EULOGY 
 
 UEl. IVEREll AT T II K 
 
 DEDICATION OF THE STATUE 
 
 / 
 
 da:^iel webstek 
 
 IN BOSTON, SEPTEMBER 17, 18j'J. 
 
 / 
 
 v/ 
 
 BY EDWARD EVERETT. 
 
 BOSTON: 
 
 GEO. C. RAND AND AVERY, CITY PRINTERS, 
 
 NO. 3CORNUILL,, 
 
 1859. 
 
£7^4-0 
 
 <^ 
 
EULOGY. 
 
 May it please Your Excellency: 
 
 On behalf of those by whose contributions the 
 Statue of Mr. Webster has been procured, and of 
 the Committee entrusted with the care of its erec- 
 tion, it is my pleasing duty to return to you, and 
 through you to the Legislature of the Common- 
 w^ealth, our dutiful acknowledgments for the per- 
 mission kindly accorded to us, to place the statue 
 in the Public Grounds. We feel, sir, that in allow- 
 ing this monumental work to be erected in front 
 of the Capitol of the State, a distinguished honor 
 has been paid to the memory of Mr. Webster. 
 
 To you, sir, in particular, whose influence was 
 liberally employed to bring about this result, and 
 whose personal attendance and participation have 
 added so much to the interest of the day, we are 
 under the highest obligations. 
 
 To you, also, Mr. Mayor, and to the City Council, 
 we return our cordial thanks for your kind consent 
 to act on our behalf, in delivering this cherished 
 memorial of our honored fellow-citizen into the cus- 
 
tody of the Commonwealth, and for your sympathy 
 and assistance m the duties of the occasion. 
 
 To you. our distinguished guests, and to you, 
 fellow-citizens of either sex, who come to unite with 
 us in rendering these monumental honors, who adorn 
 the occasion with your presence, and cheer us with 
 your countenance and favor, we tender a respectful 
 and grateful welcome. 
 
 The inclemency of the weather has made a change 
 in our arrangements for your reception necessary, 
 and compelled us to flee from the public grounds 
 to this spacious hall. But we will not murmur at 
 this slight inconvenience. We are not the oiily 
 children for whom the Universal Parent cares. The 
 rain, which has incommoded and disappointed us, is 
 most welcome to the husbandman and the farmer. 
 It will yield their last fulness to the maturing 
 fruits and grains; it will clothe the parched fields 
 with autumnal verdure, and revive the failing pas- 
 turage ; it will replenish the exhausted springs, and 
 thus promote the comfort of beast and of man. 
 We have no reason to lament that while, with these 
 simple ceremonies, we dedicate the statue of Daniel 
 Webster within these walls, the work of human hands, 
 the genial skies are baptizing it with gentle showers, 
 beneath the arch of heaven. 
 
 It has been the custom, from the remotest an- 
 tiipiity, to preserve and to hand down to posterity. 
 
in bronze and in marble, the counterfeit presentment 
 of illustrious men. Within the last few years, mod- 
 ern research has brought to light, on the banks of 
 the Tigris, huge slabs of alabaster, buried for ages, 
 which exhibit in relief the faces and the persons 
 of men who governed the primeval East in the 
 gray dawn of history. Three thousand years have 
 elapsed since they lived and reigned, and built pal- 
 aces, and fortified cities, and waged war, and gained 
 victories, of which the trophies are carved upon 
 these monumental tablets, — the triumphal procession, 
 the chariots laden with spoil, the drooping captive, 
 the conquered monarch in chains, — but the legends 
 inscribed upon the stone are imperfectly deciphered, 
 and little beyond the names of the personages and 
 the most general tradition of their exploits is pre- 
 served. In like manner the obelisks and the temples 
 of ancient Egypt are covered with the sculptured 
 images of whole dynasties of Pharaohs, — older than 
 Moses, older than Joseph, — whose titles are recorded 
 in the hieroglyphics, with which the granite is 
 charged, and which are gradually yielding up their 
 long concealed mysteries to the sagacity of modern 
 criticism. The plastic arts, as they passed into Hel- 
 las, with all the other arts which give grace and 
 dignity to our nature, reached a perfection unknown 
 to Egypt or Assyria; and the heroes and sages of 
 Greece and Rome, immortalized by the sculptor, still 
 
8 
 
 people the galleries and inuseuins of the modern 
 world. In every succeeding age, and in every 
 country in which the line arts have been cultivated, 
 the respect and allection of survivors have found a 
 pure and rational gratification in the historical por- 
 trait and the monumental statue of the honored 
 and loved in private life, and especially of the great 
 and good who have deserved well of their country. 
 Public esteem and confidence and private affection, 
 the gratitude of the community and the fond mem- 
 ories of the fireside, have ever sought, in this way, 
 to prolong the sensible existence of their Ijeloved 
 and respected objects. What, though the dear and 
 honored features and person, on which, while living, 
 we never gazed without tenderness or veneration, 
 have been taken from us: — somethins; of the love- 
 liness, something of the majesty abides in the por- 
 trait, the bust, and the statue. The heart, bereft of 
 the living originals, turns to them, and cold and silent 
 as they are, they strengthen and animate the cher- 
 ished recollections of the loved, the honored, and 
 the lost. 
 
 The skill of the painter and sculptor which thus 
 comes in aid of the memory and imasi-ination, is, in 
 its highest degree, one of the rarest, as it is one 
 of the most ex(|uisite accomplishments within our 
 attainment, and in its perfection as seldom witnessed 
 as the perfection of speech or of music. The plas- 
 
9 
 
 tic hand must be moved by the same ethereal in- 
 stinct as the eloquent lips or the recording pen. 
 The number of those who, in the language of Mi- 
 chael Angelo, can discern the finished statue in the 
 heart of the shapeless block, and bid it start into 
 artistic life, — who are endowed with the exquisite 
 gift of moidding the rigid bronze or the lifeless 
 marble into graceful, majestic, and expressive forms, 
 is not greater than the number of those who are 
 able, with equal majesty, grace, and expressiveness, 
 to make the spiritual essence, — the finest shades of 
 thought and feeling, — sensible to the mind, through 
 the eye and the ear, in the mysterious embodiment 
 of the written and the spoken word. If Athens 
 in her palmiest ^ays had but one Pericles, she had 
 also but one Phidias. 
 
 Nor are these beautiful and noble arts, by which 
 the face and the form of the departed are pre- 
 served to us, — calling into the highest exercise as 
 they do all the imitative and idealizing powers of 
 the painter and scidptor, — the least instructive of 
 our teachers. The portraits and the statues of the 
 honored dead, kindle the generous ambition of the 
 youthful aspirant to flime. Themistocles could not 
 sleep for the trophies in the Ceramicus ; and when 
 the living Demosthenes to whom you, sir, (Mr. Fel- 
 ton,) have alluded, had ceased to speak, the stony 
 lips remained to rebuke and exhort his degenerate 
 
10 
 
 countrymen. More than a liundred years have 
 elapsed since the great Newton passed away ; but 
 from age to age his statue by Roubillac, in the 
 ante-chapel of Trinity College, will give distinctness 
 to the conceptions formed of him by hundreds and 
 thousands of ardent youthful spirits, filled with rev- 
 erence for that transcendent intellect which, from 
 the phenomena that fall within our limited vision, 
 deduced the imperial law by which the Sovereign 
 Mind rules the entire universe. We can never look 
 on the person of Washington, but his serene and 
 noble countenance, perpetuated by the pencil and 
 the chisel, is fjimiliar to far greater multitudes than 
 ever stood in his living presence, and will be thus 
 familiar to the latest generation. 
 
 What parent, as he conducts his son to Mount 
 Auburn or to Bunker Hill, will not, as he pauses 
 before their monumental statues, seek to heighten 
 his reverence for virtue, for patriotism, for science, 
 for learning, for devotion to the public good, as he 
 bids him contemplate the form of that grave and 
 venerable Winthrop, who left his pleasant home in 
 England to come and found a new republic in this 
 untrodden wilderness ; of that ardent and intrepid 
 Otis, who first struclv out the spark of American 
 indejiendence ; of that noble Adams, its most elo- 
 quent champion on the floor of Congress; of that 
 martvr Warren, who laid down his life in its de- 
 
11 
 
 fence; of that self-taught Bowditeh, who, without a 
 guide, threaded the starry mazes of the heavens; 
 of that Story, honored at home and abroad as one 
 of the brightest knninaries of the law, and, by a 
 felicity of which I believe there is no other example, 
 admirably portrayed in marble by his son ? What 
 citizen of Boston, as he accompanies the stranger 
 around our streets, guiding him through our busy 
 thoroughfares, to our wharfs, crowded with vessels 
 which range every sea and gather the produce of 
 every climate, up to the dome of this capitol, which 
 commands as lovely a landscape as can delight the 
 eye or gladden the heart, will not, as he calls his 
 attention at last to the statues of Franklin and 
 Webster, exclaim: — "Boston takes pride in her nat- 
 ural position, she rejoices in her beautiful environs, 
 she is grateful for her material prosperity ; but richer 
 than the merchandise stored in palatial warehouses, 
 greener than the slopes of sea-girt islets, lovelier 
 than this encircling panorama of land and sea. of 
 field and hamlet, of lake and stream, of garden and 
 grove, is the memory of her sons, native and adopted ; 
 the character, services and fame of those who have 
 benefited and adorned their day and generation. 
 Our children, and the schools at which they are 
 trained, our citizens, and the services they have ren- 
 dered: — these are our monuments, these are our 
 jewels, these our abiding treasures." 
 
12 
 
 Yes, your long rows of quarried granite, may 
 crumble to the dust ; the cornhelds in yonder vil- 
 lages, ripening to the sickle, may, like the plains of 
 stricken Lombardy, a few weeks ago, be kneaded 
 into bloody clods by the madding wheels of artil- 
 lery; this populous city, like the old cities of 
 Etruria and the Campagna Romana, may be deso- 
 lated by the pestilence wdiich w\alketh in darkness, 
 may decay with the lapse of time, and the busy 
 mart, which now rings with the joyous din of 
 trade, become as lonely and still as Carthage or 
 Tyre, as Babylon and Nineveh ; but the names of 
 the great and good shall survive the desolation 
 and the ruin ; the memory of the wise, the brave, 
 the patriotic, shall never perish. Yes, Sparta is a 
 wheat-field : — a Bavarian prince holds court at the 
 foot of the Acropolis ; — the travelling virtuoso digs 
 for marbles in the Roman Forum and beneath the 
 ruins of the temple of Jupiter Capitolinus ; but 
 Lycurgus and Leonidas, and Miltiades and Demos- 
 thenes, and Cato and Tully " still live " ; and he 
 still lives, and all the great and good shall live in 
 the heart of ages, while marble and bronze shall 
 endure ; and w^hen marble and bronze have per- 
 ished, they shall "still live" in memory, so long as 
 men shall reverence Law, and honor Patriotism, 
 and love Liberty. 
 

 EULOGIES AT THE TIME OF MR. WEBSTER's DECEASE. 
 
 Seven j^ears, within a few weeks, have passed 
 since he, whose statue we inaugurate to-day, was 
 taken from us. The voice of respectful and affec- 
 tionate eulogy, which was uttered in this vicinity 
 and city at the time, was promptly echoed through- 
 out the country. The tribute paid to his memory, 
 by friends, neighbors, and fellow-citizens, was re- 
 sponded to from the remotest corners of the Republic 
 by those who never gazed on his noble countenance, 
 or listened to the deep melody of his voice. This 
 city, which in early manhood he chose for his 
 home; his associates in the honorable profession of 
 which he rose to be the acknowledged head ; the law 
 school of the neighboring university speaking by 
 the lips of one so well able to do justice to his 
 legal preeminence ; the college at which he was 
 educated and whose chartered privileges he had 
 successfully maintained before the highest tribunal 
 of the country; with other bodies and other eulo- 
 gists, at the bar, in the pulpit, and on the platform, 
 throughout the Union, in numbers, greater I believe 
 than have ever spoken on any other similar occa- 
 sion, except that of the death of Washington, 
 joined with the almost unanimous Press of the 
 country, in one chorus of admiration of his talents. 
 
