forgive
them, and receive his departing spirit to Himself, lean¬
ing on the rod and staff of the Shepherd of his people,
did this great man die. Let bold infidelity, let scoffing
skepticism, let senseless impiety, hide their diminished
heads, and shrink away before the simple grandeur of
that scene. Let Religion rejoice that her Heavenly
reality, her divine power, her celestial beauty, her ines¬
timable worth, were so fully acknowledged and honored
there. Let a sorrowing nation exult in the hope that
while all that was mortal of Daniel Webster is
mingled with its kindred dust; his immortal spirit,
through the grace of God, has entered upon that " rest
which remaineth for the people of God "