14 
 
 recognition of his patriotic services, and respect and 
 allection lor his memory. 
 
 Nor have these oileriugs been made at his tomb 
 alone. Twice or thrice since his death, once within 
 a few montlis. — the anniversary of his birthday, has 
 called forth, at the table of patriotic festivity, the 
 voice of fervid eulogy and affectionate commemo- 
 ration. In this way and on these occasions, his 
 character has been delineated by those best able 
 to do justice to his powers and attainments, to ap- 
 preciate his services, to take the measure, if I may 
 so say, of his colossal mental stature. Without 
 going beyond this immediate neighborhood, and in 
 no degree ungrateful for the liberality or insensible 
 to the ability with which he has been eulogized in 
 other parts of the country, what need be said, what 
 can be said in the hearing of those who have lis- 
 tened to Ilillard, to Chief Justice Parker, to Gush- 
 ing, and to our lamented Choate, whose discourse 
 on Mr. Webster at Dartmouth College appears to 
 me as magnificent a eulogium as was ever pro- 
 nounced ? 
 
 What can be said that has not been better said 
 before ; — what need be said now that seven added 
 years in the political progress of the country, seven 
 years of respectful and affectionate recollection on 
 the part of those who now occupy the stage, have 
 confirmed his title to the large place, which, while 
 
15 
 
 he lived, he filled m the public mind? AVliile he 
 yet bore a part in the councils of the Union, he 
 shared the fate which, in all countries, and espe- 
 cially in all free countries, awaits commanding 
 talent and eminent position: — which no great man 
 in our history, — not Washington himself, — has ever 
 escaped ; which none can escajDC, but those who 
 are too feeble to provoke opposition, too obscure 
 for jealousy. But now that he has rested for years 
 in his honored grave, what generous nature is not 
 pleased to strew flowers on the sod ? What hon- 
 orable opponent, still faithful to principle, is not 
 willing that all in which he differed from him 
 should be referred, without bitterness, to the im- 
 partial arbitrament of time ; and that all that he 
 respected and loved should be cordiallj^ remem- 
 bered ? What public man, especially who, with 
 whatever differences of judgment of men or meas- 
 ures, has borne on his own shoulders the heavv 
 burden of responsibility, — who has felt how hard 
 it is, in the larger complications of affairs, at all 
 times, to meet the expectations of an intelligent 
 and watchful, but impulsive and not always thor- 
 oughly instructed public ; how difficidt sometimes 
 to satisfy his own judgment, — is not willing that 
 the noble qualities and patriotic services of Webster 
 sliould be honorably recorded in the book of the 
 country's remembrance, and his statue set up in 
 the Pantheon of her illustrious sons ? 
 
V 
 
 16 
 
 POSTHUMOUS HONORS. 
 
 These posthumous honors lovingly paid to de- 
 parted worth are among the compensations, which 
 a Idnd Providence vouchsafes, for the unavoidable 
 conllicts of judgment and stern collisions of party, 
 which make the political career always arduous, 
 even when pursued with the greatest success, gen- 
 erally precarious, sometimes destructive of health 
 and even of life. It is impossible under free govern- 
 ments to prevent the existence of party ; not less 
 impossible that parties should be conducted with 
 spirit and vigor, without more or less injustice done 
 and suffered, more or less gross uncharitableness and 
 bitter denunciation. Besides, with the utmost effort 
 at impartiality, it is not within the competence of 
 our frail capacities to do full justice at the time 
 to a character of varied and towering greatness, 
 engaged in an active and responsible political career. 
 The truth of his principles, the wisdom of his coun- 
 sels, the value of his services must be seen in their 
 fruits, and the richest fruits are not those of the 
 most rapid growth. The wisdom of antiquity pro- 
 nounced that no one was to be deemed happy until 
 after death; not merely because he was then first 
 placed beyond the vicissitudes of human fortune, but 
 because then onlv the rival interests, the discordant 
 judgments, the hostile passions of contemporaries 
 
17 
 
 are, in ordinary cases, no longer concerned to ques- 
 tion his merits. Horace, with gross adulation, sang 
 to his imperial master, Augustus, that he alone of 
 the great of the earth ever received while living 
 the full meed of praise. All the other great bene- 
 factors of mankind, the inventors of arts, the de- 
 stroyers of monsters, the civilizers of states, found 
 by experience that hatred and envy were appeased 
 by death alone.* 
 
 That solemn event which terminates the material 
 existence, becomes by the sober revisions of contempo- 
 rary judgment, aided by offices of respectful and affec- 
 tionate commemoration, the commencement of a nobler 
 life on earth. The wakeful eyes are closed, the feverish 
 pulse is still, the tired and trembling limbs are relieved 
 from their labors, and the aching head is laid to rest on 
 the lap of its mother earth ; but all that we honored 
 and loved in the living man begins to live again in a 
 new and hio-her beino- of influence and fame. It was 
 given but to a limited number to listen to the living 
 voice, and they can never listen to it again, but the 
 wise teachings, the grave admonitions, the patriotic 
 exhortations which fell from his tongue, will be gath- 
 ered together and garnered up in the memory of 
 millions. The cares, the toils, the sorrows; the con- 
 flicts with others, the conflicts of the fervent spirit with 
 
 * Comperit invidiam supremo fine domari. 
 3 
 
18 
 
 itself; the sad accidents of humanity, the fears of the 
 brave, the folHes of the wise, the errors of the learned ; 
 all that dashed the cup of enjoyment with bitter drops, 
 and strewed sorrowful ashes over the beauty of expec- 
 tation and promise ; the treacherous friend, the ungen- 
 erous rival, the mean and malignant foe ; the unchari- 
 table prejudice which withheld the just tribute of 
 praise ; the human frailty which wove sharp thorns into 
 the wreath of solid merit; — all these, in ordinary cases, 
 are buried in the grave of the illustrious dead ; while 
 their brilliant talents, their deeds of benevolence and 
 public spirit, their wise and eloquent words, their 
 heaUng counsels, their generous affections, the whole 
 man, in short, whom we revered and loved, and would 
 fain unitate, especially when his image is impressed 
 upon our recollections by the pencil or the chisel, goes 
 forth to the admiration of the latest posterity. Ex- 
 tinetus aniahitur idem. 
 
 THE OBSEQUIES OF MR. CHOATE. 
 
 Our city has lately witnessed a most beautiful 
 mstance of this reanimating power of death. A few 
 weeks since, we followed towards the tomb the lifeless 
 remains of our lamented Clioate. Well may we conse- 
 crate a moment, even of this hour, to him who, in that 
 admiiublu discourse to which I have already alluded, 
 flirl sucli noblo jiistice to himself and the great subject 
 
19 
 
 of his eulogy. A short time before the decease of our 
 much honored friend, I had seen him shattered by 
 disease, his all-persuasive voice faint and languid, his 
 beaming eye quenched; and as he left us in search 
 of health in a foreign clime, a painful unage and a 
 sad foreboding, too soon fulfilled, dwelt upon my 
 mind. But on the morning of the day when we 
 were to pay the last mournful offices to our friend, 
 the 23d of July, with a sad, let me not say a repining, 
 thought, that so much talent, so much learning, so 
 much eloquence, so much wit, so much wisdom, so 
 much force of intellect, so much kindness of heart, 
 were taken from us, an engraved likeness of him 
 was brought to me, in which he seemed to Hve again. 
 The shadows of disease and suffering had passed 
 from the brow, the well-remembered countenance was 
 clothed with its wonted serenity, a cheerful smile 
 lighted up the features, genius kindled in the eye, 
 persuasion hovered over the lips, and I felt as if I 
 was going not to his funeral but his triumph. 
 "Weep not for me," it seemed to say, "but weep 
 for yourselves." And never, while he dwelt among 
 us in the feeble tabernacle of the flesh ; never while 
 the overtasked spirit seemed to exhaust the delicate 
 frame in which it sojourned ; never as I had listened 
 to the melody of his living voice, did he speak to 
 my imagination and heart with such a touching 
 though silent eloquence, as when we followed his 
 
20 
 
 hearse along these streets, that bright midsummer's 
 noon. u|) the via sacra in front of this capitol, slowly 
 movmg to the solemn beat of grand dead marches, 
 as they rose and swelled from wailing clarion and 
 mullled drum, while the minute-guns from yonder 
 lawn responded to the jDassing bell from yonder 
 steeple. I then miderstood the sublime significance 
 of the words which Cicero puts into the mouth of 
 Cato, that the mind, elevated to the foresight of pos- 
 terity, when departing from this life, begins at length 
 to live ; yea, the sublimer words of a greater than 
 Cicero, " death, where is thy sting ? grave, 
 where is thy victory?" And then, as we passed the 
 abodes of those whom he knew, and honored and 
 loved, and who had gone before ; of Lawrence here 
 on the left ; of Prescott yonder on the right ; this 
 home where Hancock lived and Washington was 
 received ; this where Lafayette sojourned ; this cap- 
 ital, where his own political course began, and on 
 which so many patriotic memories are concentrated, 
 I felt, not as if we were conducting another frail and 
 weary body to the tomb, but as if we were escorting 
 a noble brother to the congenial companj' of the 
 departed great and good ; and I was ready myself to 
 exclaim, '•'• prwclarmn dicni, cum ad illud divimim ani- 
 morum couciUiim ccdinnqiie profisciscar, ciimque ex hac iurha 
 i't colluvione diaccdam." 
 
21 
 
 THE PERIOD IN WHJCH MR. AVEBSTER LIVED. 
 
 It will not, I think, be expected of me to under- 
 take the superfluous task of narrating in great detail 
 the well-known events of Mr. Webster's life, or of 
 attempting an elaborate delineation of that character, 
 to which such amjDle justice has already been done 
 by master hands. I deem it sufficient to say in 
 general, that, referred to all the standards by which 
 public character can be estimated, he exhibited, in a 
 rare degree, the qualities of a truly great man. 
 
 The period at which he came forward in life, and 
 during which he played so distinguished a part, was 
 not one in which small men, dependent upon their 
 own exertions, are likely to rise to a high place in 
 public estimation. The present generation of young 
 men are hardly aware of the vehemence of the 
 storms that shook the world at the time, when Mr. 
 Webster became old enough to form the first childish 
 conceptions of the nature of the events in progress 
 at home and abroad. His recollection, he tells us, 
 in an autobiographical sketch, went back to the year 
 1790, — a year when the poHtical system of conti- 
 nental Europe was about to jDlunge into a state of 
 frightful disintegration, while, under the new consti- 
 tution, the United States were commencing an 
 unexampled career of prosperity ; Washington just 
 entering upon the first Presidency of the new-born 
 
22 
 
 republic ; the reins of the oldest monarchy in Europe 
 slipping, besmeared with blood, from the hands of 
 the descendant of thirty generations of kings. The 
 fearful struggle between France and the allied powers 
 succeeded, which strained the resources of the Euro- 
 pean governments to their utmost tension. Armies 
 and navies were arrayed against each other, such as 
 the civilized world had never seen before, and wars 
 waged beyond all former experience. The storm 
 passed over the continent as a tornado passes through 
 a forest, when it comes rolling and roaring from the 
 clouds, and prostrates the growth of centuries in its 
 path. England, in virtue of her insular position, her 
 naval power, and her free institutions, had, more than 
 any other foreign country, weathered the storm ; but 
 Russia saw the Arctic sky Hghted with the flames of 
 her old Muscovite capital; the shadowy Kaisers of 
 the House of Hapsburg were compelled to abdicate 
 the crown of the Holy Roman Empire, and accept as 
 a substitute that of Austria ; Prussia, staggering from 
 Jena, trembled on the verge of political annihilation ; 
 the other German States, Italy, Switzerland, Holland, 
 and the Spanish Peninsula, were convulsed; Egypt 
 overrun; Constantinople and the East threatened; 
 and in many of these states, institutions, laws, ideas, 
 and manners were changed as effectually as dynasties. 
 With the downfall of Napoleon, a partial recon- 
 struction of the old forms took place ; but the 
 
23 
 
 political genius of the continent of Europe was 
 revolutionized. 
 
 On this side of the Atlantic, the United States, 
 though studying an impartial neutrality, were drawn 
 at first to some extent into the outer circles of the 
 terrific maelstrom; but soon escaping, they started 
 upon a career of national growth and development 
 of which the world has witnessed no other example. 
 Meantime, the Spanish and the Portuguese Vice- 
 royalties south of us, from Mexico to Cape Horn, 
 asserted their independence ; that Castillian empire 
 on which the sun never set was dismembered, and 
 the golden chain was forever sundered, by which 
 Columbus had linked half his new-found world to the 
 throne of Ferdinand and Isabella. 
 
 Such was the crowd and the importance of the 
 events in which, from his childhood up, the life of 
 Mr. Webster, and of the generation to which he 
 belonged, was passed; and I can with all sincerity 
 say, that it has never been my fortune, in Europe or 
 America, to hold intercourse with any person, who 
 seemed to me to penetrate further than he had done 
 into the spirit of the age, under its successive phases 
 of dissolution, chaos, reconstruction, and progress. 
 Born and bred on the verge of the w^ilderness, (his 
 father a veteran of those old French and Indian wars, 
 in which, in the middle of the eighteenth century, 
 wild men came out of the woods, to wage war with 
 
24 
 
 tlie tomahawk and the scalping knife, against the 
 fireside and the cradle), with the slenderest opportu- 
 nities for early education, entering life with scarce 
 the usual facilities for reading the riddle of foreign 
 statecraft, remote from the scene of action, relying 
 upon sources of information equally open to all the 
 world, he seemed to me, nevertheless, by the instinct 
 of a great capacity, to have comprehended in all its 
 aspects the march of events in Europe and this 
 country. He surveyed the agitation of the age with 
 calmness, deprecated its excesses, sympathized with 
 its progressive tendencies, rejoiced in its triumphs. 
 His first words in Congress, when he came unan- 
 nounced from his native hills in 1813, proclaimed his 
 mastery of the perplexed web of European politics, 
 in which the United States were then but too deeply 
 entangled ; and from that time till his death, I think 
 we all felt, those who differed from him as well as 
 those who agreed with him, that he was in no degree 
 below the standard of his time ; that if Providence 
 had cast his lot in the field where the great destinies 
 of Europe are decided, this poor New Hampshire 
 youth woidd have carried his head as high among 
 the Metternichs, the Nesselrodes, the Hardenbergs, 
 the Talleyrands, the Castlereaghs of the day, and 
 surely among their successors, who now occupy 
 tlie stage, as he did among his contemporaries at 
 lioiue. 
 
25 
 
 HIS CONTEMPORARIES. 
 
 Let me not be thought, however, in this remark, 
 to intimate that these contemporaries at home were 
 second-rate men; flir otherwise. It has sometimes 
 seemed to me that, owing to the natural reverence 
 in which we hold the leaders of the revolutionary 
 period, — the heroic age of the country, — and those 
 of the constitutional age who brought out of chaos 
 this august system of confederate republicanism, we 
 hardly do full justice to the third period in our polit- 
 ical history, which may be dated from about the 
 time when Mr. Webster came into political life, and 
 continued through the first part of his career. The 
 heroes and sages of the revolutionary and constitu- 
 tional period, were indeed gone. Washington, Frank- 
 lin, Greene, Hamilton, Morris, Jay, slept in their 
 honored graves. John Adams, Jefferson, Carroll, 
 though surviving, were withdrawn from affairs. But 
 Madison, who contributed so much to the formation 
 and adoption of the constitution, was at the helm ; 
 Monroe in the cabinet ; John Quincy Adams, Gallatin 
 and Bayard negotiating in Europe; in the Senate 
 were Rufus King, Christopher Gore, Jeremiah Mason, 
 Giles, Otis ; in the House of Representatives, Pick- 
 ering, Clay, Lowndes, Cheves, Calhoun, Gaston, For- 
 syth, Randolph, Oakley, Pitkin, Grosvenor; on the 
 bench of the Supreme Court, Marshall, Livingston, 
 
26 
 
 Story; at the bar, Dexter, Emmet, Pinkney, and 
 Wirt; Avitli many distinguished men not in the gen- 
 eral government, of whom it is enough to name 
 DeWitt Chnton and Chancellor Kent. It was my 
 privilege to see Mr. Webster associated and mingling 
 with nearly all these eminent men, and their suc- 
 cessors, not only in later years, but in my own 
 youth, and when he first came forward, unknown as 
 yet to the country at large, scarcely known to himself, 
 not arrogant, nor yet wholly unconscious of his mighty 
 powers, tied to a laborious profession in a narrow 
 range of practice, but glowing with a generous 
 ambition, and not afraid to grapple with the strongest 
 and boldest in the land. The opinion pronounced 
 of him, at the commencement of his career, by Mr. 
 Lowndes, that the "South had not in Congress his 
 superior, nor the North his equal," savors in the 
 form of expression of sectional partiality. If it had 
 been said, that neither at the South or the 
 North had any public man risen more rapidly to a 
 brilliant reputation, no one, I think, would have 
 denied the justice of the remark. He stood from 
 the first the acknowledged equal of the most distin- 
 guished ol' his associates. In later years he acted 
 with the, successors of those I have named, with 
 Benton, Burges, Edward Livingston, Hayne, McDuffie, 
 McLean, Sergeant, Clayton, Wilde, Storrs, our own 
 Bates, Davis, Gorham, Choate, and others who still 
 
27 
 
 survive; but it will readily be admitted that he 
 never sunk from the position which he assumed at 
 the outset of his career, nor stood second to any 
 man in any part of the country, 
 
 THE QUESTIONS DISCUSSED IN HIS TIME. 
 
 If we now look for a moment at the public ques- 
 tions with which he was called to deal in the course 
 of his career, and with which he did deal, in the most 
 masterly manner, as they successively came up, we 
 shall find new proofs of his great ability. When he 
 first came forward in life, the two great belligerent 
 powers of Europe, contending with each other for 
 the mastery of the world, despising our youthful 
 weakness, and impatient of our gainful neutrality, 
 in violation now admitted of the Law of Nations, 
 emulated each other in the war waged upon our 
 commerce and the insults offered to our flag. To 
 engage in a contest with Voth, would have been 
 madness; the choice of the antagonist was a question 
 of difficulty, and well calculated to furnish topics of 
 reproach and recrimination. Whichever side you 
 adopted, your opponent regarded you as being, in a 
 great national struggle, the apologist of an unfriendly 
 foreign power. In 1798 the United States chose 
 France for their enemy; in 1812, Great Britain. 
 War was declared against the latter country on the 
 
28 
 
 18th of June, 1812; — the orders in Council, which 
 were the immediate, though not the exclusive, cause 
 of the war, were rescinded five days afterwards. 
 Such are the narrow chances on which the fortunes 
 of States depend. 
 
 Great questions of domestic and foreign policy 
 followed the close of war. Of the former class were 
 the restoration of a currency which should truly 
 represent the values which it nominally circulated ; 
 a result mainly brought about by a resolution moved 
 by Mr. Webster; — the fiscal system of the Union 
 and the best mode of connecting the collection, 
 safe-keeping, and disbursement of the public funds, 
 with the commercial wants, and especially with the 
 exchanges of the country; — the stability of the 
 manufactures, w^hicli had been called into existence 
 during the war; what can constitutionally be done, 
 ought anything as a matter of policy to be done by 
 Congress, to protect them from the competition of 
 foreign skill, and the glut of foreign markets ; the 
 internal communications of the Union, a question of 
 paramount interest before the introduction of rail- 
 roads; — can the central power do anything, what 
 can it do, by roads and canals, to bind the distant 
 parts of the continent together; the enlargement of 
 the judicial system of the country to meet the wants 
 of the greatly increased number of the States ; the 
 revision of the criminal code of the United States, 
 
29 
 
 which was almost exclusively his work ; the admin- 
 istration of the public lands, and the best mode of 
 filling with civilized and Christian homes this immense 
 domain, the amplest heritage which was ever sub- 
 jected to the control of a free government ; connected 
 with the public domain, the relations of the civilized 
 and dominant race to the aboriginal children of the 
 soil ; and lastly, the constitutional questions on the 
 nature of the government, which were raised in that 
 gigantic controversy on the interpretation of the 
 fundamental law itself These were some of the most 
 important domestic questions which occupied the 
 attention of Congress and the country, while Mr. 
 Webster was on the stage. 
 
 Of questions connected with foreign affairs, were 
 those growing out of the war, which was in progress 
 when he first became a member of Congress, — then 
 the various questions of International Law, some of 
 them as novel as they were important, which had 
 reference to the entrance or the attempted entrance 
 of so many new States into the family of nations; in 
 Europe, — Greece, Belgium, Hungary; — on this con- 
 tinent, twelve or fourteen new repubhcs, great and 
 small, bursting from the ruins of the Spanish colonial 
 empire, like a group of asteroids from the wreck of 
 an exploded planet ; — the invitation of the infjint 
 American Republics to meet them in Congress at 
 Panama; — our commercial relations with the British 
 
30 
 
 Colonies in the West Indies and on this continent; 
 — demands on several European States for spoliations 
 on our commerce during the wars of the French 
 Revolution ; — our secular controversy with England 
 relative to the boundary of the United States on the 
 north-eastern and Pacific frontiers ; — our relations 
 with Mexico, previous to the war; the immunity of 
 the American flag upon the common jurisdiction of 
 the ocean ; — and more important than all other 
 questions, foreign or domestic, in its influence npon 
 the general politics of the country, the great sectional 
 controversy, — not then first commenced, but greatly 
 increased in warmth and energy, — which connected 
 itself with the organization of the newly acquired 
 Mexican territories. 
 
 Such were the chief questions on which it was Mr. 
 Webster's duty to form opinions; as an influential 
 member of Congress and a political leader, to speak 
 and to vote ; as a member of the Executive govern- 
 ment, to exercise a powerful, over some of them, a 
 decisive control. Besides these, there was another 
 class of questions of great public importance, which 
 came up for adjudication in the Courts of the 
 United States, which he was called professionally 
 to discuss. Many of the questions of each class now 
 referred to, divided, and still divide opinion ; excited, 
 and still excite the feelings of individuals, of parties, 
 of sections of the country. There are some of them. 
 
31 
 
 which in the course of a long life, under changing 
 circumstances, are likely to be differently viewed at 
 different periods, by the same individual. I am not 
 here to-day to rake off the warm ashes from the 
 embers of controversies, which have spent their fury 
 and are dying away, or to fan the fires of those 
 which still burn. But no one, I think, whether he 
 agreed with Mr. Webster or differed from him, as 
 to any of these questions, will deny that he treated 
 them each and all as they came up in the Senate, 
 in the Courts, or in negotiation with foreign powers, 
 in a broad, statesman-like, and masterly way. There 
 are few who would not confess, when they agreed 
 with him, that he had expressed their opinions better 
 than they could do it themselves ; few, when they 
 differed from him, who would not admit that he 
 had maintained his own views manfully, powerfully, 
 and liberally. 
 
 HIS CAREER AS A STATESMAN, 
 
 Such was the period in which Mr. Webster lived, 
 such were the associates with whom he acted, 
 the questions with which he had to deal as a states- 
 man, a jurist, the head of an administration of the 
 government, and a public speaker. Let us contem- 
 plate him for a moment in either capacity. 
 
 Without passing through the preliminary stage 
 
32 
 
 of the State Legislature, and elected to Congress 
 in six years from the time of his admission to the 
 Superior Court of New Hampshire, he was on his 
 first entrance into the House of Representatives, 
 placed by Mr. Speaker Clay on the Committee of 
 Foreio-n Affairs, and took rank forthwith as one of 
 the leading statesmen of the day. His first speech 
 had reference to those famous Berlin and Milan 
 decrees and Orders in Council, to which I have 
 already alluded, and the impression produced by 
 it was such as to lead the venerable Chief Justice 
 Marshall, eighteen years afterwards, in writing to 
 Mr. Justice Story, to say, "At the time when this 
 speech was delivered, I did not know Mr. Webster, 
 but I was so much struck with it, that I did not 
 hesitate then to state that he was a very able man, 
 and would become one of the very first statesmen 
 in America, — perhaps the very first." His mind at 
 the very outset of his career, had, by a kind of 
 instinct, soared from the principles which govern the 
 municipal relations of individuals, to those great 
 rules which dictate the law of nations to indepen- 
 dent States. He tells us, in the fragment of a 
 diary kept while he was a law student in Mr. 
 Gore's office, that he then read Vattel through for 
 the third time. Accordingly, in after life, there 
 was no subject which he discussed with greater 
 pleasure, and I may add, with greater power, than 
 
33 
 
 questions of the Law of Nations. The Revolution 
 of Greece had from its outbreak, attracted much 
 of the attention of the civilized world. A people, 
 whose ancestors had originally tanght letters and 
 arts to mankind, struggling to regain a place in 
 the great family of independent States; the con- 
 vulsive efforts of a Christian people, the foundation 
 of whose churches by the apostles in person, is 
 recorded in the New Testament, to shake off the 
 yoke of Mohammedan despotism, possessed a strange 
 interest for the friends of Christian Liberty through- 
 out Europe and America. President Monroe had 
 called the attention of Congress to this most 
 interesting struggle, in December, 1823, and Mr. 
 Webster, returning to Congress after a retirement 
 of eight years, as the Representative of Boston, 
 made the Greek Revolution the subject of a motion 
 and a speech. In this speech he treated what he 
 called "the great question of the day, — the ques- 
 tion between absolute and regulated governments." 
 He engaged in a searching criticism of the doctrines 
 of the " Holy Alliance," and maintained the duty 
 of the United States as a great free power to 
 protest against them. That speech remains, in my 
 judgment, to this day the ablest and most effective 
 remonstrance against the principles of the allied 
 military powers of continental Europe. Mr. Jere- 
 miah Mason pronounced it " the best sample of 
 
34 
 
 })arliamentary eloquence and statesmanlike reasoning 
 which our country had seen." His indignant pro- 
 test against the spirit of absolutism, and his words 
 of sympathy with an infant people struggling for 
 independence, were borne on the wings of the wind 
 throughout Christendom. They were read in every 
 language, at every court, in every cabinet, in every 
 reading room, on every market place ; by the repub- 
 licans of Mexico and Spanish South America, by 
 the patriots of Italy and of Poland; on the Tagus, 
 on the Danube, as well as at the head of the 
 little armies of revolutionary Greece. The practical 
 impression which it made on the American mind 
 was seen in the liberality with which cargoes of food 
 and clothing, a year or two afterwards, were des- 
 patched to the relief of the Greeks. No legislative 
 or executive measure was adopted at that time in 
 consequence of Mr. Webster's motion and speech, — 
 probably none was anticipated by him; but no one 
 who considers how much the march of events in 
 such cases is inlhienced by the moral sentiments, 
 will doul)t that a great word like this, spoken in 
 the American Congress, must have had no slight 
 effect in cheering the heart of Greece, to persevere 
 in her unequal l)ut finally successful struggle. 
 
 It was by these masterly parliamentary efforts that 
 Mr. Webster left his mark on the age in which he 
 lived. His fidelity to his convictions kept him for 
 
35 
 
 the greater part of his hfe in a minority — a position 
 which he regarded not as a proscription, but as a 
 post of honor and duty. He felt that in free gov- 
 ernments and in a normal state of parties, an oppo- 
 sition is a political necessity, and that it has its 
 duties not less responsible than those which attach 
 to office. Before the importance of Mr. Webster's 
 political services is disparaged for want of positive 
 results, which can only be brought about by those 
 who are clothed with power, it must be shown that 
 to raise a persuasive and convincing voice in the 
 vindication of truth and right, to uphold and assert 
 the true principles of the government under which 
 we hve, and bring them home to the hearts of the 
 people, to do this from a sense of patriotic duty, 
 and without hope of the honors and emoluments of 
 office, to do it so as to instruct the public con- 
 science and warm the public heart, is a less merit- 
 orious service to society, than to touch with skilful 
 hand the springs of party politics, and to hold 
 together the often discordant elements of ill-com- 
 pacted majorities. 
 
 The greatest parliamentary effi^rt made by Mr. 
 Webster, was his second speech on Foote's resolu- 
 tion, — the question at issue being nothing less than 
 this : Is the Constitution of the United States a 
 compact without a common umpire between con- 
 federated sovereignties; or is it a government of 
 
36 
 
 ihe people of the United States, sovereign within 
 the sphere of its delegated powers, although reserv- 
 ing a great mass of undelegated rights to the separate 
 State governments and the people ? With those who 
 embrace the opinions which Mr. Webster combated 
 in this speech, this is not the time nor the place 
 to engage in an argument ; but those who believe 
 that he maintained the true principles of the Con- 
 stitution, will probably agree, that since that instru- 
 ment was communicated to the Continental Congress, 
 seventy-two years ago this day, by George Washing- 
 ton as President of the Federal Convention, no 
 greater service has been rendered to the country 
 than in the delivery of this speech. Well do I 
 recollect the occasion and the scene. It was truly 
 what Wellington called the battle of Waterloo, a 
 contlict of giants. I passed an hour and a half with 
 Mr. Webster, at his request, the evening before this 
 great efibrt; and he went over to me, from a very 
 concise brief, the main topics of the speech which 
 he had prepared for the following day. So calm 
 and unimpassioned was the memorandum, so entirely 
 was he at ease himself, that I was tempted to think, 
 absurdly enough, that he was not sufficiently aware 
 uf the magnitude of the occasion. But T soon per- 
 ceived that his calmness was the repose of conscious 
 j)ower. He was not only at ease, but sportive and 
 liill of anecdote; and as he told the Senate play- 
 
37 
 
 fully the next day, he slept soundly that night on 
 the formidable assault of his gallant and accom- 
 plished adversary. So the great Conde slept on 
 the eye of the battle of Rocroi; so Alexander slept 
 on the eve of the battle of Arbela ; and so they 
 awoke to deeds of immortal fame. As I saw him 
 in the evening, (if I may borrow an illustration 
 from his favorite amusement,) he was as uncon- 
 cerned and as free of spirit, as some here have often 
 seen him, while floating in his fishing boat along a 
 hazy shore, gently rocking on the tranquil tide, 
 dropping his line here and there, with the varying 
 fortune of the sport. The next morning he was 
 like some mighty Admiral, dark and terrible, casting 
 the lono; shadow of his frownino; tiers far over the 
 sea, that seemed to sink beneath him ; his broad 
 pendant streaming at the main, the stars and the 
 stripes at the fore, the mizzen, and the peak ; and 
 bearing down like a tempest upon his antagonist, 
 with all his canvas strained to the wind, and all 
 his thunders roaring from his broadsides. 
 
 AS A JURIST. 
 
 Mr. Webster's career was not less brilliant as a 
 jurist than as a statesman. In fact, he possessed in 
 an eminent degree, a judicial mind. While performing 
 an amount of congressional and official labor suf- 
 

 ficient to fill the busiest day, and to task the strong- 
 est powers, he yet sustained with a giant's strength, 
 the Herculean toils of his profession. At the very 
 commencement of his legal studies, resisting the 
 fascination of a more liberal course of reading, he 
 laid his foundations deep in the common law; grap- 
 pled as well as he might with the weary subtleties 
 and obsolete technicalities of Coke Littleton, and 
 abstracted and translated volumes of reports from 
 the Norman French and Latin. A few years of 
 practice follow in the courts of New Hampshire, 
 interrupted by his service in Congress for two polit- 
 ical terms, and we find him at the bar of the Supreme 
 Court of the United States at Washington, inaugu- 
 rating in the Dartmouth College case, what may 
 be called a new school of constitutional jurisprudence. 
 It would be a waste of time to speak of that 
 great case, or of Mr. Webster's connection with it. 
 It is too freshly remembered in our tribunals. So 
 novel at that time, were the principles involved in 
 it, that a member of the Court, after a cursory 
 inspection of the record in the case, expressed the 
 opinion that little of importance could be urged in 
 behalf of the plaintiff in error ; but so firm is the 
 basis on Avliich, in that and subsequent cases of 
 a similar character, those principles were established, 
 that they form one of the best settled, as they are 
 
39 
 
 one of the most important, portions of the consti- 
 tutional law of the Union. 
 
 Not less important, and, at the time, not less 
 novel, were the principles involved in the celebrated 
 case of Gibbons and Ogden. This case grew out 
 of a grant by the State of New York to the 
 assignees of Fulton, of the exclusive right to navi- 
 gate by steam the rivers, harbors and bays of the 
 Empire State. Twenty-five years afterwards, Mr. 
 Justice Wayne gave to Mr. Webster the credit of 
 having laid down the broad constitutional ground, 
 on which the navigable waters of the United States, 
 " every creek and river and lake and bay and 
 harbor in the country," were forever rescued from 
 the grasp of State monopoly. So failed the inten- 
 tion of the Legislature of New York to secure a 
 rich pecuniary reward to the great perfecter of 
 steam navigation; so must have failed any attempt 
 to compensate by money the inestimable achieve- 
 ment. Monopolies could not reward it; silver and 
 gold could not weigh down its value. Small services 
 are paid with money and place; large ones with fame. 
 Fulton had his reward, when, after twenty years 
 of unsuccessful experiment and hope deferred, he 
 made the passage to Albany by steam ; as Frank- 
 lin had his reward when he saw the fibres of the 
 cord which held his kite stiffening with the elec- 
 tricity they had drawn from the thunder-cloud; 
 
40 
 
 as Galileo had his when he pointed his little tube 
 to the heavens and discovered the Medicean stars; 
 as Columbus had his when he beheld from the deck 
 of his vessel a moving light on the shores of his 
 new found world. That one glowing unutterable 
 thrill of conscious success is too exquisite to be 
 alloyed with baser metal. The midnight vigils, the 
 aching eyes, the fiiinting hopes turned at last into 
 one bewildering ecstasy of triumph, cannot be repaid 
 with gold. The great discoveries, improvements and 
 inventions which benefit mankind, can only be 
 rewarded by opposition, obloquy, poverty, and an 
 undying name. 
 
 Time would fail me, were I otherwise equal to 
 the task, to dwell on the other great constitutional 
 cases argued by Mr. Webster ; those on State 
 insolvent laws, the Bank of the United States, 
 the Sailor's Snug Harbor, the Charlestown Bridge 
 Franchise, or those other great cases on the va- 
 lidity of Mr. Girard's will, in which Mr. Webster's 
 argument drew forth an emphatic acknowledgment 
 from the citizens of Washington, of all denomina- 
 tions, for its great value " in demonstrating the vital 
 importance of Christianity to the success of our free 
 institutions, and that the general diffusion of that 
 argument among the people of the United States 
 is a matter of deep public interest;" or the argu- 
 ment of the Bhode Island charter case in 1848, 
 
41 
 
 which attracted no little public notice in Europe 
 at that anxious period, as a masterly discussion of 
 the true principles of constitutional obligation. 
 
 It would be superfluous, I might almost say im- 
 pertinent, to remark, that if Mr. Webster stood at 
 the head of the constitutional lawyers of the coun- 
 try, he was not less distinguished in early and middle 
 life, in the ordinary walks of the profession. From 
 a very early period he shared the best practice with 
 the most eminent of his profession. The trial of 
 Goodridge in 1817, and of Knapp in 1829, are still 
 recollected as specimens of the highest professional 
 skill; the latter, in fact, as a case of historical im- 
 portance in the criminal jurisprudence of the country. 
 
 But, however distinguished his reputation in the 
 other departments of his profession, his fame as a 
 jurist is mainly associated with the tribunals of the 
 United States. The relation of the Federal Govern- 
 ment to that of the States is peculiar to this country, 
 and gives rise to a class of cases in the Supreme 
 Court of the United States, to which there is noth- 
 ing analogous in the jurisprudence of England. In 
 that country nothing, not even the express words 
 of a treaty, can be pleaded against an act of Par- 
 liament. The Supreme Court of the United States 
 entertains questions which involve the constitutionality 
 of the laws of State legislatures, the validity of the 
 decrees of State courts, nay of the constitutionality 
 
42 
 
 of acts of Congress itself Every one feels that 
 this range and elevation of jurisdiction must tend 
 greatly to the respectability of practice at that 
 forum, and give a breadth and liberality to the 
 tone with which questions are there discussed, not 
 so much to be looked for in the ordinary litigation 
 of the common law. No one needs to be reminded 
 how fully Mr. Webster felt, and in his own relations 
 to it, sustained the dignity of this tribunal. He 
 regarded it as the great mediating power of the 
 Constitution. He believed that while it commanded 
 the confidence of the country, no serious derange- 
 ment of any of the other great functions of the 
 government was to be apprehended; if it should 
 ever fail to do so, he feared the worst. For the 
 memory of Marshall, the great and honored magis- 
 trate who presided in this court for the third part 
 of a century, and did so much to raise its rejDuta- 
 tion and establish its influence, he cherished feelings 
 of veneration second only to those which he bore 
 to the memory of Washington. 
 
 AS A DIPLOMATIST. 
 
 In his political career Mr. Webster owed almost 
 everything to popular choice, or the favor of the 
 Legislature of Massachusetts. He was, however, twice 
 clothed with executive power, as the head of an 
 
43 
 
 Administration, and in that capacity achieved a diplo- 
 matic success of the highest order. Among the 
 victories of peace not less renowned than those of 
 war which Milton celebrates, the first place is surely 
 due to those friendly arrangements between great 
 powers, by which war is averted. Such an arrange- 
 ment was effected by Mr. Webster in 1842, in 
 reference to more than one highly irritating question 
 between this country and Great Britain, and especially 
 the North-eastern Boundary of the United States. 
 I allude to the subject, not for the sake of reopen- 
 ing obsolete controversies, but for the purpose of 
 vindicating his memory from the charges of disin- 
 genuousness and even fraud which were brought 
 against him at the time in England, and which 
 have very lately been revived in that countr}'-. I 
 do it the rather as the facts of the case have never 
 been fully stated. 
 
 The North-eastern Boundary of the United States, 
 which was described by the treaty of 1783, had 
 never been surveyed and run. It was still unsettled 
 in 1842, and had become the subject of a contro- 
 versy which had resisted the ability of several suc- 
 cessive administrations, on both sides of the water, 
 and had nearly exhausted the resources of arbitration 
 and diplomacy. Border collisions, though happily no 
 bloodshed, had taken place ; seventeen regiments had 
 been thrown into the British Provinces; General 
 
44 
 
 Scott had been despatched to the frontier of Maine; 
 and our Minister in London (Mr. Stevenson,) had 
 written to the commander of the American squadron 
 in the Mediterranean, that a war, in his opinion, was 
 inevitable. 
 
 Such was the state of things when Mr. Webster 
 came into the Department of State in the spring 
 of 1841. He immediately gave an intimation to the 
 British government that he was desirous of renew- 
 ing the interrupted negotiation. A change of min- 
 istry took place in England, in the course of a few 
 months, and a resolution was soon taken by Sir 
 Robert Peel and Lord Aberdeen, to send a special 
 Envoy to the United States, to make a last attempt 
 to settle this dangerous dispute by negotiation. 
 Lord Ashburton was selected for this honorable 
 errand, and his known friendly relations with Mr. 
 Webster were among the motives that prompted 
 his appointment. It may be observed that the in- 
 trinsic dilTiculties of the negotiation were increased 
 by the circumstance, that, as the disputed territory 
 lay in the State of Maine, and the property of the 
 soil was in Maine and Massachusetts, it was deemed 
 necessary to obtain the consent of those States to 
 any arrangement that might be entered into by 
 the general government. 
 
 The length of time for which the question had 
 l)een controverted had, as usually happens in such 
 
45 
 
 cases, had the effect of fixing both parties more 
 firmly in their oj^posite views of the subject. It 
 was a pledge at least of the good faith with which 
 the United States had conducted the discussion, that 
 everything in our archives bearing on the subject 
 had been voluntarily spread before the world. On 
 the other side, no part of the correspondence of 
 the ministers who negotiated the treaty of 1783 had 
 ever been published, and whenever Americans were 
 permitted for literary purposes to institute historical 
 inquiries in the public offices in London, precautions 
 were taken to prevent anything from being brought 
 to light, which might bear unfavorably on the Brit- 
 ish interpretation of the treaty. 
 
 The American interpretation of the treaty had 
 been maintained in its fullest extent, as far as I 
 am aware, by every statesman in the country, of 
 whatever party, to whom the question had ever 
 been submitted. It had been thus maintained in 
 good faith by an entire generation of public men 
 of the highest intelligence and most unquestioned 
 probity. The British government had, with equal 
 confidence, maintained their interpretation. The at- 
 tempt to settle the controversy by a reference to 
 the King of the Netherlands had failed. In this 
 state of things, as the boundary had remained un- 
 settled for fifty-nine years, and had been controverted 
 for more than twenty; as negotiation and arbitra- 
 
46 
 
 tion had shown that neither i3arty was hkely to 
 convince the other; and as in cases of this kind 
 it is more important that a piibUc controversy 
 should be settled than how it should be settled, (of 
 course within reasonable limits,) Mr. Webster had 
 from the first contemplated a conventional line. 
 Such a line, and for the same reasons, was antici- 
 pated in Lord Ashburton's instructions, and was 
 accordingly agreed upon by the two negotiators; — 
 a line convenient and advantageous to both parties. 
 
 Such an adjustment, however, like that which had 
 been proposed by the King of the Netherlands, was 
 extremely distasteful to the people of Maine, who, 
 standing on their rights, adhered with the greatest 
 tenacity to the boundary described by the treaty of 
 1783, as the United States had always claimed it. 
 As the opposition of Maine had prevented that ar- 
 rangement from taking effect, there is great reason 
 to suppose that it would have prevented the adoption 
 of the conventional line agreed to by Mr. Webster 
 and Lord Ashburton, but for the following circum- 
 stance. 
 
 This was the discovery, the year before, by Pres- 
 ident Sparks, in the archives of the Bureau of 
 Foreign Affairs, at Paris, of a copy of a small map 
 of North America, by D'Anville, published in 1746, 
 on which a red line was drawn, indicating a boun- 
 dary between the United States and Great Britain 
 
47 
 
 more favorable to the latter than she herself had 
 claimed it. By whom it was marked, or for what 
 purpose, did not appear, from any indication on 
 the map itself There was also found, in the 
 Bureau of Foreign Affairs, in a bound volume of 
 official correspondence, a letter from Dr. Franklin 
 to the Count de Vergennes, dated on the 6th of De- 
 cember, 1782, (six days after the signature of the 
 provisional articles,) stating that in compliance with 
 the Count's request, and on a map sent him for 
 the purpose, he had marked, " with a strong red 
 line, the limits of the United States, as settled in 
 the preliminaries." 
 
 The French archives had been searched by Mr. 
 Canning's agents as long ago as 1827, but this 
 map either escaped their notice, or had not been 
 deemed by them of importance. The English and 
 French maps of this region differ from each other, 
 and it is known that the map used by the nego- 
 tiators of the treaty of 1783, was Mitchell's large 
 map of America, published under the official sanc- 
 tion of the Board of Trade in 1754. D'Anville's 
 map was but eighteen inches square ; and on so 
 small a scale the difference of the two boundaries 
 would be but slight, and consequently open to 
 mistake. The letter of the Count de Vergennes, 
 transmitting a map to be marked, is not preserved, 
 nor is there any endorsement on the red-line map, 
 
48 
 
 to show that it is the map sent by the Count and 
 marked by FrankHn. D'Anville's map was pub- 
 lished in 1746, and it would surely be unwarrant- 
 able to take for granted, in a case of such importance, 
 that, in the course of thirty years, it could not have 
 been marked with a red line, for some other pur- 
 pose, and by some other person. It would be equally 
 rash to assume as certain, either that the map 
 marked by Franklin for the Count de Vergennes w^as 
 deposited by him in the public archives ; or, that 
 if so deposited, it may not be concealed among 
 the sixty thousand maps contained in that deposi- 
 tory. The official correspondence of Mr. Oswald, 
 the British negotiator, was retained by the British 
 minister in his own possession, and does not ap- 
 pear ever to have gone into the public archives. 
 
 In the absence of all evidence to connect Dr. 
 Franklin's letter with the map, it could not, in a 
 court of justice, have been received for a moment 
 as a map marked by him ; and any presumption 
 that it was so marked was resisted by the lan- 
 guage of the treaty. This point was urged in 
 debate, with great force, by Lord Brougham, who, as 
 well as Sir Robert Peel, liberally defended Mr. 
 Webster from the charges, which the opposition 
 journals in London had brought against him. 
 
 Information of this map was, in the progress of 
 the negotiation, very properly communicated to Mr. 
 
49 
 
 Webster by Mr. Sparks. For the reasons stated, it 
 could not be admitted as proving anything. It was 
 another piece of evidence of uncertain character, 
 and Mr. Webster could have no assurance that 
 the next day might not produce some other map 
 equally strong or stronger on the American side ; 
 which, as I shall presently state, was soon done in 
 London. 
 
 In this state of things, he made the onl}^ use of 
 it, which could be legitimately^ made, in communi- 
 cating it to the commissioners of the State of 
 Maine and Massachusetts, and to the Senate, as a 
 piece of conflicting evidence, entitled to considera- 
 tion, likely to be urged as of great importance 
 by the opposite party, if the discussion should be 
 renewed, increasing the difficulties which already 
 surrounded the question, and thus furnishing new 
 grounds for agreeing to the proposed conventional 
 line. No one, I think, acquainted with the history 
 of the controversy, and the state of public opinion 
 and feeling, can doubt that, but for this communi- 
 cation, it would have been difficult, if not impos- 
 sible, to procure the assent either of Maine or of 
 the Senate to the treaty. 
 
 This would seem to be going as far as reason 
 or honor required, in reference to an unauthenti- 
 cated document, having none of the properties of 
 legal evidence, not exhibited by the opposite party, 
 
50 
 
 and of a nature to be outweighed by contradictory 
 evidence of the same kind, which was very soon 
 done. But Mr. Webster was at the time, severely 
 censured by the opposition press in England, and 
 was accused of "perfidy and want of good faith," 
 (and this charge has lately been revived in an 
 elaborate and circumstantial manner), for not going 
 with this map to Lord Ashburton ; entirely aban- 
 doning the American claim, and ceding the whole 
 of ihe disputed territory, more even than she asked, 
 to Great Britain, on the strength of this single 
 piece of doubtful evidence. 
 
 Such a charge scarcely deserves an answer ; but 
 two things will occur to all impartial persons, — 
 one, that the red-line map, even had it been 
 proved to have been marked by Franklin (which 
 it is not), would be but one piece of evidence, 
 to be weighed, with the words of the treaty, with 
 all the other evidence in the case, and especially 
 with the other maps; and, secondly, that such a 
 course, as it is pretended that Mr. Webster ought 
 to have pursued, could only l)e reasonably required 
 of him, on condition that the British government 
 had also produced, or would undertake to pro- 
 duce, all the evidence, and especially all the 
 maps in its possession, favorable to the American 
 claim. 
 
 Now, not to urge against the red-line map, that. 
 
51 
 
 as was vigorously argued by Lord Brougham, it 
 was at variance with the express words of the 
 treaty, there were, according to Mr. Gallatin, the 
 commissioner for preparing the claim of the United 
 States, to be submitted to the arbiter in 1827, at 
 least twelve maps, published in London, in the 
 course of two years after the signature of the 
 provisional articles in 1782, all of which give the 
 boundary line precisely as claimed by the United 
 States ; and no map was published in London, fa- 
 voring the British claim, till the third year. The 
 earliest of these maps were prepared to illustrate 
 the debates in Parliament on the treaty ; or to 
 illustrate the treaty in anticipation of the debate. 
 None of the speakers on either side intimated that 
 these maps are inaccurate, though some of the op- 
 position speakers attacked the treaty as giving a 
 disadvantageous boundary. One of these maps, that 
 of Faden, the royal geographer, was stated on the 
 face of it to be " drawn according to the treaty." Mr. 
 Sparks is of opinion that Mr. Oswald, the British 
 envoy by whom the treaty was negotiated, and 
 who was in London when the earliest of the maps 
 were engraved, was consulted by the map-makers 
 on the subject of the boundary. At any rate, had 
 they been inaccurate in this respect, either Mr. 
 Oswald, or the minister, " who was vehemently as- 
 sailed on account of the large concession of the 
 
52 
 
 boundaries," would have exposed the error. But 
 neither by Mr. Oswald nor by any of the minis- 
 ters was any complaint made of the inaccuracy of 
 the maps. 
 
 One of these maps was that contained in "Bew's 
 Political Magazine," a respectable journal, for which 
 it was prepared, to illustrate the debate on the 
 provisional articles of 1782. It happened that Lord 
 Ashburton was calling upon me, about the time 
 of the debate in the House of Commons on the 
 merits of the treaty, on the 21st of March, 1843. 
 On my expressing to him the opinion, with the 
 freedom warranted by our intimate friendly rela- 
 tions, that his government ought to be much 
 obliged to him, for obtaining so much of a terri- 
 tory, of which I conscientiously believed the whole 
 belonged to us, "What," asked he, "have you to 
 oppose to the red-line map?" I replied that, in 
 addition to the other objections already mentioned, 
 T considered it to be outweighed by the numerous 
 other maps which were published at London at 
 the time, some of them to illustrate the treaty ; 
 and, among them, I added, " the map in the vol- 
 ume which happens to lie on my table at this 
 moment," which was the volume of " Bew's Po- 
 litical Magazine," to which I called his attention. He 
 told me that he was unacquainted with that map, 
 and desired that 1 would lend him the volume, to 
 show to Sir Robert Peel. This T did, and in his 
 
53 
 
 reply to Lord Palmerston, in the House of Com- 
 mons, Sir Robert Peel, holding this volume of mine 
 in his hand, referred to the map contained in it, 
 and " which follows," said he, " exactly the Ameri- 
 can line," as an offset to the red-line map, of which 
 great use had been made by the opposition in Eng- 
 land, for the purpose of showing that Lord Ash- 
 burton had been overreached by Mr. Webster. In 
 the course of his speech, he defended Mr. Webster 
 in the handsomest manner, from the charo;es brous'ht 
 against him in reference to this map, by the oppo- 
 sition press, and said that in his judgment "the 
 reflections cast upon that most worthy and honor- 
 able man are unjust." 
 
 Nor was this all. The more effectually to remove 
 the impression attempted to be raised, in consequence 
 of the red-line map, that Lord Ashburton had been 
 overreached, Sir Robert Peel stated, — and the disclosure 
 ivas noil) for the first time made, — that there was, in the 
 library of King George the Third, (which had been 
 given to the British Museum by George the Fourth), 
 a copy of Mitchell's map, in which the boundary as 
 delineated "follows exactly the line claimed by the 
 United States." On four places upon this line are 
 written the words, in a strong, bold hand, "The 
 boundary as described by Mr. Oswald." There is 
 documentary proof that Mr. Oswald sent the map 
 used by him in negotiating the treaty to King- 
 George the Third, for his information ; and Lord 
 
54 
 
 Brougham stated in his jDlace, in the House of Peers, 
 that the words, four times repeated in different 
 parts of the hne, were, in his opinion, written by 
 the king himself! Having Ustened, and of course 
 with the deepest interest, to the debate in the House 
 of Connnons, I sought the earUest opportunity of 
 inspecting the map, which was readily granted to 
 me by Lord Aberdeen. The boundary is marked, in 
 the most distinct and skilful manner, from the St. 
 Croix all round to the St. Mary's, and is precisely 
 that which has been always claimed by us. There is 
 every reason to believe that this is the identical 
 copy of Mitchell's map officially used by the nego- 
 tiators, and sent by Mr. Oswald, as we learn from 
 Dr. Franklin, to England. Sir Robert Peel informed 
 me that it was unknown to him till after the treaty ; 
 and Lord Aberdeen and Lord Ashburton gave me 
 the same assurance. It was well known, however, 
 to the agent employed under Lord Melbourne's 
 administration in maintaining the British claim, and 
 who was foremost in vilifying Mr. Webster for con- 
 cealing the red-line map ! 
 
 * 
 
 * Sir Robert Peel, with reference to the line on Oswald's map, observes, 
 " I do not say that that was the boundary, ultimately settled by the nego- 
 tiators." Such, however, is certainly the case. Mr. Jay's copy of Mitchell's 
 map (which was also discovered after the negotiation of the treaty), 
 exhibits a line running down the St. John's to its mouth, and called " Mr. 
 Oswald's line." This is the line which Mr. Oswald offered to the American 
 negotiators on the 8th of October. It was, however, not approved by the 
 Brkisli Government, and the line indicated in the map of King George the 
 Third, as the "Boundary as described by Mr. Oswald," was finally 
 agreed to. 
 
55 
 
 AS A PUBLIC SPEAKER. 
 
 I had intended to say a few words on Mr. Web- 
 ster's transcendent ability as a public speaker on 
 the great national anniversaries, and the patriotic 
 celebrations of the country. But it would be impos- 
 sible, within the limits of a few paragraphs, to do 
 any kind of justice to such efforts as the discourse 
 on the twenty-second December, at Plymouth ; the 
 speeches on the laying the corner-stone, and the 
 completion of the Bunker Hill Monument ; the 
 eulogy on Adams and Jefferson ; the character of 
 Washington ; the discourse on laying the foun- 
 dation of the extension of the Capitol. What 
 gravity and significance in the topics, what rich- 
 ness of illustration, what soundness of principle, 
 what elevation of sentiment, what fervor in the 
 patriotic appeals, what purity, vigor, and clearness 
 in the style ! 
 
 With reference to the first-named of these admir- 
 able discourses, the elder President Adams declared 
 that " Burke is no longer entitled to the praise — 
 the most consummate orator of modern times." And 
 it will, I think, be admitted by any one who shall 
 attentively study them, that if Mr. Webster, with all 
 his powers and all his attainments, had done nothing 
 else but enrich the literature of the country with 
 
56 
 
 these jDerformances, he would be allowed to have 
 lived not unworthily, nor in vain. When we con- 
 sider that they were produced under the severe 
 pressure of professional and official engagements, 
 numerous and arduous enough to task even his 
 intellect, we are lost in admiration of the affluence 
 of his mental resources. 
 
 GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS OF STYLE AND MANNER. 
 
 In all the speeches, arguments, discourses, and 
 compositions of every kind proceeding from Mr. 
 Webster's lips or pen, there were certain general 
 characteristics which I am unwilling to dismiss without 
 a passing allusion. Each, of course, had its peculiar 
 merits, according to the nature and importance of 
 the subject, and the care bestowed by Mr. Webster 
 on the discussion ; but I find some general qualities 
 pervading them all. One of them is the extreme 
 sobriety of the tone, the pervading common sense, 
 the entire absence of that extravagance and over- 
 statement which are so apt to creep into political 
 harangues, and discourses on patriotic anniversa- 
 ries. His positions are taken strongly, clearly, and 
 boldly, but without wordy amplification, or one-sided 
 vehemence. You feel that your understanding is 
 addressed, on behalf of a reasonable proposition, 
 which rests neither on sentimental refinement or 
 
57 
 
 rhetorical exaggeration. This is the case even in 
 speeches Hke that on the Greek Revolution, where 
 in enlisting the aid of classical memories and Christian 
 sympathies, it was so difficult to rest within the 
 bounds of moderation. 
 
 This moderation not only characterizes Mr. Web- 
 ster's parliamentary efforts, but is equally conspicuous 
 in his discourses on popular and patriotic occasions, 
 which, amidst all the inducements to barren declam- 
 ation, are equally and always marked by the treatment 
 of really important topics, in a manly and instructive 
 strain of argument and reflection. 
 
 Let it not be thought, however, that I would rep- 
 resent Mr. Webster's speeches in Congress or else- 
 where, as destitute, on proper occasions, of the most 
 glowing appeals to the moral sentiments, or wanting, 
 when the topic invites it, in any of the adornments 
 of a magnificent rhetoric. Who that heard it, or has 
 read it, will ever forget the desolating energy of his 
 denunciation of the African slave trade, in the dis- 
 course at Plymouth ; or the splendor of the apostrophe 
 to Warren, in the first discourse on Bunker Hill ; or 
 that to the monumental shaft and the survivors of 
 the Revolution in the second; or the trumpet-tones 
 of the speech placed in the lips of John Adams, in 
 the eulogy on Adams and Jefferson; or the sublime 
 peroration of the speech on Foot's resolution ; or 
 the lyric fire of the imagery by which he illustrates 
 
58 
 
 the extent of the British empire ; or the almost super- 
 natural terror of his description of the force of con- 
 science in the argument in Knapp's trial ? Then, how 
 bright and fresh the description of Niagara! how 
 beautiful the picture of the Morning, in his private 
 correspondence, which, as well as his familiar conver- 
 sation, were enlivened by the perpetual play of a 
 joyous and fertile imagination ! In a word, what 
 tone in all the grand and melting music^of our lan- 
 guage is there, which is not heard in some portion 
 of his speeches or writings ; while reason, sense, and 
 truth compose the basis of the strain? Like the sky 
 above us, it is sometimes serene and cloudless, and 
 peace and love shine out from its starry depths. At 
 other times the gallant streamers, in wild, fantastic 
 play, — emerald, and rose, and orange, and fleecy 
 white, — shoot upward from the horizon, mingle in a 
 fiery canopy, at the zenith, and throw out their flick- 
 ering curtains over the heavens and the earth ; while 
 at other times the mustering tempest piles his lower- 
 ing battlements on the sides of the north, a furious 
 storm-wind rushes forth from their blazing loop-holes, 
 and volleyed thunders give the signal of the elemental 
 war! 
 
 Another quality, which appears to me to be very 
 conspicuous in all Mr. Webster's speeches, is the 
 fairness and candor with which he treats the argument 
 of his opponent, and the total absence of offensive 
 
59 
 
 personality. He was accustomed, in preparing to 
 argue a question at the bar, or to debate it in the 
 Senate, first to state his opponent's case or argument 
 in his own mind, with as much force and skill as if it 
 were his own view of the subject, not deeming it 
 worthy of a statesman discussing the great issues of 
 the public weal, to assail and prostrate a man of 
 straw, and call it a victory over his antagonist. True 
 to his party associations, there was the least possible 
 mingling of the partisan in his parliamentary efforts. 
 No one, I think, ever truly said of him, that he had 
 either misrepresented or failed to grapple fairly with 
 the arerument which he undertook to confute. That 
 he possessed the power of invective in the highest 
 degree is well known, from the display of it on a few 
 occasions, when great provocation justified and 
 required it; but he habitually abstained from 
 offensive personality, regarding it as an indication 
 always of a bad temper, and generally of a weak 
 cause. 
 
 I notice, lastly, a sort of judicial dignity in Mr. 
 Webster's mode of treating public questions, which 
 may be ascribed to the high degree in which he 
 united, in the range of his studies and the habits of 
 his life, the jurist with the statesman. There were 
 occasions, and those not a few, when, but for the 
 locality from which he spoke, you might have been 
 at a loss, whether you were listening to the accom- 
 
60 
 
 plishecl senator unfolding the principles of the Con- 
 stitution as a system of government, or the consum- 
 mate jurist applying its legislative provisions to the 
 practical interests of life. In the Dartmouth College 
 case, and that of Gibbons and Ogden, the dryness of 
 a professional argument is forgotten in the breadth 
 and elevation of the constitutional principles shown 
 to be involved in the issue ; while in the great 
 speeches on the interpretation of the Constitution, a 
 severe judicial logic darts its sunbeams into the 
 deepest recesses of a written compact of government, 
 intended to work out a harmonious adjustment of the 
 antagonistic principles of federal and state sovereignty. 
 None, I think, but a great statesman could have 
 performed Mr. Webster's part before the highest 
 tribunals of the land ; none but a great lawyer could 
 have sustained himself as he did on the floor of the 
 Senate. In fact, he rose to that elevation at which 
 the law, in its highest conception, and in its versatile 
 functions and agencies, as the great mediator between 
 the state and the individual ; the shield by which the 
 weakness of the single man is protected from the 
 violence and craft of his fellows, and clothed for the 
 defence of his rights with the mighty power of the 
 mass ; which watches, faithful guardian, over the life 
 and property of the orphan in the cradle ; spreads the 
 ocgis of the public peace alike over the crowded streets 
 of great cities and the solitary pathways of the wil- 
 
61 
 
 derness ; which convoys the merchant and his cargo 
 in safety to and from the ends of the earth ; prescribes 
 the gentle humanities of civiHzation to contending 
 armies; sits serene umpire of the clashing interests 
 of confederated states, and moulds them all into one 
 grand union; — I say Mr. Webster rose to an elevation 
 at which all these attributes and functions of universal 
 law, — in action alternately executive, legislative, and 
 judicial ; in form successively constitution, statute, and 
 decree, — are mingled into one harmonious, protecting, 
 strengthening, vitalizing, sublime system; brightest 
 image on earth of that ineffable Sovereign Energy, 
 which, with mingled power, wisdom, and love, upholds 
 and governs the universe. 
 
 THE CENTRAL IDEA OF HIS POLITICAL SYSTEM. 
 
 Led equally by his professional occupations and 
 his political duties to make the Constitution the 
 object of his profoundest study and meditation, he 
 regarded it, with peculiar reverence, as a Covenant 
 of Union between the members of this great and 
 increasing family of States; and in that respect he 
 considered it as the most important document ever 
 penned by the hand of uninspired man. I need 
 not tell you that this reverence for the Constitu- 
 tion as the covenant of union between the States 
 was the central idea of his political system, which, 
 
62 
 
 however, in this, as in all other respects, aimed at 
 a wise and safe balance of extreme opinions. He 
 valued, as much as any man can possibly value it, 
 the principle of State sovereignty. He looked upon 
 the organization of these separate independent re- 
 publics — of different sizes, different ages and histories, 
 diflferent geographical positions, and local interests, 
 as furnishing a security of inappreciable value for 
 a wise and beneficent administration of local affairs, 
 and the protection of individual and local rights. 
 But he regarded as an approach to the perfection 
 of political wisdom, the moulding of these separate 
 and independent sovereignties, with all their pride 
 of individual right and all their jealousy of indi- 
 vidual consequence, into a well-compacted whole. 
 He never weighed the two princij)les against each 
 other; he held them complemental to each other, 
 equally and supremely vital and essential. 
 
 I happened, one bright starry night, to be walk- 
 ing home with him at a late hour, from the Capitol 
 at Washington, after a skirmishing debate, in which 
 he had been speaking, at no great length, but with 
 much earnestness and warmth, on the subject of the 
 Constitution as forming a united government. The 
 planet Jupiter, shining with unusual brilliancy, was 
 in full view. He paused as we descended Capitol 
 Hill, and unconsciously pursuing the train of thought 
 which he had been enforcing in the Senate, pointed 
 
63 
 
 to the planet and said, — "'Night unto night show- 
 eth knowledge ; ' take away the independent force, 
 emanating from the hand of the Supreme, which 
 impels that planet onward, and it would plunge in 
 hideous ruin from those beautiful skies into the 
 sun ; take away the central attraction of the sun, 
 and the attendant planet would shoot madly from 
 its sphere ; urged and restrained by the balanced 
 forces, it wheels its eternal circles through the 
 heavens." 
 
 HE CONTEMPLATES A WORK ON THE CONSTITUTION. 
 
 His reverence for the Constitution led him to 
 meditate a work in which the history of its formar 
 tion and adoption should be traced, its principles 
 unfolded and explained, its analogies with other 
 governments investigated, its expansive fitness to 
 promote the prosperity of the country for ages yet 
 to come developed and maintained. His thoughts 
 had long flowed in this channel. The subject was 
 not only the one on which he had bestowed his 
 most earnest parliamentary efforts j but it formed 
 the point of reference of much of his historical and 
 miscellaneous reading. He was anxious to learn what 
 the experience of mankind taught on the subject of 
 governments, in any degree resembling our own. As 
 our fathers, in forming the Confederation, and still 
 
64 
 
 more the members of the Convention which framed 
 the Constitution, and especially Washington, studied 
 with diligence the organization of all the former 
 compacts of government, — those of the Netherlands, 
 of Switzerland, and ancient Greece, — so Mr. Webster 
 directed special attention to all the former leagues 
 and confederacies of modern and ancient times, for 
 lessons and analogies of encouragement and warning 
 to his countrymen. He dwelt much on the Amphic- 
 tyonic league of Greece, one of the confederacies to 
 which the framers of the Constitution often referred, 
 and which is frequently spoken of as a species of 
 federal government. Unhappily for Greece, it had 
 little claim to that character. Founded originally " 
 on a confraternity of religious rites, it was expanded 
 in the lapse of time into a loose political associa- 
 tion, but was destitute of all the powers of an 
 organized efficient government. On this subject Mr. 
 Webster found a remark in Grote's History of 
 Greece, which struck him as being of extreme sig- 
 nificance to the people of the United States. Occa- 
 sionally, says Grote, "there was a partial pretence 
 for the imposing title bestowed upon the Amphic- 
 tyonic league by Cicero, 'Comnume Gr^BcijB Concil- 
 ium,' but we should completely misinterpret Grecian 
 history, if we regarded it as a federal council habit- 
 ually directing, or habitually obeyed." "And now," 
 said Mr. Webster, "comes a passage, which ought 
 
65 
 
 to be written in letters of gold over the door of 
 the Capitol and of every State Legislature: 'Had 
 there existed any such "Commune Concilium" of 
 tolerable wisdom and patriotism, and had the ten- 
 dencies of the Hellenic mind been capable of adapting 
 themselves to it, the whole course of later Grecian 
 history would probably have been altered; the Mace- 
 donian kings would have remained only as respectable 
 neighbors, borrowing their civilization from Greece, 
 and exercising their military energies upon Thracians 
 and Illyrians; while united Hellas might have main- 
 tained her own territory against the conquering 
 legions of Rome.' " -^ A wise and patriotic federal 
 government would have preserved Greece from the 
 Macedonian phalanx and the Roman legions ! 
 
 Professional and official labors engrossed Mr. Web- 
 ster's time, and left him no leisure for the execu- 
 tion of his meditated work on the Constitution, — 
 a theme which, as he would have treated it, tracing- 
 it back to its historical fountains, and forward to 
 its prophetical issues, seems to me, in the wide range 
 of its topics, to embrace higher and richer elements 
 of thought, for the American statesman and patriot, 
 than any other not directly connected with the 
 spiritual welfare of man. 
 
 * Grote's History of Greece. Vol. II. p. 336. 
 9 
 
66 
 
 MAGNITUDE OF THE THEME. THE FUTURE OF THE UNION. 
 
 What else is there, in the material system of the 
 world, SO wonderful as this concealment of the 
 Western Hemisphere for ages behind the mighty 
 veil of waters? How could such a secret be kept 
 from the foundation of the w^orld till the end of 
 the fifteenth century? What so astonishing as the 
 concurrence, within less than a century, of the in- 
 vention of printing, the demonstration of the true 
 system of the heavens, and this great world-discov- 
 ery? What so mysterious as the dissociation of the 
 native trilDes of this continent from the civihzed 
 and civilizable races of men? What so remarkable, 
 in political history, as the operation of the influences, 
 now in conflict, now in harmony, under which the 
 various nations of the Old World sent their children 
 to occupy the New : great populations silently steal- 
 ing into existence; the wilderness of one century 
 swarming in the next with millions, — ascending the 
 streams, crossing the mountains, struggling with a 
 wild, hard nature, with savage foes, with rival settle- 
 ments of foreign powers, but ever onward, onward ? 
 What so propitious as this long colonial training 
 in the school of chartered government? And then, 
 when the fulness of time had come, what so ma- 
 jestic, amidst all its vicissitudes, and all its trials, as 
 
67 
 
 the Grand Sej^aration, — mutually beneficial, in its 
 final results, to both parties, — the dread appeal to 
 arms, that venerable Continental Congress, the august 
 Declaration, the strange alliance of the oldest mon- 
 archy of Europe with the infant Republic? And, 
 lastly, what so worthy the admiration of men and 
 angels, as the appearance of him the expected, him 
 the hero, raised up to conduct the momentous con- 
 flict to its auspicious issue in the Confederation, the 
 Union, the Constitution? 
 
 Is this a theme not unworthy of the pen and the 
 mind of Webster ? Then consider the growth of the 
 country, thus politically ushered into existence and 
 organized under that Constitution, as delineated in 
 his address on the laying the corner-stone of the 
 extension of the Capitol, — the thirteen colonies that 
 accomplished the revolution multiplied to thirty-three 
 independent States, a single one of them exceeding 
 in po^Dulation the old thirteen ; the narrow border of 
 settlement along the coast, fenced in by France and 
 the native tribes, expanded to the dimensions of the 
 continent ; Louisiana, Florida, Texas, New Mexico, 
 California, Oregon, — territories equal to the great 
 monarchies of Europe — added to the Union ; and 
 the two millions of population which warmed the im- 
 agination of Burke, swelled to twenty-four millions, 
 during the lifetime of Mr. Webster, and in seven 
 short years, which have since elapsed, increased to 
 thirty ! 
 
68 
 
 With these stupendous results in his own time as 
 the unit of calcuhition ; beholding under ProYidence 
 with each decade of years a new people, millions 
 strong, emigrants in part from the old world, but 
 mainly bone of our bone and flesh of our flesh, the 
 children of the soil, growing up to inhabit the waste 
 places of the continent, to inherit and transmit the 
 rijchts and blessings which we have received from 
 our fathers; recognizing in the Constitution and in 
 the Union established by it the creative influence 
 which, as far as human agencies go, has wrought 
 these miracles of growth and progress, and which 
 wraps up in sacred reserve the expansive energy 
 with which the work is to be carried on and per- 
 fected, — he looked forward with patriotic aspiration 
 to the time when, beneath its a3gis, the whole wealth 
 of our civilization would be poured out, not only to 
 fill up the broad interstices of settlement, if I may 
 so express myself, in the old thirteen and their 
 young and thriving sister States, already organized 
 in the West, but, in the lapse of time to found a 
 hundred new republics in the valley of the Missouri 
 and Ijcyond the Rocky Mountains, till our letters 
 and our arts, our schools and our churches, our laws 
 and our liberties, shall be carried from the Arctic 
 circle to the tropics ; " from the rising of the sun to 
 the o-oinii" down thereof" 
 
69 
 
 VIEWS OF THE PRESENT. 
 
 This prophetic glance, not merely at the impending, 
 but the distant futute, this reliance on the fulfilment 
 of the great design of Providence, illustrated through 
 our whole history, to lavish upon the people of this 
 country the accumulated blessings of all former 
 stages of human progress, made him more tolerant 
 of the tardy and irregular advances and temporary 
 v\^anderings from the path of what he deemed a wise 
 and sound policy, than those fervid spirits, who dwell 
 exclusively in the present, and make less allowance 
 for the gradual operation of moral influences. This 
 was the case in reference to the great sectional 
 controversy, which now so sharply divides and so 
 violently agitates the country. He not only confi- 
 dently anticipated, what the lapse of seven years 
 since his decease has witnessed and is witnessing, 
 that the newly acquired and the newly organized 
 territories of the Union would grow up into free 
 States ; but, in common with all, or nearly all, the 
 statesmen of the last generation, he believed that 
 free labor would ultimately prevail throughout the 
 country. He thought he saw that, in the operation 
 of the same causes which have produced this result 
 in the Middle and Eastern States, it was visibly 
 taking place in the States north of the cotton-growing 
 region ; and he inclined to the opinion that there 
 
70 
 
 also, iiiidor the influence of physieal and economical 
 causes, free labor would eventually ))e found most 
 productive, and would, therefore, be ultimately estab- 
 lished. 
 
 For these reasons, bearing in mind what all admit, 
 that the complete solution of the mighty problem 
 which now so greatly tasks the prudence and pat- 
 riotism of the wisest and best in the land, is beyond 
 the delegated powers of the general government; 
 that it depends, as far as the States are concerned, 
 on their independent legislation, and that it is, of 
 all others, a subject in reference to which public 
 opinion and public sentiment will most powerfully 
 influence the law; that much in the lapse of time, 
 without law, is likely to be brought about by degrees, 
 and gradually done and permitted, as in Missouri at 
 the present day, while nothing is to be hoped from 
 external interference, whether of exhortation or 
 rebuke ; that in all human affairs controlled by self- 
 governing communities, extreme opinions and extreme 
 courses, on the one hand, generally lead to extreme 
 opinions and extreme courses on the other ; and 
 that nothing will more contribute to the earliest 
 practicable relief of the country from this most pro- 
 lific source of conflict and estrangement, than to 
 prevent its ))eing introduced into our party organ- 
 izations, — he deprecated its being allowed to find 
 a ])1;k'(' auiontr the ])()liti('al issues of the day, north 
 
71 
 
 or south; and seeking a platform on which honest 
 and patriotic men might meet and stand, he thought 
 he had found it, where our fathers did, in the Con- 
 stitution. 
 
 It is true, that in interpreting the fundamental 
 law on this subject, a diversity of opinion betw^een 
 the two sections of the Union presents itself This 
 has ever been the case, first or last, in relation to 
 every great question that has divided the country. 
 It is the unfailing incident of constitutions, written 
 or unwritten ; an evil to be dealt with in good faith, 
 by prudent and enlightened men in both sections 
 of the Union, seeking, as Washington sought, the 
 pubhc good, and giving expression to the patriotic 
 common sense of the people. 
 
 Such, I have reason to believe, were the principles 
 entertained by Mr. Webster; not certainly those 
 best calculated to wm a temporary popularity in 
 any part of the Union, in times of passionate sectional 
 agitation, which, between the extremes of opinion, 
 leaves no middle ground for moderate counsels. If 
 any one could have fomid, and could have trodden 
 such ground with success, he would seem to have 
 been qualified to do it, by his transcendent talent, 
 his mature experience, his approved temper and 
 calmness, and his tried patriotism. If he failed of 
 finding such a path for himself or the country, — 
 while we thoughtfully await what time and an all- 
 
72 
 
 wise Providence has in store for ourselves and our 
 children, — let us remember that his attempt was 
 the highest and the purest which can engage the 
 thoughts of a statesman and a patriot, — peace on 
 earth, good will toward men; harmony and !)roth- 
 erly love among the children of our common 
 country. 
 
 And oh, my friends ! if among those, who, dif- 
 fering from him on this or any other subject, have 
 yet, with generous forgetfulness of that which sep- 
 arated you, and kindly remembrance of all you held 
 in common, come up this day to do honor to his 
 memory, there are any who suppose that he cher- 
 ished less tenderly than yourselves the great ideas 
 of Liberty, Humanity, and Brotherhood ; that because 
 he was faithful to the duties which he inferred from 
 the Constitution and the Law, to which he looked 
 for the government of civil society, he was less 
 sensible than yourselves to the broader relations 
 and deeper sympathies which unite us to our fellow- 
 creatures, as brethren of one family, and children 
 of one Heavenly Father, — believe me, you do his 
 memory a grievous wrong. 
 
 PERSONAL CHARACTER. 
 
 This is not the occasion to dwell upon the per- 
 sonal character of Mr. Webster, on the fascination 
 

 of his social intercourse, or the charm of hi« domestic 
 Hfe. Something I could have said on his compan- 
 ionable disposition and habits, his genial temper, 
 the resources and attractions of his conversation, his 
 love of natm-e, alike in her wild and cultivated 
 aspects, and his keen perception of the beauties of 
 this fair world in which we live ; something of his 
 devotion to agricultural pursuits, which, next to his 
 professional and puljlic duties, formed the occupation 
 of his Ufe ; something of his fondness for athletic 
 and manly sports and exercises ; something of his 
 friendships, and of his attachments closer than 
 friendships, — the son, the brother, the husband, and 
 the father; something of the joys and sorrows of 
 his home ; of the strength of his reUgious convictions, 
 his testimony to the truth of the Christian revela- 
 tion ; the tenderness and sublimity of the parting 
 scene. Something on these topics I have elsewhere 
 said, and may not here repeat. 
 
 Some other things, my friends, with your indul- 
 gence, standing here to perform this last office to his 
 memory, I would say ; thoughts, memories, which 
 crowd upon me, — too vivid to be repressed, too 
 personal, almost, to be uttered. 
 
 On the 17th of July, 1804, a young man from 
 New Hampshire arrived in Boston, all but penniless, 
 and all but friendless. He was twenty-two years of 
 age, and had come to take the first steps in the 
 
 10 
 
74 
 
 career of life at the capital of New England. Three 
 days after arriving in Boston, he presented himself, 
 without letters of recommendation, to Mr. Christo- 
 pher Gore, then just returned from England, after 
 an official residence of some years, and solicited a 
 place in his office, as a clerk. His only introduction 
 was by a yomig man as little known to Mr. Gore 
 as himself, and who went to pronounce his name, 
 which he did so indistinctly as not to be heard. 
 His slender figure, striking countenance, large dark 
 eye, and massy brow, his general appearance indicat- 
 ing a delicate organization,* his manly carriage and 
 modest demeanor, arrested attention and inspired 
 confidence. His humble suit was granted, he was 
 received into the office, and had been there a week 
 before Mr. Gore learned that his name was Daniel 
 Webster! His older brother, — older in years, but 
 later in entering life, — (for wdiose education Daniel, 
 while teacher of the Academy at Fryeburg, had 
 drudged till midnight in the office of the Register 
 of Deeds), at that time taught a small school in 
 Short street (now Kingston street), in Boston; and 
 while he was in attendance at the commencement 
 at Dartmouth, in 1804, to receive his degree, Daniel 
 supplied his place. At that school, at the age of 
 ten, I was then a pupil, and there commenced a 
 
 * Description by Mrs. Eliza Buckminsler Lee, " Webster's Private Cor- 
 
 respoiuU'uce," i. 438. 
 
75 
 
 friendship which lasted, without interruption or chill, 
 while his Hfe lasted ; of which, while mine lasts, the 
 grateful recollection will never perish. From that 
 time forward, I knew, and as I knew, I respected, I 
 honored, I loved him. I saw him at all seasons and 
 on all occasions, in the flush of public triumph, in 
 the intimacy of the fireside, m the most unreserved 
 interchange of personal confidence ; in health and in 
 sickness, in sorrow and m joy ; when early honors 
 began to wreathe his brow, and in after-life through 
 most of the important scenes of his public career. I 
 saw him on occasions that show the manly strength, 
 and, what is better, the manly weakness of the human 
 heart; and I declare this day, in the presence of 
 Heaven and of men, that I never heard from him 
 the expression of a wish unbecoming a good citizen 
 and a patriot, — the utterance of a word unworthy 
 a gentleman and a Christian ; that I never knew 
 a more generous spmt, a safer adviser, a warmer 
 friend. 
 
 Do you ask me if he had faults ? T answer, he 
 was a man. Do you again ask me the question ? 
 Look in vour own breast, and o-et the answer there. 
 Do you still insist on explicit information ? Let me 
 give it to you, my immaculate friend, in the words 
 which were spoken eighteen hundred years ago to 
 certain who trusted in themselves that they were 
 righteous and despised others: — 
 
76 
 
 Two men went up into the temple to pray; the one a 
 Pharisee, and the other a })ublican. 
 
 The Pharisee stood and ])rayed thus with himself: God, I 
 thank thee that I am not as other men are, extortioners, unjust, 
 adulterers, or even as this publican. 
 
 I fast twice in the week, I give tithes of all that I possess. 
 
 And the publican standing afar off, would not lift up so much 
 as his eyes unto heaven, but smote upon his breast, saying, 
 God, be merciful to me a sinner. 
 
 I tell you, This man went down to his house justified rather 
 than the other. 
 
 Yes, he had some of the fixiilts of a lofty spirit, 
 a genial temperament, an open hand, and a warm 
 heart; he had none of the faults of a grovelling, 
 mean, and malignant natm^e. He had especially the 
 "last infirmity of noble mind," and had no doubt 
 raised an aspiring eye to the highest object of 
 political ambition. But he did it in the honest 
 pride of a capacity equal to the station, and with 
 a consciousness that he should reflect back the honor 
 which it conferred. He might say, with Burke, that 
 "he had no arts but honest arts;" and if he sought 
 the highest honors of the state, he did it by unsur- 
 passed talent, laborious service, and patriotic devotion 
 to the public good. 
 
 It wjis not given to him, nny more than to the 
 other mem))ers of the great triumvirate with whohi 
 his name is habitually associated, to attain the object 
 of their ambition ; but posterity will do them justice, 
 and begins already to discharge the debt of respect 
 and gratitude. A noble mausoleum in honor of Clay, 
 
77 
 
 and his statue by Hart, are in progress ; the statue 
 of Calhoun, by Powers, adorns the Court House 
 in Charleston, and a magnificent monument to his 
 memory is in preparation ; and we present you this 
 day, fellow-citizens, the Statue of Webster, in enduring 
 bronze, on a pedestal of granite from his native State, 
 the noble countenance modelled from life, at the 
 meridian of his days and his fame, and to his own 
 satisfaction, and his person reproduced, from faithful 
 recollection, by the oldest and most distinguished 
 of the living artists of the country. He sleeps by 
 the multitudinous ocean, which he himself so much 
 resembled, in its mighty movement and its mighty 
 repose ; but his monumental form shall henceforward 
 stand sentry at the portals, of the Capitol, — the 
 right hand pomting to that symbol of the Union on 
 which the left reposes, and his imperial gaze directed, 
 with the hopes of the country, to the boundless 
 AVest. In a few short years, we, whose eyes have 
 rested on his majestic person, whose ears have drunk 
 in the music of his clarion voice, shall have gone to 
 our rest ; but our children, for ages to come, as they 
 dwell with awe-struck gaze upon the monumental 
 bronze, shall say. Oh that we could have seen, oh 
 that we could have heard, the great original ! 
 
 Two hundred and twenty-nine years ago, this day, 
 our beloved city received, from the General Court of 
 the Colony, the honored name of Boston. On the 
 
78 
 
 Ions: roll of those whom she has welcomed to her 
 nurturmg bosom, is there a name which shines 
 with a brighter lustre than his ? Seventy-two years 
 ago, this clay, the Constitution of the United States 
 was tendered to the acceptance of the people by 
 George Washington. Who, of all' the gifted and pat- 
 riotic of the land, that have adorned the interval, has 
 done more to unfold its principles, maintain its 
 purity, and to promote its duration? 
 
 Here, then, beneath the walls of the Capitol of old 
 Massachusetts ; here, within the sight of those fair 
 New England villages ; here, in the near vicinity of 
 the graves of those who planted the germs of all 
 this palmy growth ; here, within the sound of sacred 
 bells ; here, in the presence of this vast multitude, — 
 we raise this monument, with loving hearts, to the 
 Statesman, the Patriot, the Fellow-Citizen, the neigh- 
 bor, the friend. Long may it guard the approach to 
 our halls of council ! long may it look out upon a 
 prosperous, a happy, and a united country ! and, if 
 days of trial and disaster should come, and the arm 
 of flesh should fail, doubt not that the monumental 
 form would descend from its pedestal, to stand in the 
 front rank of the peril, and the bronze lips repeat 
 the cry of the living voice, — " Liberty and Union, 
 now and forever, one and inseparable." 
 
 3i|77-5 
 
LIBRARY OF 
 
 CONGRESS 
 
 011895 120 7 
 
 t